#none of these blogs are ranked in any particular way

[sephirthoughts]

Vincent's New Kid Just Dropped CH 10: More Deepground with Some Hojo Mischief

Rating: Mature

Warnings: hojo, canon-typical violence, referenced abuse and medical torture, two guys saying some misogynist BS, and i was gonna say nudity but it's just written, so it only counts as nudity if you imagine the character naked you dirty minded perv

NOTE: There's a scene in this chapter that was directly inspired by @siringadev 's beautiful artwork of Nero and Weiss and they gave me permission to post it with the story! Hit up their blog or twit for more awesome arts!

Unbeknownst to either of the brothers, Director Hojo had decided that now was the time to initiate his planned breeding program, for Weiss. The other scientists begged him to reconsider (out of fear for their own lives, more than any particular compassion for the twins), but he was adamant.

With Nero safely out of the way, for at least a week, including recovery, what better time to put Weiss to work servicing the various incubators he’d chosen to gestate his precious subject’s progeny (Hojo’s actual words). 

That morning, after Nero had been taken away, a handler came to inform Weiss, who was grudgingly teaching some parrying moves to Rosso, that Director Hojo had selected a group of high-performing individuals, as potential entrants to Deepground, and that Weiss was to test them and choose the best candidates, after lunch. 

When these ostensible prospective teammates were shown in to the arena, later that day, Rosso rolled her eyes and snorted audibly, at the transparency of Shinra’s intentions. All of them were female, and of a certain phenotype—small waists, round hips, and large breasts, with pouting lips and big, doe-like eyes. Most notably, none were mako-enhanced, which was the clearest indicator of their real purpose here.

As if it were a legitimate ranks inspection by their new commander, the young women lined up and stood at attention, then introduced themselves, giving their names, ages, and qualifications. They were all educated, accomplished, between twenty and twenty-five years of age, and despite their rather delicate appearances, combat-trained officers or elite troopers. 

Naturally, they had been informed of their intended breeding partner’s age and inexperience, and had been quite expecting to find a gawky teenager. Thus, they were pleasantly surprised to see that Weiss was tall, hyperbolically fit, almost shockingly handsome, and in all ways looked like a full-grown adult male. 

Their flushed cheeks and heated gazes were not lost on Rosso, who was a predator herself, and knew another when she saw it sniffing around her territory. She may not have had any interest in taking Weiss as a mate, herself, but he was her idol and leader. The idea of her leader having a gaggle of silly concubines following him around was an affront to her personal dignity, and got her hackles up.

Weiss, however, far from being enticed by the prospect of healthy, attractive females with which to mate, appeared entirely oblivious to their feminine charms. To Rosso’s endless amusement (and the flat disbelief of the observing scientists), he took the characterization of the situation as ‘vetting prospective teammates’ at face value, and proceeded to do just that.

When the introductions were got through, he ordered Rosso to test the candidates in hand-to-hand combat, then stood by looking bored, while she gleefully thrashed them, one by one.

To add literal insult to actual injury, Weiss ruthlessly rejected each one, as they were defeated, pronouncing them ‘weak’, ‘pathetic’, ‘worthless’, and so forth. 

At the end of an hour, the fifteen bewildered and badly beaten young women had all been sent limping away, to complain to Director Hojo about that evil little harpy, who wouldn’t let them anywhere near Weiss, and beat them all black and blue. 

“Well, the boy is young, and he’s not exactly versed in the ways of the world,” Hojo reasoned. “Perhaps he requires a more direct approach.”

When Weiss arrived at his quarters, that evening, two young women were waiting, lounging in a provocative pose together, on his bed. He stopped short, tense and wary, as the door shut behind him. Desiring to communicate that this was not an ambush (not that kind at least), the young ladies smiled and winked, sliding their hands invitingly up and down one another’s bare thighs.

Weiss’ silver-blue eyes flickered over their soft, curvy bodies, then he turned and slowly shrugged off his jacket, his ropy back muscles flexing and rippling with the motion of his arms. 

This only encouraged the girls, and they redoubled their seductive efforts, beckoning to him and pressing their ripe, round breasts together, under the transparent lace of the lingerie they’d been dressed in. 

Weiss hung his jacket on the hook, then approached the bed, with a beatific smile on his perfect lips.

At that point, anyone who was at all familiar with him would have been making peace with the god of their choice, but the two young ladies had never seen him before today, and took his placid demeanor for approval of their presence.

“I guess Professor Hojo sent you here,” he said mildly, looking down at them. “He really expects me to fuck this kind of haggard trash.”

At these unexpectedly harsh words, both young women bridled indignantly, jumping to their feet and dropping the femme-fatale theatrics.

“Hey, asshole! We don’t like it any more than you do,” one shot back. “We’re following orders, so just hurry up and fuck us, so we can leave, ok?”

Weiss summoned a blade to his hand. “You have polluted the bed my brother and I share, with your whorehouse perfume. Would you like me wash out the stench, with your blood?”

“Brother?” the first girl asked, confused. “Wait, what do you mean, you share a bed?”

“Please, Weiss!” the second girl begged, actually folding her hands in a supplicating pose. “If we don’t get your seed, Professor Hojo said he’ll use us as test subjects for his horrible experiments!”

“Oh—yeah, he did!” the first concurred, nodding vehemently. “You’ve seen the twisted shit he does to people, right? We’d rather die.”

Weiss lowered his blade and hesitated, furrowing his white brow. “It…would be cruel, to allow you to be taken and used for the professor's experiments.” 

“Right!” the girls agreed. “So please, help us out, ok? We promise we’ll show you a good time.”

He drew a deep breath and then nodded. “Very well, I’ll help you.”

Neither of them even saw him move. But neither of them ever saw anything, again. Hojo later remarked, (far more admiringly than was strictly proper, given the circumstances) that not even a world-class surgeon could have done a cleaner, more elegant job of severing a human being’s brain stem, let alone two, and within a millisecond of one another.

Weiss, pleased with himself for his uncharacteristically charitable deed, dismissed his blade and went to the bathroom to shower, leaving the two young beauties lying on the floor by the door, neatly wrapped up in the bed linens they had lain in, which now stank of their unpleasantly heavy, floral perfume. 

While he showered, he reached out to Nero, using their psychic link, only to find himself firmly rebuffed. He was so stunned, that he immediately tried again, from sheer disbelief. Once again, he ran into a solid wall. Weiss was dumbfounded, and immediately worried. 

It was a shared ability, but Nero’s was far stronger, so he had the power to shut Weiss out, and Weiss would be helpless to do anything about it. Only, he never had, before. Why would he do it, now? 

When he emerged from the shower, the bodies were gone, the linens were freshly changed, his supper was waiting, and there was a video call flashing on the monitor. He touched the screen to answer the call, and continued drying himself with his towel. 

The face that popped up was a thin, weathered, middle-aged man, with long black hair, a hawkish nose, and round spectacles, which reflected light in a way that often concealed his eyes.

“I see you didn’t like any of the gifts I sent you,” His nasal voice said, in a tone of exaggerated disappointment. “Well, no matter. I have many more to choose from. Why don’t you tell me what you prefer, and we’ll go from there.”

“I prefer not to find your ‘gifts’ in my room,” Weiss returned, tossing his towel into the laundry bin. He was stark naked, but had absolutely no sense of bodily modesty, having been watched every moment of every day, since he was born. 

The old man on the screen pushed up his spectacles, running his eyes over his subject’s flawless body, in undisguised admiration. This truly was the body of the perfect SOLDIER. Of all his experimental results, over the decades, there was only one who’d turned out better, so he had something of a soft spot for Weiss (as much as a eugenics-obsessed psychopath was capable of, at least). 

“Fair enough, fair enough. There’s no need to send them to pester you in your down time. I can arrange for you to visit them during training hours, if that’s more convenient.”

“Not interested,” Weiss said flatly, as he sat down at the square, steel table, and began to eat his dinner.

“Don’t be difficult, my boy,” Hojo admonished. “You were always slated to be a sire for this breeding program. I won’t hide from you that the success of the project is depending entirely upon you, now. The other intended sire has turned out to be sterile.” He said the last part with an air of grievance, as if the individual in question had been infertile on purpose, to spite him. “Since the girls don’t appeal to you, tell me what incentives we can offer, to smooth the—”

“Professor, you are wasting your time,” Weiss interrupted, setting down his fork. “I will not be acting as a breeding stud, rutting with females at your command, like a pig in a sty. The prospect is as repulsive as it is insulting.” 

Hojo was out of patience, now, and the mask of civility came off. “But it’s perfectly acceptable to you, to fuck your little brother? Who can’t even make use of the valuable genetic material your are wasting on him? Which, I might add, is proprietary Shinra biotechnology!”

“My brother is still a virgin,” Weiss replied tersely. “He’s not old enough for sex.”

“Semantics,” Hojo snorted. “Does it really require penetration, to count? Or is that just what you tell yourself, to excuse what you’ve been doing to that naïve child, who trusts his elder brother so much.”

If Weiss had the intelligence of a normal sixteen-year-old boy, or a much lower opinion of himself, this attack may have worked. However, he was neither stupid, nor plagued by paralyzing self doubt and ego shattering insecurity, like that certain subject that Hojo had been accustomed to dealing with. As such, the blow glanced off his hide like a wooden spear from the hull of a supertanker.

“I love my brother, professor. I will not betray him.”

Hojo waved hand irritably. “Oh, please. Don’t feed me that trite sentimentalism, it’s just copulation! Biology!! What does love have to do with it? Come, now. I’ve been more than reasonable, but I am growing impatient. Everyone has a price, so name yours.”

“There is none.”

“I see. I did not want it to come to this, Weiss. But if you persist in refusing to cooperate, I’ll be forced to use the stick, rather than the carrot.”

“Is that a threat, professor?” Wiess asked.

“I don’t have to make threats, my boy,” Hojo chuckled. “Don’t forget that I own you. And your precious brother. You have twelve hours to name your terms, or there will be consequences.”

With that, the video call disconnected and the screen blanked. Weiss sat perfectly still and calm, finishing his meal, betraying nothing of what was passing in his mind, through his posture or expression. Internally, however, his stomach was twisted into knots of anxiety. 

Hojo’s message was clear: do as I say, or I’ll hurt your brother. But doing what Hojo said would hurt his brother anyway, and thus Weiss was chained between two unacceptable choices. 

Agonized with indecision, and utterly lost without his other half to guide him, he tried to connect to Nero again, but that solid wall was still up.

What could he be doing, that would make him shut Weiss out like this? They’d always used their connection to comfort one another, especially when they were injured or undergoing some painful procedure or another.

Then a dark thought crossed his mind. What if the prototype prosthetic was an excuse, and they’d separated them for the purpose of making similar overtures to Nero, regarding breeding. 

What if he’d agreed, out of concern for Weiss, and was with a woman, right now? What if he’d refused, but they’d drugged or restrained him, and forced him to… 

No. That was paranoia talking. Nero himself had verified the information about the cybernetics specialist, from some handlers’ minds. He’d have known if he was being lied to.

That still left Wiess in this precarious position, alone, which was certainly Hojo’s intention, knowing the Nero was the brains of the operation. Now, it was up to Weiss to think of something, quickly. When Hojo contacted him, the next morning, he found the boy in a more cooperative frame of mind.

“Why does it have to be sex?” Weiss asked. “There are other methods of creating a pregnancy. Isn’t that how Nero and I were made?”

“Of course, in vitro fertilization is my preference,” Hojo answered. “Much cleaner and more reliable. Easier to control all the variables. But the costs for extraction and cryo-storage and implantation are prohibitive, on the scale I desire. Deepground’s budget is tight, and the board is already looking for excuses to slash it. They’ll never approve the extra expense.”

“That must be because they haven’t seen any results, yet,” Weiss pointed out.

Hojo pushed up his spectacles. “Ah, I see you’ve been using the enhanced brain I gave you. Well, go ahead. I’m listening.”

