#my favorite genre: swords and conversation

[onlymingyus]

Hallmark Moment: Daddy's Day

pairing; kim mingyu x f reader

genre; fluff, slightly suggestive

warnings; dad!mingyu, mom!reader, kids, mention of reader's mom, slightly suggestive conversation at the end, pregnancy

w/c; 1.7k and some change 

requested; no

hallmark moment ONE (fluff) & TWO (fluff/smut)

a/n; this is probably the last of the hallmark moment series. i just needed to write something sweet and happy. i wasn't planning on posting anything or writing anything but i needed it. i hope you enjoy it. the header was clearly the inspiration, but the cake of course has nothing to do with the story so just work with me here.

A small, exaggerated gasp escapes the young girl’s lips as she rolls over the couch with a toy foam sword in hand. Amy laughs as she bounces off the cushion finding it only slightly difficult to get to her feet so she can point her sword in the direction of where she and Mina had deemed the evil wizard was. 

“Back, back I say! You’ll never take our daddy from us.” 

Mingyu grins to himself, reaching up to adjust the plastic crown that Mina had placed there a few minutes before. The ring on his pinky just barely fit on his finger to his first knuckle but it seemed to make both his daughters happy. He had let them put on both earrings and the necklace without any sighs of a fuss.

Days like this were Mingyu’s favorites. It had been just over six months since the adoptions had been finalized making Mina his, and Amy yours. Days like these reminded him how important that had been to you both when you had spoken your wedding vows not only to each other but to each of the girls just over a year ago. 

With a laugh, Mingyu reaches out to catch Mina when she steps back stumbling over the rug in her valiant battle with the unseen wizard. The small girl grins from ear to ear, melting his heart as he helps her back to her feet so she can continue her task. 

Instead of a sword, Mina had chosen to brandish the magic wand that had come in the princess dress-up package that Mingyu was now wearing most of. With a flick of her wrist, Mina points with the silver and blue wand dramatically. 

“Your magic is no match for mine. I’m the best, right Daddy?” 

Soft, beautiful eyes that were the same shade as yours look to Mingyu for validation. There was no way he couldn’t respond properly. 

“Oh, absolutely sweetheart. You are the best I have ever seen with magic.” 

Amy giggles at her dad’s words, her sword slicing through the air with more flex than necessary. The sword was showing its age but she didn’t seem to mind, just simply enjoying her time playing. 

“And what about me?” 

Mingyu smiles brightly matching Amy’s smile. Shaking his head, Mingyu takes in a deep breath extending his arms out towards the girls with the same dramatic acting they had been using the entire afternoon. 

“I’ve never felt safer knowing you and your sword is in front of me Knight Amy of the House of Kim.” 

With seemingly renewed confidence both girls charge at the imaginary evil wizard as Mingyu watches with amusement in his eyes. It’s only when the girls cheer at their own victory does he join in clutching at his chest at how they had saved him and his kingdom. 

“I knew I could count on my brave protectors. Once again my kingdom is safe.” 

Mingyu laughs when both girls run over to him to pounce on him smothering him with hugs. His arms wrap around them letting them curl into his form so they can already begin to gossip amongst themselves about how well they did. Taking the wand from Mina’s hand, Mingyu sits it on the couch behind him only to do the same with the foam sword. 

Moving into the living room as silently as possible, you can’t help but smile at the sight in front of you. Your eyes move with the movement of Mingyu’s fingers pushing through both of the girl’s hair as they babble excitedly about some kingdom, wizards, and a princess. With your hand resting on your lower back you move into the room catching Mingyu’s attention first granting yourself his bright smile. 

“Hey, beautiful.” 

At his words, both of your daughters spring into action clambering from your husband’s side to move to hug you as best they can. Your own smile seems to warm the room making Mingyu take in a deeper breath as if he could inhale the happiness and keep it forever. Neither of you would get tired of his, seeing each other with the girls, seeing them happy like this. 

“Hi, Mommy!” 

“Mommy, oh my gosh. We saved Daddy from a wizard. We saved the entire kingdom!” 

Your sweet laugh causes Mingyu’s smile to move toward his eyes. You were so attentive, he watches as Amy and Mina lead you to the armchair helping you to sit down so they can start to recount the entire story. How Princess Daddy was trapped in his tower by the evil wizard and Knight Amy and Sorcerer Mina found him and took care of the evil. 

Glancing at Mingyu, you simply bite at your lips giving him a good once over with his crown, Mina’s wand now between his fingers as he lets his hand hang over his knee. He was the best father for your children that you could have ever asked for. The thought of him like this was enough to make you feel warm and for your heart to beat faster. 

“I am so glad you saved Princess Daddy. I love him very much and would have been so very sad if something had happened to him, but look how lucky I am that I have you two to keep him safe even when I am away. I love you both.” 

You watch as both girls seem to swell with pride at your words feeling like they are on top of the world at making you happy and keeping the house safe while you had your evening away from the house. Leaning to press a kiss to each of their cheeks you laugh against Mina’s skin when you hear her try to hide a yawn. 

“Being a hero is very hard work. I think it’s time for bed.” 

Mingyu watches you for a moment, your hand moving to the arm of your chair as you start to try to stand only for him to move more quickly.

“Please, let me put my brave heroes to bed tonight. Say goodnight to Mommy.” 

Letting out a relieved breath you smile up at Mingyu who winks at you before you have both girls draped over you. Your arms wrapped around them you give them more kisses whispering how much you love them and for them to sleep well. 

Mingyu glances back at you mouthing that he will be back soon, his hands gently guiding both girls toward their room and finally into their beds. Leaning down over Mina’s bed, Mingyu presses a kiss to her forehead making her smile. 

“Goodnight sweetheart. I love you.” 

Mina wiggles further down into her covers, her small hand reaching up to caress her dad’s cheek making the man lean into the gentle touch. It still amazed Mingyu how much someone so small could make him melt so easily. 

Reaching up, Mingyu removes the crown from his head placing it on top of the girl’s head smiling at the sound of her laugh. Moving his eyes and then his feet towards the other twin bed, Mingyu takes Amy’s hand into his own lifting it to his lips to press a kiss to each small finger before grinning at hearing another sweet laugh. 

“I love you, Daddy. I’m really glad we saved you.” 

And I love you too. You can save me anytime, but you know I’d do the same for you, right?” 

Amy smiles tiredly, her eyes beginning to close as she nods causing Mingyu to laugh softly. Slipping the ring from his pinky he puts it onto her index finger before leaning to press a kiss to his daughter’s cheek. His words whispered against her skin making her smile as she drifts off to sleep. 

“Goodnight, angel.” 

Mingyu only lingers in the room for a moment, his eyes moving from one bed to the other. He wanted to make sure both of his daughters were safe and comfortable. Soft happy sighs and snores told him that they were and that it was okay for him to pull the door shut and return to you. 

Seeing you still sitting in the chair, your left hand moving slowly over the swell of your stomach causes Mingyu to stop in the archway. He wished he had his camera handy. He wanted to capture little moments like this forever. 

Swallowing hard, Mingyu takes a step causing the floorboards the creak drawing your attention and making you smile when you see him reaching up to take off the last of the jewelry the girls had placed on him earlier. He only stops long enough to drop them onto the couch before moving next to you leaning down to press a soft lingering kiss to your soft lips that seem to make you lose your breath. 

“I missed you, but I hope you had a good evening with your mom. You deserved a break, baby.” 

His words were spoken against your lips, making you smile once again. Your fingernails gently scratch over the nightly stubble at his jaw causing Mingyu to grunt as he pulls away to look at you. Moving to stand in front of you, Mingyu lowers himself to sit on his heels so he is more level with your still-growing belly as your eyes move over his face. 

“I missed you too, and the girls. I’m glad you had fun with them, but I did need it.” 

The last of your words come out as a small laugh when you feel Mingyu’s hand run over your stomach, tickling you even slightly. A small whispered apology slips from his lips before your husband leans to kiss your stomach and rest his chin against it lightly to look up at you. 

Your fingers run through his hair gently, you tilt your head to look at him lovingly. You loved moments like this. You loved how much he clearly loved you and your family. How much, Mingyu loved the little boy the two of you had made together now growing inside of you. Shaking your head, you smile running your fingers along the side of Mingyu’s face and feeling him lean into your touch before he speaks. 

“Let me run you bath?” 

Nodding, you bite your bottom lip as Mingyu turns his head to press a kiss to your palm. 

“Only if you join me.” 

Mingyu smiles against your hand before nodding in agreement. 

“I’d love to, beautiful.” 

please note that I am doing my best to tag -- tags are now down in reblogs -- all of you who have filled out the tag list form but tumblr won’t let me tag some of you. I think that is because either you have tags turned off or possibly a blank tumblr page. consider reblogging some of the fics you like from me or other writers. ♥

© onlymingyus - all rights reserved. Reposting/modifying of any fic, or pieces of original writings posted on this blog is not allowed. Translations not allowed. 

[tare-anime]

It seems that Endo is cooking some delicious food and he needs more time. 👀

So, while waiting shall we read other series?

May I reccomend an Isekai genre that is quite something 😏😏😏 ?

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy

(Such a long title. It's known as "7th Time Loop" for short)

Now I almost never read Isekai genre. Because, come on, the concept is totally ridiculous 😅. And the main poin of Isekai is to make the MC got tremendous skills without making them over powered.

Apparently time loop is included in this genre. And it's normally not my cup of tea, because it can be so confusing.

Isekai is one of my hubby's favorite genre though, so through conversations I know several series. And I even following "Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill" all for the food. (I loooooveeee cooking manga)

Anyway, one day, my YT feed showed me this thumbnail from Muse Asia channel

And me seeing a Heroine wielding a sword???

I'm sold 🤣🤣🤣

So I tried to watch the 2 episodes available and what do you know???? I'm hooked!!

Okay, I gotta admit that the first impression I got is to think this series as TwiYor mixed with DamiAnya Royal AU 🤣🤣🤣 I mean, the color theme of the MCs are DamiAnya, no? But the way they act are a bit mixture of TwiYor and DamiAnya.

The series tells a story of Rishe (female MCs) weird phenomenon, that is being trapped in a time loop after she was dumped by the Crown Prince of her kingdom (Hermity Kingdom).

Throughout her life, Rishe has always being thought that her purposes in life is only to be the Crown Princess and marry the Crown Prince. Nothing else matters. (Not even intelligence or curiosity to learn something). So, failing to fulfill her role equals to her life being worthless, and she is disowed by her family.

But she then meets with a merchant, and she is thaught that there are so many possibilities in her live. That the world is vast. And nothing can define her purposes in life but herself. Rishe then learn to be a merchant and she succeed. Unfortunately, 5 years later, she died in a war.

Returning to the place and time when the Prince annulled her engangement, she then tried to recreate her first loop, but failed. So she learn to be apothecary instead. Yet, 5 years later, she died.

It goes on and on, and everytime she learns other proffessions. Until during her 6th time loop, when Rishe crossdressing as a man and becoming a knight, she finally met with the person responsible for the war.

Emperor Arnold Hein. The ruthless and cruel man. And during this time line he killed her directly (quite literally stabbed her heart with a sword) .

All this time, Rishe has worked really hard but she always died 5 years later. So, right now, in her 7th time loop, she intended to life a lazy live with intention of staying alive.

Alas, (or fate?), during her run from the Prince who dumped her, Rishe bumps unto non other than (younger) Arnold Hein himself. She actually runs away from him, as gracefully as she can, because that man has just killed her in previous loop, and the one responsible in her death in all of her earlier loop.

But, Prince Arnold (apparently) sensing something different in her, and follows her. Until after seeing the way Rishe takes care of the series of commotion happen afterwards, he steps up and... well... propose to her. 🤣🤣🤣

Arnold's reason is simple. He is enamored. Maybe because the way Rishe acts and solves problems are different than other princess he has encountered. Plus she seems know how to use sword. Fluently.

But Rishe is terrified and thus she refused, at first. After several negotiations, and after Prince Arnold promise to fulfill her wish to "live an easy and lazy life", she agrees to follow him to Kingdom of Garkhein, and becoming the Hostage Princess.

So the story then revolves around Rishe's shenanigans in her trying to understand the one person who is responsible for her death in 5 years in the future and her schemes to stay alive.

The "battle of strategies" between a very skillful Rishe (all with her previous 6 lives knowledge) with Arnold genuine prowress, is the main attraction of this series IMO. 🥰🥰🥰

That, and of course, the budding romance between Rishe and Arnold. Despite very capable in almost every field, both of them can be so dumb if it's about their own feelings. And these small romance scenes always always managed to make me squeaaalll in delight. 🤣🤣🤣

For example, during one of the arc, Rishe has been running around doing her schemes here and there, and she's exhausted. But she still try to understand what is going on between Arnold and his younger brother Theodore.

At the end she succeed , she finally succumb to her tiredness, and despite his cold exterior, Arnold is actually grateful for her help, and smiled fondly at her.

I--

Just like TwiYor at chp 56!!!!! When Loid has to carry an exhausted Yor and he just smiled fondly at her.

Aaaaahhhhh!!!

TL;DR Read 7th time loop while waiting for the next SxF chapter. It's a SxF Royal AU fantastic series. 🥰

[mirai-e-jump]

Uchusen Vol. 182 (Autumn 2023) Kamen Rider Gotchard Main Cast Member & Staff Interviews (translations below)

Publication: October 2, 2023

Junsei Motojima (Houtarou Ichinose) Interview

"Motojima-san, please tell us what made you want to become an actor"

Motojima: My parents love movies, and that was the main reason for my interest in them. I especially like action movies. When I was young, I watched alot of action movies with my parents, and when I started middle school, I started watching movies I myself liked. Then, when I was in high school and thinking about my future career, I thought, "I can't think of anything else but acting."

"What’s your favorite movie?"

Motojima: I love the "007" series, which I first watched when I was in my third year of elementary school. Among them, I like "Casino Royale" the most. I also watch a wide range of other genres, both Japanese and foreign, as well as horror films. I also like anime.

"That being said, what's your favorite anime?"

Motojima: I like "Tokyo Revengers" and "Jujutsu Kaisen," and I love "ONE PIECE," which I've been watching since I was a child.

"Do you have any actors you're aiming to be like?"

Motojima: It would be Yoshizawa Ryo-san and Suzuki Ryohei-san. Yoshizawa Ryo-san is a senior at my agency, and is also my senior in Kamen Rider (Kamen Rider Meteor). I was moved by the preview screening of "Tokyo Revengers 2: Bloody Halloween." I've admired Suzuki Ryohei-san ever since I saw his powerful performance in "The Blood of Wolves 2." My goal is to act in a way that conveys power, even through the screen.

"Did you watch any of the Kamen Rider series when you were a child?"

Motojima: I remember watching "Kamen Rider OOO." I also had some Rider related toy swords at home, and I remember my parents scolding me with, "That's dangerous!" when I would sword fight with my friends (laughs).

"Please tell us about your audition for Kamen Rider Gotchard."

Motojima: During the audition, I had to play the role of Houtarou, as well as another role. Since I didn't know in advance which role I'd be playing, I prepared for both roles.

"What was it like when you received the news that you had been chosen?"

Motojima: My manager called me into his office for something else, and when I got there, with a serious look on his face, he said, "Junsei, I need to talk to you, so take a seat." Then, the conversation started off as if I had failed, with him saying, "You tried your best in the Kamen Rider audition, but…" I thought, "Guess things didn't work this time, huh?," and then he said, "You've been chosen to play the lead role" (laughs). Even though I was in the office, I was jumping up and down with joy.

