#mostly travel guides and essays

[theorangepdf]

have you finished east of eden yet? what are your thoughts!!!

hi hi !!! i took a break on this trip because it just felt too american lol. i will definitely start it up again when i get back and post my thoughts as i go!

[worldbeyondtheworld]

I'm changing the start of the AU for the Shifting Mound / Princess / the Heart / Shifter and give her amnesia, too.

She's going to get the chance to be all confused about where she is in the kingdom, experience a bunch of unique things that could've never happened in the previous Construct with a fresh mind, make connections and friends, and learn about who she is.

Those memories are still there, just unconscious at the moment. They are influencing her.

Probably because the new Construct is actually a living place with more than three people. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them. (Millions more farther away from the Castle.) A place that does its own thing mostly.

Updates with more ideas and headcanons for the AU will appear in reblogs of this post if you're interested. It just makes sense to me to keep all the ideas in one place.

Part 1 - A New Life

The city keeping the castle alive has a big public library. Shifter enters out of curiosity when sees so many people entering and leaving.

The dimensions stretch father than what the outside suggests. Levels upons levels reach to the heavens, stocked with millions of books. A dome hovers high above the reception desk with several free-standing shelves of books ready for readers to peruse them. Shifter is awed. Not knowing what to expect, she pulls out a random book whose cover seems most interesting and begins reading.

The first thing she learns about herself is that she loves reading. She becomes a regular at the library.

Any kind, every kind of books, she reads. Love poetry, prose like mysteries, picture books about animals, epics about quests, novellas with surprising twists that make sense in hindsight. The weirder the better.

The same goes for guides like mushroom identification - there are so many! -, encyclopedias that list every known plant - there are so many again! -, philosophical essays, manuals, travel logs-

She's soaking up everything she can get her hands on, comparing what might be conflicting and wrong information, or what might be conflicting information because several things can be true at once. She doesn't enjoy all of them, but she finds most of them to be an enriching experience. The world is a big place, and she wants to experience every perspective that exists on every detail of it.

She loves that one mystery novel so much, especially because of the characters and their bonds, that she picks another one of the same author. She fears she might get bored, but no. It's a sequel. A variation of the same themes, the same characters, executed differently in a new plot. Comfortingly familar and a new perspective at the same time.

The second thing that she learns about herself is that she loves drinking and eating. How did she notice that later than her love for reading? Well.

A kind innkeeper has taken her in three days ago and pays her for her help around the building. The innkeeper assumed that Shifter ate and drank during breaks. Cue her shock and indignation when she discovers that she has definitely not. Shifter didn't feel hungry? Well, time to change that! Nobody under her roof is going to go thirsty and hungry just because they were busy and forgot!

She sits Shifter down in the kitchen, and hands her a mug of apple juice, a loaf of bread, and a plate of cheese. Shifter's very confused. She knows how to eat. She's watched other people eat.

She starts, and just. Freezes. Her eyes are even bigger than usual, looking like they're about to fall out of her head. The innkeper watches tensely. Oh no, is she having an allergic shock? Did she swallow her bite of cheese into the wrong pipe?! Has the food gone bad in the last hours?!!

The next thing she knows, Shifter's tearing into her meal like her life depends on it. She bites off chunks of bread, shovels cheese into her mouth, and jugs the juice. Sometimes, the innkeeper hears her muttering 'so good' and 'best thing I've ever eaten' and 'is there more?' The innkeeper relaxes and watches her, smirking. Her food's still got it. (Phshaw, she wasn't panicking.)

She's witnessed many people being people = weird. Shifter ranks not even in her top ten. She remembers at least a dozen people who came to the inn, ordered something, and suddenly became ravenous after remembering, Whoops they had forgotton to eat.

And that's how she learned that drinking and eating is very good. There's so much variety to try! Although she doesn't like the feeling of being thirsty and hungry, or how it drains her.

The third thing she learns about herself is that she has a fascination with corvids.

She heard their calls when she wandered on the path in the woods, but didn't know their names. An avid birdwatcher she befriends explains to her the differences between ravens and crows, how smart and social and playful they are.

That many farmers regard them as pests, because they search on farms and fields for food, and use their smarts to open jars left on window sills. He shares his own stories about corvids with Shifter as well as the local symbolism. He gifts her binoculars so that she can watch them whenever she wants without disturbing them.

[alianoralacanta]

Coulthard, Sato and Pit Stop Misadventures: Spanish GP (14-05-2007)

Context: The blog plugin for the forum received an upgrade, including shiny new mood and activity indicators! I mostly used it to state what I was reading at the time, because I was and still am a bookworm. (In case you are wondering, my current reading is:

Travel reading: The Time Traveller's Guide to Restoration Britain by Ian Mortimer

Home reading: "No Offence But…" by Gina Martin

e-Reading: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Light reading": GP Racing, August 2024)

I'd spent most of the weekend trying to persuade my undergraduate dissertation to print off the computer (I'm not sure if my alma mater has an online copy - it probably does - but since I didn't write it under my psuedonym, I hope you will forgive me for not linking to it). Thus, I'd been on an adrenaline high when I finally succeeded. "Most" of the weekend, because I'd also watched the Spanish Grand Prix, where the accidental comedy had leavened things nicely…

Coulthard, Sato and Pit Stop Misadventures: Spanish GP

Sleep

Reading The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil

No Category

Firstly, I apologise if I doze off in the middle of this entry - I've spent a lot of today convincing an unreliable computer system to print off a 2800-word essay (I managed it and handed it in with one minute to spare - don't ask!)

The "Oh no it's all falling to pieces" feeling must have struck David Coulthard at some point during the race, as his Red Bull once again attempted to thwart his efforts to finish a race for once. I was very impressed by his ability to almost maintain the same speed minus third gear as he had with it - and fifth is a great way to finish the first race his midfield car has finished with him in it.

I particularly loved James Allen's comment just before the gearbox issue manifested himself; "This is the best performance we've seen from David since… [pause] …er, the last time we saw a good performance from him a few weeks ago." This proves three things:

1) Walkerisms still sound funny, even when Murray Walker isn't the one saying them 2) four weeks is too long to wait between races 3) David Coulthard is going through one of the best phases of his career - not that the points scoreboard shows that right now

Speaking of good performances from rarely-rewarded people, Takuma Sato put in a lovely race from 13th to 8th. With all the attention ITV lavished upon Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button, you could have been fooled into thinking the guy who'd outqualified both of them didn't exist.

At least, until Sato took Giancarlo Fisichella's 8th place off him and scored Super Aguri's first point ever. Even I, a Fisi supporter who thought that it was unfair that a malfunctioning pitlane device should have put him in that position, could not begrudge Takuma his just reward for a great drive. It seems that Takuma is currently having more success with his self-orientated team than Jacques Villnueve did at BAR. That is a credit to the staff at Leafield as well as to Takuma.

Returning to the pitlane, I was rather miffed at the stuff that was happening in the pitlane - and not just because the Renault rigs forced both Giancarlo and his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen to switch to the slower three-stop strategy mid-race. No, the incident that really got my blood boiling was Massa's portable barbecue.

It is rare for a fuel hose to do that sort of thing, and it was dangerous for both the Ferrari and the McLaren mechanics (the fire had nearly burnt itself out by the time Felipe went alongside the McLaren staffers, but it could have so easily been a considerable amount worse. Intertechnik are not in my good books right now, and I'm sure they're not in Ferrari or Reanult's good books either.

BMW could not blame Intertechnik for their Carry On moment - they caused that one by themselves. How Nick managed to miss the front-right jack man not raising his hand is a minor mystery (not that it was really his fault, but…). How he got away with getting it around the track minus the front right wheel nut without being a hazard to anyone or damaging his car is a major one. (On the upside, the shot of the Toyota mechanic holding the nut aloft, in his best "Has anyone lost something?" posture, was priceless).

It has to be said though that the Spanish GP has been the most interesting race for me all season. I'm not sure what that says about the three flyaways, except that I am now looking forward to Monaco with renewed vigour.

On the blog front, you may have noticed that I have recently added a menu on the right-hand side of the blog screen. With access to a blogroll and the site policy, it should help make things that little bit more enjoyable. Please tell me if there's any other changes you would like to see.

Oh, and I broke the 2000-visit boundary today. I think my involvement in the wider blogosphere may have a lot to do with it, but I am pleased to see so many enjoy my site. Please come as many times as you like, and I hope you'll be here when I celebrate the next milestone (and for the more serious entries in between).

Wow! I managed to stay awake for all that. I'll just go and have a lie-down now…

La Canta Magnifica Blog - After the very interesting Spanish GP, Alianora La Canta looks at two of the stand out drives of the race (David Coulthard and Takuma Sato), as well as the unintentional action down the pitlane.

[bonesandthebees]

the majority of my youtube taste is so funny to me because yeah you have the whole minecraft section and all the cc's in the mcyt sphere I still watched but then you have the complete 180 into everything else I watch which is

video essays

chill cooking videos

travel guide videos not like vlogs just what to expect if you stay at this specific capsule hotel in japan or whatever

more video essays

occasional fashion history videos

seriously guys I watch so many video essays but ones mostly on fashion, internet trends, celebrity culture, and general pop culture topics

videos on movies but mostly from a filmmaker pov talking about sound design and cinematography and all that

and now art restoration videos apparently

oh and there's also a huge section of my youtube history dedicated to ambient/instrumental music playlists that I listen to while I write

and ASMR yes I watch a lot of that to help me fall asleep

EDIT: forgot to mention the chemistry channel I'm subscribed to where this former organic chem TA just does the most random experiments for fun he's entertaining but ngl I use it to fall asleep if the ASMR isn't working he starts showing the steps of a reaction and I'm gone

anyway if you guys ever want any recs feel free to hmu especially if you want video essays

[twilightresearch]

The Concept of the Guilty Pleasure Privileges Productivity Above All Else

When someone refers to a guilty pleasure, they’re usually making a kind of narcissistic claim about a textual object that is attractive to yet beneath them: “I mostly read the New Yorker, but US Weekly is my guilty pleasure.” I think a more accurate term for the “guilt” implied in this kind of statement may be “shame.” When someone says something like this, they seem to mean they’re ashamed because they know how bad it is but enjoy it nonetheless in spite of that shame.

The author and speaker Brené Brown, a self-defined “shame researcher,” writes that there is “a profound difference” between shame and guilt, primarily because she sees guilt as productive—a place where we can identify how to improve our lives by aligning our actions with our values—whereas shame is an unproductive welter of negative feelings.

My sense of shame is different from Brown’s. I’m less interested in what we do with those feelings than I am in why we have them. I’m also a little skeptical of any emotional logic that holds productivity as a guiding virtue. A fundamental proposition of this book is that not everything in our lives has to be “productive” in the forward-looking sense or aligned with our values or even the kind of “positive” defined by motivational posters with images of icebergs or sun­sets or small animals in compromised circumstances.

I think the pervasive demand that people—especially female people—be productive and positive produces the majority of the guilt and shame we experience. I can’t condone advice to smile more or work harder. The only general advice I can get behind is along the lines of “travel abroad” or “take a bath”—means to no clear end or product beyond themselves. Travel because other places have better food and different languages. Take a bath because the point of a bath is the bath. I find that enormously edifying. With Kant, I urge us to act as if our bath pleasure is not a means to an end but rather an end in itself.

Guilty pleasure texts are like baths for the mind. They’re usually cast as mindless or unproductive. My first objection here is, predictably, that therein lies a particularly bad account of productivity. Pleasure is productive; it produces itself. My second is that if you’re a thinking person, you can think “produc­tively” through any object—an essay by Susan Son­tag or a Ke$ha lyric—and if NPR ever asked for my “This I Believe” statement, I would say, with Virginia Woolf, that I think people should consume what­ever media they like without any sense of shame or pride. While I’m at it, I’d also like to ask why the guys I internet-dated in the aughts lied about having read all of the Faulkner or Joyce novels they claimed to  have read on their profiles. It’s a curious, and frankly puritanical, notion that what you consume defines you or—worse—ranks you, that a person is only as good or as terrible as their most-listened-to songs and the spines on their shelves.

My mentioning here of internet-dating is not merely casual, because once again it demonstrates how reading attaches to our sense of the love we deserve. Those dudes advertised Faulkner, I guess, because they were trying to position themselves as worthy of a Faulkner-quality love—sophisticated, serious, complex? This is a disturbing thought in several respects, and yet it also raises the fascinating question of why and how Faulkner-love raises itself above, say, a Babysitters Club kind of love. To answer this question, some literary criticism may be helpful.I can accept the category of “guilty pleasures” as a name for things that give us a plea­surable release from guilt and shame or space to dwell within it.

I was born at the end of 1981, the same year that the literary scholar Fredric Jameson published his landmark work The Political Unconscious, a book that has shaped my thinking in so many ways that I’m continually disappointed that I didn’t write it myself before I was born. In it, he argues that his­tory itself is a narrative that unfolds alongside the other narratives—for instance, fictions—that shape our culture. According to Jameson, we can’t separate the two by attempting to interpret fictions outside of their political or historical context, nor can we understand our own history without understanding our fictions.

Jameson’s interpretive project develops out of his cultural understanding: we tend to think of the unconscious as an individually experienced phenomenon. But cultures, he claims, have uncon­sciousnesses, too. Documents of popular culture, in particular, tell us a lot about what the people who created and consumed them were thinking, feeling, and desiring. If ship manifests and medical records and military logs and patent files are the kinds of documents that reveal the history of our migrations, conflicts, and technologies, popular fictions are the kinds of documents that tell us about the history of our hearts and minds.

A sadly unsurprising thing about The Political Unconscious is that Jameson makes his argument through interpreting fiction written almost exclu­sively by white men. (Jameson doesn’t actually mention Faulkner but does mention Joyce.) (Obviously, prebirth me would have done otherwise.) The very white maleness of his work is one reason why scholars, myself included, have long perceived it as Extremely Important. In a review of Emily Nussbaum’s I Like to Watch, the critic Sarah Mesle identifies the source of this phe­nomenon as the “circular logic by which a piece of art becomes serious because a serious critic attends to it, and a critic becomes serious by tending to seri­ous art.” The prevalence of this brand of logic also explains why the history of men, like the fiction and culture of men, is almost always taken to be more serious than the history of women.

My point in raising Jameson—in veering pre­cipitously toward Serious Pleasure rather than the guilty kind you came here to read about—is that I want to take Jameson both as a useful thinker and as an example of the unconscious he’s describing: The Political Unconscious is a document of an intellec­tual unconscious whereby male things are the ones that tell us what “our” collective unconscious is like. This book you are reading, on the other hand, is not very interested in that. Guilty pleasures, I am going to propose, reveal a collective unconscious of a con­sciousness that Jameson ignored: the femme one.

When I was taught history in high school, it was the serious male kind. My class was held in a room encircled by a wallpaper border depicting the presidents of the United States of America (unfortu­nately, not the nineties alt-rock band that recorded “Peaches” but the actual leaders of the nation in which I was born). So, like many of you I’m sure, I was forced to sit in a space that was literally covered in the faces of white men while a white man told me to read about and memorize the names of white men and the things they did. I understand why white men like this history; it belongs to them. But I have heard enough of it and no longer find it very interesting. To me, learning this history over and over again is like having a conversation with someone who only talks about himself. No matter how many things he’s done or how witty or insightful his ideas may be, at a certain point you’re going to need to switch topics or say you have to use the restroom and politely walk away forever.

When I teach American literature, I tend to focus on work by women writers, queer writers, and writers of color for no better reason than that I find these works more interesting to read. Most of my students do, too, but sometimes I get a complaint. “Why don’t we learn more about war?” some students have asked. “We do learn about war,” I reply, citing Richard Wright’s 1940 Native Son, which is about systemic racism, midcentury communist sympathy and its vilification, and widespread physical violence. Those are wars. Students tell me these are not the wars they mean. I tell them how Edith Wharton’s 1920 The Age of Innocence is about the aftermath of World War I—a good, solid white man’s war. They shake their heads. But then, sometimes, they come to see how it is true. It was only when I got to college myself that I really understood that history could be something other than leaders and battles and captains of industry. I took a course called Women in Europe that was a history of the lives of women—a revelation! I immediately became a history major.

Of course, the women who’ve written novels throughout history do the exact same thing that Jameson’s male novelists do. They narrate the psychic and emotional history of another time—their psychic and emotional history. Louisa May Alcott’s 1869 Little Women, for example, is also a novel about a war—the American Civil War—but unlike Stephen Crane’s snooze of a novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), it’s not about the men on the battlefield. It’s about the women at home, who are doing real, serious, important things as well. These women may be more left out of History, but they were not left out of life; and what happened off the battlefield is just as important as what happened on it.

Despite this and even how beloved and respected Alcott’s novel is, I don’t often see people carrying around a prestige copy of Little Women the way they might Moby Dick or Ulysses or Gravity’s Rainbow or Infinite Jest. But Little Women and other novels written by the women of the past can also make you smarter if you actually read them. And they have a lot to tell us about what people were like then and how we became who we are now. This is why many of us find reading these books so deeply pleasur­able, even as we may feel ashamed of that pleasure, because so much of our world has told us that this kind of becoming isn’t important, that it (and we) don’t matter.

In addition to revealing some truths about our collective unconscious, novels help us to work through whatever it is we’re dealing with as a soci­ety and as individuals. If anything about this kind of media consumption is self-definitional, it’s the shame associated with it—not because “guilty pleasures” re­veal some fundamental truths about the consumer’s lowbrow aesthetic tendencies but because a lot of the genres of movies and television that get referred to as “guilty pleasures” are also another kind of guilty pleasure, what I like to think of as the Hester Prynne kind, where guilt is what’s being pleasurably stimu­lated alongside libidos and baser desires for nice hair and fancy things.

In this sense, I can accept the category of “guilty pleasures” as a name for things that give us this plea­surable release from guilt and shame or space to dwell within it. And, in general, I think many Ameri­cans of many different gender circumstances prefer their pleasures guilty. This is a country that adver­tises potato chips with the slogan “bet you can’t have just one,” where Titanic and Jurassic Park (two of the highest grossing films of all time) both have the same general plot: some novel delights immediately fol­lowed by sudden mass death. One easy answer is to blame the Puritans—Nathaniel Hawthorne did. His 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter is basically the textbook on guilty pleasure.The Scarlet Letter shows us that the pleasures of the sex you can’t have or see are inextricable from the guilt that is yours for the taking.

In my memory, my classmates and I were assigned this book more than once in high school and maybe another couple of times before that in junior high. (I’d already read my mother’s college copy early on, selected for priority status because it had a mono­chromatic print of a lady in a bonnet on it.) Because I grew up in Massachusetts, when we weren’t reading The Scarlet Letter, we were on seemingly constant field trips to Salem to learn about the witch trials for the fourth or fifth time; then we’d swing by the House of the Seven Gables and the Custom House where Hawthorne worked and learn about Haw­thorne and The Scarlet Letter all over again for good measure. (We’d go to Thoreau’s cabin site at Walden, too, but never the Alcott house or the Dickinson house, which were certainly within easy bus distance.)

I claimed in my tenth-grade paper on this one book that every single American teenager seems to be made to read that Hester Prynne, the infamous adulteress forced into wearing the letter A, likes her punishment. I based this claim primarily on this pas­sage: “On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fan­tastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fer­tility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore.”

This was my favorite part of the book. First, it was undeniably punk that she went in this over-the-top direction with a sartorial man­date. Second, the language here about a patch sewn onto a puritan dress for punishment is somehow just oozing with sensual pleasure: fantastic flourishes, gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, fertility. I submitted a paper explaining this in slightly different words to my teacher, who did not like the argument. She sat me down, sitcom-style, to explain that this was a text about ostracism and group think and for me to suggest that Hester Prynne took pleasure—let alone sensual pleasure—in her guilt and punishment was very disturbing and wrong-headed.

I can’t bear a grudge against this teacher because I respect anyone who teaches high school English (I didn’t then, so this blind respect is my best consola­tion) and also because our field-trip pattern had The Scarlet Letter so thoroughly mixed up with the real historical witch trials in everyone’s minds, but I did feel a surge of triumph when I later encountered the fact that my paper wasn’t very far off from one of the most prevalent critical readings of the novel since 1960, when the literary critic Leslie Fiedler argued that The Scarlet Letter is definitely about the fraught nature of sexual desire in America. Fiedler claimed that American literature is incapable of depicting mature sexual relationships—that it falls back on the eroticization of children, unconsummated sexual love between men, and “old maids.” (He was smart but totally a man of his time.)

For Fiedler, The Scar­let Letter was the sexiest book in the canon of great American literature, though, tellingly, all of the sex happens before the book even begins—like if Crime and Punishment were just the brutally boring punish­ment part. While Fiedler emphasized sexual desire as the fulcrum of the novel, he also acknowledged—like most of the novel’s readers before him—that its central theme is undeniably guilt, asking why, to Hawthorne (not just the puritans), “is gorgeousness a trap and love a crime, why beauty forbidden and joy banned?” To which I’d answer: because for a lot of people these things, freely given, would be less plea­surable. It’s not as if the pleasure is one thing and the guilt is another. Perhaps guilt kills Dimmesdale, but Hester thrives on it. And so do readers along with her. The Scarlet Letter shows us that the pleasures of the sex you can’t have or see are inextricable from the guilt that is yours for the taking.

If you watch the 1995 film version of The Scar­let Letter, starring Demi Moore, you’ll see that the filmmakers get the sexiness part right but miss both most of the guilt and how important it is that no sex happens in the novel. In the novel, the readers only get the pleasure of the implied sex through the au­thor’s refusal to give it to us. If we saw Hester and Dimmesdale getting it on, it would be a bad book in 1850 to say the least. When we see it in 1995, it’s still a bad movie—especially since the sex scenes are bi­zarrely interspersed with some impressionistic mon­tage sequences. It’s not a very good adaptation of the main themes of Hawthorne’s novel if it’s full of Demi Moore taking long baths and having her farthingale slowly unlaced by Gary Oldman. But neither can you take all of the sex out of The Scarlet Letter, implica­tions included.

The updated-for-our-times 2010 version starring Emma Stone, Easy A, gets the guilt part right but is pretty rigorously unsexy. The center of the plot is actually the revised fact that the Hester character is a virgin. The story of her tryst is fabricated, so we don’t even get to imagine that it has happened in the pre-history of the movie. Her guilt (about having lied about having had sex when she hadn’t—can you imagine what the original Hester would think?) is just guilt-guilt and regret-regret, no fantastic flourishes or gorgeous luxuriance of fancy about it. While Emma Stone skulks around a California high school in strangely bedizened corsets (where do they come from? why are there so many?) she seems to take no real pleasure in doing so. I think the very point of The Scarlet Letter is that at least half of the pleasure (sexual and otherwise) to be found in the novel is the guilt.

[ja-khajay]

tes full essay please

Alright, so the question asked by this post is - are TES games fun? Do they hold up? Are they good? And well, a game being good is mostly subjective, same for fun, as it depends on your tastes, but "does this game hold up to this day" is a different thing. For the four last main games (I'll be ignoring Arena, I know a single maniac who finds it fun) let's explore what they brought, what they lost, and what they have that's unique compared to the series.

Daggerfall

Brought: In depth character creator

Brought: Lore that'll remain for the rest of the series

Unique: gigantic map and dungeons

Daggerfall is a very interesting game that I can't call good because it's, let's be honest, a chore to play. While unmatched to this day in RPGs, it's map is endlessly generated nothing, and the dungeons are repetitive and labyrinthic.

Gameplay wise, it really shines in some aspects. The character creator gives you so many options no other game has, and some small details add wonders to the immersion, like the fast travel system giving you real time travel days. While unpopular I am also a huge fan of the swing mouse to swing sword mechanic. The controls are rough but the way they're set up favors a slow gameplay and coupled with adjustable reflexes, makes it easier to play for me than action games. Unfortunately, it's bug ridden, and the graphics have not aged well.

Is Daggerfall good? Eh. It has some gems if you can dig through the sludge, but it's aged poorly and that makes it inaccessible to modern gamers.

Morrowind

Lost: map size

Brought: map detail

Lost: customization options

Brought: full 3d, and quality of life improvements all around

Brought: new lore for the region

Unique: world design and uhm...writing quirks

Morrowind is so radically different from the change in leadership that occured after Daggerfall. While it's map is tiny in comparison, it's filled with things to do. It's a completely different philosophy. Player characters lost many customization options but it's clearer where to get things in the world.

Graphics - while polygonal to hell and back, Morrowind benefits from killer art direction that makes the game look surprisingly decent for it's age. Might make zoomers cringe but I doubt anyone who grew up playing games where you can see the texels will cringe at the visuals. The world design is so iconic it carries itself.

Gameplay wise Morrowind is aged. It's a game that can barely be played without a manual, and new players often complain about the difficulty. But if you ask me, it's not a hard game, it just works differently. If you play it like Skyrim it'll be hard. Morrowind forces you to read and to accept the rules of the world it's set in. Luckily, reading makes you understand the world. Now in terms of game feel, it's clunky as hell and below barebones.

Writing wise, Morrowind is easier to follow than Daggerfall was with a better journal and a more guided main quest. The genius of said MQ is it makes you explore the world and contact it's factions organically, as well as read into the lore. It's also a weird game, made by a bunch of guys in a basement, with quests that feel like an injoke and others that come off as offensive. It's a relic of a production that wasn't made to appeal to a large demographic, for better and for worst.

I believe Morrowind is a good game that's aged...more or less well, depending on the background of who's playing.

Oblivion

Brought: fully voiced dialog

Brought: active NPC AI

Brought: graphics improvements especially a physics engine

Lost: character skills

Lost: world design

Lost: weird shut-in appeal

Unique: main quest and game design experiments

Unique: Have You Heard Of The High Elves? Bwah! Urmf! Guhhh!

This one will be quick because...to be honest with y'all i have not played Oblivion. I have tried several times and i hate this game. Sorry TES 4 fans.