“Why don’t you let me show them that Deepground deserves just as much attention as SOLDIER. That it could be better than SOLDIER, like you always said. If we convince them that it’s worthwhile, they’ll increase the budget, which will free up funds for the in vitro procedures, and benefit the whole program, as well.”

“Interesting, interesting. But that’s a tall order. Just how do you plan to convince them?”

“Let me fight Sephiroth.”

Had the old man been sipping a beverage at that moment, he’d have spit it out, all over the monitor. “F—fight Sephiroth! You??” he sputtered, nearly choking with laughter, now that the initial shock had worn off. “You fool, he’d kill you six ways before you hit the ground!”

“I didn’t say I have to win,” Weiss returned, gloomily. “I just have to not lose badly enough that it’s an embarrassment to Deepground. He obeys you, right? Set up a match between us, for the executives. The board will love it, because it’ll be good PR for their poster boy, and it’ll also show them how successful the work you’re doing here has been. All you have to do is tell Sephiroth the plan, and that he has to beat me without making me look too bad. And get him to endorse the Deepground program. Unless…you can’t control him.”

“Tch, that child is putty in my hands. There’s no need to worry about his cooperation.” Hojo sat back, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “The tricky part will be creating a pretext for a sparring match between Shinra’s superstar and a total unknown, like you.”

Weiss shook his head. “That, I can’t help with. I’ve never even been outside. I have no idea how things like that proceed.”

“Never been outside,” Hojo muttered, absently removing his spectacles to wipe them with the sleeve of his lab coat. “Pity, too. You’re such a good boy. The only one who hasn’t disappointed me.”

“Except for Sephiroth, you mean.”

“I mean just as I say. Sephiroth may be well ahead of you, but it’s only because he’s so much older. If you work hard and don’t get lazy, you’ll surpass him, one day.”

This was news to Weiss, and happened to stroke his ego in exactly the right spot. “You…really think so?”

“Indeed. Your genes are purer, since his parents were chosen…impulsively, whereas yours were carefully selected. Most importantly, your mentality is superior to his. You are much less morbid and sensitive, and you have drive that he lacks. You’re ruthless and calculating, and you’re not ashamed of it.”

“Sephiroth seems fairly ruthless and calculating, to me,” Weiss hedged.

“Bosh. He knows how to seem cool and in control, for the public, but it’s all a façade. That boy is moody and temperamental and capricious, like a woman. Not only that, but he doesn’t enjoy success, at all, and spends all his time moping about killing people. And he’s always on about not having mother. You don’t have a mother, and I don’t see you crying about it.”

“What does he need a mother for?” Weiss asked, with a disdainful curl of his lip. “He’s the greatest warrior of all time. He should be proud of how he was raised, without the influence of a woman, to make him soft.”

“Ha! Try telling him that,” Hojo snorted. Then caught himself and cleared his throat. “Ahem. Well. I’ll take your suggestions into consideration. One way or another, we need to arrange a demonstration of your abilities to the board. It’s high time I got a chance to show you off.”

“Professor?” Weiss said, stopping Hojo as he was about to disconnect the call.

“Hm? What is it?”

“My brother. Is he alright?”

“Yes, yes, no need to trouble yourself about that. Dr. Ikari is the best in the world. I’m going to look in on him now, in fact. I’ll make sure everything is proceeding as expected. Is that all?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Weiss spent the next two days going through the motions of training, gazing absently off toward the surgical ward for minutes at a time, and letting Rosso follow him around everywhere, because it made no difference to him, if she was there or not.

He actually grew from grudging tolerance to tentative acceptance of her, during those few days, because she obeyed his orders without question, and didn’t try to talk to him, otherwise. Both excellent traits in a subordinate.

They were in the middle of a particularly intense virtual battle, when the simulated beasts and mountain landscape around them suddenly disintegrated, and the room went pitch dark. Then the flashing, red emergency lights came on, casting the room in bloody crimson. The floor shook, with the heavy clang of the reinforced blast doors coming down, over the top of the doors to the training room, as the alarm klaxons began blaring. 

“Lockdown,” Rosso muttered. “But we’re both here, so—”

“Nero,” Weiss said, finishing the thought. 

Rosso stood tense and ready, awaiting further orders, but after a minute had passed, and he hadn’t spoken again, she could no longer bear to remain silent. “Commander? What are we going to do?”

“Nothing,” Weiss said tranquilly. “They will come to us, shortly.”

Rosso glanced reflexively toward the doors, then back at Weiss, who was seating himself in a lotus position, with his long sword balanced across his knees.

She knew better than to question him further, so she did the same, swallowing her deep dread of being locked in a training room, in the dark, and forcing herself to take slow (though rather shaky) breaths.

Perhaps five minutes passed, then suddenly a voice came crackling loudly over the intercom, nearly startling her out of her skin.

“Weiss! There you are! Get the hell over here and control your lunatic brother!”

“Good afternoon, professor,” Weiss replied calmly, looking up toward the camera. “I’d like to comply with your order, sir, but we are in lockdown status. The blast doors have closed.”

There was rustling and some garbled cursing from the other side, then Hojo’s voice returned, sounding annoyed and impatient, but not particularly worried. “These imbeciles can’t lift the lockdown for that room, without lifting it for the entire complex. I assume you can get out on your own?”

Weiss’ eyes glinted in the red glare of the emergency strobes. “Not without causing damage to Shinra property.”

“I hereby authorize you to damage whatever you need to, just get to the surgical ward ASAP. He’s already killed three squads of guards and Hades knows how many doctors and scientific staff.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rosso was a bit confused by what she saw next. Weiss seemed to vanish, from his seated position, and almost simultaneously reappear, standing before the doors, amid multiple flashes of white light. 

“Go protect Director Hojo. Stay with him, until I am sure my brother is safe,” he said over his shoulder, as the steel doors to the training room, and the three-foot thick reinforced blast doors outside those, collapsed to the ground, cleanly sliced into dozens of geometric fragments. 

“Y—yes, sir,” Rosso answered. 

Before the words were even all the way out of her mouth, Weiss had vanished again, displacing air behind him like a small explosion. 

Rosso stood gaping, for a few seconds, before she dashed off to obey his orders. Her heart pounded and her breath came short as she sped down the hall, but it wasn’t from the running. It was from the adrenaline pumping through her body, at the sudden, staggering revelation of Weiss’ speed and strength, and the swiftly dawning realization of just how little of his power she’d actually ever seen. 

She wondered if the Shinra people were even aware of his full power. They must not have been, if they thought that lockdown doors like those were enough to contain him.

Though, Professor Hojo hadn’t seemed to harbor any misguided notions. He hadn’t questioned for a moment that Weiss could break through those doors, and only told him to hurry up. 

What was their relationship, anyway? The two spoke so familiarly with one another, and the professor seemed to have quite a bit of trust in his imprisoned test subject. Well, whatever it was, her orders from Weiss were clear. Find Director Hojo and keep an eye on him, under the pretext of guarding him, as insurance, in case Nero wasn’t alright. 

She almost wished he wouldn’t be. Not that she wished Nero any particular harm (she rather liked the vampiric little psychopath), it was just that, in the case that Nero was killed, or even irreparably harmed, Weiss would certainly revolt against their captors. 

Then she would be free to slash and slaughter to her heart’s content, as they fought their way out of this place. And then…and then she would find either her death, or the open sky. What a glorious day that would be.

Weiss reached the surgical ward, within two minutes of departing the training room, moving like a rush of wind, far faster than the human eye could perceive him, and blowing through the many layers of locked down security doors on the way, like they were nothing more than tissue paper. 

The last set were the double-doors leading into the ward. He kicked them open with a boom, and surveyed the situation. The lights in the main hallway were out, and with the equipment and papers and things strewn all about the floor, and the place lit only by the red emergency strobes, it looked very much like a hospital from a horror film.

Weiss had never seen a horror film, however, and wouldn’t have been frightened by one if he had, and strode into the scene of pandemonium unconcerned.

The hallway branched left and right, and he didn’t know which way Nero was. The cameras and intercom were out, as well, so Hojo couldn’t tell him. The only way was to try their connection.

When he reached out, this time, he thought he’d hit that wall again, but when he tried to draw back, he found himself unable to do so. It wasn’t like Nero holding onto his strand, but more like he’d collided with a wall of thick, sticky tar and sunk a few inches in, and now it didn’t want to let him pull himself free.

Rather than struggle like a fool, he relaxed and let himself sink deeper and deeper into the cold, clinging slime, till suddenly, he popped through on the other side…into a lightless void, so black it was like swimming in ink.

He was pondering which direction to go, when he heard screams, suddenly, and looked over, to see faintly-glowing bluish shapes, being dragged deeper into the blackness.

Seeing his bright, white light, they reached out and begged him for help, probably mistaking him for an angel, come to save them. He ignored their pleas, only following behind as they wailed and bawled, struggling impotently against the inexorable force that was pulling them along. 

This force that was pulling them along was actually thin strands of sticky, black shadow, like nightmare spider’s silk. Weiss knew this, because the strands kept brushing against him, but they never grabbed hold of him or even adhered to his body (or rather, his human-shaped psychic projection).

For what seemed a long time, he followed the doomed souls into the darkness, till at last, eight red suns rose in the black sky, a crown of immense, bloody jewels, emitting no light and yet bathing everything in their crimson glow. 

Weiss realized with a thrill that sent shivers up his spine, that these things were neither suns, nor jewels, but titanic eyes, belonging to a spider the size of a planet.

It was a colossal beast of ancient power, impossibly massive in size, wreathed in writhing shadow, blacker than the abyss, as if the essence of its being was the negation of light, rather than simply the absence thereof. Its eight segmented legs reached out from its thorax, spread wide enough to encompass galaxies, had there been any stars in the abyss. 

With careless ease, it consumed the microscopic souls, which passed in through its fanged jaws in the blink of an eye, and were no more. Then its eyes fell upon the tiny, silver-white star, that had descended into its domain. 

Rearing up suddenly in defense, as high as a nebula rising into the reaches of space, it raised its enormous forelegs and snapped its mandibles, with a sound like the crackling of thunder. 

Weiss, who alone had the strength to maintain a human form in this realm of chaos and annihilation, spread his arms in response, and a ray of light reached out from him to pierce the darkness. 

The spider shrank back, curled into itself, drew its galaxy spanning legs in tight against its black bulk, and hid its eyes from the blinding light. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of black strands of web shot out and wove themselves into a defensive mesh of shadow and confusion, to disorient and keep the angel away. 

To the behemoth’s disbelief, the light passed right through its barrier of webs, and the tiny angel kept coming, unhindered and unafraid. 

The closer it came, the more the spider curled and shrank into itself, until it was hardly larger than a human child. A tiny, pathetic thing, trembling and quaking before a towering angel of light. 

“Brother,” said a voice, as soft as a baby’s breath and as mighty as the roaring of the sea. “Why are you afraid?”

The spider shook harder, and tried to hide what it knew was its hideous, arachnid face, with fanged mandibles and eight eyes, but the angel reached out and took its head in his strong hands. 

“Nero. You are so beautiful,” he said, gently stroking the horned, oil-black exoskeleton. “Never hide your face from me. You may conceal yourself in darkness, and hide away from all the world, but never from me.”

As he said these words, he leaned in, heedless of the huge, venomous fangs, and pressed his perfect lips to the spider’s horrific maw. 

Lured by his warmth and softness, the spider reached helplessly toward him, with its black pedipalps, which seemed to suddenly look much more like human hands, where they touched his broad shoulders. 

Slowly, very slowly, its eight legs uncoiled and wrapped themselves around the angel’s silky, silver-white body, taking care not to hurt him, with the sharp tips of the arachnid appendages. As the angel deepened the kiss, the spider’s fanged jaws spread wider and wider, and began to recede altogether. At last, they revealed the smooth, white, lower half of human face. 

The angel laughed softly and kissed him again, holding onto his bulky thorax and pushing his lips apart, sliding his tongue into his mouth, eager and possessive, and infinitely tender. A kiss filled with a love so profound, it shattered the rest of the spider’s black carapace and fully exposed the tiny, fragile and vulnerable human body, that he had been trying so hard to protect. 