"How did your family react?"

Motojima: After hearing that I had been chosen, I rushed home to tell my mother as soon as possible. My mother had been the biggest supporter of my Kamen Rider audition, so she cried tears of joy.

"Did you feel any pressure when you were chosen to play the main character?"

Motojima: Of course I did. I was happy, but at the same time I was worried about whether I could play the main character, as I had little experience as an actor. However, I thought it'd be a waste of time to be anxious, so I decided to read the script anyway.

"What were your impressions on the production of Gotchard?"

Motojima: I thought it was a very upbeat show. The story of the search for 101 Chemies is interesting, and when I learned that there are more than 50 transformation forms, I was shocked thinking, "That many?!" With some simple math, that means that there'll be at least one new form each time, right? I felt like my head was going to explode (laughs).

"How did you prepare for the role of Houtarou Ichinose?"

Motojima: In the materials we received in advance, it said, "He's not very good at studying, but he's athletic and has a very bright personality" So, in my daily life I thought about things like, "What would Houtarou do?" and, "How should Houtarou speak?," with that in mind, I always try to be Houtarou Ichinose. As I worked on the role, I began to get a clearer picture of Houtarou's character, and from episode 5 onward, I added some new performances that differed from the previous ones, further solidifying the role.

"Are there any elements of Houtarou that you noticed while performing?"

Motojima: He's "full of energy". Also, he has the personality of saying what he thinks immediately. Even in the first episode, there's a line where he said, "I have to say something!" I think another characteristic of Houtarou, is that he takes action immediately, not just with his words. I'm also trying to learn how to act like Houtarou. When I see an elderly person on the train, I want to be the kind of person who takes appropriate action and give up my seat.

"Has anything else in your life changed since being cast in Gotchard?"

Motojima: Filming starts very early in the morning, but I try to go to the gym before heading to the set. My routine is to get up alittle earlier, go to the gym, make a salad at home, take a bath for about an hour, and then go to the set.

"We think that routine is abit demanding….."

Motojima: Houtarou is always in good spirits, so I'm committed about going onto set in good spirits myself. So on days when my body is tired, I get up early and go to the gym to get my adrenaline pumping. I want to make sure that my energy and cheerfulness never changes, even as we continue filming for Gotchard.

"Are there any similarities between yourself and Houtarou?"

Motojima: Houtarou was suddenly entrusted with the role of "Kamen Rider," and I feel the same way in that I was also entrusted with the important role of "Houtarou Ichinose." This is the first time for me to try out a full time performance, so I have alot to work on, but, I think we both have one thing in common, and it's that we both will never give up.

"You mentioned that you make salad every day, so cooking is also something you have in common with Houtarou."

Motojima: That's true! I make my own salad in addition to the boxed lunch I receive on set. It's not a creative dish like Houtarou's, rather, it's just an ordinary salad (laughs).

"It'd be interesting to see a project like, "Houtarou Ichinose's Creative Cooking Course."

Motojima: No? What would I do? (laughs). "Junsei Motojima's Cooking Course" would be fine, but Houtarou's creative cooking might not be very helpful (laughs). But, I actually did do some creative cooking during the auditions. In the script I was given in advance during the audition, there's a scene where he makes a, "Cucumber hamburger with mustard and pollock mayonnaise," and in order to become Houtarou, I actually made and ate that creative dish before heading to the audition. Then, after each audition, I thought of creative dishes that Houtarou might make and made them. On the day of the final audition, I came up with the dish, "Spaghetti with pollock roe, cucumbers, and a suika bar (watermelon popsicle)."

"A suika bar?!"

Motojima: I think Houtarou's creative dishes are filled with things that children will love. I wanted to copy that too, so I also added a suika bar. The taste was……I'm not so sure about the taste (laughs).

"Are there any other things you pay attention to when playing Houtarou?"

Motojima: I think it's important to be aware of the camera. When I watched back episodes 1 and 2, I realized, perhaps due to my lack of experience, that I wasn't fully aware of the cameras.

"You have the most scenes with Rinne, so what are your impressions of Matsumoto Reiyo-san?"

Motojima: Reiyo-chan's personality is the complete opposite of Rinne's. Rinne is abit arrogant, but Reiyo-chan is very honest and cheerful. She's very easy to talk to, so we read the script together the day before and discuss the performance.

"What was your impression when you first saw Gotchard's suit?"

Motojima: The sparkling reflections were so cool, that I could see them from far away. I was excited to think that I would be able to do the dubbing for this sparkling Rider for the next year.

"What kinds of discussions did you have with Suit Actor Eitoku-san?"

Motojima: I've talked with Eitoku-san about many things, including movements. There are parts of the sword where I use Eitoku-san's movements as reference and try to match them, and there are also parts where Eitoku-san watches my movements. In a way, Eitoku-san and I are one and the same, so watching Eitoku-san play Gotchard is a good opportunity for me to look at Houtarou Ichinose objectively. It's not often in other dramas that two people play the same role, so it's an experience unique to Kamen Rider.

"How was the transformation pose decided?"

Motojima: After much thought with Action Director (Hirofumi) Fukuzawa-san, we settled on the pose of "Gather 2 Chemies, mixing them together, creating a triangle with an alchemy symbol, and then clapping." However, Eitoku-san's pose in episode 1 was so cool that I changed it to incorporate the same movement starting with episode 3. Please think of the transformation poses in episodes 1 and 2 as special editions, with the definitive version starting with episode 3!

"Isn't recording for the dub difficult?"

Motojima: No, it's alot of fun! When I'm doing voice acting, I’m in Gotchard's point of view, so I feel as if I’m actually fighting. It's also alot of fun to be able to put my voice into movements that can't actually happen. When Steamhopper Wild jumps up high in the first episode, I adlibed yelling, "Whoo~!" (laughs). Of course there are tough parts, but more than that, I'm very excited by each new experience I come across.

"What kind of stories can we expect from now on?"

Motojima: So far, Houtarou has managed to overcome obstacles on his own. However, I believe that there'll come a time when he'll face an obstacle that he can't overcome alone, so I'd like to see a development where he can work together with Rinne and his friends to defeat a strong enemy.

"If you've been going to the gym, you may have the opportunity to show off your well developed muscles."

Motojima: I'll tear off my clothes and say, "Now it's my turn!" (laughs). It'd be interesting to see such a development, but since Houtarou isn't a muscular character, I think it'd be great if there was a setting where his body changed due to the influence of the Chemies (laughs).

"Finally, for our readers who are excited about Gotchard, what can they expect in the future?"

Motojima: Suddenly, Houtarou has been entrusted with the role of Kamen Rider, but from now on, he'll become friends with many Chemies and continue to grow stronger and stronger. I'm working hard to grow as an actor with Houtarou, so I hope you'll pay attention as you watch the show. As for future developments, Houtarou and his friends will be going to unusual places for school events. Rinne and his best friend Kajiki will also play a big role, so please look forward to it! _

Reiyo Matsumoto (Rinne Kudo) Interview

"Please tell us how you became involved in this production"

Reiyo: I knew (Hoshino) Yuna-chan, who played Kurama Neon in "Kamen Rider Geats," so I would watch Geats's broadcast. I was thinking, "I want to do this too," and was then offered to audition for the role of Beroba, which I accepted. At that time, I was told that my image was alittle different, and I thought, "As I thought, it's difficult to get into Kamen Rider," but then, I was given the opportunity to audition for this role.

"How did you perform in the audition?"

Reiyo: The materials I received described her as an "honor student." But, I myself am not an honor student and I'm not very smart (laugh), so I tried my best to play the role of a tough character. I tried to develop my own image of Rinne, answering questions in an honor student like style, and wore my school uniform with my hair in a ponytail so that I would look like an honor student. The script we were given at the audition was set up like a school drama, and I think there was a line from Rinne where she says, "Rules are meant to be obeyed!" At that point, the setting didn't involve alchemy or spells, so I was surprised when I read the actual script after getting the role.

"Please tell us about the situation when you were informed that you had been chosen."

Reiyo: When I received the notification from my manager that I had passed the audition, I was studying for an exam in the study room of a library. That's why I didn't scream even though I was so happy. I rushed outside and was once again happy, shouting, "I did it!" (laughs).

"How did your family react?"

Reiyo: Everyone's reactions were as happy as mine. My father said, "When Reiyo came back from the audition, her face was different. That's why I definitely knew that she was chosen." (laughs)

"You've been active as a model, but have you always been interested in acting?"

Reiyo: I wanted to challenge myself to trying a wide range of other things, not just modeling. I've especially loved Kamen Rider since I was a child, so I was really happy when I got the role.

"What's your favorite entry in the Kamen Rider series?"

Reiyo: In particular, I remember "Kamen Rider OOO" well. I also remember "Wizard" and "Gaim." I have 2 older brothers, so I watched them with them. We had "Den-O" and "Kiva" transformation belts at home, and we used to play Rider, but it took a long time for us to actually start because my brothers and I were always fighting over who got to be the hero (laughs). My older brothers played the role of heroes, and I had many roles where I offered support. Come to think of it, my oldest brother is the same age as (Yasunari) Fujibayashi-san, who plays Spanner, and the younger brother is the same age as (Junsei) Motojima-kun, who plays Houtarou, so they're linked with Gotchard (laughs).

"What did your brothers, who influenced you, say to their sister when she was chosen to play the heroine?"

Reiyo: They said "You've surpassed us~" and, "Play the same way you played the hero when you were a kid" (laughs).

"Other than tokusatsu, what kind of shows do you watch?"

Reiyo: When it comes to anime, I like "The Promised Neverland," "My Hero Academia," "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas," and "Beyond the Boundary." There are so many other shows that I like, but when we start talking about anime, it seems like I'll never stop (laughs).

"Going back to Gotchard, do you consciously play the role of Rinne in the same way that you did before?"

Reiyo: I did it with "harshness." When she was little, her father went missing, and I think that's why she distrusts people and didn't make any friends. But as I read through the actual script, I noticed the kindness in Rinne. However, if I'm too gentle, it's difficult to see Rinne's strength, so it’s hard to find a balance. Rinne has a gap between harshness and gentleness, and I think her tsundere personality is charming. In episodes 1 and 2, there was alot of "tsun," but I hope you'll pay attention as her heart gradually relaxes.

"What did you think of the alchemist setting?"

Reiyo: I wasn't familiar with "alchemy," so I immediately went online to find out more. The cloak, rings, and other parts of the costume are also unrealistic but very cool. I love spells and magic, so when I read the script I excitedly thought, "I can do this!" I was so happy because it felt like the playground games I used to play with my friends in kindergarten were coming true (laughs).

"What are some of the most memorable alchemy scenes that have been broadcast so far?"

Reiyo: It's the scene in the first episode where the fallen leaves come to the surface. When I saw the broadcast, I thought, "So cool~" and fell in love with Rinne myself (laughs).

"There's a scene where you climb a staircase connected to a wall and recite a spell to open a door, but how did that play out on set?"

Reiyo: At first, it was difficult to visualize. When I read the script, I imagined that a hole would open in the wall when I cast a spell, but I was surprised to see a scene where a door was opened during filming. When I saw the finished video, I was very impressed with how it turned out and thought, "So that's what happened!"

"Did you receive any requests or advice from the Directors regarding your performance?"

Reiyo: Director (Ryuta) Tasaki advised us that, "Acting is a drive." While showing the actors a miniature toy car, he told us, "An actor cannot move without the gasoline of emotion. When you drive at top speed, you can give a great performance." So in other words, you have to perform from the heart, not just from your hands, in order for the viewers to understand what you're doing, and for you to be able to perform effectively as an actor. In order to give an emotional performance, I read the script in detail and try to understand Rinne's feelings from each line.

"What's the atmosphere on set like?"

Reiyo: We get along incredibly well and everyone is kind to each other. When we have free time during filming, we play games together, and it's alot of fun. We play puzzle games like, "Word Wolf" or, "Sea Turtle Soup." I also love gummy candy, so I always have some with me and give them to everyone (laughs).

"Please tell us your impressions of Junsei Motojima-san, who plays Houtarou."

Reiyo: Junsei-kun is really just like Houtarou. For example, when filming stops for a scene that's difficult to act in, the scene sometimes becomes an issue. At such times, Junsei-kun can just say a few words, and the scene instantly becomes more relaxed. In the beginning, I couldn't tell jokes and spoke with honorifics, but now I can laugh at Junsei's jokes and he can respond to mine.

"What are your impressions of another female cast member, Oto Abe-san, who plays the role of Renge Icho?"

Reiyo: We often work together in the waiting room, and Abe-san speaks in a straightforward manner, just like a Kansai person, which is extremely interesting. Abe-san's own laughter is so loud that it makes me happy to hear it. Abe's laughter lights up the atmosphere on set.

"How much do you know about future developments?"

Reiyo: I don't know anything at all! (laughs), that's why I always look forward to receiving the next script, and every time I go on set, I check to see if a new script has arrived.

"What do you want to do in the future as Rinne?"

Reiyo: First, I want to become stronger than Houtarou! Most heroines are saved by the hero, but I want to, "Become a heroine who's stronger than the hero" (laughs). That's why I want to challenge myself with action. And also, I want to transform into a Kamen Rider. Since I was a child, I've always wanted to transform into a Kamen Rider, and my older brothers and I even competed with each other for the belts (laughs). Recently, the number of female Kamen Riders have been increasing, so I hope that I'll get a chance to become one of them.

"Finally, please tell us about some future highlights"

Reiyo: Through her involvement with Houtarou, Rinne's mindset, which used to put rules first, has gradually changed. Some people may have watched episodes 1 and 2 and thought, "Isn't Rinne a scary kid?," But I think you'll gradually see a different side to her than the strict honor student character, so it's exciting. Please look forward to seeing Rinne's image crumble! (laughs). Still, I'll keep Rinne's strength and respect for the rules until the end. Thank you for your support throughout the year! _

Hiroki Uchida, Yosuke Minato, Keiichi Hasegawa Interviews

"First, we'd like to ask about the development of Kamen Rider Gotchard. When did Minato-san receive the offer to become Chief Producer?"

Minato: Last year, I was preparing for "Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger" with Chief Producer (Takahito) Omori. Ryohei Takahashi, a talented junior staff member, joined us as an assistant Producer, and we were ready to go at last. Whenever I join a production, I always keep one goal in mind. In King-Ohger I had set my goal as, "Moffun will take the world by storm!" But during this I was told, "Please take charge of the next Kamen Rider," and Moffun was left up to Omori and the others. The result was that Moffun became very popular…..(laugh). I immediately started meeting with Producer Ishimori-san, TV Asahi, and Bandai, where we decided to use the cards as the transformation items. On my way home, the first thing I did was call Uchida-san.

Uchida: Originally, I was invited to write the script for King-Ohger, so I thought it was going to be about that, but was surprised to hear that it was about a new Kamen Rider. I'd already cleared my schedule for King-Ohger, and I've been in contact with Minato-san since our school days, and we also worked together on "Kamen Rider Saber," so I was happy that he asked me to work on it, but I was honestly concerned, as the two of us are still young, would we be able to handle it?

Minato: When a new Producer launches a project, veteran Producers Shinichiro Shirakura and Hideaki Tsukada are supposed to watch over them. However, if you don't have a solid idea of what you want to do and what you want to achieve when launching the project, it'll end up becoming Shirakura and Tsukada's work. That's why, the first thing I asked Uchida-san, an old friend who I could easily express my true feelings and weaknesses to, was to participate in this project. However, Uchida-san was a main writer for the first time (at Toei), so I thought it'd be difficult for him to write for an entire year by himself. So, I asked Hasegawa-san, who helped with Saber, if he could join us as a sub writer in advance.