Oblivion is a weird one. At the time, it was a revolution. An open world game who was beautiful and let you dick around as you wanted. Oblivion was less weird and more forgiving than Morrowind, so had mass appeal. It had physics and voiced dialog. Everyone wanted to be Oblivion.

The problem with being a revolution for your time is computers progress at a neck breaking speed and relying only on what's impressive technology ages terribly. To prove this...have a good laugh at Oblivion's graphics. Unfortunately, the game opted to surf on LOTR visuals so has no originality, and just looks bad to this day.

Gameplay is...different. By being less strict than Morrowind and with a game feel that isn't "rolling around naked on an unpolished wooden floor", it's way more fun to run around in. Character customization lost some options, nothing too drastic unless you played Morrowind for the dressup or hardcore RP.

When you get into the writing, Oblivion has some very clever and memorable quests, unforgettable (for better and for worst) dialog and delivery, and a MQ where you play not the hero, but assistant to a hero of the lore, which I have not seen any other game attempt.

But nowadays, you don't see Oblivion known for its writing, most people know it as a big joke. Because the awkward graphics, the mess that is the dialog system and NPC AIs, make for an unmatched comedic improv experience. If you ask me, a game that's known for being goofy because of how shoddy some of its systems are...is not a good game. Unfortunately for Oblivion, gamefeel also improves as games progress and it's open world hill hopping appeal will get obliterated by the next installment.

Skyrim

Brought: more graphical improvements!

Brought: return to a nicher art direction

Brought: action game influence

Lost: RPG mechanics

Unique: Dovahkiin, dovahkiin, you know the song by now

Skyrim is funny to me as a game I remember everyone being amazed at when released. Nowadays the graphics look dated, but compared to Oblivion, it's nicher more cartoony art direction is iconic. Skyrim isn't a game that tries to be photorealistic like Oblivion did and that saves a lot of how it looks.

For the gameplay Skyrim ditched the RPG. Character customization, as in mechanics wise, is barely existing. Sure you can play different weapons but they all play similar. Builds have little influence. Choices are minimal to nonexistent. The main quest, unlike oblivion, has a cheesy chosen one story you can't escape. Asides of the daedric quests and if you do the DB, writing wise, it's pretty damn boring. The game doesn't even give you correct options to opt out of these. Skyrim assumes you play it the way it wants you to play it. If you fit that demographic, it's great! If you don't...its not fun.

The gamefeel in Skyrim is the best the series had. Taking from action games, combat was much improved and so was walking around the map, even if transportation skills were all axed. And the map is gorgeous. It's varied, it's big enough to explore without getting too lost, and it's just plain pretty.

And Skyrim has mass appeal. To the average person that doesn't care about justifying their elves action based on their complex lore rich backstory. Wandering around and slashing at things has never felt better! It's hard to meet a single person who hasn't played this game and most who did put HOURS into it.

However, the open world genre exploded several times since and took with it a lot of what made Skyrim special. Games now effortlessly make prettier maps and polished games that go all in on what exploration means. Skyrim does have its unique atmosphere, but the gameplay isn't unique enough to demark it from the rest. Someone who just wants to run around the map shooting at stuff will be better off with Far Cry who's entire gameplay is built around that. Skyrim isn't built around that. It's a large game that wants to be an RPG but doesn't give you choices. It's too rough around the edges to be a good action game. The content gets stale fast. Most people who still play it do so for the mods.

Every time I open Skyrim it's out of a deep longing for it's world and every time I close the game after 30 minutes of trying to find what to do. The atmosphere is there but the moment you take action, nothing. If you don't like killing draugr in dungeons or bandits in forts, there's just not much to do, as even city quests redirect you to those. It's a hiking simulator that doesnt do much to simulate hiking.

Currently Skyrim is the last game of the series and has been for over a decade and I believe that's why it still has any relevancy. It's success was a product of it's time like it's predecessor, it just hasn't had a successor yet. Skyrim is...not a very good game. Iconic yes, but not very good.

My conclusion

What makes these games interesting is often the features that get removed later, as basic features who remain get degraded by time as technology proves one can do them better. No TES game has aged well and the series is stagnating. That being said the earlier games sporting features not made for mass appeal but for the benefit of the game make them interesting in parts. These games nonetheless benefit from art (visuals, but also music!) that contributes to atmospheres one doesn't forget. TES has never been outstanding mechanically, but it can write a world.

If you want to experience the Morrowind high of an alien world created by basement dwellers who obliterates your first three lvl1 characters, play Kenshi. TES will never appeal to RPG nerds again.

[essayofthoughts]

Pinned Post

Call me Essay or Aich. This blog is a mess of interests with some degree of consistent tagging. I post fic on AO3 under the same username, currently for Campaign 1 of Critical Role.

Currently posting fics include:

Ghost Cass - Percy’s not the only member of his family to escape the Briarwoods. He’s just the only one to do so alive. 

[Series] | Arc 1 | Arc 2 | Bonus | Arc 3 WIP

Soulmate AU - Percy and Vex both know what it’s like to have a bond broken against their will.

nor all your Piety nor Wit | Posting monthly.

Delia AU - After the attack, the thing Percy wants most is his family restored to him. It doesn’t happen how he thinks.

Odi | On Hiatus

Tiefling!Percy AU - Based on @blorbologist‘s idea; this has already gotten out of control and may well be more than a oneshot at this stage. Or even several oneshots.

Tell me who I am now (I don’t know) | Might be more later.

Werewolf’s Soulmate AU - AU based on @exhaustedwerewolf‘s excellent soulmate AU. It has maybe got a little out of hand. 

[Series] | echoes on her skin | spelled out on skin | more to come

Kash Backstory Fic - I read Werewolf’s fantastic meta on him and oops I have a problem. (Boy was raised in a cult! He was fifteen!) 

[does your GOD believe in you?] | [Promo Post] |

Other CritRole Fic WIPs & Ideas Beneath the Cut

Listed in rough order of how much I have written/planned out for each. 

Current Projects (AKA, these have a lot written already):

Evilest AU - Percy doesn’t come away quite so intact from his second encounter with Doctor Anna Ripley.

Kash & Zahra fic - See above. How they meet, how their relationship progresses from debt to friendship to family to love.

Side Projects (AKA, I’ve written parts of these already):

Happier Evilest AU - See Evilest AU, above. Now with a tad less angst.

No Briarwoods (Yet) AU - Whitestone has been without a head of the Grey Hunt. Vex applies to try.

Sylas Briarwood Gets To Live, Bitches - Pike has Divine Intervention. What if Sylas was made truly alive and Vecna had no hold on the Briarwoods anymore. What if they had to live and experience consequences?

Perc’ahlia Twilight AU - I read Midnight Sun. I realised Percy is what Meyer thinks Edward is. Also, Vex isn’t a doormat.

Fem!Percy AU - Waking up on a fishing boat, surrounded by strangers, in torn, soaked clothes after two weeks of torture hits different as a girl. Will be Lesbians.

Masc!Vex AU - Similarly to the above, Vex’s flirting comes across very differently with a male character. Also Percy has to directly process the fact that he is bi as all hell.

Magnus Archives AU - What if Percy as an Archivist?

Murder on the Exandrian Express - Murder on the Orient Express but in Exandria and with a dose of crack.

Perc’ahlia Beauty and the Beast - Vex and Vax kill Saundor but Saundor gets off one last curse before he dies. Vex is a tree-creature, just like him, until she gains a heart freely given.

Wolf Siblings AU - Six Swan Brothers but it’s Wolf Siblings. The de Rolo siblings are cursed to be wolves and Percy travels Exandria with the pack that are his siblings.

Modern Perc’ahlia Fake Dating AU - Do I have worldbuilding and backstory for this set up too? Maybe.

Zahra Backstory Fic - LOOK. Maybe I just have a Problem. And two new blorbos, that too.

Oneshots to finish. One day:

Perc’ahlia Kidfic for @cosmonauthill - I will write it! I promise! A series of snapshots of the early days with baby Vesper.

Rock Band AU for Nell for @nanyoky - I will also write this! I promise! Modern Rock Band AU, mostly fluff, some trauma.

Perc’ahlia Noir AU - Vex would make a hell of a femme fatale, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Emon is Burning - Introspection after the Conclave’s attack on Emon.

Desmond-Cass Fic - Canon-compliant fic where I poke at the similar trauma these two have and why they might each have reason to distrust/dislike Percy and also it may end up very very slowburn.

PercyVex Stargazing AU - Tal’Dorei guide lists Exandrian days of the week. Days of the week usually reference gods or moons/stars/planets. None of the Exandrian gods match, not even elvish ones. Don’t match the moon names either. Ergo: planets or stars. Percy speaks Elvish, Vex grew up in Syngorn. Go.

Elaina Lives AU - One of my first ideas when watching CR was an AU where Elaina lives as a Raven Queen cleric and is present at Marrowglade. Have fun!

Canon Vampercy AU - I’ve read too many Vampire!Percy AUs. Kinda wanna do my own take on it.

Ideas? (AKA, I’ve got an idea. And maybe two lines?):

Modern Uni AU - Oh so much trauma in there. Ripley as an evil professor. Percy and Keyleth as roommates and childhood friends. Vex and Vax as the hot neighbours down the hall. Scanlan is That theatre kid. Grog there on sports scholarship; Pike there doing medicine. Go.

Eros & Psyche Perc’ahlia - The OG Beauty and the Beast. Trapped in shadows and darkness, Percy is slowly pulled into the light by Vex's persistence.

Daemon AU - Adelheid leaves him sometime between his two weeks in Ripley’s care and when he comes back to himself, gun in hand. He knows trauma can Separate a person from their Daemon. He still never thought Adelheid would leave him.

AU PercyRipley Briarwoods Escape - Percy’s at the Lyceum or Westhall Academy in Westruun to study when he realises he’s had no letters from his family in weeks. He returns home worried - and then he isn’t allowed to leave.

VERY AU PercyRipley Fic - I had an idea writing Delia AU. It goes Very AU, involves less-awful Briarwoods and I’ll write this only if I have time.

Delia AU Spinoff: Cabin in the Woods - Percy is aware enough to plan his own escape...

Delia AU Spinoff: What If More Kids AU - A commenter suggested this. My brain went Brrrr.

Kinda want to write... maybe? (AKA, a concept. idk):

PercyRipley Soulmate AU - Soulmates as the love of your life? Done before. Soulmates as people who have an impact on you? TASTY. Percy and Ripley have a bond. That doesn’t stop Ripley from testing it, torturing him, or tearing the bond apart. Percy knew he’d likely not be a good or attentive partner in a bond. It still hurts that even Ripley rejected him.

Hogwarts AU - This would take a fuckload of worldbuilding and might as well just be a whole ass other magic AU but whatever, that was the original idea and that’s what I’m running with. May never get to this one.

Post-That Balance May Return Smuts - Look, the negotiation of sex when there’s trauma involved and all is fun. The matter of consent, of keeping an eye on each other to know that things are okay. The fact that Percy has so many terrible habits when it comes to self-care. TASTY is all I’m sayin’.

Piercings Percy AU for @agarthanguide - Hannah sent me an idea a while back. One day I will write this. Maybe. Probably? I hope I do.

PercyRipley Hatesex - Figuring out how I could make this work is a challenge given... everything. But the challenge is half of the fun. 

Sonnie’s Edge AU - Look. Look. Vex as Sonnie. That’s all I’m saying. Vex. As. Sonnie.

Witcher AU - I just have Thoughts, okay.

Syldor Isn’t A Dick AU - Look. It’d be interesting - just because Syldor isn’t a dick doesn’t mean Syngorn is better. I think it could be interesting!

[horsesarecreatures]

Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston

This book was really poignant and eye-opening. The author unfortunately had a horrific childhood, though she prefers to refer to it as a dark comedy rather than a tragedy. Her mother was an alcoholic actress who was anorexic and tried to make her daughter go without eating until dinner time. The father was also an alcoholic who broke her femur, sexually abused her, and tried to kill her on several drunken occasions. Between the two parents driving drunk all the time, she was in 16 totaled car crashes before she even got her learner’s permit, but someone must have been watching over her because she never had to be hospitalized because of any of them. For reasons only she knows, she kept in touch with both of her parents until their deaths, though they were never close. She didn’t really dwell that much on her childhood, but nonetheless she talks about it enough for it to be quite triggering, so just be warned.

The author escaped to college out west and majored in creative writing. The professors were pretty hopeless, banning the students from writing about supposedly cliché topics like natural scenery and female body fluids. Before she graduated, she had already published a book with no help from them called Cowboys Are My Weakness that managed to incorporate all their banned writing topics, so when a jealous faculty member refused to sign paperwork that would help her get financial aid to finish her degree, she just walked out and never went back lol.

Then she traveled around the country because she loved the wilderness, becoming a raft guide in Colorado and a dall sheep hunting guide in Alaska. She started looking for a place to settle down, eventually arriving in Creede, Colorado. She had only $21,000, so when the real estate agent insisted that she see a beautiful $400,000 ranch, she kind of distanced herself from it, thinking she could never have it. But the author was able to buy this beautiful, historic 120 acre ranch high up in the mountains of Colorado because the previous owner took a chance on her and sold it to her for only a 5% down payment and a signed copy of her book. The author never missed a payment. 

I learned a lot about ranching in the mountains of Colorado from her. For one thing, I had no idea temperatures regularly dipped to -35 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter there, and sometimes even dropped to -45. That’s even colder than Homer, Alaska. The growing season at her ranch was also only 6 weeks. She had Irish wolfhounds, chickens, sheep, a cat, 2 donkeys, and two elderly horses, so reading about how she cared for them all in the winter made me realize that I need to stop being such a sissy about not wanting to go to the barn when the temperature is in the teens. I layer, but I’m clearly not layering with the right materials. I needs to invest in a couple real wool or fleece sweaters and thermal pants. 

I never considered certain complications that come with maintaining a ranch at such a high elevation. The author decided to paint her propane tank to look like a watermelon, and was really lucky that the solar heat at 9,000 feet didn't make it explode in the summer. Additionally, all the logs of her cabin, the wood fencing, and anything else with paint, plastic, or enamel had to annually be treated with UV protector in the fall or else they would just disintegrate in no time. That ranch was a bit more work than the average large property, and was constantly being threatened by wildfires, people wanting to put up power lines, and slick people coming up with schemes to buy her out. But none of them took the ranch from her in the end, and when she dies it’s being preserved and donated to the public.

The book is mostly chapters in chronological order, with some short essays in between. The ranch is obviously the focus, but the author also discusses some trips she made with biologists to remote parts of the world, and her writing is so much like that of a naturalist that this book could also probably fall into the “nature writings�� category. 

[intermundia]

Omg "Brotherhood" 😍 poor Anakin spiralling and feeling alone and poor Obi-Wan for being the only person willing to deal with it, but I loved the moment he admitted to himself he was lonely too. You always do such an amazing job translating their dynamic into aus, and in this you perfectly encapsulated how scary and out of control Anakin can be when spiralling and how no matter what Obi-Wan always hurts for him whilst trying to correct him, but is never scared of him. The tension between them burned, and it was lovely seeing their dynamic and how they just get one another, and balance each other out. Obi-Wan being the stability and guiding hand Anakin needs and Anakin when he finally melts being the person Obi-Wan can adore and also giving him the nudge he needs to recognise he's already kind of ended his marriage and moved, he just needs to admit it.

Saying that I sure hope he keeps the step-brother affair secret during divorce proceedings! A divorce between two legal professionals on not great terms probs doesn't need more fuel to the flames...though I also loved Obi-Wan as a prosecutor who doesn't love it, he would be amazing but it would definitely wear on him.

Does he tell Qui-Gon everything or just that he'd like to stay and keep running the legal aid office? Trying to picture if Qui-Gon merrily keeps hiking knowing Obi-Wan has it all in hand or if he's like "Great, glad he's back in college and doing better! How did you manage it? Oh. Oh I see. No that's cool, I'm just going to keep wandering the planet for a bit, you seem to have everything...ah...in hand 🙃" and then disappears into a desert leaving behind a note that just says 'keep the house.'

Sorry to ramble! You're a fantastic writer and the Obikin fantom is incredibly lucky to have you. I do a little jig every time you post but try and refrain from bothering you because it would always turn into these incoherent essays 😂

Genuinely, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much!! I worried that the topic of this one might scare people off, but I had developed an AU that had really interesting versions of Anakin and Obi-Wan, getting to touch on Anakin’s dark side and Obi-Wan’s ability to ignore problems he thinks will resolve themselves (Anakin’s issue in canon, here his own marriage problems). Having them be tangentially related through Qui-Gon, but mostly strangers to each other, led to such interesting power dynamics, I knew I had to write it. I am so glad that it all landed for you and that you picked it up, it makes me really happy to hear it!!

I think Qui-Gon would come home from Spain having processed a lot of his grief and be thrilled that Obi-Wan was moving back to Coruscant. He would also be thrilled that Anakin was attending his court dates and back in college working toward his degree. I think that he’s not conservative per se but that it might be a shock and concern him that the two boys he raised are involved that way. He can recognize that they are not related by blood and that Obi-Wan barely interacted while Anakin was younger, so he gets why they’re attracted to each other. Hahaha tho I like your ending of him deciding that it’s a great time to retire and that he had such a wonderful time in Spain maybe he really should get that traveling in that he’d always wanted to do 😂

[bluesylveon2]

My My, I Could Never Let You Go

Summary: Sasha Zoe just wants her dad to walk her down the aisle. There is only one problem: she doesn't know who her dad is! Sasha invites 3 men in hopes of finding out which one is her father. What could possibly go wrong?

Pairings: Levi x Hange, Sasha x Niccolo, and other background relationships

Disclaimer: This is a Levihan Mamma Mia au. This fanfic is inspired by Mamma Mia which is directed by Phyllida Loyd, written by Catherine Johnson, and uses music from the pop group ABBA. Attack on Titan is a manga/anime series written by Hajime Isayama and published by Kondasha

A/N: Sorry for the wait! I had many tests and essays within the past two weeks. One of them sounds like a tragic fanfic backstory (Sorry Armin. He was in it lol)

Need to catch up? Catch up here!

Ch 6: Our Last Summer

After Hange leaves the goat house 

Sasha and her friends waited a few minutes after Hange left to make sure the coast was clear. She gave her friends the signal to get out of their hiding spots after a few minutes had passed.

"Was the 'throwing me in a barrel' really necessary, Annie?," Hanami complained as she rubbed her sore head. 

"You were taking too long getting in the barrel, and I didn't want us to get caught by Hange. Sorry about that," Annie replied cooly and got out of the barrel. She turns around to help Hanami get out. 

"Well, at least it got the job done" Hitch jokes as she left her spot behind a crate with Mina. 

Historia laughs at her friend's conversation. She was lucky enough to hide alone. 

While this was going on, Mikasa was busy helping Sasha get out of the barrel and fixing everything in the barn to look normal. 

Sasha zoomed out of the barn to find her fathers as soon as Historia fixed the final piece back to where it belonged.

Everyone sweatdropped, especially Mikasa and Historia.

Looks like we're going running again after all

---

“Sasha! Wait!” Mina yells. Sasha was running like her life depended on it (which it did, in a way). She was tired and exhausted, but Sasha’s adrenaline was too high to stop running. Sasha didn’t know which exact pier her fathers were in, so she was determined to check every pier Kalokairi had. 

She couldn't stop thinking about how this happened. How was there a flaw in her plan? The plan was for her and her friends to wait until her fathers walked past them and jump them before her mom caught them. She didn't think far ahead of where to dispose of the bodies. Probably somewhere in Mike's yacht. Sasha also wanted to slap herself. They must have left through the window or through the hatch on the roof! No wonder they managed to leave without Sasha noticing!

Luckily for Sasha, it only took two piers to finally spot Mike's yacht. There was only one ship nearby and three male figures on it. Sasha had an 80% chance of being right, and it increased the closer she got. 

"Wait!" Sasha yells at the trio. She prayed it was her father's, or else she yelled at total strangers. She noticed how her father's changed their outfits to suit the hot weather. Erwin wore a long sleeve polo shirt rolled up to his elbows with the first button open and shorts. Mike kept the same shorts on but was shirtless to show off his muscles. Levi was also dressed similarly to Erwin, except he unbuttoned his shirt all the way to show off his abs. None of the men seemed to notice Sasha’s call. 

Sasha stopped running once there was no pier left to run on.

Fine, she thought in her head. I have no choice but to swim. Thank goodness for Hitch's beach day idea, or else she would’ve been doomed.

Sasha turned to her friends. It seems as if they read her mind based on the shocked looks on their faces. 

"If Niccolo or any of the guys asks about my whereabouts, give them a random location, but not the beach. Send them on a wild goose chase if you have to."

"But what about our plans for today?" Hitch exclaimed, referring to why everyone had their swimsuits on. 

Sasha took her clothes off, leaving her in only her swimsuit. She hands her clothes to the nearest person, Historia. "We'll move it to tomorrow!" She yells back and jumps into the water. Sasha starts swimming to the yacht. 

The girls could only watch with shock as their friend swam away. Historia, who got over her's first, clears her throat to get everyone's attention.

"C'mon girls. We got a job to do."

---

Levi was the first to hear Sasha swimming towards the yacht. 

"Oi! Sasha is heading over here!" He points out to Erwin and Mike to get their attention. Erwin and Mike look at where Levi was pointing and headed over to meet up with Sasha.

"Were gonna sail around the island. Wanna come? I could use more hands since I let my friend explore the island" Mike yells.

"I thought you weren't coming to my wedding?" Sasha yells back as she swims nears the yacht.

"Well, Four-Eyes wanted us to leave, so we decided to get out of her hair," Levi says with monotone. He, Erwin, and Mike kneel down to pick up Sasha from the water.

Huh, Sasha thought. Levi never used Four-Eyes in front of her before. That was news to her. She always hears everyone refer to her mom as Hange and never any nicknames.

(Levi only referred to Hange at first out of respect to Sasha. He is letting it slide more now that first impressions are over.)

"You're mom freaked out when she saw us? What was that about?" Erwin asked once Sasha was on the yacht. He hands her a towel to dry herself off. 

"No!" She replied hastily. "She's just not thinking straight! She's been so stressed about the wedding. Things like decorations, food-" 

Sasha stops rambling when Mike holds his hand out as a sign to tell her to slow down. She turned red out of embarrassment much to Mike's amusement. Sasha reminded Mike of Hange. Once Hange starts talking, she won’t stop even after the sunset. 

She clears her throat. "Sorry. What I meant to say was my mom would be so happy to see you all as her surprise tomorrow!"

"You think so?" Levi asks skeptically.

"Mhm" was all Sasha says and takes a look at her surroundings. She has been on sailboats a few times. Mostly to travel between the mainland and Kalokairi. She would go when she and her friends rented a boat to explore the island or party. Sasha looks at Mike’s yacht in awe. She wants to buy one day to explore different parts of Greece with her friends and Niccolo. As Sasha was amazed by what she saw, she noticed something that definitely didn’t belong in Erwin’s arms. 

"You took Mom's guitar."

Erwin stops tuning it to look up at Sasha. It was a simple classical guitar to Sasha’s eyes, but it held more meaning to Erwin.

“I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it. See-” He turns over the guitar to show Sasha there was more than what she originally thought. Engraved on the wood were the letters H.Z and E.S. “-Hange Zoe and Erwin Smith.” 

Sasha’s opened her mouth in shock. Meanwhile, Levi and Mike just glanced at each other. They didn’t expect that out of Erwin.

Erwin notices everyone’s faces and chuckles. “Contrary to popular belief, I actually know how to play the guitar,” he says as if he can read everyone’s minds. “I bought her this guitar here on the island actually. There was once a shop here, but it is long gone now. I know because I checked when I arrived.” he adds solemnly.

Sasha sits down next to Erwin as he started plucking the strings to see if it was tuned. He starts playing it once he was satisfied with the sound. Sasha, interested in listening, sat with her legs crossed and rested her left elbow on her left knee. Sasha’s head rested on her fist as Erwin played. 

Levi and Mike still stood nearby awkwardly watching the two. The two looked at each other with mutual understanding and left Erwin and Sasha to bond as they prepared the yacht to set sail. 

---

“So what was my mom like?” Sasha randomly asks. Her mom's diary only showed one side of her story. Hearing from her fathers introduces a new perspective. 

Erwin chuckles just thinking about Hange. “She’s a very happy and intelligent woman. Her smile was very contagious, and it can make anyone’s day.” 

Sasha smiles at Erwin’s words. “What is your fondest memory of her?” she asks out of curiosity.

Erwin ponders on Sasha’s question. There were a few minutes of silence before Erwin looks down at the guitar on his lap fondly.

---

"Can I open my eyes now?" Hange asks for the fifth time since they left her house. She was beginning to lose her patience, and she was too excited for the surprise. 

"Not yet." Erwin laughs at Hange’s excitement. 

“Is it a new book?” Hange guesses as she walks blindly to wherever Erwin was leading her.

���No” Erwin chuckles and continues leading Hange to who knows where. 

Hange can feel the surface shift under her sandals as she walked. She could tell Erwin was guiding her on the beach based on the unstable sand, the wind blowing on her sundress, and the sound of waves crashing the shore. Apparently, Erwin had a big surprise for her, and they only knew each other for 3 days! He gave Hange a cloth that morning and instructed her to tie it around her eyes. Of course, Erwin made sure to take off Hange’s glasses first and put them in his shirt pocket before proceeding with his plan. Erwin has been guiding Hange by the shoulders for a while now. Hange wonders what the surprise was.

Suddenly, Erwin stops moving, and Hange follows along. She feels Erwin’s hands moving to untie the cloth around his head. Hange flinched as the sunlight hit her eyes. She felt Erwin gently grab her hand and places her glasses on her palm. Hange puts her glasses back on and waits a bit for her eyes to adjust. 