But that didn’t matter now. Weiss was taking him in his arms and holding him close, against his big, solid, blazing hot chest, and Nero’s mind was filled with his strong heartbeat, that sounded in his ears like the music of life itself. 

Nero buried his face in his brother’s neck and breathed a shuddering sigh. It was alright, now. Weiss had him. The spider could hide away in abyss inside, again. Weiss would protect him. Everything would be alright. 

At that time, he had truly believed it.

LINK TO NEXT CHAPTER:

[dreamatia-stories]

The Peggle Academy Gang

Way, way back on Bjorn's blog, tucked in a post he made about sequel ideas, he told us about an organization known as the Peggle Academy. As the years have gone by, the only member of the Academy that has ever come up is Fnord.

Considering the Academy is pretty important to the plot of OoD (and how EA doesn't give a damn about the franchise), I would almost definitely have to design my own evil counterparts.

Bjorn gives the description that "they look just like us, only with eyepatches, goatees, and hue-shifted color palettes", but I'll be real with you, if everybody looked like that it'd be boring design-wise and hard to take seriously. (Plus Fnord breaks two of those rules anyway when he shows up again in Blast.)

My design philosophy here is basically to pick a similar species to the Original 10, give them traits that clash with their counterparts, and do something with their eyes. (The eyepatch is Fnord's thing now.)

The Control "Group"

Fnord Unicorn: Bjorn's brother. The oldest of four, Fnord was once the heir to a noble and highly respected clan of unicorns, until a tragic Thunderball accident destroyed one of his eyes and cost him everything. Using appearance-altering magic to cast away his former self, he's since dedicated his life to destroying everything the culprit holds dear.

As you can see, Fnord's stake in this is just a tad more personal in OoD. I'll be the first to admit I never actually finished Blast (and probably never will with how broken it is now), so if Fnord DOES give a backstory in that game I'd be glad to hear it.

Fnord used to have a white coat and green mane (which makes it a LOT more believable that they could be related), which was altered into an orange coat and red mane by the time of Blast. In addition, if I do get the chance to draw him, I'd probably give him electricity scars behind his eyepatch.

The Most Complete

Lilah Nightshade: The first one I designed way back when, Lilah is all about fun, the nightlife, and most of all herself. Her sole interest is in her own pleasure, and she doesn't care who or what might be hurt by it; after all, who cares about the future if you're living in the present? Lilah joined the Academy's ranks to stick it to that uppity little Sunflower who works for the Institute, who won't stop whining about "consequences" and "keeping the planet healthy".

Since she's Tula's counterpart, I wanted to go with a plant that invoked the night. I went with the Nightshade, which is purple to contrast Tula's greens and yellows, star-shaped to invoke how she thinks she's the star, and famously poisonous to mirror her toxic personality. She wears sunglasses, both as a sort-of rejection of the sun and their association with being cool.

I don't remember which specific kind of nightshade she's based on, but since she's a super old concept I probably didn't actually bother distinguishing that. There's at least one drawing in my archive of her true form.

Ivan Roseberry: A mysterious plant who lives in the basement of the Academy building, and whose vines are embedded into its foundation. Unlike the others, Ivan has no particular ill will towards the Institute, merely doing what Fnord says because he's one of the few people who will actually talk to him. He cares for a rose garden on the Academy grounds, which he is fiercely protective of.

I'll be real, Ivan came to me in a dream, so he doesn't actually have any real-life inspiration; his name (both in- and out-of-universe; nobody at the Academy knows what he is either) is mostly just from the fact that he's a berry who tends to roses. Googling "roseberry fruit" brings up several different kinds of fruit, but none of them are light pink like Ivan. He's mainly a Magic Realm-exclusive species, like unicorns and dragons; which coincidentally gives him a contrast with Renfield, who is heavily implied by PvZ to have sprouted in "our" world. His powers also contrast Renfield's, with Ivan's being associated with life rather than death.

Ivan has blue rings around his eyes, which also were just there in the dream. So far, he's the only Academy member to actually have both of his eyes visible.

Less Concrete Characters

Doc Thunder: A smug guinea pig scientist who believes only the worthy should be allowed in STEM. He has no qualms with experimenting on others in the name of advancing scientific knowledge. Believes that Jimmy's own scientific pursuits are an insult to the field.

Doc Thunder is the first character I don't actually have a design for yet, despite him being kind of important. That said, he'd probably look pretty similar to the Fake Jimmy from Peggle 2, for plot-related reasons. I picked guinea pig both for the science ties and for the fact that I thought Jimmy was one for years. (That, and it's a similar size to Jimmy's ACTUAL species, the gopher.)

The Doc will probably wear opaque goggles, "because SOMEONE has to wear PPE around here and it CLEARLY isn't that pathetic excuse for a so-called 'biologist'-"

Count Ashheart: A former member of the Order of the Flame who disagreed with its rules and attempted to form a splinter faction: rather than controlling the Flame to ensure it lasts, Ashheart believed the Flame should consume all and burn as hot and bright as possible. As such, he decided he would become one with the Flame, immolating his body to serve what he believed was his higher power. Now undead, he continues to attempt to influence the Academy's students to follow his example, to Cinderbottom's anger and Fnord's annoyed chagrin.

Ashheart technically DOES have a design: a charred dragon skeleton, who occasionally wreathes himself in blue flame. But I neither know how to extrapolate a skeleton from Cindy nor how that's supposed to work with the Humanoid Filter, so I'm kind of at a loss for how to portray the guy. As a skeleton, he pretty obviously doesn't have eyes at all.

Jack Rabbit: Okay I'll be real I basically just have a name for this guy. My idea is that he's a con artist and a thief who grew up on hard times, who doesn't see any real difference between himself and the magician and treasure hunter Warren. But obviously, Warren is held in fairly high regard and Jack isn't.

"Jack Rabbit" most likely isn't actually his real name, and he's probably actually either a hare or a jackalope. (Or a hare pretending to be a jackalope.)

I don't have much for Kat Tut, Splork, Claude, or Hu. I can imagine KT's rival being an actual Ancient Egyptian mummified cat, and I did briefly float around the idea of Claude's rival being the old friend he winds up fighting in Nights, but that's about it on that end.

[billvaouli]

Blog Post 4.1 (Moor's Account Materials)

Part One:

“Among the slaves waiting their turn, I noticed many who had two marks on their cheeks—one in the shape of a coiling snake and the other in the form of a cross. I ventured to ask an Andalusian woman, whom I had heardwhisper some words in Arabic to her daughter, what the brand on her face meant. It means esclavo, she said, peering at me with curious eyes. Looking around me, I noticed that none of the black people in the marketplace had been marked with the brand. In Seville, the color of their skin—the color of my skin—was a sign in itself” (109).

The author notes in this chapter that some of the slaves who are waiting have two unique markings on their cheeks, one that looks like a coiling snake and the other that looks like a cross. An Andalusian woman answers that these marks represent "esclavo," or slave, when she is asked what they mean. Notably, the author also notes that skin tone is a differentiator in Seville's slave market because only individuals with darker skin, including themselves, are identified in this way.

In this section, Mustafa witnesses slaves being branded according to the hue of their skin, the marks denoting their position as enslaved people. Given that Mustafa and his skin tone are similar, it's probable that he is uncomfortable with the way skin tone is utilized to differentiate people.

https://primo.seattleu.edu/permalink/01ALLIANCE_SEAU/3bmk5g/cdi_proquest_journals_2314790976

Part Two:

https://primo.seattleu.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_proquest_journals_2296048999&context=PC&vid=01ALLIANCE_SEAU:SUP5&lang=en&search_scope=seau_rec_1&adaptor=Primo%20Central&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,dehumanizing%20slaves&offset=0

Part Three:

1. Keefer, K. H. B. (2019). Marked by fire: brands, slavery, and identity. Slavery & Abolition, 40(4), 659–681. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2019.1606521

The phrase "branding of humans" usually refers to the process by which people or organizations use different marketing and self-presentation techniques to establish a memorable and unique personal brand or identity. This might entail modifying one's look, conduct, and online presence to project a particular image or message, much as how businesses utilize branding to create a distinct and identifiable identity in the marketplace.

2. Crime and punishment in the British Army, 1815-1870. (n.d.). http://www.reenactor.ru/ARH/PDF/Burrougs.pdf 

During the period from 1815 to 1870, crime and punishment in the British army were subject to strict disciplinary regulations. Harsh penalties, such as flogging and imprisonment, were common for various offenses, including insubordination, desertion, and theft. The military justice system aimed to maintain discipline and order within the ranks, but there were growing concerns about the cruelty of these punishments, eventually leading to reforms and a shift towards more humane disciplinary practices in the later part of the 19th century.

3. Exchanging our country marks: University of North Carolina Press. Michael A. Gomez: Preview. Flexpub. (n.d.). https://flexpub.com/preview/exchanging-our-country-marks 

Michael A. Gomez's book "Exchanging Our Country Marks" offers a thorough analysis of the African slave trade and the cultural changes that enslaved Africans in the Americas went through. The book explores the ways African identity and legacy survived and changed in the New World, showing how slaves developed new forms of expression, adjusted to their environment, and kept a sense of self and community despite the sufferings of enslavement. It provides insightful information about the intricate and long-lasting effects of the transatlantic slave trade on communities of African descent.

4. DeLombard, J. M. (2019). Dehumanizing Slave Personhood. American Literature, 91(3), 491–521. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-7722104

The book "Dehumanizing Slave Personhood" by Jeannine Marie DeLombard offers a critical examination of the legal and rhetorical tactics used in the US throughout the 19th century to deny enslaved persons their whole humanity. The book explores how the legal system and popular discourse objectified and dehumanized those who were held as slaves, emphasizing the influence of language and the law on how people view themselves and how the institution of slavery is justified.

5. Dressner, Julie, and Edwin, Martinez. 2012. “The Scars of Stop-and-Frisk.” New York Times, June 12. www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/opinion/the-scars-of-stop-and-frisk.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion.

In bad neighborhoods, fear of police officers is frequently the result of a complicated web of interrelated issues, such as racial profiling, a history of tough policing, and a lack of trust between the community and law enforcement. When dealing with the police, residents in these neighborhoods could feel insecure, exposed, and uneasy, which could strain relations and obstruct successful community policing initiatives. This fear can perpetuate a cycle of mistrust and tension, making it challenging to create a safer and more harmonious environment for residents.

6. Eastern State Penitentiary. n.d. “Timeline: 1829 October 25.” www.easternstate.org/research/history-eastern-state/timeline

Operating from 1829 until 1971, Eastern State Penitentiary is a historic prison situated near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is renowned for its avant-garde "penitence" system, which placed a strong emphasis on inmate solitude and introspection in private cells. The architecture and philosophy of the jail had a profound impact on correctional systems across the globe and were crucial in shaping the structure of the contemporary American prison system.

Part Four:

Slavery dehumanizes people by robbing them of their autonomy, dignity, and basic human rights. People lose their agency and become little more than objects, with no ability to make decisions for themselves. Forced work, physical and psychological torture, and frequent treatment as goods to be bought and sold are all commonplace experiences for slaves. Slavery creates an environment in which people are treated more like objects than like people, and their cultural identities, families, and general well-being are frequently ignored. This dehumanizing system weakens the fundamental foundation of what it means to be human and feeds a vicious circle of tyranny.

[azurityarts]

hello! i was wondering if you knew of any other pokemon blogs? youre the only one i follow and i would like to have more

thank you and have a good day

Yeah! Depends on if you're looking for art blogs or general Pokemon blogs, but either way I know a mix of both. But honestly though, there are so many amazing blogs out here on Tumblr, you don't need to look far to find incredibly creative and talented people who share your interests, especially when it comes to Pokemon!