Hasegawa: You called me on the phone, right? To put it simply, at the time, I was so happy to be invited to work on Minato-kun's first project as a Chief.

"When he approached you two, you already had a card motif in mind, but where did the theme of "alchemy" come from?"

Minato: Over the course of our meeting, the word alchemy came up. This is a theme that so far, has never been used in the Kamen Rider series (in the main series), and the combination of cards and alchemy is rare. I thought, "Wouldn't it be interesting to depict this?"

Uchida: Also, at that time, the existence of Chemies hadn't been decided. I wasn't at the meeting, so, when I was briefed on it, I smiled bitterly at what a difficult path I'd chosen to go down…..

Minato: When Shirakura worked on the card battles in "Kamen Rider Ryuki," he concluded that the cards were like a proxy war, so he needed a gimmick that would allow the user to intervene. In "Kamen Rider Decade," the value of the cards was further enhanced by allowing users to become any Kamen Rider when using them, but this time, we needed to draw out the appeal of the cards even more. During all of this, the design of the cards that Bandai sent to us looked like living creatures, and the idea flashed in my mind that these were homunculi, monsters created through alchemy. That led us to Chemy. We agreed that it'd be exciting if the Kamen Riders fought using the cards that contained the various abilities of the Chemies, and that it'd actually be fun to collect the cards.

"At that point, was it also decided that there would be only one Kamen Rider appearing in the early stage?"

Minato: It was. If we were going to depict a hero who fights while switching cards, rather than increasing the number of Kamen Riders, it's better to increase the number of forms for each Rider, and this direction coincided with my desire to create a small number of Riders. In the early stages of the project, the idea was to keep the structure similar to "Kamen Rider Agito," with only 3 Riders. In the end, it became a single Rider, and he has to fight using all of his cards and switching between them.

"Did the current story come out of that initial plan?"

Minato: While working with Uchida-san on the scripts for the episodes 1 and 2, the flow of, "There are Chemies," "Alchemy is used," and "Houtarou enrolls at the Alchemist Academy" was determined. However, since there's so many people involved in the Kamen Rider series, when we were putting together the script, both Uchida-san and I were constantly receiving so many different opinions, that we felt like we couldn't accept them all…..With the way things were going, episodes 1 and 2 would get lost in story, and would never make it into the final script. After consulting with Shirakura, Tsukada, and senior Producer Kazuhiro Takahashi, it was decided that we ask Hasegawa-san, who had been asked to participate as a sub writer, to help us sort things out.

Hasegawa: Just when I was thinking, "Isn't it about time?" I received a call saying, "They're finally here!" But, when I thought it would be about episodes 5 and 6, I was told, "Please do episodes 1 and 2. These are the main ones." I was surprised and said, "Eh?!" and "They're not done yet?!" (laughs). At that point, it had been decided that Houtarou would be the son of a family restaurant, that he would meet Hopper1, and become a Kamen Rider. However, Houtarou was supposed to release the 101 Chemies. Houtarou, an unconventional guy, feels sorry for the Chemies he's stored in the cards and releases them, but then collects them again because of the trouble they've caused. It was a, "Cause problems and get credit for the solution" type of story. There was no clear enemy, and the Three Dark Sisters didn't exist.

Minato: I thought that if the Chemies were scattered all over the world and merged with bad people in town to become monsters, there'd be no need for a villain for the main character to face. Even if it became necessary halfway through, I ultimately didn't think it was necessary to have them appear in the first episode.

Uchida: There were so many elements revealed in the first episode, that I thought if we included even the villain, the audience wouldn't be able to keep up with the story

Hasegawa: By abandoning the "problem to solution" development, we needed an enemy.

Minato: At first, TV Asahi's producer (Chihiro) Inoue insisted that "It'd be better to aim for an easy to understand enemy." Then, Assistant Producer (Daigo) Matsura remembered this and proposed it again to Hasegawa-san, where the Three Dark Sisters were created.

Hasegawa: We had alot of discussions about what kind of enemy to make. "Kamen Rider Saber" had 3 males, and "Kamen Rider Revice" had 1 female and 2 males, so I came up with the idea of having 3 females to differentiate our characters.

Minato: I thought it was an interesting story, and that having three female villains would leave an impact. As a result, the first episode had a high proportion of female cast members for a Kamen Rider.

"It's true, the only male characters were Houtarou, Minato, Fuga Kudo, and Kajiki."

Hasegawa: At first, Kajiki wasn't there either. It started out as a couple students talking about urban legends, but then Inoue-san asked us to, "Make Houtarou have a friend," and so Kajiki was created.

"Chemies are living things, and we asked about this earlier, but was Hopper1 originally going to be the current mascot?"

Minato: It was Hasegawa-san's tastes.

Hasegawa: Ever since I read the first draft, I knew that Hopper1 had to be cute. Grasshoppers don't make noises, but I thought, "Let's make it cute!," so I improvised and wrote in that it says, "Hopper."

Minato: Hasegawa-san joined us without any prior knowledge, so he suggested out alot of ideas that we didn't think of, which was very helpful.

Uchida: I was happy to see that he kept the refreshing male and female buddy element, which we'd been advocating for since the beginning of the project.

"Did Uchida-san originally plan on making the male and female combination of Houtarou and Rinne the center of the story?"

Uchida: We were aiming for a fun and cheerful story about two teenagers, Houtarou and Rinne, who are both students.

Minato: In terms of casting, we planned from the beginning of the project to cast a young teenager as Houtarou.

Uchida: We also talked about how difficult it would be to find an actor who could play the role of Rinne.

Minato: Unlike Houtarou, who suddenly became a Kamen Rider, I thought that since she was his senior and came from a line of alchemists, even though they're classmates, she would require a slightly more mature attitude than Houtarou. I thought that the actor would be in her early twenties, older than Houtarou's actor.

Uchida: And then we met Matsumoto Reiyo-chan at an audition.

Minato: We found Rinne. And she's a mature 15 year old!

Hasegawa: Motojima Junsei-kun, who plays Houtarou, is exactly the image of Houtarou that I had envisioned. I thought they both fit their roles wonderfully.

Minato: I'm truly grateful for the opportunity of meeting Junsei-kun and Reiyo-chan.

"From episode 2 onwards, Renge Icho and Sabimaru Tsuruhara will appear as students of the Alchemist Academy."

Minato: They also existed at the time of Uchida-san's initial ideas. However, as I mentioned earlier, there was no villain at the beginning, so Renge and Sabimaru were set up as a rival team led by Kurogane Spanner.

Hasegawa: It was a 3 person team with Spanner as the leader, and Renge and Sabimaru as its members. They were going to fight for the Ride Chemy Cards with them. During the rough plotting stage of episodes 3 and 4, it was suggested that Spanner should be left alone.

Minato: I decided that Spanner would be like an elder brother, who guides Houtarou until he grows. That being the case, Spanner must be a strong character who can fight alone. That's when the characters were reconstructed, and Renge and Sabimaru became classmates of Houtarou and his friends at the Alchemist Academy. Come to think of it, it was Hasegawa-san's idea that Renge start speaking with a Kansai dialect.

Hasegawa: In the script for the episode 2, we had Renge speak with the Kansai dialect to differentiate her character.

Minato: I thought, "It's not going to be easy finding an actor who can speak in the Kansai dialect!," but it was fate that Abe Oto-san, who's from Osaka, was there for the audition. I asked her to improvise some lines in the Kansai dialect, and she really got into it. The only character in the Kamen Rider series with a Kansai dialect is Akiko Narumi from "Kamen Rider W," but it's rare for a character to have a Kansai dialect all the time.

Hasegawa: But, episode 3 reminded me of Akiko. There's also a takoyaki scene (laughs).

Minato: Originally, Sabimaru was set to have a VTuber avatar, rather than use AI. However, creating a VTuber was difficult, so we settled on AI.

Uchida: I had been in contact with (Rikiya) Tomizono-kun, who plays Sabimaru, for a long time, but I presented him with an audition without saying I was happy. I was happy to hear that he made it to the final audition. I knew he had experience as a voice actor and that he'd be able to play the voice of AI, so when he was chosen, I thought it was the perfect casting.

Minato: For the AI…..there was a proposal to use a voice actor, but despite his looks, Tomizono-kun can produce a low, handsome sounding voice, so we decided he could play the role of the AI as well. We were happy that we found someone who exceeded our expectations.

"We'd also like to ask about staffing. Director Ryuta Tasaki is the Pilot Director, and Hirofumi Fukuzawa, who was previously in charge of Super Sentai, will be the Action Director."

Minato: When Uchida-san and I, two newcomers, started Gotchard, we decided to ask a veteran Director who we could rely on to direct the pilot, so we asked Director Tazaki, who worked with us on "Avataro Sentai Donbrothers." I also asked Director Fukuzawa, who I had worked with on Donbrothers, and consider to be one of the top ten Action Directors in Asia, to be our director. As a result, the main staff, except for the writers, are the same as Donbrothers (laughs).

Uchida: Since the planning meeting, I've been wondering, "How would the alchemy be visualized in the first place?" On top of that, Director Tasaki carefully creates a format for the worldview and creates a work that's even more exciting than the script. Both episodes 1 and 2 had great visuals.

Hasegawa: The acting of the cast was also excellent. Kajiki was my favorite, but when I saw Kabe Amon-kun's performance in the show, I loved him even more. It's hard to resist the urge to only have him in more scenes when I'm working on the script (laughs).

"Please tell us about the opening theme song "CHEMY×STORY" and the insert song "Rising Fighter."

Minato: Since the very beginning of the project, I've been committed to the "Rider Kick Supremacy" principle. I mentioned Agito earlier, but Agito has been a special work in my life ever since I saw it for the first time when I was in my first year of middle school. The coolness of the combination of the Rider Kicks and the song "BELIEVE YOURSELF" has left a strong impression on me. Because of this impression, I'd always said that I wanted to leave the Rider Kick scene in the memories of the children watching Gotchard. We decided to play the "Kick Song" during the Rider Kick scene from the very beginning of the project, and it led to the song "Rising Fighter" sung by Beverly in episode 2. When music producer (Mayu) Ida-san asked me what kind of theme song I wanted to use for the opening, I said, "I want it to be an upbeat song." Then, BACK-ON was chosen as the artist, and we came up with a song with a bright, youthful feel that's typical of a high school Kamen Rider. I told Fujibayashi Seiko-san (who wrote the lyrics) that Gotchard was a bright, youthful school drama, and she wrote wonderful lyrics. Director Tasaki also responded to my wishes with a fast paced video, for which I can only express my gratitude.

Uchida: When I saw the opening video, I felt that we had to keep this positive feeling. It felt as if we received a message from Director Tasaki that the story of Gotchard should be like this.

"Broadcasting will continue for the next year. What are your goals for the future?"

Hasegawa: Our goal is to take good care of the characters. I'd like to continue to make the characters more appealing and continue to depict them throughout the year, including the villains.

Minato: If we look at some previous works, there are some characters who leave the show halfway (laughs).

Hasegawa: That's true…..(laughs) Right now, we're still at the stage of thinking about how to make the characters appealing in the drama. A year is a long period of time, and it's impossible to predict what kind of "chemical reactions" may occur. After overcoming these challenges, we may discover some aspects that we never thought of. First, I'm aiming for the final episode, and I'm going to write carefully without giving up on these characters.

Uchida: Of course, we value the characters, but when we actually met with the actors, we felt that, unlike in anime, one of the characteristics of live action productions is that, "Actors who aren't colored with any colors create their characters from scratch." As for Gotchard, Junsei Motojima-kun, who plays Houtarou, and Reiyo Matsumoto-chan, who plays Rinne, are making their first attempts at acting, so I think we must create a script that'll bring out their charm and brilliance even more. I'd also like to make Gotchard a show that can inspire the hearts of not only children, but also adults.

Minato: I'm going to get through the year thinking, "I must never lose the feeling of youth." Youth is a time of unconditional brilliance, and I think it makes not only the individual but also those around them smile. In Gotchard, I'll carefully depict the story of Houtarou and Rinne so that we can share the "sparkle" of youth together.

[ichihime]

Hi, what are your favorite IH romance tropes that they've got in canon?

hiya! at the risk of sounding like a bit of a wet blanket, i'm not too into assigning tropes to stories or couples or relationships bc it sometimes feels a bit reductive and limiting i guess?

that said, i can list some stuff about the IH relationship portrayal that i'm drawn to and enjoy:

i like how they have a shared theme of losing a parental figure at an early age. and even more specifically, blaming the having that figure return as a hollow to challenge their guilt and grief. these events set them on their own independent stories that allow them to be highly empathetic and understanding of one another's circumstances.

what's more, i think these events also help to shape the shared importance and concept of "family" that ichigo and orihime both have in common.

i love how protective they are of one another, and while this is simply part of their inherent nature as characters and they will extend this protection to others they care about, both ichigo and orihime consistently single one another out as someone they must singularly protect.

i love the progression of their relationship from strangers, to acquaintances, to friend of a friend, to friends, to trusted ally, to lovers! i think the progression of their relationship is very natural and realistic.

i like how their relationship also deals with a very real issue of communication, feelings of inadequacy, and the desperation of wanting to protect someone all on your own-- both ichigo and orihime learn that their way of going about things is not viable in the long term and both grow independently of one another AND together. i love their miscommunication and conflict in the HM arc, the question of "can they trust each other" being challenged by the villains and each time they come back with a stronger resolve and answer "yes. we may not fully understand each other because we're all fundamentally different people, but we have a bond that cannot be broken. so of course i trust you"

the portrayal of the feelings they have for one another is so uniquely tender and honest within the genre. ichihime is truly in its own league compared to other shounen couples!

i like how they share the same interests and banter with each other; that they can hold conversations as friends and still be romantic as well. its really important to me when it comes to the believability of a romance-- i need to believe they can be each others friend too!

i love how well their fighting styles complement each other in battle! they truly are like a sword and shield

those are just off the top of my head, but i hope that can answer your question!

[semperintrepida]

FTH Fic: The Premise

As promised, the premise of this fic!

What would happen if Kassandra the Eagle Bearer encountered an Isu artifact that brought another Kassandra into her world, a Kassandra who wears golden armor and calls herself "Deimos Autōkrator"? And what if the first person this Deimos Kassandra runs into is none other than Kyra, Archon of Mykonos?

Yes, it's an AU of my own AU, taking capital-E Evil Deimos!Kassandra from my novel "The Breaking" and throwing her into canon Kassandra's world. As much as I feel like I'm five again, bashing my favorite action figures together in battle, this story is shaping up to be a character-driven psychological drama. Swords-and-conversation is my favorite genre, after all.

Tomorrow we'll talk about working titles, and why I couldn't get this story started without one.

More to come.

[critter-genfic-events]

This week, we have nine (Nein) fics featuring Forgiveness! Whether it's forgiving family, found family, or themselves, sometimes everyone needs a little more grace. Check them out below the cut, and if you like them, comment or kudos!

Grief Takes Many Forms by Multifandom_Damnation (4246,General) Warnings: None Pairings: Cassandra & Percy De Rolo

After the events of campaign one, Percy has a drink. Cassandra joins him.

Reccer says: Percy and Cassandra need to talk more, and it's great to finally get some catharsis, while still very much acting like siblings

Kill The Monster by CriticalRolemance (SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFic) (4958,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: Vax & Caleb, Caleb & The Mighty Nein

Caleb and Vax have a talk. Later, Caleb kills Ikithon and imagines what getting his revenge actually means.