"Surprise, Hange." She hears softly behind her and looks down. Hange starts tearing up. 

In front of her was a big blanket full of food, drinks, and neatly placed towels that looked like it was set up for a picnic. There was a brown classical guitar in the center. The same guitar Hange kept staring at for the past few days. She never bought it because she didn't know anyone who could teach her. 

Hange put her hands over her mouth in shock as her tears became more prominent now. 

Erwin smiles at Hange’s reaction. He takes one of her hands away from her mouth and guides her to sit down next to him. He picks up the guitar and sets it down on his lap.

"H-how did you know? Erwin, I'm truly grateful for this, for everything really, but…" Hange was too shocked to even talk. "I'm speechless."

"I work spontaneously.” Erwin jokes, “In reality, I asked a few people to help set this up. You know the couple who were selling the guitars?" 

Hange nods. She wasn’t getting over her shock just yet. 

“Well, their children helped me set this up for you. I've noticed you eyeing this guitar for quite some time now.” Erwin continues and gestures to everything laid out in front of her.

“Do you like it?" He asks although he knew the obvious answer based on Hange’s expression. 

“Like it? I love it! Thank you! Thank you!” Erwin quickly puts the guitar away before Hange could accidentally hits it as she jumped on him. She wraps her arms around his neck and rests her head on his shoulder. Erwin wraps his arms around Hange to hug her back.

“Thank you.” She says softly next to his ear. Erwin smiles “You’re welcome, Hange.” 

Hange pulls away from the hug to look at Erwin’s face, her arms still wrapped around his neck. Suddenly, she leaned forward and kissed Erwin on the lips. Erwin felt like he was dreaming and kisses Hange back. Oh my goodness, he is whipped for her! This was the first time they kissed since they had met. He wanted to thank God personally for giving him a chance with Hange.

Hange pulls away from the kiss to look at Erwin’s blue eyes that held love to the woman in front of him. Her eyes had the same emotion too. Both of them had goofy smiles on their faces. Her eyes wander over to the guitar laying next to Erwin. She gasps. “You know how to play? Can you teach me?”

Erwin smiles at Hange’s excitement. “Of course,” he said. Hange leans over to Erwin to pick up the guitar. She starts plucking random combinations of strings and going on about how he should’ve got it engraved. 

Their kiss was the pivotal point of their relationship. Erwin, for the first time since starting his career, felt relaxed being around Hange.

---

Sasha was grinning from ear to ear after hearing Erwin’s story. She thought it was cute after hearing how her mom reacted to receiving the guitar. She could recall the times her mom taught her how to play the exact guitar Erwin held in his lap. 

“I’m going to be honest with you Sasha.” Sasha perks up after Erwin spoke. He looks up at the sky and curves his upwards into a small smile. He turns to face Sasha with the same smile on his face. “I’m thankful for you inviting me here. Experiencing all of this-” He gestures to the space around them. “-makes me realize what I am missing out on in life. Thank you for that. You’re a good daughter, and I know you make Hange proud.” 

Sasha smiled back. She would never expect that from one of her potential fathers. Maybe it’s a sign? She prays her mom would be proud of her during her wedding day. The day her family will be reconnected again.

They continue talking and sharing a few stories until Mike walks up to the pair. He cleared his throat to get their attention. “Hey, Sasha. Do you mind sharing some sites around the island? You’re the most familiar one out of all with the island.”

Sasha nodded. “Sure.” She stands up to look around her surroundings. She wasn’t paying much attention to where the yacht was sailing through during Erwin’s story. 

She scanned her surroundings until she notices a familiar cliff she and her friends like to go cliff jumping on. Sasha points to the area and turns to Mike.

“I know a stop.”

---

“Is this safe?” Levi asks. Levi was thankful that Hange didn’t force him to engage in cliff jumping. The cliff itself was 20 feet. Levi watches as the waves crash onto the cliff below them. It seems as if his luck of cliff jumping ran out after meeting Sasha. She’s definitely Hange’s daughter.

Sasha gave Levi a big grin. “Of course! My friends and I used to jump off this very same cliff all the time!”

Erwin and Mike smirked.

“Of course it is, Levi. You just have to not think about it.” 

“I’ve jumped from higher cliffs before. This one isn’t that tall. Just like you. Shorty.”

Levi glared at Mike as if that would wipe the smirk off of Mike’s face. Mike was lucky he was not standing next to him. Sasha was trying hard not to laugh too much and risk loosening her grip with Erwin and Levi. 

“On the count of three!” Sasha started swinging her arms a bit. “One… Two... Three!” she yells and jumps off the cliff. The others following as they were jumping and falling at the same time as her.

Yep. She is definitely Hange’s daughter.

---

The group sailed around the island some more before taking a break near the coast. They were sitting under a tree and eating some food Gelgar had made before leaving the yacht to Mike. Sasha wore one of Mike’s shirts to keep her warm after swimming earlier.

“Who’s Gelgar?” Sasha interrupts Mike while eating her umpteenth sandwich within the fifteen minutes since the group started eating.

Mike swallows the food in his mouth before answering. “He’s a friend I met while traveling around Europe years ago. He’s also the one to watch over my yacht when I’m away. He mostly uses it to sail around the Mediterranean anyway. I trust him. I get the satisfaction of knowing my yacht is safe while I’m on the other side of the world. Gelgar has something he can use to visit other countries and drink the number of drinks he wants. It’s a win-win situation.”

Sasha nods in understanding. It seems like a fun idea to go travel around and see the world. She wants to do that one day. Oh, the number of foods she could eat! It made Sasha’s mouth water. 

Erwin chuckles at Sasha as she continues to eat more food. She’s like Hange, who is hungry for knowledge, except Sasha is actually hungry. 

The group starts sharing stories after they finish eating. This time it was Sasha’s turn to answer the questions.

“So what was your childhood like with Four-Eyes?” Levi asks. He leans forward a bit from where he sat.

Sasha was quiet for a bit to think. She was unsure where to start. She looks up to find everyone staring at her. The look of their eyes reassures her they didn’t want her to rush the story.

“Well, I lived alone here on the island with my mom until I was 2. My mom had hired her current assistant, Moblit, to help her around the hotel and babysit me when I was young. Remember the tunnel I lead you through to get to the goathouse?”

The men nod. 

“That was only one of the tunnels I would hide from Moblit and sneak food in as he searched for me.” Sasha laughs nervously and rubs the back of her head. “Moblit is a nice and reliable guy. I don’t know where my mom and I would be without him.”

Erwin and Mike smile. On the other hand, Levi was jealous of this Moblit guy. He got to see some of Sasha’s milestones growing up. It’s no secret to Levi’s family that Levi dreams of raising a family (with the right woman that he loves. Not someone who he is forced to love). He did a good job watching over Farlan and Isabel’s kids. Plus, his mother wanted her son to give her a grandchild someday. 

Erwin, as if reading Levi’s mind, spoke. “Is your mother dating Moblit?”

Sasha laughs out loud that she had to hold her stomach for support. “Definitely not!” she says as she wipes a tear from her eye. “Moblit is too concerned with mom hurting herself and fixes the hotel. Mom is too busy trying to keep the hotel afloat and raise me! Trust me, those two would put dating each other as the last thing on their minds.”

Sasha continues on and on about her childhood after she calmed down. She talks about how she met her current friends, how she used to run track, her first boyfriend, Hange’s shenanigans, her current friends, her love for food, and her fiance. 

Levi notices how she never brought up the archery medals.

"Sasha," Levi calls out to get her attention. Sasha turns to face Levi. "I noticed the archery medals in the attic. When did you start competing?"

Sasha facepalms. How could she forget something like that?! She places her hands on her lap. "My mom had mentioned it one day when I was 6, and I begged her to find someone to teach me. She managed to find someone on the mainland who gave me private lessons on the weekends. In fact-"

Sasha rolls up her sleeve on her right arm to show off her arms. The males noted Sasha's muscles. She's athletic after all. "-I was pretty much a natural at it. I picked it up really quickly, and I’m a talented hunter. I can even hit a target with my eyes closed!" She starts flexing her right arm and smirks. "I'm a tough person to mess with."

Erwin was impressed. It seems as if he judged Sasha a bit too soon. She was hungry to learn new skills such as archery. Meanwhile, Levi kept staring at Sasha and analyzing what she said. Her talent almost reminded Levi of himself. His Uncle Kenny used to train him with how to fight with a knife (Kuchel almost had a heart attack when she saw them practicing one day. Kenny claimed it was for self-defense.) Levi was a fast learner and is skilled with knives and guns. Levi shook his head to stop thinking about it. Maybe he's just looking too deep into this? Nevertheless, he kept the thought in the back of his mind.

Mike smiles at Sasha’s challenge. He raises up his right arm and starts flexing. "Me too Sasha. Me too." He says as he looks at Sasha’s eyes. They were challenging each other in a staring contest. 

Almost two minutes passed when Mike gave in and blinked. Sasha let a loud whoop and jumped up and down with glee. Erwin clapped for Sasha’s victory, while Levi awkwardly pats Mike's back for reassurance. He's not that much of an asshole.

"Ok ok. You win Sasha. Now, what do you want?" 

Sasha makes an L with her left hand and rests her chin on it. Her left arm was resting on her right arm that she placed across her stomach. She taps her foot as she was thinking.

"Hmmm, what about you tell me a story about you and my mom? Also your views of her."

Mike looks at Erwin and Levi expectedly. Levi shrugs, and only Erwin speaks up. "She asked me the same question before." His mouth opens in an o with realization. Looks like it's his turn to share his story.

"Well your mom is energetic and the most intelligent woman I've ever met. She contributed to my decision of becoming a travel writer."

---

“Everything is all set, Hange.” Mike adjusts his outfit to make himself look presentable to Hange. He wore a pair of jeans he rolled up, a T-shirt, and sandals. To him, he looked like nothing compared to Hange. She wore jean shorts, a flowy long-sleeve blouse that showed off her shoulders, and flip-flops. 

Hange was excited about her lesson with Mike. She had asked him if she can go sailing with Mike after their first night of stargazing. Hange was hoping to at least steer the wheel once. Mike walks up to Hange. She was steadily holding onto the wheel of the yacht. The afternoon sunlight gave Hange a glow around her figure. The wind was perfect for sailing.

Hange had a huge grin on her face. She couldn’t hide her excitement, and she was interested in learning about sailing and the mechanics behind it. Mike had promised to teach her about steer first before going into the complicated parts of sailing. Hange struck a pose when Mike stood next to her. He held something behind his back and out of Hange’s view. 

“How do I look? Do I look like a captain yet?” 

Mike laughs at Hange’s question. She looked far from a captain with her outfit.

“You don’t look the part but-” Mike moves his arms from behind his back to reveal the captain's hat he was hiding from Hange. He walks up to get closer to Hange and places the hat on her head. Mike smiles at Hange fondly once he was sure the hat was placed firmly on her head. 

“Now you do, captain,” he says with a suggestive tone in his voice. Hange snorts and lightly punches Mike on the shoulder. Mike laughs out loud at her reaction.

“Shut up, Mike! You still have to teach me how to steer before I can do anything else.”

Mike walks behind Hange and places his arms over hers. He lightly grasps Hange’s arms and positions them in the correct position on the wheel. Mike moves to place his body close behind Hange’s. He rests his head on her shoulder.

“Ok.” He says next to Hange’s left ear. She shivers a bit from Mike’s voice. “This is what you do.”

---

It was sunset by the time Hange’s sailing lesson ended. Mike instructed Hange how to turn and he had her do figure 8’s and circles near the sea. The two were now sitting on the deck and drinking some wine Mike had brought. They were sharing childhood stories as some music from the radio played in the background. Hange was still wearing the captain’s hat. 

“Wait so you were just born with that nose of yours? There was no accident, and no one in your family had one before?”

Mike shook his head. “Nope. I just had this ability since I could remember.”

Hange nods in understanding. She was curious about her smell now that she thought about it. She can recall the times she was busy in college or exploring the island to even bother taking a bath. Levi used to point it out and even forced her to take a bath once or twice during their time together. Thinking about him did make her heart hurt, but now she’s moved on. She doesn’t need him. 

“What do I smell like?”

“You can smell some musk and vanilla. I can smell it the first time we met. Sorry about that.” he says quickly. 

Hange waves him off and smiles. “Don't worry about it. I think it's really cool and unique! It must be a useful thing to have especially around food!”

Mike chuckles at Hange. “It’s a blessing and a curse.” He can smell delicious foods from around the world, but he can also smell horrible smells like trash. The two continued sharing stories until the song on the radio changed to one Hange was familiar with. She suddenly grabs Mike’s arm and stands up. “Dance with me, Mike!” Mike, who was falling for Hange every second, agrees.

They danced to the music around the yacht. The song was upbeat enough to dance the tango to. Occasionally, Mike would pick up or dip Hange around. This caused Hange to laugh from all the fun she was having. The two were obviously not professional dancers, but they were having fun. Hange was surprised by how well Mike could dance. She felt like a princess dancing with her prince under the stars. 

Mike dips Hange one more time as the final notes of the song play. He pulls her back up and keeps her close to his body. One arm was behind Hange’s back and the other held her head. Their eyes met and their heavy breaths fanned each other's faces. 

“That was...wow,” Hange says in between breaths. “You’re a really good dancer, Mike.”

“You too.” Mike continues staring into Hange’s eyes and Hange stares into his. It was as if there was an invisible force pulling them together as they leaned closer to each other. Mike moves his hand from behind Hange’s head and cups her cheek. He and Hange closed their eyes, and they kissed each other on the lips. 

At that moment, Mike knew there was no turning back. 

---

Sasha smiles after hearing Mike’s story. Maybe Mike is her father? Sasha has a talent for smelling meat from a mile away. 

Erwin checks his watch and stands up. “It looks like we’ve been here for quite some time. Shall we head out?” It was almost 5:30, and they’ve been out for over an hour now. 

Everyone nods and stands up to begin packing their things. Sasha made it her mission to speak to Levi next. 

---

Sasha manages to speak to Levi during the walk back to the yacht. Erwin and Mike were conversing up ahead, so it gave Sasha some private time with Levi. 

“Hey, Levi.” she starts and looks at Levi as they walk. Levi hums in response. “What did you think of my mom?” Sasha was expecting good things similar to Erwin and Mike. Sadly, Sasha doesn’t know Levi well enough to know how he speaks. Bluntly.

“She’s reckless, loud, annoying, and a bit crazy (that is an understatement from Levi). She even asked me to go with her to Kalokairi after five minutes of meeting her!” Sasha wanted to roll her eyes. Levi was also crazy for agreeing to go with her mother. What a hypocrite. (In Levi’s case, Sasha did not need to know why he said yes).

“Yet,” Levi's voice turns from irritated to gentle. Sasha was shocked by the sudden tone change. “She is an intriguing woman.” 

Sasha stops walking and stares at Levi with her mouth wide open. To her, he doesn’t look like a guy to think of her mother fondly like that. His stoic face doesn’t give Sasha much to work with. Levi notices Sasha stopped moving and turns to face her.

“Oi! Stop standing there or else you’ll get flies in your mouth!” he yells and Sasha snaps out of her shock. She runs back to Levi and they continue walking in silence. This time Levi looks at Sasha. 

“Do you want to hear one of my stories about Four-Eyes?” Right. Four-Eyes is a nickname Levi has for her mother. Sasha nods her head.

---

“Get back here, Four-Eyes!” Levi yells as he chased Hange across the beach. 

“You gotta catch me first, Levi darling!” she yells back and continues running away from Levi. 

Hange and Levi were hanging out at the beach on a sunny day. Levi laid down to rest his eyes for a few minutes while Hange was busy making sandcastles. Apparently, Levi slept long enough for Hange to bury him in the sand saved for his head. The worst part was when Hange decorated his body with whatever she could find and took a polaroid picture of Levi. Levi considers himself lucky to wake up to the flash. Hence the situation going on right now. 

Luckily for Levi, Hange accidentally tripped from running in the sand and fell. Levi pounces on Hange and pins her to the ground. He was determined to get that photo. They wrestle on the sand for a bit, but Hange was too stubborn to let go. 

"Stop it, Levi!" Hange laughs as Levi tickles her sides. She slaps her arms around in an attempt to get Levi to stop. 

"You did this to yourself, Shitty Glasses. I'm just returning the favor." Levi continues to tickle Hange. She began loosening her grip on the photo.

"You have such a way with nicknames, Levi. I feel honored!." Hange laughs.

Levi wanted to roll his eyes, but he was determined to get that photo back. Even if he has to change tactics.

Hange didn't see it coming. Levi stopped tickling Hange, grabbed the back of her head, and picked her head up to kiss him on the lips. Hange was too shocked to react.

Hange was still stunned after Levi pulled away. She didn't notice Levi grab the photo out of her hands. He pocketed it away from Hange’s reach.

Hange shakes her head and notices her now empty hands. "Hey, that was dirty!" She exclaims and attempts to search Levi to get the photo back. 

Levi tsks at her many failed attempts. "That wasn't dirty Four-Eyes." He gets off of Hange (much to her confusion) and extends an arm out to help her up. Hange takes Levi’s hand but was suddenly swept off her feet as he carried her bridal style. 

"What are you doing?" Hange squirms in Levi's arms. Levi doesn't loosen his hold on her and starts walking to the ocean.

Oh no, Hange thought. This must be payback from a few days ago.

"Look. I'm sorry Levi! What happened a few days ago was a joke!" She exclaims nervously and tries to free herself from Levi. To Levi, he thought all of Hange’s attempts were cute, but he continued walking anyway. 

Levi stops walking the moment the water hits his knees. Meanwhile, Hange continues to squirm in his arms despite having no progress. She stops when she notices Levi staring at her. He smirks. (That asshole)

"This, Hange, is playing dirty." Levi suddenly drops Hange into the water. She sits up quickly and coughs up some water. She was ready to drag Levi in for revenge but stopped when she heard an unfamiliar sound coming out of him. Levi was laughing! 

Levi laughed like there was no tomorrow. Hange could tell he enjoyed it by the way he wrapped his arms around his stomach. Well, he was laughing at her, but Hange never heard the man laugh since they first met! 

Hange smiles. She'll let Levi enjoy his fun for now.

---

The couple returned back to Hange's house to shower (and maybe a bit more but Sasha didn’t need to know that) after their rendezvous at the beach. They laid in bed together hours after coming back. The house was dark except for the moonlight spilling into Hange’s bedroom. Levi only wore shorts and was absentmindedly playing with Hange’s hair. On the other hand, Hange was wearing her underwear and one of Levi’s button-up shirts to bed except kept the buttons open. She was laying on Levi’s chest with content. It was quiet and peaceful. The only sounds they could hear were their own breaths. Hange could stay like this forever.

Levi was too busy playing with Hange’s hair to notice when Hange started humming to herself. The song didn't sound familiar to him at all, but it sparked his curiosity. 

"What are you humming?"

Hange looks up at Levi from her spot and rests her chin on his chest. She stares into his blue-grey eyes. "A song I used to listen to as a child. It's actually one of my favorites."

Levi continues to stare at Hange. "What is it called?"

Hange smiles. "” I Have a Dream” by ABBA. The tempo is a bit faster than this and more upbeat. I just slowed it down a little bit." 

"Can you sing it for me?"

"What?"

Levi rolls his eyes. "You heard me. I asked if you can sing for me." His face turned red from embarrassment and he looked away from Hange's gaze.

Hange squeals inside. She thought Levi was too cute. She sits up and places a hand on Levi’s cheek. Levi looks up at her with shock. 

"Of course." She leans forward to peck him on the lips. "I'll sing it for you."

Hange leans back and sits criss-cross on the bed while Levi sits up to get more comfortable. She takes a deep breath and starts to sing the first line.

“I have a dream. A song to sing”

Levi was amazed by Hange’s singing. He genuinely thought she was a talented singer, and she should sing to him more often. Heck, she sounds better than Isabel and Isabel is the best singer he knew. 

Levi smiles as Hange continues to sing. He felt as if he could relate to the song in a way. Meeting Hange and spending time with her has been like a dream. She was a dream come true for him. A dream Levi longs for without the responsibilities life throws at him. He felt free and didn't want to wake up. He was happy, content, and in love with the woman singing in front of him now.

---

Sasha smiles sadly after Levi finished his story. Levi spoke about her mother bluntly and with a stoic look on his face earlier. She noticed the light in his eyes, the hint of sadness in his voice, and he had a longing look in his eyes. She never got the chance to ask Levi anything else as they had already reached the yacht. Levi had walked ahead of Sasha and boarded the boat, leaving Sasha to not see the sad expression on his face. 

---

It was already almost 6 when Mike’s yacht set sail again. Mike was busy steering the yacht. Erwin was laying on a bed reading. Sasha was sneakily trying to find a way to speak to Levi after their last conversation. She stood a good distance away from Levi and (tries to) subtly look at him. 

Levi was sitting at the front of the yacht, looking out into the distance deep in thought. Sasha noticed from afar but was too nervous to approach him. She wanted to talk to him more about her mother. Sasha lightly slaps herself on the cheek. Get it together! You already talked to him before, with others around, you can do it again! Sasha looks around the boat to see if anyone noticed her pep talk before walking up to Levi with confidence. 

She was just two feet away from him when he spoke. His gaze was still looking out at the sea. “You know, you’re not exactly subtle when you slap yourself like that. I’m not that much of an intimidating guy to talk to.” Levi turns to Sasha with a small, yet subtle smirk on his face.

Sasha felt all of her confidence go down the drain, and nerves got to her again. She took a deep breath before asking a question that's been haunting her since she read her mom’s diary.

"Did you really love my mom? After you met her, I mean."

It was a simple question, but it took Levi aback. He didn't expect that from Sasha. Maybe she asked Erwin and Mike a similar question?

"I did." That was all Levi says cryptically.

Sasha raises an eyebrow and waits for Levi to expand on his answer. When he didn’t, she decided to lead the conversation.

"So why did you leave and never come back?"

Sasha notes the shock that passed Levi’s eyes. It seems to her that he thought about the question before. Levi took some time to recover from his shock but remained quiet. Why did he not come back? Would Hange really forgive him if he came back days after leaving and begging her for forgiveness? He looks up at the other men on the boat and frowns. 

Probably not. She had Erwin, Mike, and now this Moblit guy who was basically living his dream. That asshole. Levi looks at Sasha expecting annoyance from his silence. He was met with the opposite instead. Levi could see the curiosity in her eyes as she waited patiently for his answer. He was nervous to reveal his reasons.

"I didn’t come back because I-" He stops because of his nerves getting to him. He takes a deep breath. Sasha was waiting with anticipation. "I didn't come back because-"

 "SASHA!!!!" Levi was interrupted by someone yelling from the beach nearby. The man was tall, had wavy blonde hair, and was shirtless. He looked over at Sasha questioningly. “You know the guy?” he asks and uses his thumb to point at the man.

Sasha wanted to facepalm herself. Of all the times! Right before the juicy part too! Niccolo is going to suspect something is up if she does not hurry!

“Yeah. That’s my fiancee calling for me.” She laughs nervously and takes off Mike’s shirt to hand to Levi. Mike and Erwin gather around her confused about the man calling for her.

“I am so sorry, but I have to go. You will be at my wedding right?” Sasha asks hurriedly. She starts running towards the edge of the boat so she could jump in the sea. She could still hear Niccolo calling for her.

“Absolutely.” Mike pats Sasha's arm.

“We’ll be there.” Erwin smiles.

“Promise.” Levi nods his head.

They watch as Sasha swam away from them and towards the shore.

Mike put his hands on Erwin and Levi’s shoulders.

“Let’s head back to shore. I don’t want Gelgar to come back with a hangover before we explore the island some more.

---

Sasha runs into Niccolo’s open arms. He hugged her tightly and spins her around on the sand. “Where have you been, Sasha? I’ve been looking all over for you all day.”

Sasha lets go of Niccolo as he sets her down and rubs the back of her head nervously. “I’m so sorry Niccolo. I’ve just been all over the island.” She laughs and reminisces about her father-daughter bonding time. Today has been nothing but wonderful.

Niccolo didn't want to ruin Sasha's happiness, but who was Sasha with earlier?

©: This is where I insert all rights reserved stuff. This story belongs to me. Do not modify or republish

Author’s Note:

I just realized that I want to write in present tense and I wrote in past tense before. Oops lol.

The next chapter should be out on Sunday! The infamous “Lay All Your Love on Me” scene! I’m excited 😁

[bellamyroselia]

Who could replace Hades as the new big bad? Overly long essay

Like pretty much everyone else in this fandom, I love Hades. Guy’s your typical pure evil villain with a personality larger than life itself and he’s having so much fun with it that it’s contagious. Every time he pops up, I’m delighted to see him. It’s so fun to see him do his shtick and have the time of his life with it, which also makes beating him feel so great. After all the crap he has put the main cast through, it’s so satisfying to blast him into the face because for a moment that confidence finally breaks and once it's all over, people cheer because they don’t have to live in horrible fear for a while at least. This characterization is mostly rooted on the sheer fear factor Hades had in the eyes of ancient people - even in civilizations which have rather chipper afterlife people tended to prefer living over dying, and this of course meant that they were absolutely terrified of the Underworld deities. Hades was mostly addressed by epithets in texts because people thought that if they called him by his name, they were drawing his attention and the last thing a sane person wants is the attention of an powerful god who has power over the dead. So if a god has this level of appeal, be it positive or negative, you may not even need excessive amount of mythological content to create a frame for a character!

This being said, I don’t believe his chances of coming back are as the big bad of a next game are high - that is unless we have to wait another 15-20 years to get a new game, but I’d like to be more hopeful than that. So if he isn’t coming back, who could possibly replace him as the new big bad of Kid Icarus? It’s not like the writers could ever run out of source material because there’s so many monsters to deal with and every god is more or less morally grey, meaning that there’s many possibilities for new bad guys regardless of the scale.