But here are some snazzy folks I know/know of:

AND DISCLAIMER: Not all of these blogs are 100% Pokemon oriented; remember that people can like different things and if they aren't to your taste, don't follow. (if you'd like your name removed from this list then please let me know ^^;)

@aimer-arts

@iixy

@theconfusedanimal

@mandymiriana

@inukkiarts

@cyber-wildcat

@elliikuma

@briarbramble

@for-a-new-life

@albadex

@newtbug-archives

@maple-and-pie

@honrupi-art

@rusty-eevee

@spriteveon

@kitsuakari

@jazzy-art-time

@polygonsword

@plutosoda

@ildahl

@amphibioticdescent

@snoofins

@calyx-arts

@alba-tross

@randomcyndaquil

@energyscarf

@maple-cloak

@teeterarting

@advosart

@pikabata

@djmuffintops

@teshamerkel

@min-play

@retrogamingblog2

@gotchibam

@rondo-grazioso

@moonpaw

@apolozorua

I can't do justice for all the Pokeblogs out there, so if there are any recommendations anyone would like to add, feel free to tag each other!

[unironicallycringe]

My semi-incoherent ramblings and questions:

“The colours of their nails signified their class. For example, black nails were considered higher rank whereas green fingernails... not so much.” a reblog from the tag TMM notes

Wait you made Ghost’s nails black. And Shenbar’s is green, G’otishmmar has none (it seems like G’otishmmar dislikes the class distinctions?).

Do you mind explaining which colour means what?

Why is the Goht from majora's mask listed as writing notes along with "the charging goat" tag, what are you planning to do with G’otishmmar. >:(

“#Surely There Aren't Any Complex Political Issues Depicted In This Mural And I'm Sure Gran Is Fine With It Being In Her Home” 

yes I’m totally sure portraying Gran and the Lizarfos in a black and white way is fine. I wonder why she still stays? Other than because her children.

Caladbolg is heading south to Woodfall isn’t he? That sound bad, really bad. I wonder why Caladbolg decided to go passed the wall anyways.

Oooo Ghirihim has a bad relationship with the Igo-kana Interestinggggg. I smell drama. 

“Garo were enemies of the Ikana Kingdom. Their nation sent several spies to investigate Ikana Canyon to gather intelligence” From the Zelda wiki

Masada is a Garo huh. The sheikah are or are involved with Garo. The Garo also took mini Ursang away. >:(

They’re trying to do something again >:((

(Mini demon Ursang and Ghost is very cute whyyy)

Do Igo-kana names change based on how they perceive themselves? In other words was Ursang always Ursang? 

“Igos du Ikana” from Majora’s mask. 

Huh, I wonder how long Ikana lasted. How prevalent is musicka in the current society and does it become more widely used overtime? 

Also is it possible to explain which cultures influence the cultures in this world?

I have been currently shaking your tumblr blog like a tin of my favourite snack for the past couple days.

As you can see I very much love the world you are making (maybe a little too much), please tell me more.

Sorry if it seems overwhelming due to me spit firing questions like this but I’m not sure how to coherently put this thing together. (”- _ -)

Long Answer Post Incoming (Which Will Probably Get Built In My Drafts Over The Next Week Or So)

Regarding Nail Colors

Nail color being class-coded wasn't planned until I learned about its historical significance myself. Shenbar's being green was coincidental to her design, but it fit nicely with the class theme I'm going for in Orq'oten. So far, only green and black mirror the class-coding of real historical use of kohl. It's moreso a minor setting detail since it was unplanned from the start.

G'otishmmar does indeed dislike class distinctions, though that might not have always been the case.

Regarding G'otishmmar Being Tagged With "Goht" Sometimes

Regarding Caladbolg

They certainly headed somewhere, probably looking for their lost cargo...

Regarding the Garo and Sheikah Connection

You're pretty much there! There's one group of people missing in the equation, which you can find in the chapters about the Lanayru Distribution Center ruins.

Regarding Ursang & Igo Names

Ursang is this particular character's birth name.

It's not typical for an Igo to change their name as often as they change their face. I'd say the core identity associated with a name is kind of like a safe harbor to return to, especially for a culture of shape-shifters. Of course, that core might shift over time in natural ways (growing into a new life role, gender associations, etc), which could result in name change.

Regarding Ikana and Musicka

In my mind, Ikana spends a long yet indeterminate amount of time declining before becoming the ruins in Majora's Mask. The kingdom used to encompass all of what is now simply regarded as Termina, but it shrinks to only the area you find in-game.

Musicka is a niche area of study for demons since they grasp it less easily. In Ikanan society at the time of TMM, it's mainly used for entertainment as an art form, and rarely for serious spellwork. Most demons tend to overlook its potential in favor of the more useful Magicka. Musicka's prevalence increases after Ikana's decline.

Regarding Real World Cultural Influences

Ikana as a whole: Ancient Fertile Crescent (Babylon, Sumer, Akkad)

Boko-kana: Middle East/West Asia (They influence Ikanan culture as a whole because they're the most numerous peoples, so this ties into Ikana having the above cultural identity. Other demon tribe cultural influence sort of radiate outward from here in similar directions to their fictional map)

Gerra-kana: South and Southeast Asia

Igo-kana: Central Asia

Massu-kana: Eastern Europe and Asia Minor

Twili-kana: Northern Asia

The Hylians and Sheikah follow the general canon vibes of Europe and East Asia respectively. The Gerudo here are North African inspired.

Thank you very much for the ask, it got my creative bits working and put TMM on my spinning microwave plate too :3c I hope my answers satisfy in ways that also continue to intrigue you.

[inhuman-obey-me]

On Simeon and what it means to be an angel

The beautiful, gentle angel who can smile through just about anything. But what's underneath the ever-present smile of his? Is he really just pure, sweet, and kind?

Not at all. Simeon can be very mischievous at some times, and scarily wrathful at others. Some of you may be thinking, just what kind of angel is someone like that? Well, let's talk about that.

(includes spoilers up to lesson 52)

Starting with the idea of what angels are supposed to be like - the common, pop-culture characterization of angels is that they are pure, merciful, peaceful beings who can only do good and are horrified by anything dark or bad.

And admittedly, Simeon doesn't seem to quite perfectly fit that mold.

[Disclaimer: Neither mod of this blog belong to the Abrahamic religions, so this is purely from our own research]

In terms of how angels have been described in various scriptures, however, this isn't actually what they are like. Angels act on behalf of God, and are usually not meant to have any free will of their own. The thing that separates angels from demons is not a tendency towards kindness and purity, but that their actions are aligned with God's desires rather than their own. What this means in effect is that, both in actual scripture and in the game, angels can and will do things that are a lot less pure and peaceful than their modern mainstream depictions would suggest.

For example, there is a part of the Bible (at least in various versions) where it is mentioned that an angel was ordered by God to kill one hundred eighty-five Assyrians, leaving their camp full of dead bodies in the morning.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke states in his The Duino Elegies - "Every Angel is terror".

Seraphim - which is what OM!'s renditions of Simeon and Lucifer both formerly were - are basically six-winged snakes. Cherubim, as OM!'s Beelzebub formerly was, are actually multi-faced humanoid-lions with wings. "Do not be afraid," is a line angels often say when they meet humans because they are just as scary-looking as demons - just they're, you know, the "good" ones.

Actual descriptions of angels aside, even in-game, we are presented with example after example that angels are not perfect "pure and good" beings either. The game itself emphasizes this point at various times - if you upset Simeon during Surprise Guest interactions, one of his displeased lines is: "Just because I'm an angel doesn't mean I'm all forgiving." In lesson 51, though he initially says he left Satan to be with the Angel versions of his brothers for Satan's benefit, if MC actually agrees that he was just being kind, he is surprised that they really believed him.

It's not just him, either. Similar to Simeon's upset reaction, if you give Luke a present he doesn't like, he says, "I know I'm an all-forgiving angel and everything, but even so, this is a little too much..." When MC briefly lands in the past, the brothers actually describe Simeon as the least intense of the seraphim. Back when the brothers were angels, Lucifer was still known for being strict and arrogant. On the more extreme end, Raphael was known for keeping the angels in line via the pointy end of his spear, as Asmodeus fears will happen to him as punishment for going to a party. And Michael himself, the top-ranking leader, who one might think should be the most angelic of angels, is described as a sadist. In the Angelic Demons event, Michael even gets Simeon to give the demon brothers cursed bracelets that temporarily turn them into angels. It's not a very nice prank to pull on them, as it makes the brothers miserable to be converted back to their old forms, not to mention that the curse goes so far that they are turned into the caricature of overly nice and polite angels - but as it could be considered more in line with pulling them towards "God's will," this would actually be considered a good angel thing to do.

As the game points out, being the least intense doesn't exactly make Simeon easygoing, either. In fact, we have seen at this point quite a few examples of Simeon's rage. As a play director, he berates the brothers so much over any mistakes that they call him a dictator. Not to mention, the reason they are in the play in the first place is because the entire previous cast quit because they couldn't deal with him.

Later, when he and Luke are running the Angel's Halo, he drags the brothers into helping out. Though he is shown still smiling, everyone agrees because they are terrified of his menacing aura. Even Diavolo, when on the home screen, remarks about hiding because he made Lucifer mad again, but it's Simeon who he calls "the one person in this world I don't want to anger."

On a much lighter note, some of his less "angelic" behavior also comes from his playful, mischievous side. As referenced earlier, he is surprised if MC believes he was just being nice, but if the player says they thought he was pranking Satan, it gives intimacy points with him, and he says:

He also joins in on the teasing of Luke, having his name as "Luke (Chihuahua)" in his D.D.D. contacts. Multiple of his home screen lines also show how much he loves messing with Luke in general:

"I'm free right now, so I think I might go and tease Luke."

"Luke is like a Chihuahua who thinks it is a German Shepherd. Cute, huh?"

"I'm back! I was so excited to meet you that I left Luke behind."

"If you don't eat enough breakfast, you'll turn out tiny like Luke."

Plus, in dance battles, one of his chibi poses is him teasingly scaring someone, while Luke has a corresponding scared pose, suggesting that he may be meant to be scaring Luke in particular.

He also gets MC to mess with Belphegor when they are looking for him, instructing them to kick the tree that he knows he's probably asleep in as hard as they possibly can.

However, while none of those things make him any less of an angel, there is evidence to support that he is, in fact, a "bad" angel in a different sense.

As the two Celestial Realm exchange students, Simeon and Luke represent two opposite ends of a spectrum of angel attitudes. Luke, having still been very young when the Great Celestial War happened, has been taught to have very uptight views of the demons, insisting that they are evil and should be avoided at all costs. When he first arrives in the Devildom, he is terrified at the idea that the two of them could get corrupted by the demons and fall. This is the prevailing attitude taught in the Celestial Realm: that demons are wicked, and that angels are inherently better than them.

By contrast, Simeon does not hold this view at all. He is happy to spend time with the demon brothers, and doesn't look down on them for falling. On the home screen, Luke complains, "Simeon is too sweet to demons! He's sweeter than a cake from Madam Scream's!" In the Rain, a Fire and Simeon Devilgram story, Simeon even talks about how he actually prefers the hustle and bustle of the Devildom, feeling that the Celestial Realm feels too quiet now.

This difference between him and Luke is not only expressed in his fondness for the demons, either. Simeon understands the nuances of good vs evil, and he himself seems to operate in shades of grey at times, rather than being perfectly aligned with Michael's (and by extension, it's implied, God's) wishes. More than once, he displays quite a flippant attitude towards following the rules, such as his very hand-wavey dismissal when MC asks about his lying.

Luke also calls him out on his disregard for rules, saying that Simeon is just too loose about following them:

However, this glib attitude should not be taken to mean that Simeon doesn't know exactly what he's doing. When it seems the only solution to restore stability to the three realms is for MC to sever all their pacts with the demon brothers, he quickly realizes that the other option, the Ring of Light that used to belong to Lucifer, must be hidden among Michael's things rather than lost to time as everyone thought. He tells Luke that he needs to go back to the Celestial Realm to take care of something, but he is firm that Luke should not come with him - because he is going to steal the ring from Michael, a risky, rebellious move that he doesn't want Luke to get involved in. He is perfectly aware of what he's doing, and actively chooses to do it anyway, consequences be damned, because he wants to do what he feels is right.