Reccer says: This very early (2019!) imagining of Caleb getting to kill Ikithon and finally forgive himself for killing his family is fantastic and has stuck in my head all this time

All things in Perspective by firefright (20729,Mature) Warnings: None Pairings: Essek Thelyss & Verin Thelyss

In which Verin refuses to believe Essek's death is as simple as the Dynasty wants to make it seem, and it takes meeting the Mighty Nein in person to get the answers he seeks.

Reccer says: It's got a complicated Essek and a complicated Verin

sometimes god happens fast by principessa (3674,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: Deirta Thelyss & Essek Thelyss, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss

The Mighty Nein listen in on a conversation between Essek and his mother

Reccer says: Deirta is often shown as a cold, unforgiving mother - it's refreshing to see a version that readily forgives her son for his treason

crawling from the battle to the other side by Solanaceae (6553,General) Warnings: None Pairings: None

For a few days in the Blooming Grove, three wizards navigate gardening, atonement, and one another’s guilt

Reccer says: One of the most popular genres of fic after the finale was 'Volstruckers and Essek navigating gardening' and this is probably my favorite of the fics that came out of that. It showcases great gasp of Astrid and Wulf and their issues, as well as a phenomenal take on post-canon Essek in the aftermath of Cognouza. It's very sweet, very playful, and very emotional.

call me your destiny, call me a liar by grayintogreen (5200,General) Warnings: None Pairings: None

Lucien and Molly are split into two individuals in the wake of Cognouza's defeat. They're both coping with what that means.

Reccer says: Deals with both Molly's fears over returning vs Lucien struggling to figure out how to proceed now that he's lost everything and all the emotional struggles that entails.

a place to start by parttimemodel (1703,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: Laudna & Orym

Laudna and Orym have a talk after the Solstice

Reccer says: I like fanfic that allows for moments that didn't have time to happen in the stream, and this allows Orym to forgive himself for being chosen by Fearne instead of Laudna after the Otohan fight.

Not the Needle, Nor the Thread by Operafloozy (2149,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: Essek & Deirta Thelyss

A teenaged Deirta hides out at Essek's place for a few months. They get used to each other.

Reccer says: The complicated family dynamics don't get all the way to forgiveness, but it's an interesting look at Essek starting to forgive his mother for being who she is.

Rats in the Belly by icarus_chained (1705,Teen) Warnings: None Pairings: Grog & Percy

Grog thinks over the fact that Percy handed him a cursed sword

Reccer says: I love the depth if character the fic was able to give Grog while also being very in character

If you liked this rec list, follow along for more! We'll be posting a new list with a new theme each Monday. Want to make your own recs? Check out the rules, and then use the form to submit!

Next week, we're featuring your favorite canon divergent AUs - AKA, when something goes slightly differently in Exandria, and the story goes off from there.

After that, we have grief, Pike Trickfoot, and then mysteries!

If you're looking for some more, check out some fics written in the critter genfic bingo tag, or the older rec lists! Or you can request your own card and join in on the fun!

[annie-creates]

Don't push it

Pairing: Lady Lesso x student reader (platonic)

Genre: angst with fluff (I honestly don't know)

Words: 1500

Note: I wanted to write some kind of favorite student thing since @camilaxmartin posted about it, so thank you so much for the request! And don't worry, I love the challenge of writing more specific requests, hope you'll like this. And thank you so much for liking my writing. <3

Defense. Leonora’s favorite subject. She loved it when she was back in school and she loved it even more now when she could torture her students a bit forcing them to either man up and fight or get hurt, their choice. Now when they all were learning to work with their finger glow magic, it was a wide parade of spells and talents. She was particularly proud of Y/n, who not only mastered a high level of sword handling but also impressed her with her magical abilities. It was clear that unlike some other students Y/n wasn’t slacking and took her education seriously. Maybe the school for evil will finally have a winner, Lesso thought. They weren’t exactly allowed to pick favorites but this was the school for evil, so rules were meant to be broken.

Today Y/n impressed her dean with her defense skills, and the teacher wasn’t shy to let it show. She wanted her students to know their hard work will be rewarded and their negligence… likewise. The doom room wasn’t there just for show and scary stories after all. She smiled slightly at the young girl nodding her head in acclaim. If only everyone could please her like Y/n did, the forces would finally be balanced.

“Very good Y/n.” Lesso praised the student, letting her rest from her efforts.

Y/n was an overachiever. She’s been one all her life and if it was what brought her into the school for evil, so be it. She despised the place at first, but overtime she grew to live the fighting and magic classes. She doubted the princesses over the bridge had so much fun holding a sword as she was having. Plus, the school came not only with fun lesson but also a quite hot dean, who apparently decided to play right into Y/n’s praise kinks. As the class ended, she made her way to dinner, talking with Hort about all the pranks he wanted to play at the upcoming celestial celebration. She wasn’t one to wreak havoc exactly, but she enjoyed a good crowd of panic.

Lady Lesso was on her way to her office after dinner planning to grade some papers before bad, when she was stopped by Heather and her group of friends. She wasn’t really in a mood to be a good welcoming dean and solve her foolish problems, but she was a dean, so what could she really do. She hoped to at least cut this encounter as short as possible.

“Can I help you?” Leonora’s voice clearly indicated to keep this conversation shot and effective.

“You know I’m not one to snitch, Lady Lesso, but I have to tell you what Y/n did to the hall statue.” Heather looked at her innocently. That picked up Leonora’s interest, everyone knew to do anything but not to mess with the statue.

“You’ll tell me on the way.” She took the girl by her arm, forcing her to walk fast with her and telling her what she saw as they walked.

Y/n was ambushed by the wolf guards the moment she stepped out of the dining hall. They didn’t say a word as they dragged her into the doom room, the girl screaming and pleading at first but stopping when she realized it’s not gonna get her anywhere. As she recognized the road to the doom room, fear overtook her body almost unable to move, which came handy to the guards as they strapped her to the uncomfortable chair in the middle of the room. She slowly looked over the wall upon walls of weaponry and torture instruments, her breath picking up the longer she awaited her sentencing.

“Well well well. Out of all my students I wouldn’t exact you to act out in such way Y/n.” Lesso stepped out of the shadows, her usual coat discharged and her shirt sleeves pulled up.

“W-what?” Y/n could hardly speak as her breath wasn’t leaving much room for it, her eyes following the dean full of fear like a deer in headlights.

“Didn’t you wreak the statue in the hall? Tarnish it with your stupid need of acting out?” the dean said calmly as she watched over her tools at hand, deciding on the best form of punishment for the girl.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The student cried out, unable to stop the tears of fear from cascading down her cheeks.

“At least admit your fault and don’t embarrass yourself with pitiful cries, Heather told me she saw you during the dinner time.” The teacher finally diverted her gaze to Y/n. Seeing her favorite student in such state didn’t make her happy exactly, she had high hopes for this girl. But rules apply to everyone.

“I didn’t do anything! I was with Hort the whole time! Why don’t you ask him!” Y/n tried to defend herself, hoping her pleas won’t fall on deaf ears.

“What?” Lesso raised an eyebrow forcing the girl to look her in the eyes with a dagger under her chin threating to pierce her alabaster skill if she doesn’t comply.

“Yes, we went right to dinner after class! We were there the whole time!” You cried in fear, keeping the last piece of calm mind just by a miracle. There was a reason you weren’t exactly the best villain, the idea of being tortured terrified you.

“Stay here.” Lesso ordered after a minute of quiet thinking, not that Y/n had much choice to move due to being strapped into the chair.

She left the room with a decisive step, determined to find the truth. She didn’t think much into it when Heather pointed the blame at Y/n, she was a never after all, she was meant to break the rules. Plus she didn’t think Heather would be dumb enough to lie to her, she must have known what would happen the moment Lesso found out the truth. The punishment for lying into the dean’s face was way worse than anything she would do to someone for destroying the property.

After Leonora sought Hort out and he confirmed Y/n version of the story, she couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit sorry for her. The only meaningful conclusion she came up with as for why Heather did it, she probably wanted to take Y/n down from her place of limelight. Jealousy wasn’t a good look on her students, it was bothersome. But maybe they wanted Lesso to stop thinking of Y/n so highly. And maybe she will after today, her reaction in the doom room showing that she has zero resistance to stress and pressure.

Y/n was sitting in the silence and darkness of the room, the moon high up in the sky, the midnight passing already. Her cries died down and tears left dry stains on her face, her eyes burning from the crying. She calmed down a little, Lesso surely went out to find out the truth and will come back ensured Y/n didn’t do anything… at least that’s what she hoped for. Who did the damage or why Lesso thought it was Y/n she didn’t know, but hopefully the truth will come out and the real culprit will be served justice. For a moment she thought her dean forgot about her, but then the heavy door opened.

Without a word the dean walked up to Y/n in the uncomfortable chair and untied her restrains, measuring the girl with her heavy gaze. She really did put her through a tough night, didn’t she. But maybe it will be of some good use to the student? There will be people out to hurt, or even kill her, she needs to learn to overcome her fears. Even then, Leonora should have known better. Her favor was volatile, you never know when you’re gonna fall into disgrace.

“You can go.” She freed the girl with a stoic expression.

“I… What?” maybe it would be smarter to just get up and run, but it seemed like Y/n didn’t do smart today.

“You were wrongly accused. I should have investigated it further. My apologies.” Leonora admitted but before she could send Y/N on her merry way, the girl threw herself around her waist.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She mumbled hugging the tall woman. The dean wasn’t one for physical affection and letting people hug her, but she figured she could do this one time as reimbursement.

“I may favor you but don’t push it.” Lesso unattached the girl from herself after a minute. “Now of you go. It’s already late to be wondering the hallways.” She send the girl on her way to bed, hoping she won’t have too dark nightmares after what happened here.

The dean sat in her torture chair with a tired sigh. Maybe she could have handled today’s events a bit better. She may need to bring Y/n in once or twice again though, toughen her up a little if she wants her to be the next champion.

[silver-heller]

No More Jokes

Hi hi! Welcome to my self shipping blog! My name is Nightmares, or Silver, either or! I am a 22 year old, asexual transman (he/him), plural self shipper. I am okay with sharing (except for alters). I am a lover of villains, and enjoy anime, animation, and comics. My favorite genres include historical things with good characters, horror, mysteries, and romance. My main F/O is M/ordecai H/eller from L/ackadaisy, but I am okay with sharing him!

Please read the DNI before following me! Liking the post reassures me you have.

Ao3 / F/Os / Lacka FOs / NSFW / Lacka College AU / Silver Bible / Hazbin Self Ship Blog

User box template can be found here.

You will be fed to the pigs if you (DNI if)...

Note: I will probably only follow you back if you show a genuine interest in my stuff and I like your stuff in turn (aka we could have a conversation together). I am a bit picky about moots, but you are always welcome to follow of course.

If I block you, I block you. I try to be vague when it comes to vents and vent about the behavior, not the person, but ultimately it is your responsibility if you see crap you shouldn't when you're blocked.

You don't like villain F/Os or have an issue with villain F/Os being made soft. I won't argue with your preferences, but painting it as "bad writing" or "not canon" due to a difference perspective is just crap.

You are a minor. Sorry, I'm just not comfy with minors following or interacting with me.

You are a bigot (homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist, antisemitic, etc.) or you romanticize characters being bigots. You will be blocked on sight. Exclusionists will also be blocked.

You are a map, proshipper, or ship adults with minors. I am also not comfortable with shipping with animal characters that are just animals with no humanoid features (ex: shipping romantically with a character like P/ikachu is gross, anthros like M/ordecai are fine though), incest ships, people who ship with real people, and so on. I am not comfortable with characters that have canonically assaulted someone, are predators, or child abusers.

You unnecessarily dictate how others write characters, especially asexual ones (pointing out the use of bad stereotypes is not this and completely understandable).

You are not plural safe. (BTW I use the term plural, please use this term, not D.I.D). I have a zero tolerance policy for not only people that are negative about/to plurality and systems, but also people that misuse plural experiences for their own entertainment. Some examples would include:

Featuring characters doing things very similar to "switches" because you find it funny/to show they're "mentally unstable".

Have your character talk to "people inside their head" to paint them as crazy.

Treat an evil alter ego or persona as another personality.

Painting alters or alter equivalent characters as evil.

That shit isn't for your singlet characters and it definitely isn't for your "crazed" or "violent" characters, and alters deserve to be treated kindly.

There is some media I am uncomfortable with and I will block you if your F/Os are from these sources: SAO (sword-art-online), R/ayman, J/ekyll and H/yde, and H/arry P/otter. (These medias make me uncomfortable for one reason or another it's not always for moral reasons, please respect that even if you don't understand).

Other wise we should get along just fine!

[tangleweave]

❓ — three adjectives that describe you

❤️ — what are some of your best qualities?

💔 — what are some of your worst qualities?

✨ — what would you change about yourself, if anything?

🎮 — favorite video game(s)?

🗒 — what is/are your favorite genre(s)/theme(s) to write?

🤔 — what genre(s)/theme(s) do you struggle to write the most?

😗 — what are some of your favorite things to do when you have some time to yourself?

💯 — share three random facts about yourself that your mutuals may not know about you.

❓ — Literate. Intelligent. Tall.

❤️ — Goddamn it, I need a safeword... Okay, I'll try five things.

1) I'm tenacious; when I say I'm going to do something, I mean it. 2) I prefer neatness to "organized chaos". 3) I genuinely and persistently want to help others who are experiencing difficulty. 4) I have a vast wealth of patience and I'm not easily angered. 5) I'm good at encouraging others.

💔 — This one's easier. Five things here, too.

1) Although I've said I'm going to do something, it'll be longer than you want it to be before I get around to it. 2) I'm not good at finishing projects I start (see: literally anything I write). 3) In my pursuit of helping others, I let my own priorities languish and spread myself too thin. 4) Conversely, I can be terribly oblivious to others' needs when pursuing the dopamine rush and will sometimes vanish or go silent at the most inopportune times. 5) I can be as much of an enabler as I am an encourager, and struggle to enforce boundaries I set, particularly with loved ones, because I have a hard time with people I love being mad at me.

✨ — I could do without the deficit of attention and the chronic anxiety. The rest is serviceable.

🎮 — I guess this needs a "five things" breakdown as well because there's no way I can limit it to just one.

1) Diablo series. 2) Rock Band series. 3) Pokémon series, core games plus Legends Arceus specifically. 4) Marvel's Spider-Man series. 5) Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor/War series.

(NOTE: The next three answers are copy/pasted from previous asks of the same questions. Forgive me!)

🗒 — I love writing action/adventure, suspense, angst, and romance. Usually I prefer writing within backdrops of modern-day realism, near-future sci-fi, and medieval fantasy.

🤔 — Horror. I'm really not good with this genre specifically. I also struggle mightily with the theme of hurt-no-comfort; if left unattended, I will dwell on this until I spiral, and it takes some doing to get me out.

😗 — I watch some niche corners of YouTube (gamers like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, Game Grumps, and GrayStillPlays; quirky and gross stuff like Good Mythical Morning and Dr. Pimple Popper; food pr0n a la Binging With Babish, Worth It, and About To Eat). I listen to a lot of rock music, always on the search for the next progressive metal band I'll fall in love with (can't get enough of Unleash the Archers and Myrath, currently diving further into Battle Beast and Beast in Black). I have a decent collection of video games but I'm a little stuck on Pokémon at the moment (currently playing Sword, will be playing Violet when it comes out). Until earlier this year I was running a D&D campaign with a few folks lurking around various corners here on Tumblr; we're currently on hiatus but we mean to return to it sometime after the holiday season. But really, even though I struggle with it when left to my own devices... I love to write. Even if I don't mean for it to be anything professional, even if it's just a little drabble here or there... putting my thoughts down and assembling them into a story I think is worth telling has always been a love of mine.