This took a lot longer than I originally expected and I’m sorry for that - there’s no worse idea than to jump into a rabbit hole and bringing a shovel with you because things will quickly spiral out of control into new interesting directions. The more info I gathered, the more interested I was on looking more into it and sometimes it even spiraled out of mythology into history and philosophy. If you’re interested on some specific reasons for why this took so long, here’s few: myths are long and there’s many different versions of them, epics are even longer, Peloponnese people couldn’t be bothered to write their own things down so I had to look what travelers wrote down, it takes Plato way too long to get into the point, Herodotus never gets into the point, someone translated the term metic as resident alien of all things which I thought was the funniest thing ever and Ludovisi Ares is really pretty.

This is the point where I give the obligatory warnings, so here - since I'm discussing mythology here, it's inevitable that there's some talk about violence and death. I'm not going to linger on the gruesome details, but know that it's there. At couple points this will spiral into a full-on history lesson because I thought that understanding the historical context was important regarding the topic I was discussing. Also this is a one long essay - and by long, I mean really, really long. If you want to read it all at one sitting, prepare some time for yourself. But with that all out of the way, let’s jump straight into the discussion on who could be the next possible big bad, shall we?

I’m limiting this mostly to the main 12 Olympians with the addition of some other big names to keep things simple - while some smaller mythological figures such as Arachne or Arke would work fantastically as villains, they don’t have that recognition or presentation the more well known characters have. We’re trying to speculate who could fill Hades’ shoes as the new main bad guy here after all, not who we could add on the list of great yet less significant antagonists like Medusa, Pandora and Thanatos. I’m excluding Zeus, Athena, Hephaestus and Demeter from this list for rather obvious reasons - Zeus because the the guy seems to be MIA for good so Palutena could rule the place, Athena and Hephaestus because Palutena and Dyntos practically are them and Demeter because Viridi pretty much is Mycenaean Demeter on steroids in a package way too small to contain all that anger within. I also don’t think her relationship with Pit and Palutena will change drastically, so she’s sitting comfortably on her friendenemy-zone.

As for already existing characters, I don’t think anyone of them could snatch the title of the big bad. Viridi is off the competition for already mentioned reasons and I don’t see anyone from Forces of Nature defecting to become the new main villain. Pyrrhon is either gone for good or went back to whatever is this world’s equivalent of Egypt to lick his wounds, so I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon - and if he’s coming, I don’t think he’s coming back as a main bad guy since he really wasn’t one to begin with. Thanatos’ only major mythological appearance is the myth of Sisyphus capturing death which doesn’t exactly strike confidence on his abilities in general and if that version of Thanatos couldn’t do his job correctly when meeting one guy too stubborn to die, do you really think that I believe our Thanatos has any chances of becoming the new big bad? Bringing back Medusa would be beating a dead horse at this point unless they really twist the formula and I don’t think that’s going to happen, so Medusa is off the competition. Pandora wasn’t all that big of a threat to begin with, so if she comes back she most likely stays that way. So it’s definitely going to be a new character, but who could it be?

As for who for sure can’t replace Hades as the new main bad, it’s Hestia. She probably has the lowest chance of any big Greek god to even appear in a possible future Kid Icarus game simply because there’s next to no material of her and that’s for a good reason. She was the goddess of hearth, domesticity, family, home and state. Most of these were and still are considered private, so that explains why there’s very little material of Hestia actually doing anything - we don’t write epic poetry about cleaning the house, making a macaroni casserole for dinner or going to bathroom and so didn’t the ancient people. With Hestia, you’re dealing with the bare bones of a character because she’s so passive and non-confrontational figure. It would be hard to make her a central figure in any kind of plot, especially for a one centered around action, so she’s out.

Hermes is also a figure I don’t think would work as a big bad or as an antagonist in general and I don’t really have any concrete reasons for why I think so. I just feel that he would be unfit for the role. He’s a trickster who started his shenanigans on the day he was born and the rest is mythology - by cunning escapades and underdog tactics he became the messenger of gods and from that point onward he kept collecting even more jobs such as becoming the god of merchants, shepherds and thieves, being a psychopomp, guiding dreams and helping heroes whenever he felt like it. He has a lot of going on but he’s always regarded as someone who knows all the tricks and isn’t afraid to use them, not all bad for a guy whose name was derived from a word meaning a pile of rocks.

As for why I think Hermes would make an terrible antagonist is mostly because of his status as the god of thieves and how it’s pretty much the easiest way to turn him into an antagonist. The thing here is that I just can’t stand antagonists whose main thing is that they’re amazing thieves and/or tricksters in games. While I think they can be enjoyable in other forms of media if they’re written on a smart way, in games this is almost never the case because gameplay and story don’t always match perfectly and writers need to use cheap tactics to make the character work - and by cheap I mean either A.I stands for artificial incompetence and the character is simply bad at being a thief/trickster despite all the characters and lore saying otherwise or that the game just starts cheating against the player to make them feel dumb even though they did nothing wrong. Thieves and tricksters are just really hard to balance in a game when it’s not the player character doing the deceiving. That perfect sweet spot for a great character is too goddamn tiny and if the thief/trickster isn’t exactly in there, you have an annoying character either because they’re incompetent at their job or because computer is a cheating bastard. So while there’s many enjoyable antagonists who share traits with Hermes, combine them all into a one character with the problems I already mentioned and most of the time you have a figure everybody hates due to how infuriating they’re to deal with. We’re trying to make people interested of going on and seeing what happens next here, not trying to annoy them to the point where they can just drop the game and never pick it up again. As for another reason I don’t think Hermes would work all that well as an antagonist is because his whole shtick is that despite his incredible powers, he still manages to be an underdog. Needless to say, the way underdogs are represented in media is vastly different from the way major antagonists are and while it can work, it’s hard to pull off. And of course there’s the thing of Hermes being portrayed almost always as a positive figure in myths, meaning that I and many others have a hard time imagining him as a bad guy. At his most evil we imagine Hermes doing stuff such as saying to his nephew that grandpa equals target practice, not anything that could threaten the world. Though if Hermes is included into the cast of a future game, I can image him having a theme that sounds similar to the BW rival theme for some reason. It has that I’m a one chipper fella but I’m also extremely busy right now so goodbye for a moment, see you soon-energy in it that I associate with Hermes.

As for what kind of role Hermes could be playing, he could work rather well as a quick cameo like Poseidon was in KI:U, where he offers help in some form. If one wants to go deeper into it, he could possibly run some service since he was the god of merchants and trade as well - though if one want to involve the fact of him being the god of thieves in addition to previously mentioned things, make him an occasional scammer because that’s what one would expect from a trickster. Or have him as a boss in a training gauntlet. Works either way.

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If Artemis was introduced into the series, I don’t think she would be antagonistic. I can totally see her having a cold personality and her being bit of a hard person to deal with, but I don’t see her being actively malicious character - only example of Artemis being overly cruel towards figures KI-characters seem to be based on would be her sending the Calydonian boar to cause chaos in Calydon. It’s interesting if you believe Magnus and Gaol are at least partially inspired by Meleager and Atalanta like I do, but I don’t think it’s enough to make Artemis an antagonist, much less the main villain so she’s off the competition. Not to say she isn't wrathful, I looked into it and her wrath far outnumbers her blessings, though it's rather messy at times and some of them even can't co-exist the ones about Orion and Callisto definitely can't but her wrath is divorced from the main KI-cast. You'd have to create new characters to excuse it and KI already has a rather large cast, so I don't think it would be all that wise to create new characters just for the sake of goddess cursing them for a plot line that's resolved in couple chapters. Maybe she’s just a cameo or possibly a boss in a training gauntlet.

Apollo would be an antagonist. I just don’t see any other way how he could be introduced into the series. He has potential to be a charismatic, funny and mostly harmless antagonist who isn’t there to cause any trouble, he just really hates Pit and only Pit. But why would he hate Pit? It’s not like the mythological Apollo dislikes Icarus or Perseus and that’s indeed true, but there’s one more thing. For a god who we associate with a celestial body mostly made out of hydrogen and helium, Apollo has extremely high levels of sodium chloride within him - which is to say that he has been salty starting from the moment Hermes robbed him that one time and that lake of salt inside him has only become larger ever since. That salt is directed at people he dislikes and while he doesn’t dislike Icarus or Perseus because he never met either of them, guess who he does dislike? Angel-like gods, or just Eros to be more specific.

The story goes that Apollo’s enormous ego took the better of him one day and so he started to mock his nephew for what he thought was mediocre use of the bow and arrow. Insulted Eros decided that Apollo had officially lost his uncle-license which led him to curse Apollo to have the worst love life imaginable, starting with Daphne. And as we all know Cupid is Roman version of Eros and Pit is named after Cupid, so this was hatred made in heaven and it would be disappointing to not use the opportunity when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And you don’t even have to come up with an detailed and intriguing story to explain why Apollo hates him - something could’ve very well happened during the three years Pit’s consciousness was in that ring. His body may have ruined Apollo’s chances to hit it off with people because it was destroying their cities or something similar. Or just leave it as a noodle incident that’s referenced multiple times, everyone wonders what the heck actually happened but only Apollo knows, refusing to tell the story because he just assumes that everyone already knows it and they’re just messing with him by pretending to not know. Either way, Apollo should be an antagonist if he’s featured in a sequel. Not a villain, definitely not the big bad but fun antagonist to deal with.

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This is something that most of you probably already know or at least you would know if you’ve actually read something other than Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or as I like to call it Jaded man screams at Emperor Augustus because apparently telling the Roman citizens to go all out on every monument the prude ever built clearly wasn’t enough, please tell me you have but Medusa isn’t an only child. She’s in fact one of Phorcys and Ceto’s seven children, both of them being somewhat monstrous primordial ocean deities - Phorcys has been described as a merman with red skin and crab claws, Ceto’s name in the other hand just literally means sea monster. Besides Medusa and the two other gorgons Stheno and Euryale, the list of their children includes the graeae sisters, serpentine dragon Ladon and Echidna, which is quite a lot of snake monsters for two deities who themselves don’t have any snake traits. There’s a lot of potential in this group but ideas of any of them becoming the new big bad end up falling apart because just like Medusa, they’re all rather bland characters like you’d expect from a mythological monster. They’re less like characters and more like plot devices that the hero needs to deal with. The only two members of this family besides Medusa who actually get to do something of importance are Ladon and Echidna and even those acts aren’t all that interesting. Echidna gets to have her many monstrous children with Typhon and then she’s apparently is killed by Argus, Hera’s servant-giant while sleeping on a cave just like her sister. Ladon guarded the garden of Hesperides which was well known for its golden apples and he doesn’t get to die with much dignity either, since Heracles just shoots him in the back and literally the next day other Argonauts find nymphs looking at his still twitching body. Alternatively Heracles just tricks Titan Atlas to do all the apple picking, which leaves Ladon alive.

Possibly one of the biggest problems writers have to deal with is setting. Ladon is very strictly tied into the garden setting and Echidna was cave dweller who never left her home, so writers would have to come with rather specific situations for them to appear. Of course if one wants to be lazy, Underworld could possibly serve as their home. It could very well house caves big enough to house a snake monster and Greek Underworld does have Elysium, which is basically Paradise and it could very well also function as a garden. But honestly even with the right setting, I don’t think either of them would make all that interesting big bads. They would definitely work fantastically as large-scale villains, but they don’t really have that much intimidation factor all things considered - you can blame Argus and Heracles for that.

But I’m not done with this family yet as there’s one character connected to them who’s probably the most feared monster of all Greco-Roman mythology and that’s Typhon, Echidna’s mate. He’s essentially an ancient Greek equivalent of a kaiju, more a destructive force of nature than a monster and everyone fears him - and by everyone, I mean everyone. There’s couple of versions of what happens but the most popular one goes that when the gods saw him, their first instinct was to shapeshift into animals and flee into Egypt. Those who did stay behind such as Hades were said to cover in fear in their homes while Typhon ravaged the land. Zeus tried to fight him but when he went for the kill, Typhon caught him and cut off his sinews, then threw him into a cave under the watch of another snake monster Delphyne. This didn’t stop Hermes and Pan from getting the sinews back and saving Zeus, and once his strength has been restored he and Typhon fought once again. Zeus eventually wearied Typhon down and then either casted him down into Tartarus or dropped a mountain on top of him, that being Mount Etna.

He could work very well as a big bad, problem here are just how high the stakes need to be for him to work. He’d had to be the ultimate villain if that was the case, the stakes need to be higher than they were with Hades. And considering how Hades was pretty much your typical pure evil villain causing chaos, what separates Typhon from him? Just some more chaos and no wisecracking dialogue because everyone is too scared to talk? He comes off as way too similar to Hades without all the fun personality. Maybe if KI:U became a KI:U-trilogy he could work as the ultimate big bad of the last game, but I got to say no otherwise. The bar for making him work is already sky-high due to how destructive he is and we don’t want to repeat the plot of Uprising here. So while he definitely can work, maybe save him for later.

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Hera and Poseidon both have potential to be serious antagonistic forces, but I don’t think they have it to be main villains. Hera simply fits the bill because most of the times she’s the antagonistic force actively trying to make people’s lives worse, all because she can’t direct her anger at correct people. Some times she’s just blatantly evil, like how she imprisoned her own daughter Eileithyia or you may better know her as Lucina to prevent the birth of Artemis and Apollo or how she tricked her pregnant great-granddaughter into disintegrating herself Semele is her great-granddaughter by the way. As for examples of Hera being wrathful which don’t involve Zeus being horny, she was said to be the one who sent Sphinx to Thebes, no reason given why or if there’s one, I couldn’t find it. Works either way.

Because she might as well be the personification of divine wrath, it’s pretty easy to see why one would think she would make a great villain. However that wrath also gives us a big problem, it being that her evil escapades are mostly rooted on anger and spite - while wrath is a good driving force for a villain, it needs more to work. With Hades, he does evil things for fun and is having a blast while doing it. Hera on the other hand just rages and most of the times it’s because of Zeus, who seems to be out of the picture. She’s not there to have fun and when you add her general lack of charisma on the top, you don’t end up with the most endearing character. While wrath can serve as a character motivation, it can become stale very quickly and this means that unless the story regarding villainy her is short (as in solved in 1-3 chapters) it starts to feel like dragging. I overall think that Hera does have very low chances to appear in general, but if she does appear as an antagonist she should preferably be a minor one in the same way Viridi was. You know the meme of what makes villain a supervillain and the answer is presentation? Hera doesn’t have that presentation. Writers can certainly just give her that which is what they did with Hades whose mythological counterpart was more or less a basement dweller, but why go trough all that trouble when there’s so many better candidates to work with?

On to Poseidon, who’s an important figure in the founding myth of Athens - it’s honestly quite odd how it’s never mentioned in any shape or form in KI:U despite Palutena being based on Athena. But then again, considering how much “care” this series put on the names of its cities and towns, this being ignored doesn’t really surprise me even if it does disappoint. He was a really big deal during the Mycenaean period, besides being the god of ocean he was also seen as the head god and the ruler of the Underworld. Then the Late Bronze Age collapse happened and Poseidon was nerfed in the lack of better words - during the Dark Age, Zeus became the new head god and Hades popped seemingly out of nowhere, taking over Poseidon’s role as the god ruling the Underworld. On the other news Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is somewhat dwarfed by the fact that most of his escapades involve banging and they don’t really feature any figures the main cast of KI seem to be based on. It’s annoying because he does so much but because it’s mostly banging people and either helping or bullying very specific heroes, it’s just not something that’s all that relevant in the context of KI. But there’s couple myths and stories that would make him an easy bad guy, first one is that of Atlantis - and we’re going to jump straight to the source material because on it’s core, it’s technically just another tale of Athena and Poseidon having a conflict. Fish people under the sea is fun as well, but by using the source directly it gives us the most potential.

So Plato tells in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias that when Athenian statesman Solon visited Egypt, he found some interesting records about certain events during 10th millennium BCE and translated them into Greek. Only thing here that’s true is Solon visiting Egypt, everything else was made up Plato - if you need more proof, know that 10th millennium BCE was during the stone age for context, Britain wasn’t sharing a land border with just France, but also with Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark during this time. It was that far into the past. As for the actual story, it begins by gods choosing lots of land for themselves and Poseidon chooses Atlantis. He then falls in love with a mortal woman Cleito, builds her a luxurious home, they have five sets of twin boys together and once the kids have all grown up, they divide Atlantis into ten parts and so is born ten different lineages of kings. But by each generation the kings become more and more human, meaning that it’s much more easier for their wealthy lifestyle to hit them in the head - compare that to Athenians in the story, who’re not tempted by luxuries and have quite Spartan lifestyle interestingly enough. This wealthy lifestyle of the Atlanteans quickly leads into colonialism and war mongering, leading into them trying to take over the Mediterranean but they’re are stopped by Athens because naval warfare was the only type of warfare Athenians actually excelled at. Zeus eventually looks down to see what the heck is going on and then tells Poseidon to do something because this racket is technically speaking all his fault. Poseidon agrees, causes an earthquake and then sweeps Atlantis under his rug, that being the ocean. So Atlantis is pretty much an antithesis of a perfect society, a concept that’s discussed more in Republic and the lesson here is that being consumed by hubris in the search of luxury leads to ruin - but since we’re not here for philosophy lessons, let’s forget all of that and think what kind of plot one could craft out of this mess.

Island nation in search of wealth is a good set-up for some action, so I don’t think there’s much that needs changing. Have Atlanteans attack some cities which alerts Palutena and that leads Pit into a mission in which he tries to tell Poseidon what’s going on. After 2-5 chapters of war against Atlanteans, Poseidon deals with the problem either willingly or by force - whether he just destroys the place or makes Atlanteans full on aquatic folk who can’t survive on land meaning that they have to give up the conquest is up to writers. It’s honestly quite refreshing to have the original tale working so well, because usually everything related to Atlantis in media is so divorced from what Plato told. Sure, a submerged city full of fish people could still work but by using the original tale as base we get a story with clear beginning and end which makes perfect sense in context of KI. Or maybe have the a plotline inspired by the original story first and then later have something related to the submerged city with the fish people. Best of both worlds, amazing!

Also orichalcum, the metal Atlanteans were said to have aplenty, is pretty much just copper. Reddish metal and only gold is more valuable than it, it couldn't be anything else but copper. The term even translates into mountain copper! So why is it never portrayed as copper in fiction?

Besides Atlantis, Poseidon has couple other myths I’d like to talk about too. The first one has him and Apollo losing their divine authority for a while and as punishment they have to serve Trojan king Laomedon father of king Priam and grandfather of Hector among some others if you’re wondering. The king makes them to build the legendary walls of Troy and he promises them great rewards, but once he doesn’t deliver them Apollo sends the plague upon Troy and then Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize the place Heracles kills it if you’re wondering. There’s also certain another situation which I’ve actually already talked about on a different post and how with little shaking it could work nicely on a future game - what I said was that Pit should do something Poseidon is going to hate to the point that the god is screaming for his head and that he wants to settle things on court.

The myth I used as reference was that of the supposed first trial in history, in which Ares kills Poseidon’s son Halirrhothius for assaulting his daughter and Poseidon loses his marbles over it. The gods gathered on Areopagus which is a real place in Athens, fun fact and I’ve heard two versions of how the trial goes. In the first version everyone agrees that Ares’ actions were justified and in the second one gods side with Poseidon, but goddesses side with Ares and since there was more goddesses present than gods, their words mattered more. Either way, Poseidon loses the trial and Ares gets away scot-free.

Were a future KI-game do their own twist with this myth, Pit would obviously take the role of Ares. Besides the fact that we’re trying to make Poseidon more antagonistic, Pit just being on a situation similar as Ares makes sense thematically speaking and I’m going to talk more about this later since it’s rather interesting. As for why the trial happens in the first place, it could very well be over anything. Maybe mix it with the one where Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize Troy just replace Troy with some unimportant city as this series always does and he’s so attached to it that seeing it getting slayed deeply saddens and angers him. You don’t even need to get rid of the idea that it was over a girl, even if the motive for killing the monster is changed along with what kind of relationship the girl could possibly have with the main cast. This is something I’ll get back into later because there’s in fact one other character who I’d like to talk about and how their most cruel and personal form of villainy happens to bound to a certain girl.

So back to Hera and Poseidon. There’s definitely potential for them to be antagonistic, but I’d say they would work much better as arc villains rather than as the main bad guy. There’s only so many things you can do with characters whose actions are rooted on anger or wrath, especially when they don’t have all that striking personalities.

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As for someone who could well work as the big bad, Dionysus is the first serious candidate. It’s partially due to how inconsistent his characterization has been, which I guess is something one should expect from a figure who has been around since the Mycenaean times and who happens to be the god of insanity, vegetation, orchards, fruit, grape-harvest, winemaking and wine. Does this sound like someone you’d expect to be a member of Forces of Nature? Because it sure does for me and I’d honestly be surprised if he wasn’t one if he was introduced to the franchise.

Symbolism behind Dionysus’ birth is pretty neat, my favorite version of it is the one written down by Diodorus of Sicily in Bibliotheca Historica and in that one Demeter is his mother. It starts the usual way in which the poor kid is killed shortly after his birth by Titans and Demeter comes back just in time to gather his remains to allow his rebirth shortly after. It references the harvest process and wine making - the god wine is born from the union of rain and earth just any plant is, he’s torn apart and boiled alive symbolizing the harvesting and wine-making process, his remains represent the fallen bare vines which become fertilizer for the earth and lastly wine itself is supposed symbolize the now reborn Dionysus. All of the versions of his birth myth do have this symbolism to a certain degree but I’d say this version has it the strongest because unlike his other the mother candidates, Demeter is a nature goddess first and foremost and also the goddess of agriculture.

This next point is somewhat tied to the previous one which is that he actually has valid reasons for his absence, that being his meanderings. Long story short - Hera’s angry over the fact that he exists, she injects him with madness and he wanders around like a madman for a while, then Rhea cures said madness and tells him to go on a journey so he could teach people how to make wine. So he goes and wanders around the world with the exception of Britain and Ethiopia for some reason teaching people the art of winemaking and does some other things in the meanwhile, such as apparently founding a city it’s told that on his campaign Alexander the Great came across a city that was supposedly founded by Dionysus. And this is a fun fact, apparently Dionysus’ popularity exploding around late 4th century BCE can be directly linked into Alexander, which is pretty neat. Once he comes back home he firmly establishes his place as a god and then he starts doing shenanigans much more familiar to us, such as giving king Midas his golden touch and marrying Ariadne.

So why do I think Dionysus is the first real contender for a possible new big bad? Well, do you know what’s the first thing he did once he came back to Greece? According to Bacchae, he brainwashed a city to worship him, caused an earthquake, set a palace on fire, gleefully watched when his worshipers teared a man into pieces and then turned some other people into serpents. Now that’s an entrance Viridi would be proud of!

Besides this, there’s also two similar stories in which Dionysus meets some pirates and they both show him as an unhinged god. They capture him and in the first one Dionysus shapeshifts into a lion and unleashes a bear against his captors, causing the scared pirates to abandon the ship and then Dionysus turns them into dolphins. In the other one he turns the mast and oars into snakes, fills the ship with ivy and the sound of flutes to make the pirates go mad and once again when they abandon the ship, Dionysus turns them into dolphins. The tale of him giving Midas his golden touch could also count as him being antagonistic since the act gives Midas nothing but suffering. So while he is much more friendly towards humans than your average god, Dionysus definitely has an antagonistic flare deep inside him and a place in the Forces of Nature and you can’t change my mind.

If Dionysus was a major antagonist or the big bad, I could see the plot going a lot like this - he comes home, causes some racket because he feels neglected, Viridi is happy about all of this and tries to control it while keeping him on this state of mind because who wants a happy party guy when you can have a chaotic deity, for a while she can do it but not for long before things snowball out of control and he becomes an unhinged god dead set on causing chaos. As for how he’s defeated, I can’t really come up with anything concrete on a fly but I don’t think Dionysus would be defeated the same way Hades was. And while he has the personality and presentation needed for a main antagonist, I just can’t see him as a pure evil villain like Hades was. He’s very much redeemable in my eyes and as for what happens to him after his defeat, I could see it leading to him mellowing down kind of like how Greek wine was watered down before it was used for anything - he’s still part of Forces of Nature and perfectly capable of doing all the same stuff he did as a major antagonist, but he would prefer partying with humans over destroying them. Viridi probably isn’t going to be all too happy about this, but it’s not like she’s going to be all that angry about it either.

Also fun fact at the end - in Dionysiaca, Ariadne laments if Eros and Anteros hate her because she had amazing dream about a wedding, only for Theseus to piss off and abandon her on Naxos. But as we all know, she would soon meet Dionysus who she does end up marrying so hey, the dream just wasn’t about the guy she thought she would marry. So if Dionysus isn’t going to be the big bad and the arc devoted to his villainy is relatively short, this could very well be used as a blueprint for a funny side story. Ariadne lamenting about Eros and Anteros would give Pit and Dark Pit valid reasons to be there.

This is not a joke, by the way. The part of Underworld which wasn't either Elysium or Tartarus was commonly referred as "the House of Hades" in ancient texts.

As for someone else who could also work quite well as the big bad, that would be Persephone. You all know the drill with her - Hades takes her, Demeter panics and goes to search her, she causes the Mediterranean summer on the meanwhile and does a thing which looks awful without context Demeter sets a baby on fire which is supposed to make him immortal if you’re wondering, everyone else decides that enough is enough because endless Mediterranean summer is a nightmare, they beg for Hades to give her back and he does that but not before the pomegranate trick. Demeter causes Mediterranean winter to come, the trouble is solved, we have a nice functional couple in our hands and they continue to appear together when Underworld is relevant to the plot - which surprisingly isn’t all that often as only Adonis, Heracles, Theseus who loses his arse and friend in the process, Orpheus who loses his wife and will to live in the process, Odysseys, Psyche and Aeneas managed to go to Underworld and back. That’s not really all that much all things considered.