When Michael does confront him about it, he's not the least bit sorry, either. In fact, he sasses him and talks back, unafraid to show disrespect to God's top angel.

We also know that he's been demoted at some point. Luke tells MC that Simeon is an archangel, making him one of the Celestial Realm's warriors, or as Simeon himself has jokingly described it, a "low-level grunt" who is overworked by higher-up angels like Michael. However, during MC's time travel back to the Celestial Realm, we learn that Simeon used to be a seraph right alongside Michael and Lucifer. It is again referenced during the fairy incident, when he makes the low-level grunt joke again but is then reminded that he was a seraph at this point in time. We're not sure yet why he was demoted - there's a lot of speculation on this point, and we can't draw any definitive conclusions yet - but if we take that being a "good" angel means being obedient to Michael and God, we start to get a far less rosy picture of Simeon's good standing as an angel.

What does this mean? Is he a "bad" angel? Kind of, but not for the reasons some may think. His mischievous, devious, and playful side is not what makes him less angelic. It is his more rebellious, nonconformist way of doing things that actually opens up the possibility of him gradually getting further and further away from being an ideal angel, and potentially putting him on the path of falling from grace.

[ask-reno]

Too many Turks in the barracks

Fair warning for incoming ooc wall-of-text babbling. This is a lengthy, unsolicited reply to a question I found on another Reno-related blog (electric-turks), but I couldn't resist. Who knows, maybe there are some other folks out there who are as overly-invested in the Turks as I am?

.....anyone? :'D

Nevermind, let's just get to the excess. The original question was: What exactly does Reno’s position mean? “Second in command”

WELL I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED... someone else... who doesn't know me. And now for a bunch of vaguely-in-depth Turk-related information you probably never really needed.

As I said in my last post, there is actually a whole lot of canon-based info about the Turks and how they're set up as a unit/team. Let me spoil you right now by saying I am going way past the original question and just talking a lot about Turk hierarchy/history because I enjoy typing novels, apparently.

So by the time the main game rolls around (and the remake, by extension), the Turks are a much smaller elite unite than they were earlier in the full FFVII timeline. Reno is definitely a veteran Turk along with Tseng, Rude, and to an extent Elena because the Turks were originally a much larger group of ShinRa operatives. You can see a few of the older Turks in the PSP game Crisis Core, wherein Reno is much younger, Tseng is not the leader yet (or maybe just became the new leader?), and Rufus/Elena are first entering the scene as significant players. If you really want to delve into Turk stuff, check out the translations of Before Crisis (the Japanese-only mobile game), which was based around the Turks as whole and is the earliest installment in the FFVII timeline. There were tons of Turks at that point. So many, many Turks.

Now bear with me because I might be a bit off with the timeline and character ages. It's been a hot second and I am writing this off the top of my head, but I used to rp one of the BC Turks in addition to Reno, so I HOPE I still know enough to add some relevant info (and please correct me when I'm wrong). Essentially, the point is that by the time FFVII OG/Remake happens, Reno is for sure what you'd call a veteran Turk if just because he's managed to stay alive that long. Turks don't generally think about pension plans, if you catch my drift.

Reno is second-in-command because the Turks are set up on a hierarchy, similar to the military as a loose comparison. President ShinRa (senior or junior) is commander in chief; the leader of the Turks (Veld in BC and Tseng later on) answers directly to the president and functions as the highest ranking Turk; any second-in-command ranks highest after Tseng and (as mentioned by previous people in the conversation) will step in as the next acting officer should something happen to the leader.

So far as I know there aren't any defined ranks after second-in-command, but it would probably come down to Rude and then Elena since there are only two canonically-acknowledged Turks left at that point. Elena is established as the youngest as of Crisis Core, since she comes in as a teen schoolgirl if you can believe it. (Also her older sister was one of the earlier Turks from BC).

I haven't played the remake yet so I'm not sure how much they kept up the class-clown attitude Reno ultimately has in Advent Children, but at the end of the day Reno is one of the longest-standing Turks and so he would be the natural choice after Tseng as leader. My particular take on Reno as a character is that he's damn good at his job despite his image -- be that meth-addict-looking 1997 Reno who can't win a battle to save his life, young barely-past-rookie Reno from BC/CC or silly comic-relief child-grabbing Reno from AC. Maybe they're all the real Reno or maybe none of them are. He clearly calls some shots though ranking immediately under Tseng.

...and that would probably piss Rod off to no end but I will end my babbling there. Anyone else place BC Turks?

[fictionadventurer]

Dumping my thoughts about this week's reading:

I finished up Chesterton's The Defendant (I'd read half of it a few months ago). Excellent essays. They read like Chesterton's tumblr posts. He talks about a common perception, then explains why those people are wrong and defends what he loves. It's fannish behavior applied to the whole world. I love it. I highlighted the living daylights out of the essays I read this week.

Also finished Cranford. I almost can't believe that I've read it before. Nothing was like what I remembered. I don't remember any of the humor. None of the characters. Even the one part I did remember (Peter coming from India) was completely different than my image of it. (I had a very clear image of him sitting at supper telling stories and bringing presents. No such scene in the book). However, I very much enjoyed it. Miss Mattie is a delight, and I liked the eventual twists and turns of the plot.

How did I miss all the humor? I remember none of the jokes. Peter's "I was in the Himalayas and shot a cherubim" story is hilarious.

Once again, Gaskell managed to make big, dramatic happenings feel like realistic, everyday occurrences. I keep bringing this up, but she keeps doing it. It's her unique approach. Other writers (I'm thinking of the Brontes) would have focused on the big, soaring emotions, the dramatic reveals, of something like a long-lost brother coming back from India after years of adventure and heartache. But Gaskell is so straightforward and simple. He comes into the shop; they recognize each other and hug. The narrator learns his story, but it's told as the events of a life that led to this simple moment. Not parts of a drama, just things that happened on a particular day, that could have happened to anybody. (The fun part is that Peter plays up the drama, but it's just part of his mischief. A piece of his character, not a tragedy that warps his character).

It still ranks behind Wives and Daughters and North and South in my Gaskell experience, but it's a lovely book, and I can see why people love it.

The Lines Between Us ended rather well. Got perhaps a bit too moral relativistic for a Christian book, but I appreciate that it didn't try to preach the answers and instead left the issues open to more exploration. There are bits of the ending that are unrealistic and some character bits kind of came out of nowhere, but it is what it is.

I also finished up Katherine Reay's The Bronte Plot. I'd let it simmer in the background, ignored, for a few weeks. Very nearly abandoned it, because I couldn't connect to any of the characters. It was just a jumble of ideas and literary references. Way too many literary references. Two star book at most. I only kept going because it was easy to read, there was nothing objectionable in it, and I got most of the literary references. And then the ending somehow came together into something rather lovely. Some lovely thoughts about moving past regrets and making up for mistakes. A happy ending that didn't tie everything up too neatly. Too good for the book that came before it, frankly.

A thought about an upcoming book. When I read Brine and Bone, I looked up if Kate Stradling had anything new coming out, since it had been a while. Saw "Maid and Minstrel" password protected on her blog. Had hopes for something, eventually, but she has a minimal online presence. This week, I found out it's a "King Thrushbeard" retelling! Coming the 26th! (Hilariously, I only found out about it through W.R. Gingell's newsletter. The woman has zero online presence. It's not even mentioned on her own site.) I'm thrilled! It's about as good as I could hope for. I'm fascinated by the tale, but have never yet found a good retelling of it. But I trust her to make something interesting of it.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

This is a bit of an odd question, but what makes a character moral? Like, is it more about whether or not they strictly adhere to their own ideas of rignt and wrong or does it have to do with following what the society they live in deems morally correct? Can a character be a bad person and still be depicted as moral?(By the way, your blog posts are wonderfully well thought out and you deserve all the praise for it.)

This is such a complicated question, Anon. And a bit more philosophical than I expected today.

(Thank you for the compliments, by the way, but let’s get into the question)

Let’s start with some definitions.

A moral is a particular (usually somewhat specific) idea of right and wrong centered in religious roots.

An ethic is a particular (usually somewhat specific) idea of what is right and wrong centered in non-religious roots. These tend to be somewhat more widespread among people than morals, but are not really any less culturally biased.

A social more is as social or cultural tradition and accepted practice within that society.

A principle is a strongly held belief that guides a person’s actions.

Now.

Since these things all vary person-to-person, because of their religious understanding and social environment, their own innate personality, etc., what actions or beliefs are moral or ethical is rather in the eye of the beholder. Some people view queer behavior as immoral. Others don’t.

As for what makes a person or character moral, that would typically be someone who follows moral rules as determined by whoever’s deciding that.

As for what is a bad person, Anon, that’s a huge judgment to make about people and characters and generally speaking, I don’t find it helpful. Actions, ideas, and behaviors are more useful to judge than someone’s innate character in my opinion.

Additionally, none of those definitions above necessarily go together. Tax fraud is generally unethical most places, but plenty of religions really don’t get into tax fraud as a right/wrong thing, you know? A character can be strongly principled with an internal code they adhere to entirely without following anyone else’s idea of moral or ethical standards. If you have a bounty hunter who picks targets for traits and handles their catches all the same way, and if he finds himself targeted for those traits and expects to be treated the same way he has treated people—well, they’re strongly principled. They have great integrity.. But if that treatment includes abusive practices, is that…ethical? Is it moral? If bounty hunting is a socially disgraceful hobby, they are also not following social mores and society might disagree with his practices.

But the beholder for whether a character is moral or bad comes at three angles: the author, the narrator, and the reader. And these angles things may not agree on what they’re seeing.

Generally speaking, the story and narrative structure will give you some idea of whether or not the character should be viewed as correct in their behavior and beliefs. It might come to fruition in the way their character arc ends, how their actions affect themselves, the plot, and the story around them and what it does. How they feel about. How others feel about it. What the consequences are. A narrator is not necessarily the author, either: they might be deeply frustrated by how the story is portraying the actions of loved one. Someone who has forgiven a character might see them as much more moral than the plot and structure of the story does.

For example: there’s a weird, relatively small (thankfully, and mostly in Christian Romance) trend in romance novels to make high-ranking Nazis into romantic heroes for the protagonist (who is quite often Jewish). Now, I think a lot of people, even most people (who aren’t Nazis…), would see a Nazi as a bad person. An immoral person. An unethical person. Someone who was perhaps following the social mores of their time and place, but also who committed actions that are unrepentable and unforgiveable.

And yet in the context of a romance of course, they are shown to be lovable, forgivable, worthy of desire, etc. Some kind of Good or Valuable. Probably some kind of moral, because, Christian Romance, amiright? Because that’s the point of a romance novel. To show how and why a woman (a Jewish woman!) would love this man to root for them to build a life together and forgive and empathize with…

With, well, a Nazi. And his actions and his reasons for his actions.

But does the reader agree with that? Would an outside narrator? Say this Nazi romance was narrated by her sister. Would the narrator agree he’s a good person, even if all the details of the plot say what he did was fine?

Whether or not a character is moral is your own determination, Anon, and no one else can make that choice for you. How a character is depicted, however, is a thing entirely uncoupled.