💯 — Hmmm, three things...

1) I have a pretty impressive collection of tabletop games, but hardly anybody to play them with (and frequently no tabletop, either, mine tends to be covered in stuff). 2) Surely you've heard the trope of "I have a girlfriend, she lives in Canada!"? That was me. For about two years, I legitimately did have a girlfriend who lived in Canada. That relationship crashed and burned horrifically during the worst year of my life... but I'm grateful that it happened then, instead of after moving in together. 3) I've always had a love of writing, but it was only when I was a teenager that I learned fanfiction was a thing that others enjoyed and not just for one's own entertainment. Feeling that was a "safe" way of exposing my writing to others, I went to a Pokémon website and submitted chapters of a story I'd been working on. The chapters were highly rated and praised by the moderators, and I received fan email, which was a mind-blowing experience all its own. I struck up a few friendships among these fans. While most of those friendships have languished since, some are still strong, and one in particular went the distance. Yes... I married my own fangirl.

[troubleah]

BASICS !

NAME:   líf mikaelsdóttir leah mikaelson NICKNAME/S:   little shit none AGE:   19ish / 1000+ SPECIES:  original vampire

PERSONAL !

MORALITY:    lawful  /  chaotic  /  good  /  neutral  /  evil  /  true RELIGION:  somewhere between norse paganism & atheism SINS:    greed  /  gluttony  /  sloth  /  lust  /  pride  /  envy /  wrath VIRTUES: ��  chastity  /  charity  /  diligence /  humility  /  kindness  /  patience  /  justice / none :p KNOWN LANGUAGES: too many to list tbh. she's over a thousand years old and has travelled for most of her life; she's not fluent in all of them but has a conversational level at least SECRETS: again, too many to name; leah is a nearly compulsive liar and so she holds a lot of secrets. i guess the biggest one would be that, every single day she's away from them, she misses her family terribly; it hurts to be around them but it hurts to be away just the same because they're a part of her. one of her deepest wishes is that they sucked a little less and were less of a controlling self-destructive mess so that she could come home and still be herself ( but doesn't believe this is possible ). and that as much as she doesn't want to get roped into Family Drama and would mess with them, she'd choose their side and come to their rescue if it was a death or life situation.

PHYSICAL !

BUILD:    scrawny  /  bony  /  slender  /  fit /  athletic  /  curvy  /  herculean  /  pudgy  /  average HEIGHT:     5'5'' ; 165cm SCARS / BIRTHMARKS:   a scar on her chest from mikael's sword ABILITIES / POWERS:    original vampire OP powers; but also an extensive knowledge of toxicology / chemistry / anatomy / how to kill a hooman RESTRICTIONS:  typical vampire weaknesses: vervain, wood, neck snap, sunlight, white oak etc. impulsive personality. chronic pain ( from spinal birth defects )

FAVORITES !

FOOD:  blood DRINK:    latte or alcohol ( with blood ) PIZZA TOPPING:   none COLOR:   black, green, red MUSIC GENRE:    instrumental, chill music: have her personal playlist BOOK GENRE:   encyclopedias, grimoires, wikipedia MOVIE GENRE:  documentaries CURSE WORD:    bloody hell, fuck SCENTS:   wood, flowers, ocean breeze

FUN STUFF !

SONGS:  the exit ( forgive durden ), sick of being told ( grace vanderwaal ), runs in the family ( amanda palmer ), icarus ( bastille ), seven ( sleeping at last ), leave the city ( twenty one pilots ), numb ( linkin park ), my future ( billie eilish ), serotonin ( girl in red ) AESTHETIC:  pics from a road / highway, maps, climbing trees, jumping fences / off cliffs, walking along train rails, swimming with sharks, growing plants / gardening, woods, covered in blood, here have her pinterest SINGS IN THE SHOWER:   if there is someone around to annoy, yes LIKES PUNS:    always

tagged by: @survivingpierce ( thank u! ) tagging:  @hellsurvivr @therebekahmikaelson @lordofthestrix @logarou @adeathsentence @deceptivemorals @divienity @tanthalos @cursedbcrn @sacredslaycd @psychiclegacy @wehowl

[xsweetelegantdisasterx]

I posted 92 times in 2022

That's 82 more posts than 2021!

17 posts created (18%)

75 posts reblogged (82%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@umbralhelwolf

@mythicwonderland

@kpopcrossworlds

@drunk-on-hwa

@xsweetelegantdisasterx

I tagged 71 of my posts in 2022

Only 23% of my posts had no tags

#ateez - 13 posts

#the rampage from exile tribe - 13 posts

#ldh - 12 posts

#he can catch these tiny hands of fury - 12 posts

#the rampage - 11 posts

#but im jonghos trash can 🗑 - 11 posts

#life ruiner - 8 posts

#ateez jongho - 8 posts

#he's so beautiful - 8 posts

#bias - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 62 characters

#have grace like a giraffe on rollerskates normally so bring it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

My Rant-ish post:

I'm really late on the High and Low Bandwagon but I saw the error of my ways and I am attempting to right my wrong. (LISTEN I'VE BEEN WATCHING THIS SERIES FOR THE PAST MONTHS, I JUST SPREAD OUT THE MOVIES BY ALOT.)

*I've also been a fan of LDH for a while now*

Who isn't righting their wrong tho you ask?

Every. Single. Sword. Member. Yes I Said it.

Also, my attraction to Ranmaru had me wanting to rub my face on the concrete.

He was kinda terrifying which is not good for my heart. 😲

See the full post

6 notes - Posted September 15, 2022

#4

Well hell. I'm finally done with the first chapter. It was getting long, and I honestly feel like Kaisei deserves a multi-chapter story ♡ because he's Kaisei, and deserves the world.

So, here is the first chapter:

Pairing: You & Kaisei (Rampage from Exile Tribe)

Genre: Mostly Fluff

Streaming:

Chapter 1: A series of events.

You pulled outfits against your body in the mirror. One of your school friends invited you out with her friends. Usually you were snuggled up in bed, trying to catch that new episode of your favorite show. Tonight, you were trying something new. You even looked at your gaming console to ensure that it wasn't him, it was you. You would be back and y'all would be reunited afterwards to stream for your followers. Gaming was a huge hobby of yours. After all, you had been doing it since you were younger. Breaking the stigma that only guys kicked ass at games, you made it a goal nightly to silence any male chauvinist you met with.

With one shoe on and another off, you completed the task of dolling yourself up.

Geeze, if I didn't know any better, I was a makeup artist in another life.

Final preparations happened as you heard knocking, expecting her. To your knowledge, it was supposed to be just you two, but you noticed unfamiliar faces. Stepping aside you let the others in.

“Sorry, they invited me, and I asked if you could come.”

“No that's fine-"

“What's this strange setup?”

You were interrupted by the taller one. She turned her nose up at your gaming layout.

“Oh, I'm a streamer. I play games and record for others to watch.” You proudly showed off your new console.

“That's dumb, are you a child?” She scoffed at your statement.

You bit your tongue. If this was any indication of how your night was going to go, you weren't impressed. One thing you had to constantly tell yourself was that you were going for your friend, not her.

“Actually, I'm very successful. Gaming is a stress relief for me, and I enjoy it so I don't have to defend myself to you.”

You grabbed your clutch ready to go. This girl was extra mouthy and reminded you why you never went anywhere. At the club they chose to go with, there was a line already that wrapped around the block. From the street, you could tell it was going to be near impossible to enter, but whatever. The bouncer was in full flirt mode with the bitchy one. When he raised the rope, you felt a small sense of relief, before he pulled it down in front of you.

“I'm with them, what are you doing?”

You were clearly past annoyed at this point. You tried to catch the group but they ignored your yelling.

“I didn't see them conversing with you.”

“Ah, I get it. I do, do you normally discriminate like this?”

“I let the pretty ones in no problem. You'll get your turn squirt.”

This guy was the type you dealt with everyday. Your turn looked grim, until you saw the opportunity to sneak in with another group of patrons.

Prick. I’d 1v1 you right now if I was around a console to knock that arrogant attitude of yours down a notch.

You finally entered trying to catch up with the others. When you looked around, you noticed them by the bar. Clasping the clutch tighter, you marched over to the group you were supposed to be with. Again, they did nothing but ignore you to gawk at a couple of guys. You rolled your eyes so hard, you had to lower the intensity lest your eyes were in danger of falling out.

“Thanks for waiting for me ladies.”

“Oh you got in,” the mouthy one started up.

“Surprising right?” You matched her attitude.

See the full post

6 notes - Posted January 30, 2022

#3

Little Snippets of writing:

Who: You & Kamiya Kenta {The RAMPAGE From EXILE TRIBE}

Midnight Snack

You stood in the kitchen readying your stomach to be filled with delicious brownies. It wasn't uncommon for you to get bit by the midnight snack bug. Everyone knew this, especially your roommate Kenta. As you pulled the brownies out, you got excited, wanting to dive in quickly. The aroma was enough to send your stomach into devour mode.

Kenta was more than likely sleeping from practicing all day, so this was a solo adventure. That didn't keep you from knocking on his door.

Over the course of the weeks, you found yourself crushing on your best friend. There really wasn’t any explanation other than he was your glove. He was the one you wanted to be with. Lightly knocking on the door, he grunted.

“Kenta, I know you just laid down and got comfortable, but I made these brownies.”

“What is wrong?”

“I don’t want to eat them by myself. I just want your company.”

Kenta, without ever opening his eyes, drew back his covers as he patted the empty spot next to him, signaling for you to climb in bed. You smiled big as you climbed next to him. He wrapped his arm around your waist, resting his head on your lap, as you dove into the brownies. With a brownie in one hand and a plate in the other, your free range was limited. There was no possible way to eat two brownies while holding the plate. Suddenly, you looked down as a brilliant idea crossed that mind of yours. You lightly placed the plate on his head, provoking him in a fit of laughter, and a big ass smile to cross your lips.

“Am I your table too?” Kenta muttered in his sleepy voice.

“You’re definitely my table at the moment. Listen, I usually have two brownies, one for each hand. I needed to free up space, hence where your head comes in handy.”

He cuddled you closer as you ate in solace.

12 notes - Posted January 16, 2022

#2

100 DEGREES

I swear this song is the secret to a long, healthy life span. Their stage presence is 💯💥

But the question is:

ARE YOU SLEEPING ON MY MANS, AND NOT IN YOUR BEDS AT NIGHT?

If you answered yes to any of that question, then we need to have a meeting. When you're ready to talk about my lord and savior

Kawamura Kazuma, or any of the 15 other guys that take space up in my heart, my inbox is always ready.

14 notes - Posted February 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Would I beckon at his every call?

YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASS I WOULD. 💋

See the full post

24 notes - Posted January 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[anxietywriter]

things characters do that make me worship the ground they walk on

my heart literally cannot handle soft comfort characters that deserve the world. like holy shit they have my sword

if they have the capacity for redemption due to being easily manipulated and an easy target after years of being an outcast, having no support system, and misunderstood? especially if they used to be the mastermind until everything went topside

when they do that thing where they lay down next to someone and raise their hand to the stars

when they're so so so close to making it, to completing a big achievement/dream, one that they avidly talked about with such hope in their eyes, only to have it all ripped away

martyrdom,,, you stupid, brave idiot

they're always cracking jokes, trying to make people feel more welcome and comfortable, easing the tension, lightening the mood and they've bonded strongly with others because of that

extreme loyalty, whether to a cause or to a person, big respect for the dedication to their principles, but definitely a high risk/high reward kind of trait

love when characters make a nerd reference, shows their interests and is incredibly endearing, also good conversation starter if anyone else happens to catch it

scenes of them alone, jamming out, air guitar turned microphone as they switch between miming playing and singing. of closing the door and being immensely excited/flustered after scoring a date. moving around in excitement, only to curse as they stub their toe

punching the lights out of a bully. no remorse.

when they laugh it's higher pitched and it's this cute chuckle or cackle or it's entirely unrestrained and it's beautiful and it should be a crime to be that adorable

they're a seemingly innocent character and repeatedly shock everyone by making flirty comments or dirty jokes at the most random times. flirty comments are always directed at movies of the inappropriate genre, ex. sad movies or horror. dirty jokes are always delivered conversationally in monotone

characters that are the 'babysitters' and are always exasperated by the others' shenanigans and they just care so much

they make themselves out to be a hardass and for the most part they are, but when they see someone's really breaking down and having a hard time, they soften up. just for that one time though. until another breakdown happens.

they have a really mundane topic that they will defend with their life. it is the hill they will die on (ex. best music genre, pizza, eggs are good, etc.)

when they excitedly collect things or save things for later (rocks, photos, etc.) whether it's for other people or themselves

seeing characters get a gift earlier and seeing it later when the character brings it out or wears it

that soft look they give to someone they care about, my heart

love any kind of banter or teasing

dramatics, the cape swoosh, speeches while moving, jumping onto tables and chairs for height, grand gestural movements, all of that

they fluster easily because they're not used to niceties, flirting, or being asked out. and my goodness do they deserve better

nervous movements like fiddling with their necklace or hair and jiggling their leg

my favorite thing is when characters can sing and if they're angry, they belt out how they're feeling and that sends me

[darennkeller]

Devolver, one of the most renowned indie game publishers in the world, reached out to me and played my game.

In this devlog, I'll talk about:

How I connected with Devolver.

The details of our conversation.

The valuable feedback they provided and how it led to game improvements.

What's next for my game.

DISCLAIMER: I do have the approval from Devolver to share this.

How Did I Get in Touch with Devolver?

I've been talking with various publishers for months now. Typically, they discover my game through my presence on Twitter, Reddit, or directly on Steam during online events and contact me directly by mail. Noticing this growing interest, I decided to take the initiative and contact my favorite publishers myself, just to see what might happen.

But to do this, I needed a Pitch Deck. This document is a concise presentation of your game and your plans for it, including details like release dates, budget, target audience, and more. Fortunately, Devolver shares a tutorial on creating an effective pitch deck right on their contact page. I read it and essentially followed the guidelines to craft my own.

I sent out the pitch deck and then... I waited. I didn't have particularly high expectations; it felt a bit like tossing a message in a bottle into the sea.

Three weeks later, I received my first rejection from ChuckleFish. At that point, I somewhat resigned myself to not hearing back from anyone and moved on. But just a week later, Devolver got in touch! Specifically, it was Clara from their marketing team who've read my pitch deck and already noticed the game before during the Steam Next Fest.

How Did the Conversation Go?

Clara told me that my initial release date was too soon for them. She actually contacted me to establish connections for future projects, as she had developed a genuine fondness for Lueur. I wasn't particularly fixed on the release date, so we discussed the possibility of launching the game in 2025. During our conversation, Clara presented me with a series of questions:

If you were to create your dream game, what would the budget be, and what features would you want to include in the final game?

Are you considering simultaneous releases on consoles and/or mobile devices?

What kind of outsourcing, contracting, or additional staffing would you require?

Which game engine are you currently using?

How long do you anticipate the average player will spend in Lueur to reach completion?

The question about the game engine had an interesting twist. I mentioned that I use Godot, highlighting the complete control I have over the engine without depending on another company. Remarkably, one week later, Unity altered its pricing structure, causing quite a stir in the game development community.

Answering these questions in detail took time, you can find my complete responses here.