And before anyone says anything about seasons here - Mediterranean climate is a thing and it’s best known for its hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. One of these is much more preferable for plant life and in this case, it’s not summer. The more you know.

While there’s not much material of her when compared some other people in this list, I’d say there’s enough to create a frame for a character. In both Theogony and Iliad Persephone is described as dreaded and in Odyssey Odysseus assumes Persephone is the one sending ghosts to torture him while he’s visiting the Underworld. Just like Hades she has her fair share of vague epithets like Despoina (mistress) and Kore (maiden), presumably for the same reason as to avoid getting her attention. And while the etymology behind her actual name is rather muddied, the popular theories are that it means something in the vain of to destroy, to bring/cause death and she who brings destruction. And people have the gall to say she isn’t scary!

With this info and Hades’ characterization from KI:U in mind, you could very easily create a powerful pure evil villain who’s not going to be happy to learn what happened to her husband. As for why I believe she would be pure evil instead of redeemable one like Dionysus, it’s simply so she and Hades would match on their villainy. Considering how the big thing about Hades and Persephone is that they genuinely love each other to the point of possessiveness Pirithous and Minthe learned it the hard way, it would be weird if they hadn’t rubbed on each other during the time they were together. There’s an amazing chance for drama here and it would be dumb to ignore it when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And besides, unholy matrimonies are quite fun in fiction. Villains too have something they love.

As for attempts of villainy that don’t revolve around her being antsy at Pit about Hades, we interestingly need to look at the list of those she granted favors rather than those that had to deal with her wrath - or just one of them in particular, Psyche. As I’ve already mentioned she was one of those mortals who managed to go to Underworld and back and to make things better, she went to Underworld specifically so she could speak to Persephone. Persephone greets her with a nice cushion to sit on and a banquet, which Psyche declines because it’s a trap this is practically just the pomegranate trick on a larger scale. She tells why she came into the Underworld in the first place and Persephone fulfills her request, which is to say that she gives Psyche boxed death.

Coming to Underworld to speak to Persephone in particular definitely gives Psyche an edge compared to others when it comes to exploring Persephone’s potential villainy. But just why is Psyche such a big deal when compared to someone else like Orpheus, Adonis or Aeneas? Well, Psyche just happens to be the girl who would become the goddess of soul, a job that isn’t currently filled by anyone in KI-universe which Hades has kindly illustrated to us in KI:U by eating and repurposing souls for his own purposes. She’s also Eros’ wife with the addition of being the mother of his daughter and as we all know at this point, Pit is mostly inspired by Eros. While Persephone just being angry about her husband’s treatment makes a perfectly fine motivation, why not use the chance when it has been represented to us on a golden platter? Because while KI has a large cast of characters, most them are quite divorced from one another when it comes to their mythological counterparts interacting with each other. This subverts it since Persephone actually gets to interact with someone important to the figure Pit’s inspired of, which is more than almost anyone else in this list can say. The opportunity is there and there’s an open position for a new god, so why not take it?

Also if Persephone is going to be in a future game, I say I’m going to be so disappointed if there's not at least one pun about her epithet Kore. Like imagine if she was introduced on a chapter called Lost Kore or something similar and then the characters would just continue on making bad puns, annoying her. Wouldn’t be too out of line when it comes to this series humor.

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I know what I’m going to say next is probably going to be controversial, but anyway - if Ares ever makes an appearance, I don’t think he would be a bad guy and this is mostly due to how Pit has been characterized. I know that may sound weird at first but trust me, I do actually have a point with this.

So let’s start with something that may seem completely unrelated at first, these being a history lesson and some talk about over-demonization. We honestly don’t know much about how some city states worshiped gods and what specific versions of the myths they had because some people just couldn’t be bothered to write things down. Besides it being extremely annoying for me, this is also probably where the misconception of all of ancient Greece being either like Athens or Sparta came from, which just is completely false. However what is correct is that city states didn’t really like one another all that much and often engaged on stupid wars with each other, only uniting when there was a much bigger threat looming on the horizon - and with war comes propaganda and when only some people write things down, we’re usually left with really one-sided information when it comes to both good and bad. For one example of this coming off as hilariously hypocritical to me is Athena being worshiped under the epithet Areia in Athens. Areia is very obviously derived from Ares and means warlike, but Athenians had their heads so far in their arses that they came up with a reasoning that this version of the epithet is actually derived from areô or areskô, meaning to propriate or atone for. It’s most likely just some crap Athenians came up with to excuse the worship of Athena Areia, which I just can’t help but find pathetically funny - you can only blame your own propaganda for this, guys.

Historically speaking Ares most likely originates from Thrace since besides his popularity in there Herodotus notes in Histories that only gods from Olympian Pantheon that Thracians worshiped were Ares, Artemis and Dionysus, a really odd trio if I have to say so myself, it’s also said to be his birthplace in the myths. His name can be found on Linear B scripts, a writing system that goes as far back as 1450 BCE and which disappeared during the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1100 BCE. This informs us that he was part of the Mycenaean Pantheon in some way, most likely even then as a war god - it also informs us that he predates gods such as Apollo, Hades and Aphrodite who just don’t exist in Mycenaean texts at least in any recognizable forms. As for Ares during the Archaic, Classical and Hellenic period, especially when it came to places that weren’t either Athens/Attica or Sparta, I had to mostly rely on travelers who wrote things they saw down because some people just didn’t bother to write their own stuff down. Pausanias’ Description of Greece was especially helpful with the research, but what must be remembered is that he lived during 2nd century CE and that he was an outsider to these cultural aspects so how old some of this stuff here is and what the exact context behind it was, I don’t know and neither do others at least currently, one sure can hope so we know more in the future. Then again past is another country so maybe I'm setting my hopes way too high. When given anything in Linear A, people channel their best "I never learned how to read!"-impression.

As for how Ares’ Roman counterpart Mars came to be, it’s mostly due to syncretization. He probably was originally an agricultural god who was later associated with warfare once the Roman Republic started expanding. It’s possible that he was syncretized with an Etruscan deity called Maris, who was usually portrayed as a young boy whose caregiver was Menrva, a goddess who was later identified with Athena and Minerva. While this isn’t an universally agreed take, it’s still pretty interesting in context of Kid Icarus even if it wasn’t intentional or in the case of the take, true. Once Romans started to interact with Greek settlers from Magna Graecia Mars was syncretized with Ares, giving us the Roman god that looks familiar to us. One notable thing to keep in mind is that most of those Greek settlers in Magna Graecia originated from Peloponnese and what I’ve managed to find, they held Ares on much more higher regard than those originating from Attica did.

Okay, now when that has been cleaned out of the way, let’s go to the slightly more interesting stuff which is cult titles and epithets. Just like any other god he has his fair share of both, some examples include Teichesipletes (stormer of cities/walls), Hippius (horseman, of the horses), Theritas (beastly/brutish), Enyalius (warlike), Obrimus (strong/mighty), Thurus (violent/furious), Chrysopelex (of the golden helm) and Chalcocorustes (armed with bronze). I’m using Latin spelling of these to make things easier for myself if you’re wondering. But there’s two titles I specifically want to talk about, both them originating from Arcadia around Tegea because apparently all the cool stuff happens in Arcadia.

Interestingly also in Tegea there was a temple of Athena under epithet Alea. Pausanias tells that her priest there was a boy who held the title until he reached puberty, meaning that her priest was a child. Now this has nothing to do with Ares, but it’s pretty interesting when thinking of Pit. It’s not exactly same for sure, but could this mean that he would leave Palutena if he ever grew up?

The first one is Gynaecothoenas, meaning “Feasted by women” - and no need to worry, it’s nowhere near as sexual as it sounds. The story goes that Tegeteans were at war with Sparta and what decided the victory was an ambush by Tegetean women. Because of this, they offered Ares a sacrifice and celebrated the victory alone. The king of the Spartans at the time was said to be Charilaus, meaning that this victory must have happened around early-to-mid 8th century BCE, making this rather old cult title by the time Pausanias was writing. If only the research for everything else here could’ve been as easy as this.

The other and much more interesting title was Aphneius, meaning “Abundant” and under this title he was worshiped as the giver of food or abundance. The story behind this title goes that Ares fell in love with Tegetean princess Aerope and they had a child together, but she died during childbirth. Ares, doing his damndest to keep his son alive, managed to find a way for the baby to still have milk. Once he grew up, his son Aeropus then managed to do the thing that’s near impossible for a demigod, which is to live a normal life as the lord of Tegea. Now this would make a great character backstory…

… What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, history lesson is over! Finally! Now into the fun stuff, which is Pit’s characterization. It’s pretty common knowledge at this point that that Pit’s inspirations are Icarus, Perseus and Eros but when it comes to his characterization, Eros definitely takes the cake as the main inspiration. He is a fully realized character with multiple myths under his wing, unlike Icarus or Perseus.

Starting with Icarus, he isn’t even a character but a plot device. He’s a tool for Daedalus’ character development and that’s where his importance ends. He’s a miniscule part on a much larger narrative in which the most important part is the Minotaur, as it drives the plot for everything else in it. Icarus’ death serves to drive Daedalus’ character to the point which eventually leads into him killing Minos. He exists for a metaphor that pop-culture has blown out to be way more important than it originally was and that’s it.

As for Perseus… The guy is just really bland. While all the other heroes have their flaws like hubris and wrath, Perseus doesn’t really have any flaws. He doesn’t have that many achievements in either bravery or stupidity due to his method of dealing with things being the quickest way possible. This makes all of his battles extremely boring and because he’s one of the first demigod heroes in the mythological timeline, he doesn’t even get to interact with anyone who could be interesting. How many of you even know that he’s supposed be the founding hero of Mycenae? Not many, I’m sure about that. The most interesting thing about the guy his that he’s an ancestor to people such as Tyndareus, Alcheme, Heracles, Penelope and Telemachus but this doesn’t save him from being any less boring. He's that famous ancestor nobody gives a damn, so to speak. Pit certainly doesn’t get any part of his personality from a plot device or a blank of wood, only a literary reference and an antagonist.

Also can I quickly rant about the Angels in art vs. Angels in Bible meme because I hate it? For some reason most of times when people show art of these supposed angels, they aren’t even showing biblical angels but Erotes/Amores or Nike/Victoria instead. Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria are winged Greco-Roman gods, not biblical angels and using art of them proves absolutely nothing. Also you may have forgotten that there’s in fact hierarchy of angels and not all of them look identical. In Christian faith angelic hierarchy is composed of three orders, there being nine different kinds of angels - Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophanim/Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels. Seraphim and Cherubim do indeed look terrifying and so do Ophanim, but Thrones are just bizarre because apparently they’re elderly carrying God’s throne, whatever that means also I’ve seen people use Ophanim and Thrones interchangeably which just makes the whole deal even bigger of a mess. And then there’s Dominions, who’re just really pretty winged people, proving that the idea of all biblical angels looking terrifying is completely false. I couldn’t find what Virtues looked like, but if they’re anything like Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels they’re most likely pretty winged humanoids. So yeah, surprising amount of biblical angels are indeed just pretty winged humanoids and only the highest order of them is clearly inhuman - so if you ever wondered why so many angels in art actually featuring Biblical angels have them looking so humanlike, now you know! It's not the highest rank's job to interact with the human world. Though in modern language, the term angel is simply used as an umbrella term which refers into a winged humanoid being regardless of which religion they originated from - so by using this as a frame, it would indeed make Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria angels along with some other winged gods such as Eos and Iris. This would also make Iris’ twin sister Arke a fallen angel because as punishment for siding with the Titans during Titanomachy, she was casted into Tartarus and her wings were ripped off so she could never escape from there. And then much later her wings are given as a wedding gift to Achilles’ parents, my god! You could actually a craft a plot out of this, hmmm. When it comes Pit and Dark Pit, I do think they’re angels only on this broad, modern way definition due to them being mostly inspired by the Greco-Roman Erotes/Amores and it’s possible that they’re only referred as angels because not only is the term Erotes/Amores is strictly associated with Aphrodite and only Aphrodite, it's also much more specialized term than just "angel". There has also been cases in art featuring multiple Nikes, but Nike's special role as the goddess of victory still prevents its use as a broad term. So I believe that in the case of KI, angel is just an useful umbrella term and nothing more.

So Pit’s mostly an Eros-expy when it comes to his personality and attributes, so what makes him so special when compared to many other Eros-expies in media? It’s actually a surprisingly small thing, but boy does it make a difference - on a thematic sense, Pit’s a total daddy’s boy and in this case the dad would be Ares. Most of the Eros-expies you see in media are completely divorced from anything related to Ares despite the guy being Eros’ dad but not in Kid Icarus, where we have a very blatant Eros-expy whose connections to his main mythological inspiration come almost exclusively from Ares. Just why is Pit doing Nike’s job? Because Nike happens to be Ares’ daughter according to some sources, like in the Homeric hymn dedicated to him. Why’s he a soldier in an army? Because Ares was a soldier and in some parts of Greece he was seen as a model of a perfect one who’s resilient and has physical strength that isn’t matched by anyone else. Apparently in Sparta they even had a statue of shacked Ares, supposedly as an attempt to keep the martial spirit and victory in Sparta I don’t know about you but for me this sounds like a very bad move, as if they were asking for the god’s wrath. Then again Athenians did the same thing with wingless Nike, so I guess it was fine in some twisted way. Why does Dark Pit exist? Because would you know it, there’s myth in which Ares and Aphrodite spot lonely little Eros and decide to create Anteros to be his brother, their only differences being hair, wings and weapons of choice Anteros has longer hair, plumed butterfly wings, golden club and lead arrows when compared to Eros' golden bow + both golden and lead arrows. Why does Magnus possibly being based on Meleager matter? Because would you know it, the dude’s sometimes a son of Ares. Why did he spend three years trapped inside a ring? It could parallel the tale of Ares and the giants, in which he spent a lunar year trapped inside a jar. Why does a dog help him during that section? It could still very well be reference Ares and the giants as Hermes and Artemis came to save him and one of Artemis’ sacred animals is a dog and Hermes is the god guard dogs. Also one of Ares’ sacred animals is dog as well, meaning that it could reference this as well. Honestly if Pit ends up having a divine parent and it’s not Ares, I call bullcrap.

So now when that has been made clear, what can writers do with Ares? Well if you take the myth of Poseidon wanting to settle things on court and give it to Pit, you end up losing one of his three major myths in which he’s wrathful towards someone odd I know, you’d probably expect a god of war to be much more wrathful but no, he’s not. The two ones that are left don’t really give all that great material either because in the first one, the target is Adonis and whether it even was Ares’ wrath that killed him is left open - in some versions it’s Artemis who wants him dead because she’s angry at Aphrodite for causing the situation which lead to the death of her hunter Hippolytus, sometimes it’s Apollo who still hasn’t forgiven Aphrodite for blinding his son Erymanthus, occasionally it’s Persephone of all people because she’s angry at Adonis for wanting so spend time with Aphrodite and at times it’s just an accident this all makes me think it was an elaborate coup. There’s always a reason for a divine being to be angry at Aphrodite because she just can’t help but cause trouble whenever she can. When it comes to the second one, it’s honestly pretty odd because not only does Ares forgive the man who originally was the target of his wrath, it illustrates how good of a parent he is on Olympian standards not that it’s a high bar but anyway - even better than the lady whose favorite boytoy he is, and she’s well known for being an overprotective parent.

The myth starts with this lad called Cadmus, who founds the city of Thebes, becomes its king and then kills a dragon residing on a nearby spring. Ares is furious about this since the dragon was sacred to him and apparently it’s sometimes his son, don't know how that works and as punishment, Cadmus has to serve Ares for eight years he got it easy when compared to Adonis and Halirrhothius. Once that service is over, Cadmus marries one of the two daughters of Ares and Aphrodite, this being Harmonia, the goddess of harmony. However not everything is all sunshine and rainbows because Hephaestus is still salty about how his marriage with Aphrodite went south and once he hears about a wedding, he prepares two gifts for the bride - first one was a beautiful necklace that could keep its wearer eternally youthful and the other one was a luxurious robe. But there was a catch, since both of these objects were cursed to bring bad luck to those who owned them. The bad luck eventually took its take on Cadmus’ mental state and one day he remarked that if gods fancied those serpents so much, maybe his life would be so much better as one. Gods fulfill this wish, he’s turned into a serpent and once Harmonia notices what has happened, she wishes the same. At one point Dionysus comes to the city, trashes the place and then gives them a propechy of this happening. Either way, Ares comes down to get the unlucky couple and then scoots them to safety in paradise-like Elysium, where they get to reside from now on.

You may already be familiar with this myth to a certain degree because Pokemon B/W could technically count as an adaptation of it. N is of course the most obvious parallel due to him getting his second name from Harmonia and Ghetsis takes a role comparable to Hephaestus. It all becomes even funnier because Harmonia hits some characteristics associated with yin - she’s passive, feminine figure who represents harmony which can only exist due to lack of action, an idea. It gains even more hilarity points thanks to existence of Adrestia, Harmonia’s sister and the goddess of revolt - she’s pretty much yang to Harmonia’s yin and to make things even more hilarious, she was often portrayed as a beautiful winged maiden. Now who would expect the goddess of revolt to be a lovely winged lady and the goddess of harmony to be at least momentarily a serpent?

While this is indeed an interesting myth, I don’t think it would make all great material for future KI-game, at least on its current form. The cast of KI doesn’t really get to interact with humans on a personal level, which is something this myth largely relies on. Honestly, I think the best way it could be referenced in game would be just Pit going to Elysium and meeting Harmonia still trapped on a draconic form. Considering the way Hades had been characterized in KI:U, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had just kept trapped Harmonia as a pet lizard in his garden. Maybe say something on the vain of him eating the husband’s soul or using it for something else to explain why she’s there all by herself. And if you want to make fun of the fact that the fourth wall might as well not exist, throw Adrestia in Elysium as well as a dragon as a nod to Pokemon. “The Twin Dragonesses of Elysium” sounds like it would make a very cool boss fight.

So a wrath or blessing, Ares gives us not much to work with either of those at least when it comes to him actually doing stuff - but that doesn’t mean we’re left with nothing because there’s three myths that I’ve glossed over quickly that could give us something, one just for comedy and two others actual plot. As for the one that’s just for comedy, it’s the one in which Sisyphus captures Thanatos. Ares is actually the one to save Thanatos from the tough situation since after it has continued for a month, he bursts into Sisyphus’ house, frees Thanatos and drags Sisyphus’ spirit to the Underworld… Only for him to come up with a sad story, which leads into Persephone letting him go only for it to backfire. Ares then disappears from the story, but it ends up with Sisyphus doing P.E for eternity in Tartarus once he dies for real as you all already know. This is pretty funny if a bit morbid myth, so it could be really easy to use it as a comedy goldmine if Ares ever interacted with Thanatos. Maybe have Thanatos trying to act like they’re friends, only for Ares to become more and more frustrated the longer Thanatos continues. Maybe once he mentions some of his escapades involving Pit, Ares finally decides that enough is enough and shows to Thanatos that mortals don’t call him by the name Thurus for nothing.

To the myths you could get some serious plot out of, the first one is very predictably the one in which he earns the title Aphneius. It just has everything a great character backstory needs on its original form, meaning that it could easily be inserted on the game with minimal changes and it could still work fantastically. It has a romance between a god and a mortal which ends up on a tragedy during a moment that was supposed to be joyous not because of any divine whim or I guess it could’ve been Aphrodite being salty because she has a habit of releasing her wrath upon Ares’ loved ones or relatives, usually grandchildren such as Hippolytus, but I think it would’ve been written down had the story actually said it was Aphrodite behind Aerope’s death, but because of something beyond their control. And instead of taking his frustrations on the baby like so many fathers in these stories do, he instead does everything to keep him alive and so Aeropus grows up to be fine ruler, if an unremarkable demigod. A writer could easily use Aeropus as a base for an interesting heroic character… And I guess you can already see where this is going. I already said that Ares would make the most sense as Pit’s divine parent if he indeed has one, so this would make an excellent backstory if that was the case.

I could see the timeline going something like this if this was true - Ares meets KI-universe’s equivalent of Aerope, the two have an adorable romance and are expecting a kid but something goes horribly wrong and Aerope dies, instead of letting Aerope’s family to take care of the kid Ares takes the baby with him because who knows what they would do to a winged baby so many myths have families abandoning their kids for dumber reasons than this so why wouldn’t he take the kid with him + this dude had 3-6 winged kids, one all by himself, so he definitely is the one hogging all the wing genes instead of Aphrodite, he tries single parenting but it’s hard when certain goddess is constantly shooting stinkeyes and paralyzing glares at his direction and it leads into him asking help from Palutena because a winged kid wouldn’t look too out of place among her angel minions. Considering how Palutena and Poseidon were capable of having a conversation in KI:U without any horrible atrocities being committed, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to imagine her relationship with Ares being along your typical sibling-relationship rather than what Atheanians wrote down Ares and Athena were actually worshiped together in the town of Olympia under titles Hippius and Hippias, fun fact. You could also see it as a favor inspired by how Menrva took care of Maris. Anyway, this deal goes swimmingly for a while until the events of a certain other myth take place, which makes Palutena the sole caregiver of Pit - some unspecified amount of time later que the events of the original Kid Icarus and onward.

Fanfic time over, now to the other myth which could explain Ares’ absence - it’s the one about him and the giants. Long story short, there’s these two giants called Ephialtes (derived from the word meaning nightmare) and Otus (either derived from the word meaning insatiate, doom or horned owl) who’re sons of Poseidon because of course they are, goddammit Poseidon and a mortal woman Iphimedeia, they’re also called by the name Aloadae. They were planning to storm into Olympus to kidnap some wives for themselves, Otus wanting Artemis and Ephialtes wanting Hera what great choices, you complete imbeciles, absolutely amazing. So one day Olympians are surprised to find these two giants piling up mountains on top one another and as expected, there’s a big fight between them because no one comes to the Olympian home turf without facing the consequences. Once the two giants finally leave, the Olympians notice that someone is missing, that being Ares. Ephialtes and Otus probably realized way too late that kidnapping the god of war wasn’t the brightest idea and because letting him go wasn’t an option, they locked him inside bronze jar of which he tried to break out without success. It took around a lunar year for the giants stepmother to rat this out to Hermes, who went to save Ares with Artemis. While she distracted the giants and made them throw their spears at each other, Hermes lockpicked Ares out of the jar and so the three returned to Olympus.

So how could this myth be used while crafting a plot for a future game? I’d say it depends on whether writers want to use Ares as a full-blown good guy from the start or as an antagonist at first - and while I do still believe that Ares wouldn’t be a bad guy on his own free will, who said he’s going to burst out of that jar with that free will still intact? It’s not like we haven’t seen brainwashed antagonists in the series before, Gaol was a one.

So if we have Ares as an antagonist who’s brainwashed and crazy, how could the possible plot be handled? I could see it starting with the two giants resurfacing for something trivial but because they’re being destructive, it catches the attention of Palutena who sends Pit down to deal with them. The giants are dealt with in 1-3 chapters and one way or another Pit finds a large jar and breaks it, releasing the crazed Ares. Neither side recognizes each other and there’s possibly a boss fight which ends with Ares leaving and him becoming a wandering antagonist who causes racket when someone angers him. He most likely isn’t connected to any other antagonist or the main villain, but I could see them trying to recruit him without any success. As for how he was brainwashed in the first place, it could be the Aloadae wanting to get some use out of their prisoner and they decided to make him into an indestructible living weapon either to themselves or someone else - maybe it even was commissioned by the big bad because who wouldn’t want an powerful living weapon who’s loyal to you and only you. Either way it proves fruitless as Pit frees Ares from the mind control and slowly but surely he starts to establish himself as a good guy and an ally to Pit and Palutena.

This would actually go pretty well along with a certain another thing about Ares, that being helmet and symbolism connected to it - you see, mythological Ares was often portrayed to have something I like to call Meta Knight-syndrome. He was said to be a beautiful man with a lovely face, apparently much more prettier than any other male Olympian which could possibly explain why he’s Aphrodite’s favorite boytoy and he wasn’t particularly proud of it - just what kind of self-respecting enemy would take you seriously if you have a face of an angel? But that didn’t stop people from drawing or sculpting him without a helmet, and the result were indeed pretty my goodness is Ludovisi Ares a one beautiful sculpture. Just considering how the art we see of Ares can be categorized into him either with or without a helmet, writers could easily craft a narrative out of this - while wearing a helmet he’s under mind control and once freed he fights helmetless, allowing player to see him as who he really is. Helmet obscuring the face equals bad guy and once it cracks, we can have a very confused ally who cries over the fact that his baby is a big boy now, cries some more because there’s two of them now, may or may not join us to missions if there’s a two-player mode for story or just help with training and also maybe cracks dad jokes few times because humor is a valid coping mechanism. This all kind of reminds me how one other popular trend relating to Ares in art was to have him disarmed with young Eros playing with his armor. Cute!

Somewhat relating to the idea of Ares starting as a brainwashed antagonist turned ally once the helmet is smashed, I could see him having two different themes which illustrate the different natures of him. First one should be something brooding and terrifying, maybe something similar to Gustav Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War which a really great piece of classical music that has inspired composers all around the world, even at Nintendo. If you haven’t heard it, you certainly have heard at least one song inspired by it metal genre can thank its existence on Mars, no kidding. As for the other theme, I think it should be a warm, calm and welcoming one with a hint of sadness, a complete opposite of the battle theme when it comes to the first expression. I’ve been recently listening a lot of TSFH and Hans Zimmer so if I had to say what kind of energy I’d want this possible theme to have, I’d probably say something between TSFH’s Friendship To Last from the demonstration album Nemesis, Final Days of Rome from album Unleashed and Now we are free from Gladiator. They all have this bittersweet yet beautiful feeling in them I love. Maybe there’s a shared leitmotif or something between the two themes connecting them into each other. Thurus and Aphneius were both titles for the same god after all, even if they were about wildly different aspects of him.