[melis-hellis]

teletoon tier list!

so first things first: i'm not canadian. i'm american. but i occasionally have moments where i become interested in Canadian cartoons. i'll be making blog posts and rambles about various Canadian cartoons that have shaped me. and what better way to start it off than none other than the famous tier list?

i originally made one giant tier list for all Canadian cartoons and it just ended up messy beyond comparison because of just how many i've never seen or hadn't seen in years and couldn't properly rank. also the tier list i used in particular was missing TONS of cartoons i personally thought were underrated.

so! i decided to use a better tier list for teletoon, my favorite of the Canadian networks and the one that obviously has produced the most animation, which is my specialty! i'll try to cook up a YTV list at some point because they've made bangers as well.

yeah i thought atomic betty was mid folks, sorry :(

also y'all may notice the weird placement of the total drama seasons. i watched the first season much, much later and the fourth but not any of the others. i was 6 when the show came to the US and i wasn't allowed to watch it (i wasn't allowed to watch any fresh TV cartoons until i was 10 lol). revenge of the island was the only one i watched as it aired and it was after they reallllyyy toned down the adult jokes. total drama was never one of my absolute favorites as i don't really plan to watch more of it, but at the same time i would DEFINITELY be up to writing a total drama/pixar AU with pixar characters competing against each other lol.

about rocket monkeys getting its own tier...yeah i'll get into that another day because it's too much to put here. god i feel so bad for dan and jason. i'm super happy they're doing graphic novels now to clear their name

this list still didn't include wishfart, which i haven't seen but i have heard it's underrated and it just happens to take place in a modern city populated by fantastical creatures and if you know me, my main fandom just happens to be a certain pixar film with that same premise...

all the shows in the hot pink tier are ones that i've heard are underrated, or ones that personally seem interesting to me. and i really need to change that soon since there's so many i haven't seen lol.

[andromedasstarship]

faceless, nameless - the prologue

gif credit - @kylos 

pairing - kylo ren x reader 

warnings - canon-typical star wars violence, depictions of death/violence, fighting (verbal + physical), loosely implied physical intimacy (really up for interpretation here), angst, tension, implied mild love triangle, kylo ren betrays you 

summary - For four years, Kylo Ren considered you to be many things: his right hand, his confidant, an irreplaceable strategist, a friend and most importantly his equal. It all ended when he left you with a blaster shot to the stomach on a near deserted planet. On the brink of death, a rather dashing Resistance Pilot stumbled upon you, saving your life.  

Donning a mask to hide your identity, you’ve grown to become the most fearsome Resistance fighter they have; bewildering the First Order as to how you always seem to ruin their plans and avoid capture. Kylo Ren is a different man from when he left you two years ago, so how will he react when he accidentally finds you alive and well in Poe’s memories?

masterlist // series masterlist // read it on ao3 here 

next chapter 

-----

the prologue - the sun 

On Starkiller Base, there were plenty of rumors as to why Kylo Ren kept you around. Some said it was because of your extensive training in hundreds of different languages, both spoken and signed. Others were sure it was due to your diplomatic upbringing that came with countless connections and near endless wealth. Or, maybe it was due to your more than adequate ability in battle that served him the most. Even some people thought you were a kept woman, who only existed as a way for Kylo Ren to blow off steam behind closed doors. Your favorite rumor was that you were actually a high-ranking Resistance spy who was tasked with infiltrating the First Order at the highest level and that Kylo Ren had become weak because of you. Had it not made you laugh so much the first time you heard it, Kylo would’ve crushed the windpipe of the lowly officer who created the elaborate lie. 

Of course, there were some truths in all the rumors, but none of them exciting. You were in fact trained in hundreds of languages and that training was a product of your diplomatic upbringing. You were exceptionally trained in various forms of combat, but that was something that came after you met Kylo; he had always been afraid of you not being able to properly defend yourself. You were most certainly not a kept woman, not that you and Kylo weren’t intimate, but certainly not in the type of dynamic people thought. You absolutely were not a Resistance spy, but even though neither of you said it aloud, Kylo Ren was definitely weak for you. 

How it actually happened is quite boring. The two of you met when Kylo had just turned 24, still more Ben Solo than Kylo Ren. You were recently 23 at the time, head of a diplomatic welcoming committee that met with Kylo as part of his first official diplomatic endeavor as ‘Kylo Ren’ the soon to be Commander of the entire First Order. He quickly became enamored with you and the way you commanded a team full of older men who clearly didn’t approve of your position- whether it was due to your age or gender he didn’t know- but still treated you with respect; in short, you radiated a confidence and power he desired. For you, it was quite the opposite, Kylo Ren still wasn’t sure of himself and at times still acted like the awkward lanky Jedi boy who had never spoken to a girl outside of school purposes. He was a fresh and welcomed change from all the annoyingly rich and cocky men you met with on a daily basis. 

Him and his team stayed on your home planet for nearly three months. Countless delegates from various planets flocked there for balls, meetings, conferences, and more. Your connections ran deep and you directly aided in the First Order’s successes during those three months. For the first few weeks, you and Kylo skirted around the obvious pull between the two of you. He wasn’t exactly sure how to ‘woo’ a girl, nor was he even sure if he was allowed to. His lack of action caused you to regularly doubt if he also felt the spark, or if it was completely one sided on your end. Weeks of longing gazes and accidental brushes of fingertips finally came to an end when the two of you were sitting on your private balcony, overlooking the well kept grounds, discussing the conference that had just ended. It was a roaring success for your planet as well as the First Order, both of you securing mining resources at an exceptional locked rate for a minimum of fifty basic years. You made the first move, he was irresistible under the moonlight, closing the space between you on your bench and pressing your lips directly on his. In his hesitation you thought you had completely misread the past month, but it was only a moment later that his hands found purchase in your hair, pulling you closer. The two of you were nearly inseparable for the rest of his trip. 

It was difficult, when he finally had to return to his new master and some massive ship that would be lightyears away from you. Unspoken promises were made the night before he left, declarations of love and devotion made behind closed doors. He was still far from truly becoming Kylo Ren, had copious amounts of training to finish before he would see himself be fitting for someone like you. If he was nothing else, Kylo was desperate for loyalty and when you watched his ship leave you had no doubts he would come back. 

And he did, nearly an entire standard year later. You almost didn’t recognize him when he stepped off his personal ship. All broad shoulders and shrouded in layers of black, with that intimidating mask covering his face. He was proving to be quite the warrior, the tales of him and the Knights he commanded reaching the farest edges of the galaxy. When the welcoming festivities had ended and he removed his mask in the privacy of your room, you found a mature face that had lost the softness you once knew. It was no matter to you, flinging yourself into his arms and vowing to never let go. 

This time, when he left, you went with him of course. Kylo had been shocked when Snoke approved it, but Snoke, ever the manipulator, knew the growing attachment between the two of you would inevitably prove to be valuable in controlling Kylo Ren. 

Moving into a giant spaceship wasn’t easy for you. The dark, cold and everlasting expanse of space was a sharp contrast to your warm ocean planet. You missed the sun on your face and your people, but when you vowed to never let him go, you meant it. As time went on, you grew accustomed to the ship and then eventually Starkiller- which was an entirely different battle, that piece of ice had you complaining for months-, and soon enough you couldn’t imagine a life not in space. 

Most of your days were monotonous, not that you minded. From the first day you stepped foot onto base, Kylo began training you himself. He never wanted you to feel as hopeless and afraid as he did when he woke up to his uncle ready to kill him in his sleep. So he trained you, and he trained you hard. You could wield a lightsaber well enough, as he argued that should anything ever happen to him- a thought you hated entertaining-, his saber would be the best weapon you had available. You were smaller than him, so close combat was a challenge but you learned to use your size and agility as an advantage. What you specialized in, was the staff. It allowed you to give a larger opponent at a safe range until it was possible to take them down. Kylo had a special one created just for you, with double edged electrical ends that you could easily turn on or off. It was rare that he actually let you on a battlefield with him, but when he did you were unstoppable. Not that you minded, you quite enjoyed working behind the scenes, forming battle plans and leading diplomatic endeavors for the First Order. 

Other than Snoke, no one out ranked you, not even Ren; a fact he had been extremely particular about after a visiting diplomat made the excuse of outright ignoring and belittling your presence in a meeting. You were equals in everything, even going as far as taking on the ‘Ren’ moniker. 

Among First Order subordinates, you were fairly well liked, and not just because it was unspoken that anyone who thought badly of you would probably die at Ren’s hand. The people actually liked you. Ren was cold, you were warm. When he was sharp, you were soft. It worked well, his ability to command troops and fuel the fires of war was complimented perfectly by your ability to talk nearly anyone to your side. 

You never wavered in your support for him, ever loyal by his side no matter what he did or who he killed or how many villages he burned to the ground. You stood next to him, never behind, when new planets presented themselves as potential allies. You watched from above when he burned villages, that dared aid the Resistance, to the ground. You cleaned and healed every single wound he received from Snoke’s brutal training. You held him together when the pull to the light made him feel weak and undeserving. 

Anyone could see that you were the sun that Kylo Ren revolved around.  

So, when he came back to Starkiller on that fateful day, covered in blood- your blood-, announcing that you were dead- and he was the one who killed you-, and that your name was never to be uttered on his base or by any First Order subordinate ever again, no one knew what to do. 

-----

 a/n - hi!!! im so excited for this story, ive never written star wars before and my lore knowledge isnt the best ill admit, so please excuse any minor bits of pieces i may get wrong! comments/likes/reblogs always appreciated. if you wanna be added to the taglist, just ask and ill make one! :D 

no permission is given to copy or republish my writing on any other platform or account. if you see this story outside of my blog or my ao3 it is stolen work. i do not own nor claim to own star wars or any of the character involved in it. 

[furubabes]

Okay. Somebody Asked. @shoujobell and @cryptidaicat, y’all encouraged this. I’m gonna tag this #long post if you wanna filter.

So here. I got the urge to write and so I ranked the Fruits Basket couples from my favorite to least favorite. These aren’t my complete thoughts because I could honestly do multiple full meta posts on each pairing, but I tried to justify and explain all my choices. Standard disclaimer, this is subjective and we can agree to disagree.

Part 1: Just the reasonably popular ones

1. Kyoru: Someone’s gonna call me unoriginal for this but it’s fine. Kyoru is the main romance of Fruits Basket! They bring out the best in each other and build each other up as characters. Kyoru is basically my gold standard take on Sunshine Girl x Grouchy Dude, and I’m not even usually into that trope otherwise. Their romance is one of the few that feels so genuinely necessary to the story. They love each other and like each other. Kyo understands Tohru in a way no one else in the narrative does, and vice versa. They’re in love like soulmates and also like awkward teenagers. Kyoru invented romance. If it’s boring to like healthy romances with realistic development, I’ll be boring.

2. Tohrin: If Tohru didn’t end up with Kyo I would only want her to be with Rin. I guess they have some of the same appeal as Kyoru for me - Rin reads Tohru in a way a lot of people don’t. I also like how honest and raw they are with each other. They yell! They fight! Rin is down to just straight up knock Tohru over to keep her from rushing off. Also, they’re both absolute fashion icons. Goth x Prep rights. I firmly believe Tohru Honda is bisexual.

3. Yukeru: This is my favorite Yuki pairing. I followed @yunsoh way back when the reboot first started and her blog has got me absolutely hooked on Yukeru. I think Yuki’s arc would have just made a ridiculous amount of sense if he was gay. It screams comphet. Kakeru is an excellent complement to Yuki, and their bond feels incredibly natural. Honestly I feel like it’s the most organic romantic development outside of Kyoru. I think realistically they wouldn’t have gotten together until post-canon and frankly Yuki shines in his friendships much more than romances, so I’m not absolutely dying for them to be together, but if Yuki’s going to date anyone Kakeru is my pick.

4. Arisaki: Man... I just like them. They strike me as less of an epic love and more of a comfortable partnership. I also read them both as lesbians anyway lol. Honestly I think they both had feelings for Tohru at one point and bonded over it. The way I picture them happening is honestly just Arisa at 25 frantically googling “is it gay to hold hands with my girl roommate who I spend all my time with and also we never date men“ because Saki bought them rings that look like wedding bands but they could just be super close friendship rings and oh god she’s in too deep. They’re dating for four years before they notice.

5. AyaMine: But Jessie! You literally never post about this pairing! Yeah, you’re right. I never think about them actively. But when ranking the canon ships I realized that I like the two of them together because they’re chill and understated. They’re huge loud personalities on their own but as a couple, they just feel like two people who are happy together and like spending time with one another. No drama, no mess, very understated. No plot contrivances driving their relationship. Good for them.