I also took the opportunity to ask a few questions to Clara, which lead to very interesting information about how Devolver works.

How do you see my game fitting into your portfolio?

We’re continually exploring new ideas, regardless of genre, but first it has to be fun. The reason we take our time to review pitches so rigorously is to really understand the game and determine if our strengths are the best fit to help you sell it. So I’ll get back to you on that! We also have to evaluate the logistics, such as staff and resource availability in your proposed timelines, so you get maximum support from us, which means sometimes it's not just about the fit.

Have you already collaborated with solo developers before? How did it go?

We absolutely love working with small teams, and indeed have launched several projects with solo developers. Some examples are Inscryption, My Friend Pedro, and Bleak Sword and Pepper Grinder is another one upcoming.

What kind of support can I expect throughout the development and publishing process?

We essentially aim to do everything needed to support our devs being able to comfortably make their game, which typically includes funding, marketing, and production assistance at a minimum. We have load s of capabilities and expertise in many fields that we’re excited to leverage in whatever combination makes the most sense for your game. It’s a collaborative effort!

How does your team approach generating visibility and excitement around new releases?

We really try to play to each game’s individual strengths and listen to both our devs and our audience when it comes to marketing the games we publish. We’re fairly strategic and have some stellar in-house talent, as well as a host of partners for expanded capabilities. This will be a much bigger conversation throughout any partnership.

How involved would your team be in the development process? I value creative freedom and would like to know how we can work together to maintain the integrity of my game.

You’re the game-making genius. Our job is to help you get it out the door and into as many players’ hands as possible when it’s ready. We do have insight, experience, and passion, however, so feedback is always on the table if you want it.

Could you give me a sense of how collaboration between your team and me as a solo developer would work?

We endeavor to collaborate on every beat and give you final say, particularly on the big decisions. It’s no different than with a team.* We want you to have confidence in our partnership.

Her responses left a very positive impression. Did any of her answers strongly resonate with you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, I'm really interested in knowing what you think about them.

Following our initial conversation, I sent Devolver a new version of the game for their team to review, and the waiting game began. Two weeks later, I received their feedback about my game.

Feedback about the Game

Let's dive into their feedback and see how I improved my game thanks to them. You might want to check out the video to visually understand the changes in the game.

The Day-skipping for resources felt tedious.

This is true. Initially, Lueur was designed to be played in real-time. However, casual and more relaxed players found the timer stressful. So, I introduced a new game mode, which is entirely turn-based. This mode has been well-received, but it did not feel natural that time is stopped and you have to manually skip days. To resolve this, I decided to take a different approach. Now the game is always in real-time, but you can pause and fast-forward time instead of skipping days. Mechanically, it remains the same, but the player's experience is vastly smoother and even more immersive. Players now have full control over how time passes instead of the game enforcing constant pause.

The visual style didn’t grab.

I plan to retain the low-rez pixel art style due to my limited drawing skills. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean I can't make it look better. Some of my sprites are clearly placeholders and will need to be updated. I've already overhauled the sprites for the darkness storms, which play a crucial role in the game's atmosphere. The result is quite ominous and I like it. Moreover, I've introduced a weather system, which does not impact gameplay yet, but greatly changes the game's mood and breaks the visual monotony.

The mini-games were fun, and there was hope for more.

I'm really happy about this feedback, because the mini-games are definitely a risky design choice in a strategy game, and a few testers really hated it hard. But overall, it s very appreciated. My plan is to progressively introduce more and more mini-games with each level.

The moral choices were surprising and cool.

I'll be expanding on the events and their choices with each level. I'm currently working on implementing a priority system to add an element of randomness and ensure that players don't encounter the same events too frequently.

What's Next?

So, did Devolver eventually decide to work with me on Lueur? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

We’ve taken a deeper dive into the build and your dream game notes over these past couple weeks and there was more back and forth than usual. In the end, we couldn’t quite come to a consensus to move forward to next steps at this time. However, Lueur resonated with quite a few of us (particularly the tabletop gamers), which is a much better sign than most projects that make it to this step.

So... It's disappointing that things didn't work out, and I would have been thrilled to collaborate with them. However, I'm immensely grateful for the opportunity, and I take pride in the fact that my small solo project captured the attention of such a renown publisher. Their feedback has been invaluable in enhancing my game, and perhaps, who knows, they might have a change of heart in the future.

As for right now, I actually just signed a publisher last week! But that's for another devlog. Feel free to watch the video version. If you'd like to embark with my on this indie journey, don't forget to subscribe!

I hope it was a nice read, see you next time everyone!

[newyggdrasil]

Chapter 13 - Bedroom

They went up the stairs and left the adults alone.

Lunnec and Fenrir's room is on the third floor, all floor is for their family. One room for Asktré, one for them, and a bathroom. It's small but Fenrir likes it because he can see the city, even Treecentral, from their room window. Lunnec doesn't like it so much, but the place has some advantages for him.

Their room is simple but practical; a built-in closet, two beds, and a large table with two seats. The table was full of books, it is the place where usually they studied. Nevertheless, there were so many books because Fenrir was a book lover; fantasy, adventure, and sci-fi are his favorite literary genres.

"Men, it's about time you arranged your things. I'm tired that you take up the table," Lunnec said.

"This isn't fair, your room's side is worst," Fenrir replicated.

It was worst. There were underwear, t-shirts, and other clothes spread on the floor and Lunnec's bed. Even for what is a teenager's room.

"Yes, but I'm the older brother I have rights," Lunnec said while he gave him a knock on the head.

"Okay, okay. I arrange it," he yelled.

Fenrir leave his bowl on his bed, which was perfectly ordered, and moved some books.  Then both sat down and began to eat the salad with the night city view in front of them. Lunnec finished fast but Fenrir was spinning the food.

"C'mon, I know that it wasn't good, but you have to eat," Lunnec said.

"Yes, sorry. I'm thinking about Dad," the boy said looking at his bow with a lifeless gaze.

"You think too much. You knew that Dad is very weird. That he can rejuvenate it's not a surprise."

"Why didn't he say nothing about it until now?"

"He seldom talks about his past. When I was a child, he was like that. I took long to get that he talked about my mo ..." Lunnec found talking about that with his little brother.

Both boys fell silent. Their mums were a hard topic. One that neither was prepared to talk in a mature way. Someone knocked on the door interrupting the cold situation.

Lunnec opened the door and there was a beautiful black girl in an empire-blue dress.

"Nodric," Lunnec said spellbound and his sword shacked due to his words, then he whistled and the sword stopped.

"Hi, Nodric," Fenrir said from the table.

"Hi Fenrir, how are you?

"Busy, he needs to read, a lot of homework delayed," Lunnec said while he pushed his brother out of the room and Nodric got in. "Get out, we need privacy," Lunnec whispered to his brother.

"But, what do you want me to do?" Fenrir replicated.

"I dunno. Wait, you can go to the secret table and read this book," Lunnec gave a book to his brother.

"I already read it."

"C'mon. If you do this for me I will owe you a favor. A big favor"

"Okey. But I won't forget it" Fenrir said while going down the stairs.

Lunnec closed the door, and he looked at the girl. Nodric is fifteen years old, and his eyes and hair are brown. She was dressed so impressed like always. She has the skill of weir the perfect clothes. His father is diplomatic, for this reason, she had learned about etiquette since her childhood, and using the appropriate outfit for each occasion is something that she considers very important.

"Well, your mother told me that you were in bed," Lunnec said trying to look cool.

"Yes, I'm going with my father to the school. The snobbish school waits for me," Nodric said while wandering for the room.

"This means that I couldn't see you for a time."

"Well, with my new school and your random trips for the world is likely that not," the girl came closer to Lunnec.

"My trips weren't random."

"Oh really, what did you happen this time?" She said putting her arms over his shoulders.

"Well. This time we were in Nidavellir, and there was a dwarf in a cave ..." The conversation was suddenly interrupted by a passionate kiss, making clear that the question had been out of courtesy.

At the same time, Fenrir arrived at the bar. The local was all out which made it easier that Cruzanda and Lena didn't see him. Sigrid wasn't a problem at that time she must have been drunk.

Fenrir decided to hide himself on the secret table. This is the name that Lunnec, Nodric, and Fenrir put on a table that it doesn't see from the bar and many places in the inn. This was the perfect place when they wanted to do something that their parents wouldn't like it.

He sat down at the table without noticing that there were two people, a woman and a man, occupying it. The man was twenty-something years and the woman was forty-something. The woman was already drunk, but the man was in a perfect state.

"What do you do kid? We don't want to play with you," the man said in a bad way. Then Fenrir saw Cruzanda passing near the table, and he hid with a folder. "Don't touch that brat!" the man said taking the folder from Fenrir's hands.

"Sorry," Fenrir said bowing his head.

"Don't worry kid, my assistant is unsociable," the woman was drunk and noticed. "You can stay, but we are speaking about boring themes."

"Doctor Karen, we are discussing the new investigation's data."

"Do we have some good results? Lars," Karen asked.

"Not, but we need to analyze the transdimensional fluctuations ..." Lars answered.

"That I said, boring themes."

"You aren't a normal doctor, are you?" Fenrir said while the woman laughed.

"I'm a doctorate in physics, specifically in transdimensional dynamics," she said.

"Then, do you build doors between realms? on the security posters of the train, they call them transdimensional jumpers," Fenrir asked fascinated with the conversation.

"Not kid, she studies how works our universe. And doctor Karen is the one of better specialists in this field. She is a genius," Lars said passionately.

"Calm boy. Actually, he has a reason, but I prefer not to brag," she said while looking at Fenrir, who seemed a little confused, "I know how you see clearly."

She put on the table a round copper object with a lot of stones of different colors embedded.

"What this is?" Fenrir asked with curiosity.

"This is a dimensional projector. It's similar to a door between realms but it works to study not for travel," she pressed a button on the side of the object and put her hand on the device. Suddenly, a second pale hand of another color appeared over the original hand. "This device allows you to see yourself in other realms that you have been. We have some bigger in the laboratory in the old mill."

"Can I try?" the child asked.

"Of course," Karen said while she continued explaining. "People think that they are traveling between realms; however, we exist in all the realms in a superposition state but we only can have a physical form in one. The doors change in what realm is your physical form."

The boy put his hand and appeared five hands more. Lars and Karen were surprised, adults that traveled more than three realms aren't common and children less. Fenrir saw the faces of disbelief and he blushed.

"Well, my father likes to trip," Fenrir said waiting that them not to ask more.

"I see" the doctor answered.

"I have an ask, and souls?" Fenrir asked to distract them.

"Good question. Don't exit the souls as such."

"But, our sál, draugr, and Helheim."

Lars got up while Karen and Fenrir kept talking.

"Okey, this is much more complicated. When someone dies, stop being in the superposition state, in the realm where you die stays your physical parts like your Lik or your Önd. The rest of you go to Helheim or Anlag where they stay like echoes of the persons. Not alive but not dead either, only a backup,"

"Then a draugr appears when our sál don't go to Anlag, do it?"

"You are a smart kid, but not always work in this way. Sometimes it is our minni, our memories, that stay. The natural process is that our lik, harm, and the rest of part of us gradually disappear into the twelve realms, when this doesn't happen, well, there are the valkyries to fix it," she took another sip after the lesson.

"Okey, I think I understand but, why this happens?"  Fenrir needed to know more after that new discoveries.

"If you find out the answer, you must hide it," Karen said seriously.

"Why?" he said whispering.

"Because I would be without a job," and she started to laugh.

Then Lars approached the table.

"I already pay, can we leave, please?" Lars said.

"So young and so boring," Doctor Karen said.

Then a couple of people opened the door, and Fenrir saw his father getting into with a weird woman who had a bird on her shoulder.

"Fenrir, what do you do?" Asktré asked calmly but with anger in his eyes.

"Father, sorry. I thought; Lunnec said..."

"But your son would have to be older, wouldn't he?" Martinsa said.

Then Sigrid who was all night drunk in the top bar, approached them.

"Oh lady, this is the second," Sigrid said to Martinsa.

"Oh, my goddess, Sigrid? Long time no see you," Martinsa said surprised to see her friend so older.

"Oh hell, you don't see me this way. Some of us aren't immortal warriors or magical beings with powers of miraculous rejuvenation."

Both friends continued to talk while Asktré took his sons for his shoulder and they got up the stairs in silence. Then they arrived in the brother's room.

Asktré opened the door without knocking. Lunnec and Nodric were reclining on Fenrir's bed, the boy was shirtless kissing the girl.

"Ugg, gross, that is my bed," Fenrir said.

Both got up faster. Asktré didn't speak which unsettled them.

"Father, I can explain..." Lunnec said nervously "... I want to show her how my wounds were totally recovered."

"You hadn't wounded in your trunk," Asktré answered.

"Well, sir. I must go. I'm really sorry to bother you," Nodric said trying to be tender and polite. When got out of the door, she thought that she had gotten out.

"I will talk with your mother about this," Asktré said destroying her hopes.

"Yes sir. Good night, sir!" she said disappointed.

Then Lunnec put on his shirt and sit down in his bed. Fenrir did the same.

"Father, we don't want to make angry you," Lunnec said trying to relax the atmosphere.

"Really? I asked you for two things; eat and go to sleep. When I arrive, my little son was at a table with two drunks because my older son was having an affair with a girl in his bedroom."

"Sorry," Lunnec said hanging his head in shame

"Boy, we had a conversation about your duties. I see that I cannot trust you," he said looking at Lunnec, "and you, today someone speak about chains that I am starting to consider in buy," he said looking at Fenrir. "Now, to sleep. Tomorrow I will think about a suitable punishment."

Asktré closed the door with brusqueness. The boys were left alone in silence.

[kuiperblog]

There's this oft-repeated cliche: "it's not about the ideas; it's about the execution." I wonder how often people actually think about what that means.

One of my favorite anecdotes is that Daniel Abraham (one half of SA Corey of The Expanse fame) is not really known for writing fantasy "by the numbers." If you've ever read The Long Price Quartet, you know what I'm talking about: it has this eastern-inflected setting where the conversations happen in tea houses instead of taverns, and only a few people on the continent can use magic at any given time, and the applications of those magic are usually things like "separate seeds from cotton" or "make stone softer," which go on to be world-shaping because they basically slingshot certain regions up the tech tree.

After writing the Long Price Quartet, Daniel Abraham wanted to do something different: he wanted to write epic fantasy as readers expected it to be.

He got a giant "epic fantasy symposium" together with a bunch of fellow authors who he respected, including George R.R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Ian Tregillis, Carrie Vaughn, and Melinda M. Snodgrass, who was kind enough to let him use her home to host the event. The group of them discussed at length what epic fantasy is, how it functions, and what reader expectations were.

And so, armed with this knowledge and insight from some of the great minds of fantasy, Daniel Abraham set out give the readers exactly what they expected from the fantasy genre: a bunch of fantasy races in a faux-European setting set some time in the medieval era, with a story that begins with a scholar inadvertently awaking an ancient evil, and a heroic mercenary captain who goes on a quest to obtain a magical sword and slay the ancient evil, and an abandoned orphan child who ascends from inauspicious origins to become a peer of monarchs. The first book in the series is called The Dragon's Path and it's got a picture of a giant sword on the cover.

It's easy to describe The Dagger and the Coin in ways that make it sound like everything you'd expect from a bog-standard epic fantasy story, and that was, in some sense, kind of the goal. Except, of course, that Daniel Abraham can't help but inject his favorite things into the genre. So, in his own words, "instead of having a farm boy chosen by prophecy, I’ve got an orphan girl who was raised by my version of the Medici bank," because Abraham is fascinated by the Medici bank, and so the orphan who ascends to power is a banker who never picks up a weapon, and by the way she's also kind of a functional and (mostly) prosocial sociopath.