So just like with Apollo, I think there’s only one way to bring Ares into the franchise and in this case it would be making him Pit’s dad. It just makes way too much sense to me considering how Pit has been characterized that it would be odd if there wasn’t any connection between the two. And there’s even couple out-of-universe reasons why I don’t believe he would be the bad guy, the first and most notable being that the names Ares and Mars are already associated with morally righteous characters or at least characters we’re supposed to root for in Nintendo games. Sakurai certainly knows this, Marth has been in Super Smash Bros since Melee as a playable character and his name just blatantly is Mars in Japanese and his English name is just the Japanese way of saying Mars. You don’t bastardize the face of another franchise in your own one, especially if you’re both exclusives to the same company and the other franchise is much more bigger and important than yours is.

Since it would be hard to introduce Ares into the franchise, I would be completely fine with him not being featured in next game at all even though I would find it extremely disappointing. But if you’re not going to have him, at least have a reference to him in form of a weapon like Blade of Ares or Blade of Mars because would you know it, the legendary sword of Attila was also known as the sword of Mars. We’re probably never going to get actual swords in KI but blade has been used as a synonym for them, so there being a blade with said name could work just fine. That or finally add spear and shield combo into the game. But if you want to use the character who would work as the big bad the best into their fullest, maybe it would be a good idea to have Ares as well... All roads may lead to Rome, but not to the arms of Genetrix in this case.

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Call me crazy, but I think that Aphrodite would make the perfect big bad. Does she have that charisma and personality comparable to Hades? Yes she does, and unlike him she had all that in real life - one of her titles was Pandemos, quite literally meaning “of the people”. This made her extremely popular among people regardless who they were or where they lived, and how can you blame them since there’s not many people whom things such as beauty, love and sex don’t matter in some shape or form. Only Olympian who really matched her when it came to popularity was Zeus, but considering how he was the king of all gods it was to be expected that he’d outrank her on the popularity board. She was the most popular goddess in Greece by a longshot and that was also true for Venus in Rome, even if Mars took the place as the second most popular god after Jupiter. Due to her being the mother of Roman founding hero Aeneas, she was viewed as the mother of all Rome and it was used by people as a way to climb up the political ladder. The Julio-Claudian dynasty claimed to descend from her through Aeneas and it didn’t stop there - you can actually trace the ancestry of multiple mythological European figures all the way back to her! Some notable examples of this include Bladud/Blaiddyd, Leir of Britain, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia of Britain and supposedly even king Arthur himself last one is a bit iffy, but all the others are concrete, Aphrodite just flat out is their ancestor through Aeneas. She definitely has the charisma and presentation needed for a big bad because you simply couldn’t be able to pull of any of the previously mentioned things without them and if she could do it in real life, who says she couldn’t do it in a fictional world?

Pretty much only thing about Aphrodite that stays constant is her popularity because in the myths, her characterization is wildly inconsistent - I guess that something one should expect from a goddess who rules over matters such as beauty and love, two things one can never truly understand. However with that being said, there’s trends that stay with her regardless her ever-changing personality. She’s technically speaking an outsider to the Olympian family tree as her most popular and possibly the oldest one as well birth story has her as the motherless child of Ouranos, emerging fully formed from seafoam. Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera and Zeus form the first generation of Olympians and Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Artemis, Apollo, Hermes and Dionysus are principal members of the second generation. By adding Eileithyia, Persephone and Hebe into the mix you get the main Olympian family, making Aphrodite feel like even more of an outsider. She only starts to fit among the family when the third generation is added and speaking of said generation, part of it forms her attendants. The two most important ones are her sons Eros and Anteros, love and love requited, whom she let’s to do pretty much all they want as long as they stay loyal to her. However once that loyalty shifts, she can be quite cruel towards them which is illustrated in the myth of Eros and Psyche quite well - and I’m going to let Aphrodite herself to do all the talking, so here’s a quote from from Apuleius’ The Golden Ass:

‘This is a fine state of affairs, just what one would expect from a child of mine, from a decent man like you! First of all you trampled underfoot the instructions of your mother--or I should say your employer--and you refused to humble my personal enemy with a vile love-liaison; and then, mark you, a mere boy of tender years, you hugged her close in your wanton, stunted embraces! You wanted me to have to cope with my enemy as a daughter-in-law! You take too much for granted, you good-for-nothing, loathsome seducer! You think of yourself as my only noble heir, and you imagine that I'm now too old to bear another. Just realize that I'll get another son, one far better than you. In fact I'll rub your nose in it further. I'll adopt one of my young slaves, and make him a present of these wings and torches of yours, the bow and arrows, and all the rest of my paraphernalia which I did not entrust to you to be misused like this. None of the cost of kitting you out came from your father's estate.’

Let’s file that under yikes. She’s saying this to her injured child and it’s about a girl he loves more than anything but she can’t stand her. And it’s not like Aphrodite dislikes her for any valid reasons, it’s all because Psyche is pretty and Aphrodite took it as a personal attack. This temperament is a stable with her, be the fuss she causes either positive or negative. It goes well in the line of the idea that she was never a child and was born fully formed, as it’s pretty hard to learn those important childhood life lessons as an adult. And do you want to know the best part about this mess? After this massive rant she’s confronted by Hera and Demeter, two goddesses who in all intents and purposes should understand what she’s feeling right now and guess what they do? They call Aphrodite a hypocrite in her face because that’s exactly what she is. Why is she so angry at her child for growing up and experiencing romantic love for the first time when she spends most of her time either being in love or making others fall in love?

Let’s leave the sad lovers behind for a while and talk about Aphrodite in some other myths. There’s not many myths about her that don’t feature romance or sex in some form, but those few are usually about her competitive nature. There’s a myth about Hermes and Aphrodite participating on funeral games yes, this was a real tradition organized by Apollo and she won, her prize being a zither which she later gave to Paris. There’s also a myth about her and Athena having a weaving competition which ended on her losing miserably because as one might expect, challenging the goddess of weaving into a weaving competition couldn’t possibly end well. But since these kind of myths are about things out of her assignments, there isn’t many of them. Most of them are about her helping people with their relationship problems, some examples could be her giving Galatea life on Pygmalion’s wishes and gifting Hippomenes the three golden apples so he could win the race for Atalanta’s heart. But it’s also really easy to earn her anger, some notable immortals who were victims of her wrath are the titan goddess of dawn Eos (she didn’t want to share Ares so she cursed Eos to feel uncontrollable desire towards a new man every day), the titan god of sun Helios (he ratted out her relationship with Ares so she cursed him to forget everyone he ever loved romantically and then made him fall in love with princess Leucothoe - it ends badly and that’s how we got heliotropes), the muse Calliope (Aphrodite saw Zeus asking her help for covering the whole deal about who gets to keep Adonis as a personal attack and so she cursed her son Orpheus to have a horrible death in the hands of Dionysus’ worshipers - interestingly enough this has nothing to do with the fact that Calliope did also sleep with Ares or that she married Oeagrus who’s sometimes said to be Ares’ son, which would make Orpheus his grandson), a minor ocean deity Nerites (he refused to follow her into the land so she turned him into a shrimp) and Pan (Aphrodite and this handsome lad Acheilus had a beauty competition and Pan was the judge - he said Acheilus was prettier so Aphrodite turned the poor lad into into a hideous shark-creature and then cursed Pan to be hopelessly in love with the nymph Echo, the very same Echo who had her eyes on Narcissus). It could even be said that her blessings aren’t going to last for long and by using Hippomenes as an example once again, we learn that in one version of the story she turned him into a lion all because he didn’t pay his respects back to her soon enough. Guileful Aphrodite indeed.

Due to her temperament and general lack of caring about the consequences of her actions, Aphrodite has earned the ire of many gods - just look no further than Adonis, there’s four possible culprits who could’ve caused his death. Because of their contradictory natures, she’s often portrayed as not getting along with Hestia, Athena and Artemis and while there’s not much material for Hestia there’s multiple myths of Aphrodite causing unpleasant situations for Artemis and her hunters, Hippolytus being the shining example of this. The judgement of Paris establishes her relationship with Hera and Athena as a rocky one and the Trojan war has them full-on enemies on opposite sides, Athena even telling the Greek Diomedes during the war that he should avoid fighting literally any god with the exception of Aphrodite - it leads into him throwing a spear at Aphrodite, piercing her wrist and this leads into Aphrodite cursing Diomedes in return. Also in some records such as Cypria Helen’s mother is stated to be the goddess Nemesis, so add her into the list of gods Aphrodite has angered so it turns out the goddess who truly was Nemesis’ enemy was never the one from Blue Sea Star but rather the one who represented Morning Star, how ironic. Her relationship with the male Olympians are a bit better but not always, in fact she has no meaningful one with Apollo at all. Her marriage with Hephaestus was an unhappy one and only after they divorced were they both allowed to be happy, Hephaestus by marrying Aglaea and having a family with her and Aphrodite by continuing her many affairs without any worries. She did scorn Zeus when he tried to get it on with her, but otherwise there’s not much either good or bad blood between them. Besides Ares, Aphrodite did find both Poseidon and Dionysus handsome and had affairs with them, but it’s unclear if they resulted any children - Rhodos has Telchine Halia and Amphitrite as her other mother candidates, Peitho is almost always said to be a child of Tethys and Oceanus instead, the Charites were more often said to be children of Zeus and Oceanid Eurynome rather than Aphrodite’s and Priapus just has no parents set in stone because no telling was seemingly more popular than others. The birth myth of Hermaphroditus starts with Aphrodite telling Hermes to piss off because he doesn’t come even close to her standards, so he asks little help from Zeus to get what he wants and therefore I can’t imagine them having a positive relationship because of this. And after reading so many myths in which Aphrodite targets Ares’ grandkids for whatever reasons, I’m starting to think that he should start running away and quickly. Maybe she really did kill Aerope.

Now returning to the love story with a happy ending which has the most famous victim of Aphrodite’s wrath, Eros and Psyche. It begins in a town with no name given oh, so this isn’t completely baseless in KI where princess Psyche (meaning either soul or breath of life) is having trouble socializing - the people have declared that she’s as if not more beautiful than Aphrodite and they have started worshiping her, denying normal human interaction from her. This obviously pisses off Aphrodite because it has been established that she has the self-control skills comparable to a toddler and so she orders her son Eros to make Psyche to fall in love with something hideous. While he agrees to do the deed, once he sees the beautiful Psyche he can’t help but to fall in love with her and then he chooses to defy his mother, crafting a plan on what to do next. In the meanwhile the loneliness is making Psyche miserable and that doesn’t go unnoticed by her parents, so they go to visit the oracle of Apollo for help. Considering how Apollo is still very much salty at Eros for cursing him to have the worst love life imaginable, his words aren’t all that comforting (another quote from The Golden Ass):

‘Adorn this girl, O king, for wedlock dread, and set her on a lofty mountain-rock. Renounce all hope that one of mortal stock can be your son-in-law, for she shall wed a fierce, barbaric, snake-like monster. He, flitting on wings aloft, makes all things smart, plaguing each moving thing with torch and dart. Why, Jupiter himself must fearful be. The other gods for him their terror show, and rivers shudder, and the dark realms below.’

She and her parents are obviously horrified by this, but they do as they were told to and Psyche is left alone on a cliffside where the god of west wind Zephyrus picks her up. He brings her into a lovely meadow where she takes a refreshing nap and after she wakes up, she sees a beautiful palace and goes in. She’s charmed by the looks of the place and then a disembodied voice tells her that she will be provided by many invisible servants while living in there. Once night falls she’s nervous to meet her husband, but after the first meeting she starts looking forward on their nights together. This continues for quite some time, but in the meanwhile Psyche’s family is starting to get worried about her and she’s in return worrying about them. Eros promises that her sisters can come to visit, but also tells her that she shouldn’t listen them if they sound jealous. Psyche agrees and Eros gets Zephyrus to scoot the sisters down to visit, but as expected the sisters get jealous really quickly and start to make her worry if what the oracle told about her husband was indeed true - what finally broke the camels back was the sisters suggesting that he’s planning to kill her and their unborn child. So when the next night falls, she has prepared herself a lamp and dagger to see if her husband really is a monster - once she draws the lamp near and sees that he’s in fact Eros himself, she’s awestruck and accidentally stabs herself with one of his arrows, making her fall for him even harder. But while admiring him some oil spills from the lamp on Eros, causing him to wake up and leave. Earlier in the story Psyche had said that she’d much rather die than throw this marriage away and she’s willing to live by that statement, so she goes to search Eros and atonement - meanwhile Aphrodite is beating her son in the head by talking how horrible child he is for daring to fall in love and then she imprisons him Genetrix knows nothing in this case. Hera and Demeter call her a hypocrite, which doesn’t ease her anger in the slightest.

Psyche eventually finds her way into a temple of Aphrodite and she calls her two servants to beat the poor girl to make herself feel better. After having a good laugh over Psyche’s suffering, she gives her another beating herself and then dumbs different kinds of grains on the ground, saying that she should sort them by night if she ever wants to see Eros again. Sometimes prompted by him, ants nearby take pity on Psyche and help her - predictably Aphrodite isn’t all too happy about this and she comes up with a much more deadlier task. By morning she tells her that she should get some golden fleece from the sheep living on a grove across nearby river. This disheartens Psyche because she knows gathering the fleas directly is a suicide mission, but she’s consulted by local river deity who tells her how the sheep behave and that instead of approaching the sheep at all she should just collect fleas caught on foliage. She does as was told and Aphrodite becomes even more enraged, telling her to go gather water from river Styx. While she finds her way to Styx without much hassle, she’s overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation - luckily for her everyone has come to the conclusion that Aphrodite is being horrible and Zeus sends one of his eagles to help Psyche to get the water.

At this point Aphrodite’s patience is running thin and she gives Psyche a box, tells her to go into Underworld to get a part of Persephone’s beauty and come back with it because this whole deal of torturing her little daughter-in-law has been so hard for her and she needs to look good while going to the divine theatre. After being consulted by a tower on how to actually get into the Underworld without dying, she does as was told and and it doesn’t take long for her to be greeted by Persephone. After refusing to fall into an obvious trap, Psyche told her why she was visiting her and Persephone agreed to help her without hassle - but after returning into the mortal world, Psyche’s curiosity took the better of her and she wanted to see that beauty herself. Turns out it was Stygian sleep fancy words for boxed death and Psyche drops on the ground like a rock, but at this point Eros has escaped his imprisonment goes straight to her. He draws the sleep back into the box, gently pricks her with an arrow to wake her up, the two have a heartfelt reunion and Eros brings Psyche to Olympus, asking Zeus if the two can now get properly married. Everyone agrees, Zeus tells Aphrodite to stfu and they give Psyche ambrosia, making her the goddess of soul. The two have a glorious wedding and some time after it Psyche gives birth to their daughter, either named Hedone or Volupta(s) depends if it’s a Greek or Roman telling the story, the personification of pleasure, joy and delight. I personally prefer the name Volupta, it rhymes much more nicer with rest of the family.

And since we’re at here, that gorgeous painting by John William Waterhouse that everyone thinks has Pandora wearing a pink dress? It’s actually Psyche opening the deathly beauty box. Don’t believe me? Just check Psyche opening the golden box and you see who’s right. He however did create an equally pretty painting about Pandora though.

So now when the story time finally over, what can we do with all of this info? Well, it does tell how perfect of an antagonist Aphrodite makes for an Eros-expy. She has power over him and isn’t afraid of abusing it when she feels betrayed. Compare this to the tales of Icarus and Perseus which really don’t have a main antagonists - Icarus has no personal stakes in the story because he’s a plot device rather than a character and from Daedalus’ point of view, the main antagonist is Minos but mythology doesn’t really treat him as all that horrible person. After he died he became one of the judges of the Underworld and probably sent Daedalus to Tartarus once he died, which illustrates a one seriously big missed opportunity which should’ve been used if Icarus truly was that important inspiration for Pit. Instead it just makes it even more clear how irrelevant Icarus and the narrative about the Minotaur are to KI. As for Perseus, I already talked about how Medusa is a mcguffin while alive and the other ones aren’t much better. Polydectes, Phineus and Acrisius are all dealt with so quickly that they don’t really matter - his only fight that isn’t solved by a handwave is against Cetus and it’s just a sea monster sent to kill Andromeda by Poseidon. Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is a topic I’ve already discussed and the already mentioned possible fusion of the myths of Poseidon sending a sea monster to harass Troy and Ares’ trial covers the idea of Pit saving a girl from a sea monster which is bit funny because in the former one, oracle tells that king Laomedon should let it eat his daughter Hesione to get rid of the monster, so that doesn’t really add anything new here. But with Aphrodite as the big bad it could be rather easy to craft two different but overlapping plotlines, one with a main goal and the other with a personal one. Aphrodite always was Eros’ biggest personal antagonist who treated him as a trophy child and didn’t take it well when he stepped out of the line - how dare her little doll grow up, behave like a man and then decide that he wants to move on to build a family of his own, which now takes the priority over her? Him choosing Psyche over his mother is his defining myth, with the addition of it being the myth in which he finally gains the respect of the other gods. Besides having its message about heart and soul being capable feeling and creating joy while together, it also functions as a coming of age story for its main couple - and when those stories have an antagonist, things tend get really personal.

So going back to those possible two plotlines and goals, what could they possibly be about? I’d say that the main plot line shouldn’t really be based on any myth but instead it should take advantage of her popularity among ancient people, more so when it comes to Venus and Rome. Even as a city, Rome was massive - by the time of 1st century CE it had reached the population of million people, being the first city in history to do that. And this was only the capital of the empire! Rome wasn’t build in a day indeed. Venus wasn’t worshiped by the thousands, her popularity was in the millions during this time period. That’s a lot of power for one goddess and as we all know, too much power can easily hit one in the head - especially when remembering that we’re dealing with a Pantheon composed entirely of manchildren. Give Aphrodite an empire that looks up to her, doesn’t do anything without a last world from her and you’re set with a supervillain who has it all from power to personality. In this case, the reason why Aphrodite should be stopped is that she’s a conqueror who rules by fear, saying that if she was ever abandoned she would curse them and take away all the blessings she has ever granted, leading her empire to ruin. If you want to make her feel even more villainous, don’t even give her an army of her own like Hades and Viridi had but make her use the people of the empire she rules over. There’s nothing more evil than using people who look up to you for protection for your own selfish goals. What those selfish goals may be, writers can be creative with them - maybe she wants to be viewed as the supreme goddess above everyone else, maybe she wants everyone to worship her and isn’t afraid to use extreme measures to get what she wants, maybe she wants to wipe out everyone who could be a threat to her, everything goes. Considering her role on the judgement of Paris, her causing a war or chaos for selfish reasons isn’t out of character. But whatever her reasons may be, there’s going to sparks in the air and fights of massive proportions. Ares may be Pit’s father but Aphrodite definitely isn’t his mother, so she’s not going to show him any sympathy or kindness if he gets in the way of her plans.

This would be the plotline that’s more on the background and focused on Aphrodite’s relationships with Palutena, possibly Ares and the other gods, the main goal is their goal. It’s why they want her defeated. If Palutena is anything like Athena, she can’t get along with her and she understands that allowing Aphrodite to do whatever she wants will have catastrophic consequences even if she herself couldn’t care less about those. If Ares was featured on a future game along with Aphrodite, their relationship would probably be focused on how they feel betrayed by each other. The myth of her cursing Eos illustrates how she sees their relationship open only from her end so she’s very likely still angry at him for leaving her, be it for Aerope or something else entirely. If you want to go with the depressing idea of her being the one who ordered Aloadae to kidnap him, she probably feels even more betrayed because even under mind control he didn’t come back to her like she had anticipated. And if it’s indeed her favorite ex-boytoy’s son with some other lady who has been foiling her plans, her blood quite possibly starts to boil. Ares’ feelings of betrayal would likely stem from Aphrodite trying to kill his child for no other reason than sheer pettiness, along with orchestrating his kidnapping and torture just so she could get her boytoy back. Other gods probably want her stopped for similar reasons as Palutena, maybe with some selfishness rippled in - the consequences of her actions are hurting them and because she doesn’t care, something must be done to stop her. For example, Viridi could possibly oppose Aphrodite because she doesn’t care about how she’s hurting nature on her attempts to viewed as the supreme goddess. Not to say that Pit doesn’t also care about this goal since he’s an empathetic youngster, but I think that the more personal plotline should be his and it’s goal his main motivator during the story.

As for the plotline with the more personal goal, the myth of Eros and Psyche makes the perfect outline for it. Aphrodite is already the main antagonist of the tale, so there’s no need for any massive changes when it comes to her jealousy and want to dispose Psyche. The tasks she gives to her could also be mostly unchanged, if adjusted with something that makes gameplay more immersive assuming we would get to play as her like we got to play as Dark Pit in chapter 22 in KI:U. However what needs to changed is Aphrodite’s relationship with Pit, how he and Psyche first meet and how their relationship is evolves from that point onward since following the myth to a T isn’t an option in this case. I could see Pit and Psyche’s first meeting being a result of Aphrodite’s wrath manifesting on a relatively harmless way, meaning that she already knows about this new, pretty princess that challenges her status as the supreme goddess and she’s not having any of it. As for how her wrath could manifest, it could be a your garden-variety monster attack in the first chapter disguised as someone else’s troops so no one would suspect it was her behind it. The sheer weirdness of it could catch Palutena’s attention so she sends Pit down to investigate it and to get rid of the monsters. While getting rid of them, he meets Psyche in one way or another - maybe she’s trying to escape from them or she’s trying to fight against them, either way Pit comes to her aid and they befriend each other. Maybe she’s featured on a few following chapters as minor character doing something on the background, giving them more possibilities to interact and become better friends - in these chapters Apollo could possibly be introduced along with reintroducing Poseidon, to foreshadow the roles they would play later on. What side plots would these chapters have, it could anything - maybe Pit meets Ares for the first time at this point of the story, but he’s not freed from mind control just yet.

At this point Aphrodite could be getting more angrier but she doesn’t want to out herself as the main villain yet, so she crafts a plan that would eventually lead into Poseidon hating Pit into the point of him wanting to take things into the court. Maybe she tricks Poseidon and Apollo into becoming mad at Psyche’s home city for whatever reason, like how they got angry at Troy in mythology proper. If this was the case, I think that she would keep Poseidon in the dark while letting Apollo fully know what’s going on - if Poseidon doesn’t know the true reason why Aphrodite wanted his sea monster to terrorize the city and why it was killed, he would be much more enraged when it happens. I’ve already established reasons as for why Apollo would dislike Pit, so he probably wouldn’t really need any prompting to cause Pit suffering since he’d still want some payback from that embarrassing noodle incident. So Poseidon sends his sea monster to terrorize the coastline and once citizens start asking help from the gods, Apollo lets the hate flow through him and offers nothing useful - instead he tells them to take the Hesione/Andromeda-approach and let it eat someone to calm it down oh look, it’s a reference to Perseus that’s not about Medusa for once, nice. In this case, it would be Psyche and Pit’s of course not going to let his friend die so he goes to save her, be it with or without Palutena’s approval. In my head I did imagine this as a chapter that would work amazingly with multiplayer, starting with Pit and Dark Pit distracting the monster, then Pit freeing Psyche and them setting out to kill the monster before it causes more harm. Player 2 would have to deal with changing characters on the fly but if Pittoo and Psyche had similar weapons, I don’t think it would be too distracting since they’d be playable on different parts of the chapter. But once the monster has finally been defeated, the joy is cut short by Poseidon interrupting and wanting vengeance for what happened to his monster, ending the chapter. The plot would immediately catch on the next one and what I could see happening on this chapter is that Pit’s taken into the court by Poseidon and he’s not allowed to have anyone defending him, but Dark Pit and Psyche go into his defense anyway Pittoo being the playable character. After a long and treacherous journey they find they way to the divine courthouse and tell their point of view on the events, which gives Pit the sympathy of the court and he gets away scot-free. Poseidon and Apollo may face on consequences at this point and they may even rat Aphrodite out on a subtle way, but the main group doesn’t catch it.

The following few chapters would be breathers before the plot kicks in again, Aphrodite ousting herself as the big bad in one way or another. Maybe she has sent her troops to attack some place, possibly in search for Ares since he would make a great ally on this brainwashed state. Much to her dismay he declines her offers, he and Pit fight and the helmet is smashed, but Palutena recalls Pit before anything can come out of it. The fight continues for couple following chapters, Palutena and Aphrodite are gradually getting more and more mad at each other and maybe she comes down to face Pit herself because the little brat getting on her way is starting to be really annoying now this would make a pretty cool unwinnable boss fight, but Ares comes just in time save him - que silent, cold anger between them, confusion from Pit and Palutena’s end with some extremely awkward reunions and explanations.

What could follow from here is another set more lighter chapters focused less on Aphrodite’s plans to become the supreme goddess and more of the cast getting to know each other better - Palutena and Ares reconnecting, Ares trying to form a meaningful relationship with Pit and Dark Pit, Pit and Psyche becoming better friends, etc etc. Not to say Aphrodite has given up on her plans - she’s still doing things on the background, but it’s implied that what little chaos she currently causes is serving as distraction to hide her bigger plans. Persephone could possibly be introduced at this point of the story, making it clear that she knows about the events of KI:U and that she’s going to get her payback on what happened to Hades in one way or another, possibly drop an implication that she’s working together with Aphrodite. But since everything good comes to an end and so do the breather episodes, plot would go on with Aphrodite kidnapping Pit and getting Persephone to throw him into some dark part of the Underworld, maybe even to Tartarus. And now we get into the fun part of the myth, Psyche’s four tasks!