6. YukiKyo: Okay, so I can be convinced to put on my YukiKyo goggles more often than not. It feels iffy because there’s debate about how closely related all the Sohmas are and these two are called “cousins” a lot in school, but since half of the Sohmas are dating each other anyway, I err on the side of them being more of a clan than a proper blood family. Anyway, YukiKyo is my designated angst fuel. I think it would realistically be pretty one-sided from Yuki’s side, since we see him wanting Kyo’s approval from a very young age, but I like exploring the what-ifs of their lives if they’d been friends instead of rivals. In canon, I like to think that after high school they’re not best friends in the traditional sense, but either one could show up with a dead body and the other would help them bury it, no questions asked.

7. Yuchi: Really? Yuki’s wife is my third favorite pairing for him? Look, I adore Machi, and I still like Yuchi. But as I’ve been watching the reboot and reading others’ metas, I think I agree that their relationship could have been very powerful as a platonic one, sort of running parallel to Yuki and Tohru. I like them together but I think there wasn’t quite time for a complete character arc for Machi and her growth sort of begins and ends with Yuki. I don’t object to them being a couple in canon and I think they’re genuinely very sweet, but once again, I think Yuki stands out in his friendships more than anything. I would have liked to see Machi strike out on her own a little more.

8. Haru x Yuki: I don’t have any particular feelings towards them but I love their dynamic already and I think as a couple they’d both be really easygoing and comfortable with each other. I think a childhood crush turned close friendship is honestly the narrative that works best for them so I have no need for the two to date canonically, but every time they interact in the anime it gets a laugh out of me. They’re cool. They’d make a very pretty pair.

9. Mayutori: I’m Mayutori-neutral. I think they suffer from Fruits Basket’s pair the spare syndrome, but out of the side pairings that don’t have too much impact, they’re one I enjoy. Mayu’s fun as a character, and painfully relatable, and I like that Hatori’s eventual romance isn’t with someone who reminds him of Kana or something like that. I also want good things for Hatori. Mayutori has serious heterosexual energy though. I’m not saying this as a pro or con, they’re just very straight.

10. Hatsuzu: Okay, Haru and Rin aren’t this far down because I hate them. I’m perfectly fine with them being together in canon. But I think their romance almost... functions better as individual motivation for their character arcs than it does as an actual relationship, if that makes sense? Rin’s backstory episode is heartbreaking and her motivation to protect Haru is compelling and sympathetic, but their actual scenes together just don’t move me that much. Their romance is the least interesting part of either character for me.

11. Hiro x Kisa: Yeah I never got into it that much. It’s cute, it’s a sweet depiction of childhood crushes, but I’m not a fan of the idea of them ending up together. Kisa’s a cutie and Hiro is entertaining but the two of them together don’t actually do much for me. The dynamic between them is almost like if someone did Kyoru with none of the nuance. Ultimately though, they’re kids. I don’t expect them to have a deep and complex romance.

12. Yukiru: I think it would be a disservice to their characters if they were a couple. People far more eloquent than me have already written plenty of meta on why Yuki and Tohru aren’t what the other needs romantically, so I won’t get into it, but basically I just think their canon friendship is so beautiful and meaningful that I wouldn’t want to change it. Yuki and Tohru support my thesis that not all soulmates are romantic.

13. Tohru x Momiji: Welcome to the subjective dislike corner! This pairing is reasonably popular among people theorizing who Tohru would be with if not Kyo, but for some reason it just sits poorly with me. I can’t rank it any lower because there’s nothing evil or morally wrong about it! I just really don’t like it. I’ve quit a few fics because this pairing came up and I just can’t enjoy it.

14. Kakeru x Komaki: Idk, I just think Kakeru latching onto the one girl who was nice to him and put up with his bullshit and then being with her forever isn’t compelling. Komaki’s also probably his beard. She’s likable as an individual though.

15. Akigure: There’s plenty to say about the age gap, Shigure being in love with Akito since she was a fetus because of The Dream, the implications of a 15-18 year old knowing he’d one day want to be with a then-10-year-old... yeah, you get it. But even if I was able to put all that aside because Soulmate Destiny Logic, I still don’t think I’d like Akigure. I think they’re interesting as bitter, codependent exes, but I don’t like the idea of Akito ending up with anyone who she abused or who abused her. I think she has so much growing to do as a character and staying in a relationship within the Sohma family to do it can’t be healthy for her. I can’t see them living happily ever after, nor do I really want to.

16. Kurisa: I think what frustrates me the most here is that I want to like Kureno and everything about this romance is written to dull his most interesting traits. First of all, the age gap. Yeah, it’s gross, I don’t like it. But even past that, the love at first sight, instant fixation with each other, and lack of actual chemistry just kills me. Arisa’s stated reason to like Kureno is that he reminds her of Tohru, basically piggybacking off the chemistry she and Tohru already have, and his total lack of agency means the plot just sort of carries him along. It frustrates me that Takaya could have done something pretty cool by making them simply friends who have a chance encounter and then build a friendship from there that parallels Kureno’s abusive dynamic with Akito. It would be neat if a stranger’s kindness was the push Kureno needed to get himself out of the Sohmas’ grasp, without all the nonsensical drama about them being in love. It would also be less of a disservice to Arisa, who basically just spends the whole series pining for Kureno after they meet and I hate it. I could write a whole post about this. Maybe I will sometime.

17. Kyoko x Katsuya: I don’t think their story is romantic. I think it’s tragic for Kyoko, and if it were framed that way within the narrative, I wouldn’t object so much to its existence. But... Takaya just really likes age gaps with a younger woman and an older man, so the narrative romanticizes this man marrying his student. Katsuya can be depicted as well-meaning as you want, but he’s still got a ridiculous amount of power over Kyoko. She was also still pretty young when she had Tohru, which doesn’t make things any better because it’s clear that the relationship turned physical when Kyoko was a teen, thus dashing the idea of Katsuya legally marrying her to save her but not actually doing anything creepy. I wish Fruits Basket framed this as a story of Kyoko escaping one dangerous situation by entering a relationship with a huge power imbalance, because that happens to girls all the time and it’s tragic and compelling. The events of the story could stay the exact same and if the framing changed I would be fine with it. But this is not that. This is just a really romanticized teacher/student age gap. I’m not into it.

Part 2: Rarepairs, weird shit, and others (oh my!)

1. Yuki x Kakeru x Kimi: OT3. I’m enamored with the idea of this hot mess polycule.

2. Momiji x Kimi: Chaos meets chaos. This couple would say uwu without any irony and also steal your car keys. They’re both perceptive and smart hidden under a layer of cute and I’d wanna watch them play 4D chess with each other.

3. Kazuma x Kunimitsu: Idk how old Kunimitsu is so if he’s like 20, strike this one from the record. But I saw one post once that was like Kyo slowly realizing Kazuma and Kunimitsu were gay and had been dating for years and it was funny as hell.

4. AyaTori: It’s cute. Opposites attract, black and white hair, and Aya only listens to Hatori anyway. It’s just fun to think about.

5. Megumi x Hiro: They don’t interact in canon I just think Goth x Punk-Ass Bitch is a great concept.

6. Motoko x Nao: They’re both loud as hell and Nao having a gf that towers over him is funny. Maybe Yuki would finally get some peace.

7. Machi x Kimi: I don’t see them actually being compatible in canon but I think they could have a really homoerotic college friendship.

8. Hajime x Mutsuki: This is just YukiKyo, the non angst version.

9. Akito x Hanajima: I’m so wary of shipping Akito with anyone but this is kind of fun. The two are friends in canon and Hana isn’t remotely afraid of Akito. Plus Akito never abused Hana. I can sort of see it.

10. Hiroshi x Yusuke: Makes no sense, wouldn’t be relevant, but if those two just never spent any time apart and continued being a pair for life it would be a really good bit.

11. Akitohru: I don’t think it’s healthy to date anyone who’s previously stabbed you.

12. Kazuma x Hanajima: Stop. Go to jail. Hana’s one-sided crush is funny though.

[silvokrent]

So since Tyrian's arrest screen didn't list everything he was wanted for, what else do you think he did? My brother thinks arson, I think more along the lines of torture.

It’d probably be easier to ask, “What crimes didn’t he commit?”

I think you’re both right. Arson and torture seem like equally valid possibilities, but they’d have to be the result of context and circumstance. On one hand, Tyrian always struck me as someone that’s adaptive, flexible, and capable of improvisation, which is why I doubt he’d be averse to either. On the other hand, Tyrian appears to have a modus operandi—speed and stealth. Like most Faunus, seeing in the dark (presumably with tapeta lucida, the eyeshine a lot of nocturnal and crepuscular animals have) affords him an advantage many of his victims lack. That, coupled with his stinger, sets him up by default for a very specific tactic: hit-and-run assassinations. Catch your target off-guard, deliver the killing blow, then melt back into the shadows before anyone’s the wiser. Fire lacks discretion, and torture involves prolonged interaction with the victim (which increases the odds of him getting caught, as time/duration would be proportionate to the risk of being discovered).

If a situation called for it (like setting a car on fire in order to distract pursuers), or he was contracted to complete a specific job (like torturing someone for information), then I could definitely see him committing arson and torture. But if he’s recreationally killing, then I think it’s more likely that he’d indulge in his preferred repertoire, envenomation and stabbing.

The nice thing about his criminal record being truncated (with a “see attachment for more details” appended to the file) with multiple redacted sections is that it leaves a lot of room for speculation. Bear in mind that much of this is either conjectural with little supporting evidence, or my personal headcanons.

One of the things that I found interesting about Tyrian’s character was his reverence of Salem. “Goddess” isn’t just an affectionate title or a term of endearment—he literally apotheosizes her. Compare that to how his teammates interact with her. While they treat her with respect, none of them use the same venerating language as Tyrian (“Your Grace,” “my lady,” “our divine savior,” “our goddess”). This tells us that his worship of her isn’t the norm amongst her followers, which also means that he has a reason for doing it.

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of labelling people who commit heinous crimes as crazy or insane—not only because it implicates nonviolent mentally ill and neurodivergent people, and scapegoats them for the actions of others—but because in this instance, it robs Tyrian of the complexity that comes with rationalizing one’s choices. Tyrian’s decision to deify Salem shouldn’t stem from some sort of psychopathology, but rather a logical, personal, or historical precedent.

Let’s reverse-engineer this thought process:

Tyrian worships Salem.

Salem (in Tyrian’s eyes) is the extreme embodiment, manifestation, or expression of cathartic violence.

Tyrian worships this form of violence.

And what else in RWBY’s universe embodies those traits?

The Creatures of Grimm.

So, with that in mind, let’s talk about all the illegal things Tyrian’s done over the course of his life, and more specifically, why.

Archotherolatry: This is a term I coined for my RWBY worldbuilding blog. If you break down the etymology, archotherian (Greek - ruling beast, the scientific term for Grimm) + -latry (Late Latin - worship of), it translates to “the worship of Grimm.” The practice was outlawed by the King of Vale (King Ozark) after the Great War. While the decision was rooted in common sense—like, you really don’t want people to see the Grimm as gods for fairly obvious reasons—Ozark had ulterior motives for outlawing it. You see, Ozark was one of Ozma’s incarnations, and the immediate predecessor of Ozpin. While archotherolatry had been falling out of favor over the last few centuries, it was still a religion with a presence in certain corners of Remnant. Salem used to recruit these cultists directly into her ranks. By making the practice illegal, Ozma was hoping to cut off a potential source of followers.

Prior to meeting Salem, Tyrian was one of the surviving few practitioners of the faith. Not only that, but he had a particular mania about it. Grimm worship in Remnant changed depending on where in the world you went, but one of the recurring practices involved human sacrifice. Now, while Tyrian didn’t subscribe to any specific holy doctrine and wasn’t a member of any secret groups, he did adhere to certain rites and ceremonies. He savored the taking of lives, but even more than that, he enjoyed offering up his victims to the Grimm. During the months that Pickerel spent hunting him down, his trails would often lead him to secluded areas outside cities or towns. There he’d often find a large ornately-detailed circle on the ground painted with blood, with the tattered corpse of the victim lying in the center. The surrounding trees and rocks would sport eye-like patterns drawn in blood, similar to the patterns seen on the bony white protrusions on a Grimm’s body.