The aforementioned mercenary captain who goes on a quest to obtain a magical sword and subsequently sets out to slay the source of the ancient evil is, well, not exactly the center of the story, because it's hard for "one guy with a sword" to accomplish much of anything on his own. After all, wars are won by armies, not individual soldiers. And as Napoleon once said, an army marches on its stomach, and so the ability to fund and procure supplies for an army is a great deal more important to running a war, and it quickly starts to become clear why a banker might be better qualified to save the world than a guy with a sword. That being said, the former mercenary captain can make a pretty good general if you give him the chance.

But, of course, paying armies is not the only way to get people to fight for you: those who don't fight for the highest bidder are often those who fight for ideology, and the conflict of "mercenaries vs missionaries" becomes very literal in this story. When one side of the conflict is driven by missionaries who are very good at spreading bad ideas, you have a conflict that is literally about how to defeat a totalizing ideology, which isn't exactly the kind of thing that you can reliably accomplish with a sword, and so this story becomes a story that is literally about the world-saving power of epistemic humility.

Running through all of this is the fact that, as Daniel Abraham does his best to write to genre expectations, one of the main viewpoint characters is sort of holding a mirror up to a certain kind of reader. After all, if you're a "typical fantasy fan," maybe you have certain aesthetic preferences and beliefs. Maybe you find yourself more comfortable with books than interacting with your fellow people. Maybe you believe that ancient prophecies are true, and find yourself easily persuaded by wise old bearded men who speak in aphorisms that resonate deeply. And most critically, maybe you believe that the world can be neatly divided into "good" and "evil," and that the appropriate response to the presence of evil is righteous violence. Daniel Abraham suggests to us that if you fit this profile, then perhaps you are not the "good guy," and that you could, with someone whispering the right things in your ear, very easily find yourself being the bad guy.

And Daniel Abraham does this while also delivering everything you'd expect from a traditional epic fantasy tale. This is not a story that is reliant on you buying into the idea of a "genre deconstruction;" Daniel Abraham just looks at the things he finds interesting, and says "okay, that's going into the book." Most of these things are not really that subversive: the guy who goes on a quest does indeed find an epic sword, and he gets to do some cool and heroic stuff with it, even if his sword skills alone do not suffice to conquer evil. You come to love the heroes, and hate the villains, and you sometimes even root for the antiheroes when they happen to find themselves on the right side of the conflict.

In a sense, he is not really "subverting expectations" so much as actually delivering on the expectations that readers did not know that they expected from the genre, because The Dagger and the Coin is one of the few epic fantasy series that actually grapples what it means to have a feudal society where people actually believe in the Divine Right of Kings, and why a constitutional monarchy would be total anathema to people who actually believed that members of the noble ruling class were inherently superior. He's not here to "subvert" or "deconstruct" the fantasy genre; he's here to deliver the series that epic fantasy readers have always wanted but didn't know they were allowed to ask for.

Some books I think it would be fun to take a crack at writing (which do not have anything like a planning doc or partial draft):

Choose-your-own-adventure

Shonen trading card game battler

Locked-room murder mystery

Scifi amnesiac protagonist

Little people book (like The Borrowers)

Very generic romance

Travelogue

[semperintrepida]

A Cut, Quick and Painless

While Kassandra knew that nothing awaited her in Kyra’s private chamber except for conversation, she’d be damned by the gods if she said she wasn’t hoping for something more. She’d even made a token protest, arguing that discussions of strategy could wait until they’d both recovered from their whirlwind excursion to Delos; but Kyra had dismissed it, saying, “Podarkes will be furious once he finds out we burned his precious weapons, and I want to have a plan in place before he makes his next move.”

Which is how Kassandra found herself sitting at a table in Kyra’s chamber, trying to keep her eyes away from the bed while Kyra used a lamp to light other lamps around the room. As the illumination grew, Kassandra could see that the room was small and roughly circular, with the bed shoved against the stone wall on one side and rough-hewn wooden shelves against the other. The table at which she sat was in the center, and to her left was the hanging cloth that covered the doorway.

The table before her was covered with scrolls. The shelves were stacked with scrolls. Even the bed that Kassandra was trying so decorously to avoid looking at had a scroll peeking out from between its pillows and its brightly colored blankets.

Kyra swept the scrolls from the table and into her arms before she headed for the shelves, but one escaped and fell to the floor at Kassandra’s feet. Kassandra picked it up and read its title. “Antigone.”

Kyra looked over from stacking scrolls into piles. “Surprised to see high art in such a low place?” There was an undercurrent of bitterness beneath those words. Seemed she still expected Kassandra to think the least of her when it came to her skills.

“No. I already know you’re well-educated.” Kassandra handed her the scroll and answered the question already forming on her face. “I don’t get many letters with the word ‘insatiable’ in them.”

“But you understood it.” Kyra placed the scroll with the others, then came and sat across from Kassandra at the table.

“A misthios only needs to know enough to read a bounty and count up the drachmae.”

“And yet: insatiable. Did you learn that word in Sparta too?” She was fishing now, casting her line in search of information.

“My mother taught me to read and write.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned her.”

“Surprised I have one?”

She looked amused at that. “Turnabout is fair play,” she said, to no one in particular. “Perhaps I’m just glad you didn’t spring fully formed from the forehead of Ares.”

“I learned my many skills the hard way.” They traded grins, and Kassandra decided she’d rather trade information than fish for it. “And who taught you how to wield a pen?”

“You don’t know? Not even a guess?”

Kassandra shrugged.

“I learned from mercenaries like you. I was living in the streets. I had nothing. But I realized pretty damn quickly that no one can steal the alphabet from you, so I did whatever I could to get it.” The memory rekindled a determined fire in her eyes. “Letters, words, poems in memory. Then much later, after we found this place, came the scrolls.”

Kyra had rebuilt her life from barren earth, without the head start Kassandra had been given in hers. She looked at Kyra again. The fires were still there in her eyes, hinting at the focus on survival that had consumed her. “You’re far beyond me in such things,” Kassandra said, gesturing at the shelves. “I can’t tell you who wrote that play—”

“Sophokles.”

“—or what the Pythagorean Theorem is about—”

“The relationship between the lengths of the sides of a right triangle.”

Kassandra absorbed that for a moment, then began to laugh. “And you can still hit a target from fifty paces with a bow.”

“Don’t get too down on yourself. You can lift heavy stuff and reach things that are too high for everyone else.”

“And serve as bait for a bear, don’t forget that.” Enough time had passed after yesterday’s excitement that Kassandra could joke about it now.

But instead of smiling, Kyra frowned. “How’s your back?”

Kassandra instinctively twisted around to look at her armor, where the beast’s massive paw had slammed into her and sent her flying across the beach. “A little sore, but tomorrow’s when I’m really going to feel it.”

“That bear was… I’ve never seen a monster like him.” Kyra traced the grain of the tabletop with her finger. “I was actually afraid for a moment there, after I’d gone through half my arrows and he still kept coming after you.”

If that was true, she hadn’t shown it. She’d stood on the broken deck of the beached ship and fired arrow after arrow into the behemoth, seeking the one, vital hit that would bring him down.

“And then he got you with his paw — I thought he was going to kill you.” Her finger drew circles on the woodgrain like a leaf trapped in an eddy.

“He didn’t. And I have you to thank for that.” In hindsight, Kassandra had been overconfident and ill prepared. She should have taken a javelin instead of her sword. She should have scouted the ship from afar instead of running straight for it. She didn’t want to think of what might have happened if Kyra hadn’t been there.

“I just wish we could’ve done something other than kill him.”

“He was a mighty beast. But he did not belong on Delos.”

“Because someone stole him from his home and brought him there! He had no say in the matter.”

“If you believe in the Fates, none of us ever have a say. Everything has been decided for us.”

A long pause. “And is that what you believe, Kassandra?”

“No, I don’t believe my fate is a thread already woven. But there are times when the strand hangs at the mercy of winds outside my control.”

“So if you were a bear, blown onto a strange island by a storm of someone else’s making, what would you do?”

She’d come closer to Kassandra’s truth than she knew. “I’d do exactly what that bear did,” Kassandra said. “Fight until something killed me.”

“Is that what you’re doing now?” Kyra asked, but then she waved the question away before Kassandra could open her mouth. “No, don’t answer that. I shouldn’t pry, though every time you answer one question it makes me want to ask ten more.”

“What would you do if you were that bear?” Kassandra asked. Trading information.

“I’d eat all the smugglers and savor the taste of revenge. And then I’d run to the hills and try to find some peace and quiet.” Her finger stilled on the tabletop. “I may not know what I want to do after Podarkes is gone, but when I dream, I dream of peace.”

“A worthy goal.”

“You think so?” Kyra’s gaze shifted from the table to Kassandra. “Would you ever put down your spear?”

Kassandra considered the question. There were so many people left for her to kill that the idea seemed impossible. “And what would I do? Raise goats?” She rested both hands palm up on the table. “Fighting is all I know.”

“A clever leader wouldn’t need to throw you at the front lines.” Kyra said it like a fact, full of confidence. “They’d ask you questions like this: what will Podarkes do without any spare weapons at hand?”

“He’ll beg Athens for another shipment and double up the guards at all the outposts. But the bigger question is, how long do we have before he starts killing civilians?”

“Knowing his cruelty, not very.”

“Then we should strike him quickly where it’ll hurt him most.”

“Are you saying…” Kyra didn’t finish, instead reaching under the table and pulling a large scroll from a basket. She unrolled it across the table’s surface. “This is Miltiades Fort, where the treasury for the Silver Islands is kept.”

“If we find it and steal it, the soldiers go unpaid, unfed, and unarmed.”

“Leaving Podarkes all alone with no one to defend him.” Kyra smiled. “I like this plan. I’ll have Praxos gather the troops.”

“Wait. It’s best if it’s just you and I. Save your fighters for when we attack Podarkes directly.”

“And here I was hoping you just wanted me all to yourself.”

Kassandra didn’t move, despite her accelerating heartbeat, despite her stomach becoming a bottomless cavern. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to rein herself in would have been too obvious. “I do,” she said eventually, carefully. “I want you up on the ramparts of Miltiades Fort—” ignoring the upward creep of Kyra’s brows “—because I can’t pull this heist off without you.”

“It’s so good to be desired,” Kyra said. “Now, what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to find us some sulfur, false-silver, and quicklime.” Ingredients for a dirty mercenary trick that would make it possible for the two of them to take on an entire fort.

“Oh, is that all?”

“I’m just getting started,” Kassandra said with a smile. “How do you feel about heights?”

.oOo.

Together they’d come up with a plan, and when the flaming tongues of the lamps around them began to sputter, starved of oil, Kassandra realized she’d lost all sense of time. It hadn’t seemed that long, sitting there side by side, Kassandra feeling the heat from Kyra’s leg against her own as they pored over the map and discussed how they’d spirit away the treasury without anyone raising an alarm.

“So it’s settled, then.” Kyra patted the map with her palm, then stood and stretched before she wandered across the room and began refilling the lamps with a small jug of oil.

Kassandra heard footsteps outside the chamber, and Kyra must have also, for she paused between pours, the graceful line of her arm caught in silhouette against the wall. Kassandra tilted her ear towards the doorway, heard the soft clink of armor, and wasn’t surprised when the cloth swept aside to reveal Thaletas.

“I’m glad you're—” He stopped abruptly, looking at Kassandra. “Ah, misthios. Taking a break from causing mayhem?”

“Podarkes won’t execute himself.”

Kyra turned, lifting her chin towards him. “I thought you were waiting on the beach,” she said coolly.

Kassandra didn’t wait for him to answer, and she pushed her seat back from the table and stood. “It’s about time I got going.”

He held up a hand. “Before you leave, Kassandra, there’s a matter I could use your help with — no, not now. Come find me at my camp.”

She nodded very well to him and farewell to Kyra, then walked out of the chamber, and as she heard the faint murmur of their voices beginning to intermingle, she cursed herself for wishing she could listen in on the conversation she’d left behind.

.oOo.

Miltiades Fort squatted above dark, wind-swept cliffs, hunched over like an old guardsman sitting with his back to the sea. Moonlight sheened the rocks with silver, and the air was warm and heavy with the smell of saltwater and smoke. Kassandra jammed her hand inside a crevice in the rocks and canted her body out over empty space, smiling into a breeze that carried with it the distant sound of waves pounding the stones far below. She drank the air in like wine. It was a fine evening for thievery.

But the feeling faded the moment Kyra came into view below her, washed out by a vague unease that grew the longer she watched Kyra ascend. She turned back to the cliff face, adjusted the bundle slung on her back, and resumed climbing, taking extra care not to knock any stones loose with Kyra down below.

The moon was bright and the handholds plentiful, and when she reached the top, she carefully lifted herself past the edge. It wouldn’t do to spill the precious cargo she carried. Along with the bundle, she had her spear, slung in its sheath on a leather shoulder harness she wore over her chiton. No armor. Trading protection for silence and ease of movement had been a deliberate choice — taking on an entire fort’s worth of soldiers in combat was not part of their plan.

She’d lifted herself onto a narrow shelf of rock, a false top to the cliff. To reach the fort, they’d have to clamber over a chest-high lip of more rock, then cross a strip of grass dotted with bushes and wind-stunted trees. They’d be able to stay out of sight of the guards as long as they kept their heads down. On this side, closest to the cliffs, the fort was less a set of walls than a collection of collapsing ruins. With any luck, Podarkes’s lack of spending on upkeep would mean more silver in the treasury.

A short while later, Kyra’s head popped up at the edge, and Kassandra held out a hand and helped Kyra climb up next to her. They crouched there, looking at each other, Kyra’s skin glistening with sweat as she caught her breath, her eyes and hair gleaming silver with Artemis’s gift of moonlight.

Kassandra felt a faint tremor pass through Kyra’s hand, and as it disappeared into warmth and stillness where their skin touched, a matching warmth bloomed deep in her belly. Then Kassandra looked away, looked up at the fort, and reluctantly let Kyra’s hand go.

At their feet, only the bravest of grasses and wildflowers scratched out a living on the exposed stone. Kyra knelt among the tufts and tiny blossoms, untied the bundle slung across her shoulder, set it down carefully, and muttered, “Glad to be done with that climb.”

“I thought you said you weren’t afraid of heights,” Kassandra said, her voice just above a whisper. She untied her own bundle and placed it next to Kyra’s.

“I said that if we had to climb, I would do it. Didn’t mean I’d enjoy it.” Kyra opened her bundle and began pulling out its contents: shawls made from dun-colored fabric, and a few soft-sided flasks sewn from leather. “Of course you turned out to be part mountain goat.” She handed Kassandra one of the shawls. “I guess climbing’s easy when you know a fall won’t kill you.”

“How do you—”

“Did you actually think I didn’t see you jump from the top of the Temple of Artemis the other day?”

They’d had a conversation right after, and Kyra hadn’t given a single sign that she’d just witnessed Kassandra do the impossible. It took skill to hide something like that so deeply. It reminded Kassandra of another woman with the same skill, Aspasia. To convince someone in this house, even your eyes must tell a lie.

“I thought you were going to kill yourself,” Kyra said, “and then you jumped and it… didn’t.” She sat back on her haunches. “I’m just glad I hired you before Podarkes offered you the contract on my head.”

“I wouldn’t have taken it.”

“Are you sure, misthios?” She waited a beat. “Oh, don’t look so serious. I was raised by your kind, remember?”