I could see the plot separating into two directions from here on, first one being Pit’s great prison escape from wherever Persephone threw him into and the second one being the titular four tasks. The prison escape is more focused on traversing the Underworld and Pit trying get out of there while Persephone throws all kinds of obstacles at him - maybe it ends with a ghost gauntlet, since Odyssey illustrated that she can summon ghosts. Arke would make a pretty great boss fight here as well, since she could be classified as a fallen angel. Maybe her motive for going after Pit is to get his wings for herself as a mean to escape, since her own ones were ripped off as punishment for siding with the Titans. But since Pit’s a brave boy, this isn’t enough to stop him and he eventually finds his way out so there could be reunion and a final battle against Persephone.

While Pit’s great prison break is going on, Aphrodite makes an empty promise to rest of the cast that she can give Pit back, with some conditions - but just like in the myth, all she actually wants is Psyche’s death so the danger factor is amped up to eleven. I honestly don’t know how the one about sorting grains could be handled I guess it could work as a puzzle chapter, but the rest work rather well without massive changes. The one about gathering te golden fleas could now take a more direct approach, the one about getting Styx’s water is now missing the helpful eagle and the Underworld trip is largely same with the exception of Persephone not being cooperative. This would be the point where the two plotlines merge together and they take Persephone down together before leaving from the Underworld. Psyche falling for Stygian sleep in this version is up to debate, I say it could work either way. It mostly depends on when she’s going to wake up - if it’s too early it might as well not matter, if it’s after the final battle I’d say that’s too late.

As one might expect Pit’s escape makes Aphrodite furious and she challenges him into a one final battle - that brat has stolen her favorite boytoy from her, satisfaction of getting rid of the annoying princess and also her chances to become the supreme goddess way too many times, she has reached her third-act breakdown and at this point she has nothing left to lose anymore. Ares isn’t going to come back to her, Psyche is not going to die and the people under her empire have started to become less dependent of her, the last thing she can do is get rid the troublesome kid that brought her into this situation. Of course Pit ends up winning, sending the goddess to Aether to hang with Hades where they can now together sulk over the fact that they got defeated by an angel. Pit triumphantly returns to Skyworld where Palutena and others have been waiting, there’s a joyful reunion between all of them and if one wants to follow the original myth at this point, Psyche could gain divinity or immortality for her bravery for standing against Aphrodite as a mere mortal. People have become immortals for dumber reasons in Greco-Roman mythology, so at least Psyche doesn’t become immortal merely because one god thought she was pretty. Have some little banter at the end between the cast and then credits can finally roll in.

When thinking of some nice bonus content, maybe there could be a secret ending player can unlock after beating all the chapters on a certain difficulty, which confirms that everyone is doing well. If we have to deal with another long hiatus that could last for decade or two or eternity, best the game can offer is closure. Pit doesn’t have to a married man with a daughter, but at least show that he’s doing well and ready for a new adventure or that he has had many of those under his belt at this point. All one can do is hope at this point that there will be a new adventure or a happy ending that ties all the loose ends together. Praise Volupta, maybe one day dreams can come true.

______

Welp, this turned out to be much more longer and heavier than I originally expected! If nothing else, that would make an interesting fanfic. Anyway, I think I made my point clear - Aphrodite has everything a big bad needs from power to personality and motives to harass the already existing KI-cast. Even if you don’t want to go with the ideas I came up with, there’s so many myths to use and modify in which she could fill the role of the main villain. And just because there’s heavy themes it doesn’t mean it has to be without humor - I mean, there’s a lot of heavy implications in KI:U yet the game still manages to be a comedy gold mine despite those heavy implications. Writers just need to know when to be serious and when levity is needed, good pacing is something that every great story needs. For some reason I could definitely see there being a gag in which Pandora has regained her true form, only for Aphrodite to snatch it away because Pandora was living on borrowed beauty anyway and she’d like to have it back.

Though I must say that I’m proud of all of these plot bunnies I came up with. It was a fun journey to me to research, overthink, adapt and mix myths while trying to imagine who could be the next possible big bad and what the plotline relating to their villainy could be. And I came out wiser from it, so I really can’t be angry over it even if it took so me so much longer than I originally planned. I never thought that me wanting to write about a Nintendo game would make me read this much about history and philosophy yet here I am. Also now when I’m thinking of it, that last one would tie a lot of threads nicely together if they had a plotline like it on a future game - Poseidon gets to be an antagonist, Apollo gets to be an antagonist, Persephone gets to be an antagonist and Aphrodite gets to be the villain. It’s so nice when things work out this well together! Dionysus is left out though, but I guess it’s not all that bad because having too many antagonists would make the plot feel overly complicated.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts of who could replace Hades as the big bad. You can’t change my mind on Aphrodite being the best possible candidate but if you disagree with me, who do you think it could be? I’m always open for discussion so feel free to talk with me. Now there’s only one question remaining on my head - if a future Kid Icarus game had Arachne, would she be a jorōgumo?

[matildashoney]

London Town

Loving You’s the Antidote Extra

MASTERLIST // MOODBOARD // TAG LIST // TAGS // PLAYLIST

TAG LIST: @ihearthemcallingforyou, @goldenfeelin, @detroitkiwis

talk to me about it!

thank you miss @berrynarrybanana​ for creating the sex bucket list fic challenge! i wanted to write something with the mile high club for harry and ames a while ago and this gave me every opportunity to do so. this is pure filth about harry and amelie getting back to london recently after being stuck in malibu during the quarantine.

warning: this is literally 4.4k of filth. i can’t be sorry for what my brain has done. i take no responsibility.

Harry is guarded, to say the least. There was too much happening for him not to be.

One of the security guards that was driving them to the airport got out with Amelie first, making sure that there weren’t any photographers waiting outside for them (which there shouldn’t be, all things considered) and having her get inside to wait for Harry when he was able to get all their luggage and out of the car. Harry was nervous, his hoodie tugged over his head and his passport and identification all sitting in his hoodie pocket. Amelie was wearing the hoodie they bought at a Spice Girls concert the year before, but it was beginning to fit a big snuggly around her tummy and they knew that anyone that saw them would start pregnancy speculations before they could even begin trying to have a baby themselves. Her hand grabs his as soon as he walks beside her, interlocking their fingers and hiding her face in his chest, the exhaustion beginning to set in and the bruising on her hips from the needles beginning to ache as she stands for much too long without rest.

Harry guides them through security, his heart breaking as Amelie knuckles her eyes and desperately clings to her last bit of energy and pouts as his bag gets checked once more and she isn’t able to sink into his embrace as she wants. Considering the amount of time Harry and Amelie have spent together in quarantine, it would have made more sense that they need space, when in fact, Amelie has never been clingier. Not that Harry pays any mind to it. He knows that it’s with the best intentions, all because she loves him and is happy to be with him. Her hormones are messy with the new birth control she was trying, as well, with all intentions to perhaps make her body ready to be pregnant later in the year. All Amelie wanted was a good snuggle a very hefty amount of the day. Harry was happy to give that to her.

Los Angeles International Airport is surprisingly empty, Harry thought there would have been more celebrities trying to get back to wherever they’re from now that flights are slowly beginning to depart again – not that they really should be. Harry is excited to get back to England, London particularly. Amelie, although her heart is in love with California, misses London, misses home. All of the exhibition pieces that she was working on were left there, and for nearly four months her creativity was dry and there was nothing she could think of. Harry misses his family, his home. He even misses Tigger, especially now that he’s been staying with Anne for nearly six months. Harry misses their routine. Amelie misses the comfort of being home.

Malibu is home in a lot of ways.

Malibu is where they said the three words for the first time. Malibu is where they got engaged. Malibu is where they got married on a whim. All of Amelie’s family is nearby and their best friends and godchildren are only a fifteen-minute drive away. Mostly, it’s being together that makes it feel like home. Home is so subjective. To Harry, after travelling for so many years, unsteady relationships, the media overwhelming him with labels and rumours and the way his mental health suffered, Amelie really became the one thing that made the most sense, that made him feel safe. To Amelie, with all that she went through, the idea that someone could make you feel like home was absolutely mad, and there was a nagging voice that always told her she wouldn’t find it, and then Harry waltzed into her life and simply knocked every single thought she had about her life into another world; Harry made her feel as though there was nothing that she couldn’t do, and maybe he was right about that. Home was with each other, no matter where they are or where they go.

Harry squeezes Amelie’s hand, the engagement ring and wedding band ice on his skin. He smiles though, the feeling that the symbol gives him making his eyes sting with tears. He sniffles, drawing her attention and her eyebrows furrowing together in confusion. He shakes his head, kissing her hairline and nodding to the near-empty terminal that was about to board their flight.

“’ey,” Amelie whispers, brushing her thumb under his eye and moving the mask slightly to kiss his cheek, “you okay?”

“Thought about how we’re married and got all,” Harry mutters, his nose in her hair and laughing to himself. “Don’t know, guess m’heart is softer, now.”

“Always has been, baby,” she smiles, laying her thighs over his legs and cuddling into his chest, her eyes falling shut as he gently rubs her back. “Think they’ll yell at us for laying in the same bed, again?”

“Don’t think so since everyone has to stay away,” he mumbles, taking in the way the ten other passengers for the flight are wearing masks and gloves. “Can’t wait to be home and don’t have to wear this thing.”

“Meaning you’re gon’a be naked in the garden most days and dragging me out with you.”

Harry snickers, meeting Amelie’s knowing stare and shrugging his shoulders, “As long as you’re naked, too.”

“Don’t try your luck, Mr Styles,” Amelie sighs, squeezing his hips as his thumb dips beneath the waistband of her leggings. “Harry.”

“Didn’t wear any knickers.”

“Je ne voulais pas qu'ils me montent au cul pendant douze heures,” she whispers under her breath, trying to avoid the entire terminal hearing that her decision this morning was to go without any knickers on an eleven-hour flight.

Harry smirks, tugging his mask to his chin and pressing his lips to the shell of her ear, “Tu essaies d'entrer dans le club du mile high, chérie?” For a man that slept maybe three hours, Harry is awfully horny at barely four in the afternoon.

Amelie lightly smacks his hand as his fingers inch towards her inner thigh, coming dangerously close to her centre. “Harry, I swear to God.”

“Oh, it could be fun, Ames.”

“Ah, yes, because you,” Amelie’s voice lowers to a whisper that even Harry can barely hear, “fucking me in our seats in first-class sounds like so much fun when we could get caught.”

“’s the thrill of it all, baby.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t use the baby card,” she says warningly, her eyes narrowing at the man she loves with her whole heart, trying to convey her seriousness. Her thighs clench around his hand, a near-death grip to break his movements where his fingertips would brush over her heat.

“Need those fingers, Cherry.”

“Don’t stick your hands in my leggings, then.” Harry smirks at Amelie. “That doesn’t mean you find a loophole and stick your hand over my fanny either, thank you.”

“Mean, technically I’m not over your fanny.” Harry laughs so loudly, the entire terminal turns to face him. “Need you to tell me when the hell you started calling it that, though. Taking to all the slang now that you’re half a Brit, huh.”

“Much less aggressive than calling it my,” Amelie whispers, “cunt. Don’t you think?”

“Quite like calling it that,” he shrugs, weaselling his hand further up her thigh, nearly holding her heat in his palm. “’s mine to call anything, you know.”

“Oh,” she snorts, shaking her head and lightly pushing his shoulder and smirking when he grabs her hand with his other hand, kissing her palm with a smirk. “Is that how marriage works? Don’t think that was on the document we signed.”

“Mean, as far as I’m aware. Got like,” Harry hums, pretending to count on his fingers the number of months since they’d gotten married in March, “three months under m’belt. ‘s kinda like how you say you want my cock in your mouth.”

“Harry, quit it. There are people around.”

“Half of them would need a hearing aid to hear me, honey.”

Amelie shakes her head, “Whipping your best terms of endearment isn’t making me any more inclined to have sex on the plane.”

“Hate to break it to you, angel, but you saying, fanny, doesn’t really give me an inclination to stick my hand in your pants, anyways.”

“Good,” she says, wrapping her hand around his wrist and moving it away, interlocking their fingers and grabbing their bags to walk to the desk to board. “Not to mention, it’s barely four in the afternoon.”

“Oh, time is a social construct, baby. Isn’t that what you say when you’re begging for it in the morning before I have get on a flight out somewhere?” Harry whispers in her ear, smiling at the flight attendant and handing his phone for the boarding passes.

Amelie releases Harry’s hand, tugging her sweatshirt sleeves over her fingers and crossing her arms over her chest. “I hate you.”

Harry smirks, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and kissing her head, his phone stuck in the front of his The Face sweatshirt that Amelie threw onto the bed for him to wear while he was sleeping. “No, you really don’t.”

“Welcome,” one flight attendant says through their mask, oblivious to the sexual tension spurring in between the freshly married couple and the way her hand was holding his simply to ensure that he wouldn’t squeeze her breast with his hand hanging limply over her shoulder.

Harry steps inside the row first, and Amelie knows why he’s hiding in the seat that would be the least likely to be seen by the flight attendants. Her head shakes with a sigh, heaving a breath and settling into the chair, giving a warning glance to him as his lips toy with a mischievous grin.

“Garder les mains pour soi.”

“Can’t keep m’hands to m’self for eleven hours,” Harry stresses, his cheek laying on her shoulder as he stares at her through hooded eyelids, the separator pushed away to allow him to cuddle into her, the way her nails are scratching at his scalp making him want her more.

“Harry, yes, you can,” Amelie says, knowing that Harry is trying to wear her down with the dramatic nature of the conversation. Her thighs are warm thinking about the adrenaline that would course through her veins by having sex where they very well shouldn’t be, but with the environment being heavily closed away from interaction, maybe this was just the right time to do so.

Amelie wouldn’t admit that to Harry, though. No. Because that means he won.

“Haven’t touched you in like, three days.”

“Because we had to get all of our things together, see our godchildren, and see my family. Not because I didn’t want to.”

“Alright, well, now we have eleven hours.”

Amelie sighs, carding her fingers through her hair and gently pulling out the tie in her curls and letting the baby pink fall over her shoulders. Through her peripheral vision, she can see Harry roll his eyes, trying to look away as she tugs on the sleeves on the sweatshirt, gently pulling the material away and leaving his eyes to bask over the loose-fitting shirt from his closet and her chest free from any restrictions.

“For fuck’s sake, Amelie,” Harry groans, sitting up and beginning to pull his mask away from his mouth, all the passengers boarded and the flight attendants beginning to go through the safety measures as he’s heard a million times before. “Did you not wear a bra, either?”

“Like you said, eleven hours,” she shrugs, a smirk playing at her lips as she set the sweatshirt over her thighs, dragging the blanket over her body, locking his hand between her legs.

“Know just how to get what you want, huh?”

“Maybe,” she hums, spreading her thighs the slightly amount to give him the ability to roam further across her skin. “Have had quite a few years of practice.”

Harry smirks, taking Amelie by surprise and sliding his hand beneath the waistband of her leggings, her thighs unable to be held together as his fingers drag slowly and teasingly across her mound. “About, five years, huh, baby?” Amelie gulps. “Don’t go quiet on me, now. Have had the wittiest comebacks for an hour and now you’re quiet?”

“Harry,” she says through a clenched jaw, trying her swallow back a moan as his fingers delicately trace along her core, arousal collecting on his fingertips as his finger draws over her clit lightly, barely touching her skin. “Either you do it or you don’t.”

“Do you want me to?” Harry smirks, lips ghosting across the shell of her ear and making her sink further into her seat, her thumb between her teeth as she nods shamelessly. “Amelie Fay, tell me what you want or I’m going to take my hand back.”

Harry rarely uses Amelie’s whole name. And by rarely, Amelie means that Harry only uses her whole name – first and middle – when they’re arguing and she won’t listen (which is most of the time) or they’re about to do something filthy and she won’t give verbal consent (which is most of the time they’re taking to exhibitionism). But whenever Harry uses it, fuck, it’s another type of sexy. His accent draws out every syllable, especially when he’s trying to use an accent that her mother has or it’s deeply his own.

Amelie sucks in a deep breath, trying to steady her breathing and not melt into the chair with the barely-there movements of his fingertips, his middle finger teasing her warmth by dipping in to collect more arousal over her clit. “Okay, okay.”

“Okay, what.”

“Need you to use your fingers,” she sighs, his fingers beginning to ease into her warmth and brush against the velvet that squeezes him in. “Fuck.”

“Be quiet,” Harry says strictly, his cheek laying on her shoulder and his lips touching the cut of her jaw. “Have barely touched you and you’re already squeezing me, doll. Maybe I should’ve tried a bit harder to get you into bed, hm? Have I been neglecting you? Horrible husband, you have.”

Harry and Amelie never could describe their sex life as neglected – certainly not that – but it definitely was not what it was when they first got married at the beginning of March. Harry and Amelie tiptoed around the subject because there were days when there was too much frustration to even think about getting naked and sharing their thoughts with the other person. That definitely isn’t what want they wanted, what they promised each other. And so, here they were, three months into the isolation and just being able to go home, and there was a desperation lingering between them that neither really knew was there. Getting comfortable was something they didn’t want, and that’s exactly what they did.

His fingers work at a speed that could only be described as desperate and longing. His thumb pressed against her clit with patterns that have her hips longing to writhe beneath him, his middle and third finger curling inside of her with every thrust, taking a second to ghost across the spot that would have her screaming inside their bedroom.

“Baby, please,” Amelie whimpers, tucking her face into his hair and breathing out through parted lips, squeezing her eyes shut as the flight attendant walks through the aisle, completely unsuspecting of what is happening beneath the linen. “Harry.”

“All over me, honey. Gi’ me all of it.”

Amelie tugs on Harry’s curls, earning a smirk and a grateful kiss, swallowing her moans as the orgasm ripples through her body. Her hands shaking as she grasps onto the blanket and her hot breaths hitting his neck. His hand is coated with her orgasm, his mouth watering at the thought of her taste on his tongue.

If Harry couldn’t go down on her, right now, this is the next best option.

“Get out the fruit and water from your bag.”

“Huh?” Amelie whispers, her eyes barely opening to try and read Harry’s expression. “For what?”

“For you to drink,” Harry smiles, kissing her hairline sweetly. “And so, I can stick my fingers in m’mouth and it won’t look like I just fucked you under the blanket.”

“Christ, Harry,” she mutters, rolling her eyes as he chuckles under his breath. “Do you realise you still have your fingers in me?”

“And?”

“Can’t lean over and grab everything with you puncturing my cervix.”

“Don’t flatter me that much, baby,” Harry quips, nodding towards the bag laying at her feet and gently tapping his thumb against her clit once more. “Already have a big head.”

“Hate you,” Amelie swallows, trying to control her breathing as she leans forward and reaches for her bag, Harry’s fingers wiggling inside her warmth. He is just as needy as she is, at the moment, except, Amelie would rather wait until they are home and can’t be caught. “Here.”

“But, baby, I know you don’t.” He chastely kisses her cheek, gently taking his fingers from her warmth and slowly removing his hand from her pants, pouting his lips, “My hand is cold, now.”

“Unfortunate,” she shrugs, taking a long sip from her water as his tongue licks along his palm, his two fingers suckled between his lips and tasting all that he’s missed in nearly four days. He isn’t used to going that long. Maybe, he’s a bit spoiled in that regard. Harry and Amelie are running on the same sex drive at all times. Call it inspirational in some respects. Amelie has found it quite useful in the exhibitions recently. Harry finds that flattering.

“Quit being a brat,” Harry teases, squeezing her knee over the blanket and standing on his feet, nodding towards the bathroom a few feet away. “Have to wash my hands. Got a bit messy.”

Amelie shakes her head, wiggling around in her seat and shrugging her sweatshirt over her torso, settling under the blanket and laying over the chair, waiting for Harry to get back and cuddle into. Harry smiles at the sight, wiping his hands over his sweatpants and manoeuvring around her legs and settling into his seat. His arms open wide, graciously accepting Amelie as she climbs over into his seat and lays in the reclined bed with him, tucking her face into his neck. “Hi.”

“Hi, Cherry.”

“Can’t wait to go home,” she whispers, yawning as his fingertips drag through her hair. “Miss home.”

“Know you do,” he says, kissing her temple and bringing the blanket tighter over her body. “Me too.”

“Need a really good night of sex, too. Or day. I’m not picky.”

Harry snorts, “Have our other nights not been satisfactory to you?”

“Always the best with you. Don’t worry,” Amelie smirks, kissing his jaw and breathing in his cologne. “Different when we’re home, though. Don’t care about anything or anyone. Can just do it wherever, whenever. Don’t have to worry about my parents or sister, or our friends coming and knocking on our door.”

“Love your sister,” Harry says, his voice hanging on the last word, “but she is the biggest cock block in the entire world.”

Amelie laughs so loudly into Harry’s chest that the flight attendant peers over his novel. “God, you’re right.”

“Need to just be alone with m’missus for a while.”

Her voice is quiet, once again, barely above a whisper as she begins to fall asleep nuzzled into his warmth. “Alright.”

His eyebrows furrow together in confusion. “No argument? No rebuttal?”

“Not today.”

Harry laughs breathily, shaking his head and kissing her hair, his hands dragging along her spine as she drifts asleep. He stays awake until nearly eleven, waking her to eat and watching a film on his phone until they’ve fallen back asleep together, only waking to the sound telling them to buckle their seatbelts and settle into landing. Harry can see the relief on Amelie’s face, the smile that sits permanently on her lips as the pilot welcomes them to England and Heathrow Airport.

Amelie nearly forgets their luggage when Harry pulls into the garage, rushing inside to see Tigger and breathe in the scent that is permanently a mark of their London home. He tugs in their bags, setting the mickey mouse printed luggage in the foyer and wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing her neck sweetly and nosing her hair away from her skin.

“Fuck, ’m happy to be home.”

“Know you are,” Harry smiles, gently biting her neck and licking over the red mark lingering on her skin. His hands squeeze her thighs, lifting her onto his hips and wrapping his arms under her ass, his eyes rolling as their cat begins to rub along his legs. “Not the time, Tigger.”

“He missed you.”

“Flattered, but not really the time. Quite missed shagging m’wife, so that’s the priority at the minute.”

“That sounds really sexy coming from your mouth,” Amelie hums, dragging her thumb over his plump lips.

“Hm?” Harry asks, carefully making his way up the stairs and shoving their bedroom door open, careful to make sure that their cat would not be in the way when the door closed behind him. He became way too good at carrying her up the stairs when they moved in two years ago.

“My wife.”

Harry snickers, walking straight into the bathroom and turning on the light with his elbow, setting Amelie on the counter and harshly pressing his lips to hers. “’s what you are, m’wife.”

“Can’t wait to have this on me,” Amelie smirks against his cheeks, her fingertips dragging along his beard as Harry tugs their sweatshirts and shirt off their bodies. “First place you’re going to have sex with me in our house is the shower.”

“Know you better than that to think you’ll let me on the clean sheets after we were just on a plane for twelve hours.”

Amelie giggles, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and tugging him into her, his arms circling her waist and his tongue tasting her lips, her tongue, her. “Know me well.”

“Hope so after five bloody years.”

“Go turn the water on.”

Harry nods eagerly, walking away and turning the water in the shower, the waterfall faucet sprinkling water over him as he tugs on his sweatpants tie. His head rolls back as two hands skirt along his naked torso, dancing dangerously close to where he wants them most, his cock already painfully hard between his thighs.

“Don’t tease me, now.”

“Am I not allowed to have a taste, either? ‘s been four days, remember?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Harry moans, squeezing his eyes shut as Amelie’s hands bring his sweatpants over his ass and thighs, her gently hand tugging teasingly over his shaft. “Get in the bloody shower, woman.”

Amelie laughs, taking Harry’s hand and stepping inside the shower, the steam already beginning to fog over the glass doors. His back hits the tile wall, a gasp leaving his lips as she sinks to the ground, her knees printed with the tile, her tongue dragging over the arousal wetting his tip. He moans, the sound spurring her on, his hand running through her hair as she wraps her fingers around his base and begins sucking on his cock, all of him surrounded by her tongue and her wet lips and her warmth.

His stomach tightens, nearly spilling his entire orgasm down her throat. His whimpers as she pulls away makes her laugh, his eyes barely open before he’s helping her stand and grabbing her thigh to wrap around his waist, his cock sliding deep inside her warmth without warning. Her forehead falls to his collarbone, the sensation overwhelming and deeply missed. Her nails dig into his shoulders, their kisses messy and sloppy as his thrust reaches every inch into her core, his thumb drawing shapes around her clit the way he knows she loves.

“Missed this so much,” Amelie moans, her fingers tugging at his curls and bringing his mouth to hers. “Can’t go that long again.”

“Fucking swear on m’life,” Harry grunts, the way his cock is driving into her making her lift onto her toes. “Gi’ me your leg.”

“Do you want to fall over?”

“Trust me.”

Amelie wraps her legs around Harry’s waist, sighing when her back hits the cold tile that is out of the water’s reach, a gasp leaving her lips as his shaft sits deeper inside her warmth.

Harry is grunting mercilessly into her neck, Amelie’s moans echoing inside the bathroom, and to anyone that doesn’t know them, they might have thought that they’d not seen each other for a month, maybe two, with how intense their orgasms spill onto each other. Her thighs shake around his waist, their orgasms dripping out of her and onto his legs as he holds her, making sure that she wouldn’t fall.

And their shower isn’t devoid of more touching and kissing, in fact, the water goes cold before they’re fully finished washing up and rinsing the shampoo and conditioner from their hair.

Harry watches Amelie change intensely, soaking in the way she’s never changed the way she looks in their time together – except for the new three tattoos – the way she’s never felt the need to. Harry adores every curve and tattoo and mark and dimple, especially when she’s naked and he’s touching her skin.

“Can you look away for maybe two seconds?”

“No,” Harry deadpans, laying his hands behind him on the bed, the towel still loosely covering his waist.

“Are you going to eat lunch with me?” Amelie wonders, tugging one of Harry’s old shirts on and sliding briefs onto her hips – he never wears them anyways.

“Think I need to go for a run, and then I’ll shower and come back and eat.”

“You want to go for a run? After a twelve-hour flight?”

“Need to otherwise you and me will be in that bed for the next twelve hours,” Harry says surely, taking a deep breath and nodding his already semi-hard cock between his thighs.

“For fuck’s sake,” Amelie breathes, shaking her head and walking to him on the bed. Her lips press against his chastely, once, then twice, smiling when he tugs her onto his chest, and they fall against the mattress.

“Love you.”

“Love you more. Go for your run. Think I can take, like, six hours in bed, with breaks, alright? I’m not a machine.”

“Ooh, a compromise.”

“Married men get three compromises a year, this is one.”

“Deal.”

[kate-likes-this]

The audio starts w Pedro explaining why he chose this essay to read, then, after about a minute, the story begins. Prepare yourself. (I cried. Probably, you will too. And by the way: it is a true story.)

A relationship between a young man and woman with similar illnesses presents unusual challenges. For starters, he can’t speak. (Transcription after break.)

After dating Shannon for several months, I needed to say something to her, but I couldn’t. It’s not that I was nervous or unsure of the phrasing. It’s that I couldn’t speak. My lungs and larynx couldn’t create the air pressure and vibrations needed to say the words floating around my mind.

This is our reality. I can’t talk to Shannon about anything — not the weather or her day or how beautiful she is. Worst of all, I can’t tell her that I love her.

This was never a problem in my previous relationships with women I thought I loved or perhaps didn’t love at all. These women knew my voice; they heard it every day. But they never knew what I was actually thinking.

They never knew how miserable my body felt because, back then, I was able to function at a relatively normal level and hide my illness well enough to seem healthy. I could go on dates, talk on the phone and even drive to my girlfriend’s house to spend the night.

But over time my condition worsened. Lyme disease had exacerbated my existing case of myalgic encephalomyelitis, an inflammatory multisystem disease that can leave patients unable to speak or eat for years at a time.

I’m now 29 and have been sick for eight years, the last three of which I have spent bedridden, mostly speechless and unable to eat solid food. I used to be a bodybuilder who worked out for hours every day, and I was blindsided by the rapid deterioration of my health. I couldn’t care for myself. I had to delay love and many other things while I waited for my health to stabilize.

That’s when Shannon came into my life.

She lives in Ottawa, about 2,000 miles from my house in California. We met online, which is common, but otherwise our relationship has no precedent or guide. We are two people very much in love but also very sick.

Shannon has the same condition I do. She has been sick longer, since adolescence, but thankfully has never lost her ability to speak. Instead, she struggles with unrelenting nausea and has trouble digesting food. She is often malnourished and her weight drops below 100 pounds — too thin for someone 5 foot 5 inches tall.

We both have low blood volume, which makes it difficult for her to walk without fainting and impossible for me to sit up in bed without intense pain and weakness.

Since I am bedridden, the only way we can be together is for her to travel across the continent to see me. But even with her willingness to jeopardize her health by traveling so far, we are often away from each other for months at a time.

When we are together, we spend weeks in bed, mostly holding each other, our bodies aligned like two pieces of a broken plate glued back together. Because I can’t speak, we often resort to communicating by text messages while cuddling in bed.

It’s like a monthlong sleepover and feels surreal, being stuck in a situation so miserable that it could make your skin crawl, but finding comfort knowing that your soul mate is next to you going through something similar.

But our experiences differ. Shannon can briefly get up to use the toilet, bathe and, on a good day, make herself a meal. I, on the other hand, have to do everything in bed — brush my teeth, bathe and use the “bathroom” — a plastic bag for bowel movements and, for urinating, a dubious-looking plastic container attached to a tube feeding into a bucket on the floor. These are not sexy things but are part of life — my life and ours together.

I was embarrassed at first to ask Shannon to avert her eyes and try not to think of me urinating inches from where we had been kissing just seconds earlier. But I have since come to realize that it’s all part of sharing our lives. It may be far from the bedroom romps we each had experienced before getting sick, but knowing that nothing about my bedridden life makes Shannon uncomfortable endears me to her.

In contrast, I have had relationships with women who became upset at the first sign of anything inconvenient — one girlfriend who threatened to break up with me because she thought my beard trimmings were clogging the bathroom sink, and another who blamed our problems on my insomnia.

These failed romances remind me of the baffling incompatibilities two people can have, but also how love can transcend even the most insurmountable obstacles when you find the right person.

Before we started our relationship, when we were just two friends with the same illness texting for hours, I asked Shannon, “Do you think two sick people can be together?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I think when you’re both sick it makes it easier and harder at the same time.”

“I guess the downside,” I said, “is there’s no healthy person to take care of you.”

“But when you’re alone there’s no healthy person to take care of you either,” she said.

I had never thought about it like that — the possibility of two sick people being in a successful relationship together. I have always assumed that one person in the couple would need to be healthy. Two sick people can’t take care of each other.

But Shannon and I take care of each other in ways I never thought possible. I may not be able to make a meal for her, but I can have takeout delivered. And she may not be able to be my caregiver, but she can post an ad looking for one. We have done these things and many others for each other, from opposite ends of North America.

We share an empathy that only two people with the same condition can feel. We know what the other person is going through on bad days; we know how exasperating it is to explain invisible symptoms to doctors only to face skepticism. And we know all too well what it’s like to be immobile in an ever-moving world.

Even so, we don’t know everything about each other. We don’t know what we were like as healthy people. We don’t know what differences lie between our current selves and the people we were before getting sick — what maturation and emotional hardening have occurred during that transformation. Most fundamentally, we don’t know what it’s like to have a vocal conversation with each other.

Shannon has never heard my voice. She has never heard me berate a telemarketer or mumble to myself after making a typo. She has never heard me mess up a dinner toast or tell a corny joke. She has never heard me whisper into her ear or come up with a witty reply. She has never heard me ask a question or speak my mind, to anyone.

And she may never get to hear me do any of these things, but that’s O.K. Here is this lovely woman, devoid of judgment, who loves me for the words I type to her on my phone.

I never loved any of my previous girlfriends the way I love Shannon. I wanted to tell her how much her companionship means to me. I had tried before, many times, without success.

Still, I felt I had to try again. Somehow I had to convey, without typing, what I was feeling. My text messages were inadequate, and I thought about using hand signals, but the heart-shaped hand gesture felt far too clichéd.

So I tried to use my voice. To my surprise, for the first time in months, I heard actual sounds coming from my mouth. With my jaw locked, I whispered through clenched teeth, “I … love … you.”

“What?” she said, startled.

I took a deep breath and fought back the nearly unbearable pain in my throat and jaw. Tears began to well up in my eyes. I whispered again, this time using all the strength I had: “I … love … you.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what you’re saying.”

I wasn’t sure what was worse: the emotional torment of not being able to speak or the physical pain of trying. After everything I had been through — the months of struggling to stay alive in my sickbed — and finally finding the love of my life, I couldn’t tell Shannon that I loved her.

Lucky for me, I didn’t have to. As if straight from a heart-wrenching scene in “Love Story,” Shannon took my hand, gave me a soft kiss and said, “You don’t have to say anything. I love you!”

Now, months later, it still holds true: For us, love means never having to say anything.

[myyenlee]

Celebrating UK Black History Month: Learning Resources, a Read & Watch List, and Content Creation Tools

This year’s UK Black History Month theme, Proud To Be, is about celebrating the Black experience. As a distributed company with employees around the world, including the United Kingdom, we believe that the more perspectives we embrace, and the more we learn about our teammates, the better we are at engaging and helping our global community. 

This October, we encourage individuals and organizations to learn more about Black history, heritage, and culture in the UK. “Black British history is British history. It’s more than a month; it is interwoven in everything,” says Ama, a colleague based in Scotland. “We have changed landscapes in education, law, politics, work, and equality for all within the UK.” Black history is deeply embedded in UK culture, says Ama, from institutions — like the National Health Service — to music, sports, art, media, and popular culture.

Interested in learning more? We’ve compiled a list of staff recommendations:

websites and organizations on WordPress

books, films, and television by Black thinkers and creators in the UK

blogging and website-building tools

Explore these resources this month — or bookmark them for learning and inspiration anytime.

#PoweredByWordPress learning resources

From the official UK Black History Month hub to the website of the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, these resources are great starting points for your journey.

Black History Month 2021

All year long, Black History Month publishes news, features, career and education information, and event listings across the UK. Make it your first resource for getting educated and involved.

Black Heroes Foundation

Focused on youth education and development, this London-based community charity raises Black cultural awareness of the general public, educating and uplifting youth in particular. The foundation envisions a world where Black heroes are acknowledged, respected, and celebrated.

Stephen Lawrence Day

The 1993 murder and case of Stephen Lawrence — an 18-year-old from southeast London who was killed in an unprovoked racial attack while waiting for the bus — led to a major shift in the UK in attitudes about racism, the criminal justice system, and the role of the police. The Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation continues to tell Stephen’s story, offers resources for educators and organizers, and works toward creating a just society.

The National Archives

The National Archives is the official archive and publisher of the UK government, documenting over 1000 years of history. Researchers can browse the Black British history section of the website for a guide on social and political history in the 20th century, lots of blog and multimedia content, and records relating to British citizens of African and African-Caribbean descent.

Black History Walks

Partnering with museums, schools, and other institutions, Black History Walks offers a dozen walking tours throughout London, public monthly educational talks, and video courses and resources on Black history. Its diverse programming targets a range of people both in person and online, from students to travelers to businesses.

A read & watch syllabus

Looking for book, TV, and film recommendations about Black history and culture in the UK — or by Black scholars and creators — but aren’t sure where to start? Here are some of our nonfiction, fiction, and film and television picks.

Nonfiction

Black and British: A Forgotten History: Published to accompany the BBC Two series noted in the Film and Television section below, this must-read book by historian David Olusoga examines the shared history between the British Isles and the people of Africa.

100 Great Black Britons: In this book, Patrick Vernon and Angelina Osborne — founders of the 100 Great Black Britons campaign — celebrate Black British history and recognize key Black Britons who have helped to shape Great Britain.

Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging: A hybrid of history and memoir, Afua Hirsch’s book “reveals the identity crisis at the heart of Britain today” and explores a nation in denial about its imperial past and present.

This Is Why I Resist: Don’t Define My Black Identity: In a book that demands fundamental change, activist and lawyer Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu examines the roots of racism and anti-Blackness and calls for meaningful action.

The Louder I Will Sing: A Story of Racism, Riots and Redemption: In 1985, when Lee Lawrence was a child, his mother was wrongfully shot by police during a raid on their home in Brixton. Published more than three decades later, his memoir chronicles what it was like to grow up as a young Black man in England and how that day influenced his family.

In Black and White: A Young Barrister’s Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System: Experiencing a tragedy as a teenager pushed Alexander Wilson to become a barrister — a type of lawyer — so she could make a difference within an unjust system. Her debut book describes her experience as a mixed-race woman in a field lacking in diverse representation.

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire: In this book, author and hip-hop artist Akala blends biography and personal experience with an examination of race and class across topics — from education to politics and the police to the far right.

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto: This “coming-to-power manifesto” by Michaela Coel — the actress, writer, and creator of I May Destroy You — builds on an inspiring keynote address she delivered at the 2018 Edinburgh International Television Festival about resilience, empathy, storytelling, and growing up in public housing in East London.

What a Time to Be Alone: The Slumflower’s Guide to Why You Are Already Enough: In this illustrated self-help guide, author and influencer Chidera Eggerue, also known as the Slumflower, writes about self-love, empowerment, and creating your own narrative. The book also includes Igbo proverbs from Eggerue’s Nigerian mother.

I recommend David Olusoga’s Black and British: A Forgotten History. It’s a really important book, with new updates on the Windrush scandal and Black Lives Matter from the UK perspective.

—Victoria Jones, UK

Fiction

White Teeth: Published over 20 years ago, Zadie Smith’s debut novel focuses on the lives of two unlikely friends and their families in London. Considered a “modern classic of multicultural Britain,” the book is a window into the immigrant experience.

Girl, Woman, Other: Weaving a dozen narratives about different people across ages, backgrounds, and professions, Bernardine Evaristo examines topics of identity, race, and womanhood in modern Britain.

Love in Colour: This collection of short stories by author Bolu Babalola reimagines ancient love stories and folktales from around the world, from Greek myths to Middle Eastern legends, and centers Black women and strong female characters.

Queenie: This sharp and funny novel by Candice Carty-Williams is about the life of Queenie Jenkins, a mid-twenties British Jamaican woman living in London who’s struggling to find her place in the world.

Such a Fun Age: One night, a supermarket security guard sees a young Black woman, Emira Tucker, in the aisles with a white toddler. The guard accuses Emira of kidnapping, when in reality she’s the babysitter. In this novel, Kiley Reid takes a look at race, class, power dynamics, and privilege.

I’ve greatly valued Zadie Smith’s work. Her novels — especially White Teeth — are well crafted and offer a mix of comedy and realism that often focuses on social class in England. Her essays are things of beauty. She’s worth a read, no matter the month.

Daryl L. L. Houston, USA

Film and Television

Black and British: A Forgotten History: This BBC Two series by David Olusoga, composed of four episodes, looks at the relationship between Britain and people of African origins, slavery, and Black British identity in the 20th century.

Small Axe: In this anthology of five films, 12 Years a Slave filmmaker Steve McQueen brings to life the stories of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to 1980s.

Black Power: A British Story of Resistance: This hour-and-a-half documentary includes interviews with activists involved in Britain’s Black Power movement in the late 1960s. (The BBC’s larger collection of programming for Black History Month is also worth browsing.)

I May Destroy You: Michaela Coel’s recent Emmy-winning drama series is about a promising young writer, Arabella, who is sexually assaulted one night while out with her friends. The show explores consent and trauma, and stars a primarily Black British cast.

Black and Welsh: Cardiff-born filmmaker Liana Stewart brings together people from across Wales to highlight its multiculturalism and to share stories from community members about what it means to be Black and Welsh.

Hair Power: Me and My Afro: Irish writer and broadcaster Emma Dabiri has intimate conversations with both men and women about their hair, digging into how and why Afro and Black hair is an important and complex aspect of the Black experience.

Highlife: This premium reality TV show follows the lives of eight successful, glamorous British West Africans and depicts a different angle of Black life in the UK.

Desmond’s: Originally running from 1989 to 1994, this sitcom was set in a barbershop in Peckham, southeast London, and featured a mostly Black British Guyanese cast.

Blog and website resources

Lean on these resources, tools, and organizations during UK Black History Month — and beyond — to publish content on your site that’s fitting for your audience, or to connect with and collaborate with others.

Stock illustration libraries like Black Illustrations.

Diverse stock photography sites, including free resources like Nappy, Picnoi, and CreateHER Stock, and premium photo collections at TONL, Eye for Ebony, Mocha Stock, and Raw Pixel. (Disabled and Here, a free stock image library with photos of disabled Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), also publishes an interview series with disabled BIPOC writers and activists.)

Organizations at the intersection of tech and diversity, like UKBlackTech, which supports diverse innovation and equity, transparency, and representation across the UK; and TechUP Women, a tech training program for people from underrepresented communities.

Teaching resources across age groups, including a Black History Month resource pack, a BBC series of short films for primary and secondary school teachers, and The Times Educational Supplement’s Black experiences hub.

Would you like to recommend a website on WordPress, writing or media by a Black thinker or creator in the UK, or another resource? Tell us in the comments.

from Blogging Tips https://wordpress.com/blog/2021/10/04/uk-black-history-month-resources-recommendations-tools/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[wordsusuallykeptinside]

True North

The single greatest piece of advice my Father has even given me is, “No one is going to get you through this life but you.” He continued by telling me that all of the opinions of the other kids in high school, the losers, the weirdos, the popular kids, and even my friends, did not matter. The only person who could get me where I wanted to go in life was me. I had to do what was right for me. I think it’s safe to say that when we are in high school we are acutely and painfully aware that people around us have opinions about how we look, what we do or say and who we hang out with. Other people’s opinions at that time in our lives mean more to us than breathing. My father’s statement blew all of that a part and blew my mind in ways that I’m just starting to understand now in my 30s. He was right. None of those people had any bearing on my actual life.  The bitchy girls’ opinions and dislike of me for reasons I still don’t fully understand had absolutely no weight on how my life unfolded. My choices made things happen for me, and consequentially my choices also made things not happen for me.

 From then on I took that advice and sewed it into the very fabric of my being.What happened at first was that I carried a sort of, “I don’t give a fuck what you think” attitude. The ironic thing is, there still remained the Ego that very much cared what people thought. My mind always had to argue back and forth about if something mattered or it didn’t. I would weigh the options, analyze the data in front of me, and make a decision: “nope, I don’t care what people will think about this” or “yes, I very much care what people will think of this so let’s put it in the right light”.

 My late teens to early 20’s  were gong show of caring either too much or too little. I either gave all my fucks away or I had absolutely zero. There was rarely a middle ground. That, I found, can lead to poor decision making. When you’re too polar about things and it all kind of crumbles into people really not knowing what to think of you so they mostly just shun you.This lead to me to get to know my “inner knowing”.That’s the thing I call my gut feeling (and I’m pretty sure Glennon Doyle does too), you know, that ”YES this is absolutely what I need to do” feeling. A fact of life is that every once and while you gotta make clear decisions for yourself if you want to honor that very special inner knowing inside of you. It was in this stage of my life that I got tired of the polar madness and followed that inner knowing big-time.

 I had gone to University only to find out that the culture brought out parts of myself I really didn’t like and that that form of education was not for me. I’m not into paying an obscene amount of money to learn how to write one helluva essay, study a professor’s thesis, and on my downtime drink myself into oblivion. So I quit. I dropped out and made the first decision solely for myself with zero inkling as to what was next. Well, what happened next was that I followed my inner knowing and moved to Alberta to be with my then boyfriend, now husband. At the time people thought I was absolutely coo-coo. Like totally bat-shit crazy. If I had listened to them,  I’m quite certain I would still be living in my hometown. And to be completely honest, I’m really not sure where I would have ended up. But my inner knowing what telling me that this was a time where I couldn’t give a shit what they thought. I had to do this for me to get me where I needed to be. It was that decision that rooted my life in such a way that I got to find out so much more about myself.

 I have been in Alberta for 14 years now. In that time I have tried to be a Nutritional Consultant, Pharmacy Assistant, Sales Associate, Health Coach, MLM Star (that was a yucky period), Sign and T-Shirt Maker, and Yogi Extraordinaire. I tried all of those not because I was trying to be someone else but because I was trying to find what was “reasonable”.  What I found was through all of those careers I was learning about myself. I’m sure there are people who think I’m flaky, that I can’t stick to anything, or that I am unfocused. But I think I was brave enough to try something that I thought I really might like, to let my creativity shine, or learn something new. Now I know that it was all a process to find way back to my real purpose.  

 Here’s the thing, the more you try and fail, the more you will learn about yourself. Success rarely gives you any pearls of knowledge and it rarely teaches you anything about yourself. I don’t think I was ever learning when things were going really well for me. I was learning when I had to figure out how I was going to pick myself back up and try again or try something completely different. I truly believe trying new things really adds to the fabric of your being. It gives you more texture.  

 What I’ve learned so far is that I am a creative person. I am someone who has to make things and put them out into the world. I don’t like following other people’s rules and I don’t like making money for someone else before me. I want to be in control of my life, my time, and what I put my focus or energy into. Those are my bottom lines. And I feel nothing empowers all of those things more than writing. I think the written word is the lifeblood to all of it. So.. I’m writing. I’m calling myself a writer. God, that feels good to say!  I am a writer and I am finally putting my energy into the thing I have loved for oh, so long. I think my first diary was at 12. I started writing poetry at 13 or so, and I took every writing class I could until University. Along with drama/theatre, writing has been a longtime love affair that I just couldn’t let myself commit to because I was too busy listening to others tell me that it wasn’t the “reasonable” career. And there it was...the thing I listened to without fully realizing it. A dumb opinion. It was subtle don’t you think? That life-changing negative narrative. So subtle that I didn’t fully comprehend what I was doing until recently  It was that narrative that I cared about too much. I gave way to many fucks away to that narrative and I steered away from my own True North.

 I, like so many other people, let go of the things I loved because I believed when I was told that it wasn’t the “logical choice”.

 “There’s no way you can make real money doing that!”

 “You’ll be a starving artist.”

 … and most dreadfully, “That’s not a career that will get you anywhere in life.”

 I bought into it totally forgetting my father’s words. When all along I should have trusted in myself and my abilities. Instead of trusting my inner knowing, I wrapped myself in someone else’s belief that I should find something else to fulfill me. That lead to a lot of searching in the wrong directions. But in some weird way, it also lead to me back the truth of who I am. With every new thing that I tried and failed at, I took off a layer of false expectations. With every new avenue I traveled, I found out that I had capabilities that I didn’t know were there and that I am stronger than I ever believed.  

 It’s taken me until now to get this all somewhat figured out. Hind-sight really is 20/20, folks.  Trust me when I say I’ve analyzed this one to death. But It’s really as simple as following that inner knowing and not listening to the naysayers. Not listening to the doubt that your Ego can fill you with. Trial and error will teach you more about yourself than never trying. It will also teach you how to really listen to your own inner knowing because that’s the thing that will guide you to the path that is best for you.

 Now, I stand in my life knowing more about myself than I ever have (due to those trial and errors) and knowing my father’s words still ring true. No one is going to get me through this life but me. So I will write and I will love myself through whatever mistakes I make along the way, but I will be happy because it’s what I really, really want to do. There’s something exciting about living and “unreasonable” or “illogical” life.  What will I write about? The simple answer is I’m not sure. But it’s quotes like this that make me feel really good about my journey:

 “Nobody is rooting for you to fail.”

You may succeed. You may fail. But, for the most part, nobody cares one way or the other.

This is good. The world is big and you are small, which means you can chase your dreams with little worry for what people think.” - James Clear

[disasterhumans]

The Mighty Nein As Bookstore Employees

Beau: Floor staff. Generally looks kinda disgruntled and confrontational. Can be heard muttering angrily under her breath about customers being the fucking worst at any given point in the day. Shelves the History, Religion, and Politics sections of the store. Will actually get super animated and friendly with you if you ask for recommendations on any of the aforementioned subjects (especially if you’re a cute lady). In a semi-serious ongoing feud with Caleb over which books should be faced out in the Philosophy section.

Caduceus: Works down in the basement managing stock and taking in shipments of books. Very chill and laid back. May be a stoner; no one is quite sure. Doesn’t actually seem to read that much? But he gives great recommendations for books on gardening and children’s picture books (especially if they’re about gardening). All of the books he buys seem to be about death and/or fungus. He calls it his “death library.” (Jester got him a giant coffee table-style book on tea for the holidays one year. It takes pride of place on his small shelf at home.)

Caleb: No one is quite sure how long Caleb has worked at the bookstore. Rumor has it he just grew as a fully formed bookseller a few decades ago and has remained ever since. Regardless, he has only ever been a bookseller and has never displayed any interest in taking on a managerial role. Is apt to overhear a customer ask for a book, disappear into the stacks, and return a minute later with said book in his hands. All of this is done wordlessly. Shelves the Classics, Mythology, and Philosophy sections of the store. Will never shut up if you ask him for a recommendation. His face-outs are correct. Frumpkin is the bookstore cat.

Fjord: Floor supervisor. Ostensibly the Responsible One, and is generally in charge of making sure a shift proceeds without too much shenaniganry. Inevitably gets pulled into the other booksellers’ shenanigranry. He’s good with customers, and can talk down even the most unreasonable jackass. Mostly takes care of the maintaining the New Arrivals displays, but also keeps an obsessive eye on the small sailing section he fought for. Not the most comfortable giving recommendations, but generally has a good list of memoirs, travel literature, and hobby guides to suggest to people.

Jester: Started working at the bookstore right after leaving undergrad, because she “needs some real world experience, you know?” Is the most outgoing and gregarious with customers; has never had a conversation shorter than five minutes (including at the register). Shelves the Graphic Novels, Art, Erotica/Romance, and Cookbook sections. (If you look at the cookbook section you will notice that only the Baking section is ever actually in any coherent order.) If you ask her for a recommendation you may find yourself having to stop her from reading an entire book aloud to you in the store. Is very good in a crisis, and after Fjord is one of the best at ameliorating irate customers. 

Molly: Works in Marketing. For some reason people thought it was a good idea to give him control organizing events. What he lacks in sense and actual charm he makes up for with surprisingly good graphic design (it shouldn’t work, but somehow it does). Worked in the Used Department for a small dint, but he was always more interested in the pictures and weird shit he found left behind in boxes and books than he was in anything else. Doesn’t technically have any sections assigned for him to take care of, but he’s the only person who cares about keeping the New Age section looking nice, so he does.

Nott: Relatively new hire, but whenever someone remembers that they get legitimately shocked because she picked up almost everything within the first week. Whenever she goes to shelve she always carries stacks nearly as tall as she is. Has yet to drop a single one. Once threatened to murder a shoplifter. Shelves all of the various Science/Math sections. Will start yelling if people assume that “booksellers are bad at math.”* Doesn’t shelve the kids’ section but always has board books to recommend (right now her top picks are Baby Loves Quarks, and Organic Chemistry for Babies**). 

Yasha: Also floor staff. Shy and soft-spoken. Often gets flustered around customers, but knows her way around the store very well and is always lending a helping hand to her coworkers. On rare occasions will miss a shift without warning or explanation; Beau and Jester usually cover for her.  Can reach the shelves in overstock without using one of the ladders. (The first time she did this Beau nearly fainted.) Shelves the Nature section, as well as Essays, and Fiction. She doesn’t read as much as some of the other staff, but she is very good at picking out customers who are perfectly suited for her favorite titles. Will spend an hour talking about her favorite books while gently assuring someone why one is Exactly The Right Fit for them. Customers walk away feeling like they’ve been gently lead down a quiet path in the forest. 

*most booksellers are bad at math, though

**Yes, those are both real books