Kassandra tried to ignore the pang that shot across her chest, and she realized she was twisting the shawl in her hands. Kyra’s image of her was incomplete, but even a fragment still held some truth in it. She couldn’t deny that she’d taken plenty of contracts from vile people.

Kyra’s dark eyes were studying her intently. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me what you need all that drachmae for.”

Now wasn’t the time, and Kassandra didn’t answer. Instead, she flipped the shawl over her shoulder and opened her own bundle, adding the flasks she’d brought with her to Kyra’s collection and sorting them into groups. Four flasks held a mixture of powdered sulfur and false-silver, four held quicklime, and the last flask was filled with water.

Kyra’s eyes never left her. “You look different without armor.”

“Oh?”

“I won’t say you look softer, because you might get offended.”

“But you just… did?”

Kyra grinned. “Are you offended?”

“No.”

“Good.” Kyra reached up and gathered her hair, pulling it off her shoulders and tying it into a loose knot. It exposed the lines of her neck, the hollow under her jaw curving up to her ear…

Kassandra’s mouth went dry.

Kyra pulled a shawl around her shoulders. “How do I look?” she asked.

Beautiful, Kassandra wanted to say, but what came out of her mouth was, “You fit the part.” With her plain, rough-spun chiton and lack of jewelry, Kyra could pass as a servant. She had to pass as a servant, for all their hopes rested on her ability to travel the fort unnoticed.

Kyra collected all the flasks into one large bundle. “I’m ready.”

Kassandra lifted herself up enough to look over the edge. To the left, a guard walked the closest wall, headed away from them. To the far right, two more guards watched the side of the hill that sloped gently down from the fort. Kyra wouldn’t even come close to their sightlines. The path was clear.

Kassandra’s heart squeezed within her chest, cranked tight, as if it were a heavy load being hoisted at the docks, something pulling its ropes, pulling it in perfect tension. “Kyra,” she said. “Stay safe.”

A nod. Kyra’s warmth brushing past and fading quickly. An indentation in the grass where she’d been. Kassandra peered over the edge, intending to watch Kyra pass inside the ruined walls, but what she saw was a transformation: Kyra’s shoulders drooping inwards, her confident gait slowing, her steps dragging. By the time she disappeared between broken heaps of stone, she’d become exactly what anyone in the fort expected to see, another servant girl struggling under the weight of a heavy load.

Still, Kassandra was uneasy. The tightness remained in her chest, a foreign feeling, especially now in the middle of a job, where she expected her heart to beat as steadily as the oarmaster’s drum on a trireme and her breath to come and go as smoothly as the sweep of its oars.

She had asked Kyra to do so much. It was Kyra who would locate the treasury, Kyra who would set the distractions, all because there was no way Kassandra could pass as the kind of servant this job required, the ones who existed in the background, seeing everything, ever present but utterly anonymous. And Kyra would have to do it alone and unarmed, surrounded by a fort full of soldiers.

Kyra had jumped at the chance, despite all the dangers. I said that if we had to climb, I would do it.

Suddenly, Kassandra knew why she was uneasy; why her heart felt tight in her chest; why this feeling felt so foreign. She was afraid. Not for herself, but for Kyra. She could count on one hand the number of times she had truly been afraid in her life, and now her fears had somehow become entwined with this woman she was just beginning to know. The realization made her rock back on her heels.

And now, all she could do was sit in the company of this discovery, and wait.

.oOo.

A quarter hour. A half hour.

The always-turning wagon plodded in the sky overhead.

Three quarters of an hour.

Silence from the fort, and no sign of Kyra.

An hour. More.

Kassandra could deviate from the plan. She could sneak past the guards. She could get inside the walls. She could find—

A rustle of leaves. Grass parted by footsteps. She reached back and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her spear, just in case, but then Kyra was lowering herself gracefully into place beside her.

“Done and done,” Kyra said, with a satisfied smile.

Kassandra’s heart beat freely again.

“I don’t know how long we have before the quicklime ignites. I tried to measure the water out, but— Are you all right?”

Kassandra didn’t answer that question, but another. “It’ll be soon.” Then the sulfur and false-silver would start to burn, producing thick smoke and choking gas and, eventually, fire. “Where’s the treasury?”

Kyra motioned Kassandra beside her, and together they looked at the fort. She pointed to the wall to their left. “That wall. Follow it until it turns a corner to the right. Keep going until it ends at a staircase. The building above you will have the treasury on the second floor.”

“Where will you meet me?”

“At the northeast corner.”

Kassandra adjusted the shawl over her shoulders, making sure it covered her spear. She just needed to be convincing enough to look like a servant from a distance. “Let’s go.”

“Kassandra, wait.” Kyra put her hand on Kassandra’s forearm. “If things look bad, get out of there.”

“You got us this far. I’ll not waste it.”

“No.” Kyra’s fingers dug into her arm. “This drachmae isn’t worth your life.”

She wasn’t going to let the matter drop until Kassandra gave her what she wanted. “Very well.”

Kyra released her grip, and Kassandra lifted herself up and over the edge.

“Look,” Kyra said, pointing towards the fort. There was a plume of stark white smoke to the southwest, and the sound of far-off shouting.

Kassandra looked at Kyra, smiling faintly. “See you soon,” she said, and then she crouched and moved away, through the tall grass and past the trees and bushes. No guards in sight. The shouting was louder now, and there was more of it, and the white column of smoke was sullied by dark streaks — a sign that the fire had grown beyond the powders Kyra had planted and into flammables like wood.

She moved to the wall Kyra had shown her. At this end, it had collapsed into a rough series of steps. She climbed swiftly, and when she reached the top, she was rewarded with the sight of the watchtower on the far side of the fort being attacked by flames.

She picked up her pace, not even bothering to crouch. The wall turned hard to the right, and brought her across the top of the fort’s entrance. She looked down into the courtyard and saw the stables, the horses and wagons, the servants trying to flee and the soldiers trying to stop them. That’s where Kyra was headed, where she’d wait for a chance to steal a wagon.

The wall ended just as Kyra had said it would, at a set of stairs to the left with a large building looming overhead, framed by a second plume of smoke billowing into the sky. She couldn’t tell if the treasury building was on fire, or one of its neighbors.

“Hey! You!” A soldier’s voice, far to her right.

She pretended not to hear him, turned, and hurried up the steps. They brought her to the fort’s upper level, a labyrinth of rooftops and wooden walkways between buildings. Dirty grey smoke hung in the air, acrid and heavy with sulfur, and orange tongues of fire licked out the windows of the building next to the treasury. She ran towards the fire while everyone else was running to get down below, where she could see soldiers and servants crowding the paths. Some carried buckets of water while others milled about in confusion and fear.

The walkway dumped her into the third floor of the treasury, where the smoke wasn’t yet as thick as it was outside. She threw off her shawl, drew her spear, and looked for the way down to the floor below.

She found the hatchway and ladder in the far corner, a portal down into an orange-tinted haze. She couldn’t risk sticking her head through to take a look, so she listened instead and heard movement. A cough. Footsteps. But the noise from the chaos outside was too great for her to be certain of numbers. If she dropped through, she could be facing one soldier — or ten.

She dropped through.

Three. No, four. There were four, and she launched herself at the first, braced her forearm against his chestplate and pushed him back as she stabbed him in the gut with her spear. Everything slowed down, Chronos smiling upon her as he always did in a fight. She grabbed the man in her hands by his armor, spun him around, and hurled him into the next soldier, one who stood there holding a torch. Both went sprawling. The torch flew to the floor, and the room and its smoky haze darkened within its diminished light.

She caught the third man before he’d even finished drawing his sword, whipped her elbow up through his jaw, turned and slid past the thrusting sword of the last soldier, took the arm it belonged to and pulled the body off-balance so she could drive her knee into a groin. Another kick sent him straight into the wall. His body slumped to the floor, unmoving.

Footsteps slapped on wooden planks, a soldier running away, scrabbling up the ladder and out of sight. Then nothing moved, except the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

The treasury awaited, a heavy wooden box banded with iron. She lifted its lid, reached in, and pulled out a heavy bag, untying it and looking inside just to be sure. Drachmae. Four bags in total, containing thousands of coins.

This was going to be one Hades of a load, and she didn’t want to make the trip more than once. The smoke was growing thicker every moment she delayed. She glanced around and spotted a set of scales resting in a bronze tray on a nearby table. She swept the scales aside and took the tray, then picked up two of the bags and headed for the ladder. Climbed high enough to toss them up to the next floor, followed by the tray. Then back down for the last two.

She piled everything onto the tray, squatted and lifted, the muscles in her arms and back and legs pulling tight as anchorlines as they held the weight.

She emerged into heat and smoke so thick she could only see a few paces in front of her. The building next door was a pyre, the lower floors engulfed with flame, and it was only a matter of time before it spread to the rooftops, devouring everything in its path and leaving only scorched stone behind. Its light helped her find her bearings, and she turned to the right, taking lumbering steps across the walkway to the top of the fort’s stone walls, heading to the northeast.

By the time she reached the agreed-upon corner, the smoke had thinned, and she looked over the side of the wall and saw Kyra sitting on the seat of a small wagon, its bed filled with a load of hay. Kassandra whistled a greeting, then began pitching the bags over the side, each one landing in the wagon with a loud bang. Behind her, she heard shouting from somewhere in the smoke. It was time to go.

She swung herself over the side and began climbing down, but at the half-way point she pushed away from the wall and leapt down to the ground. She popped up next to the wagon. From here, she could see the fort’s entrance, and a line of soldiers trying to hold a large crowd of servants back from fleeing.

“None of that blood better be yours,” Kyra said, taking up the reins as Kassandra climbed into the seat beside her. “Ela!”

The wagon lurched into motion.

“It’s not. But it could complicate things if we run into any soldiers.” And there would be soldiers, for she knew that if she turned around, she would see the fort wearing a wreath of fire. Every Athenian camp on Mykonos would know that the fort burned soon enough.

Kyra drove the horses at a steady, unhurried pace. Galloping off at speed would only attract attention. “What do you want to do, then?” she asked.

“Take us to those trees.” Kassandra pointed to a small copse of pines by the road at the foot of the hill.

They drove on in silence.

Then they heard hoofbeats behind them, gaining fast. Men shouting “Make way! Clear the road!” Would they notice the spear on her back? Notice the blood on her hands and chiton?

Kassandra’s fingers twitched, but she kept her hands at her sides and didn’t turn around. Her seat rocked gently as Kyra slowed the horses and pulled the wagon to the side of the road, and moments later, two soldiers on horseback blew past them. Probably off to tell Podarkes the bad news. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

A short while later, Kyra brought the wagon to a halt just outside the stand of trees. Kassandra hopped off the seat. “Meet me at the overlook outside the Temple of Artemis.”

Kyra nodded. “Don’t take too long,” she said. Then she lifted the reins and drove off, headed for the drop-off point where she’d hand the wagon over to a small group of waiting rebels while a few others secured the loot and brought it back to the hideout.

Kassandra stood by the road for several moments, listening to the sound of the wagon’s wheels crunching on the dirt, then she turned, stepped into the trees, and began to run.

.oOo.

Kassandra found Kyra waiting for her at the overlook. She’d cleaned up and changed clothes, just as Kassandra had, and she stood still and quiet in the moonlight, seeming more a carving of ivory than a living being. But at Kassandra’s approach, she turned and was alive again, her eyes gleaming, her lips curving into a smile.

“The treasury is ours,” she said. “Praxos is guarding it personally.”

“How much drachmae was there?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “A lot. But I’ll count it later.” Her eyes settled on Kassandra. “I imagine you’ll be wanting your cut soon enough.”

“I’m in no hurry.” The words slid out before Kassandra had even thought them through. She was supposed to be in a hurry. She was supposed to be searching for her mother, supposed to be hunting down the Cult. All those supposed tos had kept her busy, and busy kept her from facing a truth about her nature that she hadn’t yet figured out how to handle: she was so very good at killing people because she enjoyed it, and she enjoyed it so much she was beginning to crave it. That is, until she’d arrived on Mykonos.

Now she killed without feeling anything at all, and she needed to know why, even if the implications scared her enough that she could no longer say she could count the number of times she’d felt fear in her life on one hand. Now she needed two…

“Chaire, Kassandra.” Kyra’s hand was waving in front of her eyes. “Should I be worried by that look on your face?”

“No. It’s nothing. What matters is that we took Podarkes’s treasury from him, and once the people here realize he’s lost every coin, they’re going to rip him to pieces.”

“He’ll never recover from this,” Kyra said. The realization of what they’d done hit her then, pouring into her like the fabled nectar of the gods, filling her with strength and possibility. She glowed with it, shimmered in the moonlight. Artemis’s favorite.

Kassandra stayed silent, letting Kyra enjoy the moment.

“I burned that fort to the ground.” Her smile was brilliant.

“You did.”

“Surely even Athens will want to be rid of him now. I’m so happy, I could kiss you.”

Kassandra knew Kyra was exaggerating, that she’d said it without meaning it. But Kassandra had never shied away from asking for what she wanted, and Kyra had set her up with a gift on a silver platter. “I don’t see anything holding you back,” she said, holding out her arms to gesture around them. “Hades could take us both tomorrow.”

Kyra’s smile faded. “You breathe life into me,” she said, and Kassandra instantly knew what was coming next: But… She looked away, unwilling to meet Kassandra’s eyes. “If only you’d come here before Thaletas.”

Kassandra had read the situation correctly, but it still hit her like a punch to the heart. And now she had to say something. She considered her words, ran them through her head, and found it easier to play dumb. “You and Thaletas? I didn’t realize.”

“He’s stubborn, arrogant, and hot-headed.” That could describe nearly every Spartan, Kassandra included. “We don’t always agree. But behind all the bronze and brawn, there’s a good man I could see by my side when this is all over. If we survive.”

So Kyra loved him after all. Kassandra would retreat gracefully, then. “The two of you fighting Athenians on the beach sounds romantic. I’d hate to interfere.” But why did it feel like her chest was being crushed in the jaws of some great beast?

Kyra’s face was unreadable, but then she leaned forward, closer and closer, and then Kyra’s hands gently grasped her arms, and Kyra’s breath brushed her ear, and Kyra’s lips touched her cheek.

The kiss lasted just a moment, and like a cut from a sharp knife it had been quick and painless, but what damage it had left behind: gods, she wanted Kyra. It was a terrible, terrible thing, to want someone this much while knowing she couldn’t have them. Another feeling as foreign to her as fear.

Kyra studied her at arm’s length. “Would you even recognize me in the Underworld, I wonder.”

“You introduced yourself by throwing a dagger at my head. You’ll be damn hard to forget.” She smiled, made it look open and affable. No hard feelings here. She’d cope with the bruising longing on her own. She had to.

Kyra stepped back, letting Kassandra go. “I’ve never properly thanked you for coming here. You’ve brought me hope where there was none.”

“Glad to be of service.” Thanks and drachmae would be her consolation prize.

“Come with me to the hideout? I’m sure someone’s cracked open the wine by now.”

She was tempted, bruises and all. She was. “Sounds fun, but I really ought to get back to the Adrestia.” Where she had a bunk and her own stash of wine, as much as she hated drinking alone.

Kyra didn’t push it, a small mercy that Kassandra appreciated as they traded good nights. Then she watched Kyra walk away, Kyra with moonlight in her eyes, moonlight in her hair, walking up the path, disappearing into darkness; and then Kassandra turned, stared out over a city oblivious with slumber, and let her go.

Part of the Elegiad. Go back to the previous story, or on to the next...