When selecting potential victims, Tyrian didn’t discriminate. Gender, age, nationality, race, economic background—they all bleed red, so it didn’t matter. Not technically, anyway. That wasn’t to say he didn’t enjoy abducting business owners that were prejudiced against Faunus, or that he didn’t find ironic humor in sacrificing Huntsmen to the Grimm. He just wasn’t particularly choosy about who he sacrificed.

In a similar vein, I think this is how Salem first learned about Tyrian’s existence. Whenever her scouts or sentries returned to Evernight and reported in, they’d inform her about a man that would drag people into the woods and invite the Grimm to feast upon them. This possibility excited Salem for several reasons: not only was he predisposed to loyalty to her, but the fact that he’d clearly been doing these sacrifices for some time meant he was talented. It took a lot of skill to kill so many people without being caught by the authorities. She needed an assassin, and he would do perfectly.

When Tyrian wasn’t feeding people to the Grimm, he probably murdered for sport. He thrilled in the hunt, in the dizzying slick of blood beneath his fingers, the intoxicating coppery smell, the beautiful song of his victims as they cried, begged, and screamed. Acts of violence honor the Grimm, but in addition to that, he simply relished in the joy of killing. And he was good at it.

Of course, sacrificial manslaughter doesn’t pay the bills, so Tyrian had a day job. Well, I say “day job,” but it was more along the lines of contract killer/thief/kidnapper/smuggler. Tyrian operated largely out of Mistral’s criminal underworld, particularly in the capital (though depending on the work he was doing, he’d travel to Wind Path or Kuchinashi). Potential clients sought him out and hired him for any number of jobs: collect the debt that this person owes me and kill them if they refuse to pay; abduct the member of this rival syndicate and bring them to these coordinates; assassinate someone for me, and bring back proof that they’re dead; transport this contraband (weapons, drugs, Dust) and ensure the shipment arrives safely; kill these people and destroy the evidence; capture this person and extract information from them by whatever means necessary; follow this person without being detected, and collect information about their routine. Although Tyrian preferred jobs that involved bloodshed, he’d still accept contracts for more mundane work (even if he found it somewhat boring). Tyrian didn’t have a ton of dealbreakers in terms of jobs, though he refused to do anything that involved sexual assault. (Even serial killers have standards.)

Destruction of public and private property was likely an unintended or indirect consequence of his work. As much as Tyrian enjoyed wanton carnage, he prided himself on being stealthy and thus had to exercise some level of restraint, so as to not leave behind damning evidence in the form of collateral damage. Breaking a window or kicking in a door is a liability. Accidentally setting off a Dust explosion is a good way for the authorities to track you. That being said, there were a few memorable occasions where Tyrian absolutely wrecked shit up. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these was the day that he was finally captured by Atlesian and Mistrali law enforcement. On the day of his arrest, Tyrian caused nearly 50,000 lien’s worth of property damage, including the destruction of three Paladins.

Tyrian’s name, while spoken among the criminal element, was unknown to the public. Even so, he garnered a reputation as Anima’s most infamous serial killer. People often referred to him by his title: The Ghost in the Mist. (Years later, a documentary by the same name was released. It was an hour-long production that detailed his activity in Mistral, all of his victims, an analysis of his signature, and other relevant or interesting trivia. It even featured an interview with Pickerel, prior to his death. Tyrian absolutely loves this documentary and has re-watched it several times.)

I’m sure there’s more that he’s done that I can’t think of presently, but hopefully this gives you a general idea of all the criminal activity I think he’s committed.

[tolkienhorror]

My pain, your thrill, chapter 2

Warnings: Abuse, torture, cbt, watersports.

Please note: This was created on a tumblr prompt given by @outofangband  on my main blog. Prompt: Morgoth/Sauron, Omorashi

************************************************************************************* ************************************************************************************* *************************************************************************************

"Where do you think you're going, Lieutenant?"

Mairon cursed inwardly but he knew better than to turn his back on his Lord when he was regarded with that certain icy hiss in Melkor's voice, especially in front of a whole group of orc and Balrog commanders. Oh, so one of those days it was. "I have a pressing matter in my office to tend to, milord. It will be but a minute." He tried, though he knew how small chances were of convincing his master once Melkor had got it in his head that this was another good moment to remind Mairon of his place.

Of the annoying fact that years after what had probably the biggest failure in Mairon’s career, he still deserved retaliation at every chance, even and especially in the presence of others. Nothing better to keep possibly rebellious minions in check than demonstrating every now and then that not even the highest people in Melkor's ranks were safe from his power. And that very decision being made in this fortress had to be sanctioned from the highest place – not least because last time Melkor had given Mairon free reign, they'd lost their most valuable prisoner. Melkor could hold grudges for an incredibly long time. "If there's any dealings more pressing than debating strategies to increase our hold on these lands, Lieutenant, maybe you would be better advised servicing the enemy." The temperature in the room seemed to drop with every of Melkor's venomous words until Mairon was shivering under the flimsy fabric of the ruby robe matching his hair that he'd chosen for this gathering in the weak hope of appealing to his master's occasional appreciation for beauty in his bedroom.

Another failure, obviously.

While the orcs, too, shivered and ducked their heads at the aggression suddenly roaring through the hall, more than one of the greyish, scarred faces showed a scornful grin.

A weak flame of delight flickered in the red sockets that were Gothmog's eyes from the other side of the room. From the way, the tip of the Balrog's whip wrapped around a leg of the table, Mairon could tell, the bastard was fondling the handle of his preferred weapon, probably daydreaming about Melkor becoming angry enough with Mairon to order him to serve his most hated rival tonight once more.

Mairon had no interest in a repeat performance of that kind and bowed his head in apology, quickly taking his place behind Melkor's chair again, his face blank as he forced himself to listen to every detail for the upcoming attack wave that he'd long memorized anyway. This was not about his uninterrupted presence in a wholly expendable meeting, of course. It was another test of will, of physical endurance. If he didn't have to be so careful about his lover invading his mind to monitor his thoughts, Mairon would probably allow himself to silently admit that he was getting a little tired of these games. Even coming up with the most attractive and mighty new shapes when the last one got too ruined became tedious at some point, especially when your master had no second look to spare for it.

It wasn't just that Melkor refused to forgive him. He refused to touch him.

Well, that was if Mairon didn't count choking on his lover's cock every once in a while. It felt like at least two Ages since Marin had last been fucked; and since his lover forbade him from finding at least his own pleasure alone, the growing yearning was mixing with more frustration by the day.

Even more so since Melkor had found out that it was a lot more fun, torturing Mairon when he also prohibited him from using any of the powers his folk was gifted with, merely reducing his physical and mental resilience to the embarrassing fragility of an elf.

Mairon wasn't only mildly irritated and impatient any longer. He was miserable. What had Eru been thinking, bringing something so flawed and insufficient to life? When it wasn't some deep cut in this far-too thin skin from his master's whip that Mairon had to sing together every other week, he ended up mending bones or pushing some organ back where it belonged. It was time consuming, it was most uncomfortable and most of all it was humiliating.

Yet, apparently, his lover was of the opinion, none of that had been humiliating enough yet. Mairon should have been suspicious already when Melkor had insisted on sharing a couple of cups of wine too many before this meeting. And he still handed him a new one without even looking at him every now and then, though Melkor himself was doing the talking and Mairon certainly had no need for any more wetting of his throat. Debauchery usually was not for either of them.

It was only now, hours in, that Mairon started to feel, he needed a bathroom break rather sooner than later. And how very inconvenient it was when you were not allowed to just cleanse your body out with a few hummed tones from your lips. It went from inconvenient to distracting after the next cup because Melkor still made no move to end this stupid discussion about arms deployment anytime soon. By now, Mairon's robe was starting to stretch uncomfortably around his midsection, and the muscles in his lower body cramped from the growing need to relieve himself. Only now, it started to dawn on him why his Lord hard insisted on him attending this gathering from this very particular spot, with no empty chair in sight. Distraction turned into annoyance and growing anxiety when the first few pairs of eyes turned his way repeatedly because it became more and more impossibly to stop shifting his weight and trying not to press his legs together too conspicuously. Inside his head he was cursing in all languages he knew the choice for this nothing of a piece of clothing, the white and gold color of which would give away immediately if he failed to control even such a primitive, basic function of this useless body for just a second. Mairon thought, he was doing a pretty good job, still hardly moving a muscle, but whenever he caught just a glimpse of his master's twisted mind in the shredded, cloudy bond between their souls, he could feel the lazy acid bubbling there that was Melkor's sadistic arousal, and he knew, his little, inaudible gasps and the heat of his temperature rising, radiating from his body more by the second, did not go unnoticed.

More than one of Mairon’s own subjects was openly leering at this point, some whispering and chuckling darkly as pale eyes watched the small beads of sweat from strain building on Mairon's forehead.

Gothmog was shamelessly staring at his midsection and licking his lips with his forked tongue, clearly indulging in the perverted fantasies of all the things he would be allowed to do tonight if Mairon managed to anger his Lord enough with his mortal weakness.

It was mostly the stubbornness not to give in to these wordless taunts that helped Mairon, somehow, to hold on to the last of muscle control by sheer willpower alone until the room finally started to empty.

"Am I excused, my Lord?" he got out between gritted teeth, his hands hard fists by his sides just from the effort of not grabbing his bloated midsection, or his aching cock through his clothes, to make sure he would make it the few feet down the hall, to the next free chambers, to finally empty his bladder.

"Not until I decide you learned how not to fail me," Melkor said flatly, still not turning around but busy gathering the last of parchments from the notes one of the orcs had taken during the conversation. "But if that's what you mean: Since you are obviously not even able to control a weak shape like this for half a day, you may go. Try not to make a mess on the floor."

Another day, Mairon might have returned the provocation, might have stayed just in spite, to prove to his master that he was very much capable of everything his Lord asked him to do. Only he was not, not when he was deliberately slowed and restricted in his powers. Mairon was ready to prove himself to his Lord anytime, but not if it was only for Melkor's amusement. If he wanted to be a thrall, he could as well have stayed in Valinor. "Milord." With a rather cool nod, he finally walked past his master, his steps as stiff as his posture. Not for long though, because just before he could get out of reach, a harsh slap from a huge hand suddenly landed on his behind, hard enough to bruise. Thanks to all his muscles contracting from the unexpected impact, a sinister pain stabbed his midsection. With a small scream, Mairon toppled over and reached between his legs in growing desperation to prevent the worst, but it was too late. His hand came back wet, and another hot, treacherous stream trickled down the insides of his thighs, darkening the front of his robe, leaving a sharp-smelling trace on his skin and dripping from his knee-high leather boots on the uneven, rocky ground.

"Look at that. Here I was just thinking about complimenting your excellent fashion choices, my pet, and you had to ruin it again." The same unforgiving hand grabbed his hair and pulled him back upright before he could regather his composure. The ominous lights of the Silmarils shining on his master's pale forehead stung in Mairon's eyes when Melkor pulled him close and licked the salt of sweat and tears of humiliation off his cheeks, off his lips, then biting the sensitive skin hard enough to bruise.

The other hand found the bulge under Mairon's now-ruined robe and pushed against it until Mairon cried out, fighting the hold on his braid in vain, shuddering both in disgust and relief when another small trickle of shame escaped his straining cock, the wet patch at his front growing.

He had long learned better than to beg, but his eyes were apparently a clear enough mirror of the torture of the last few hours, because Melkor's sharp-toothed grin only grew; he let go of him unexpectedly and pushed him away to get up, a clear bulge of arousal showing under his own tight pants. "It looks like we'll have to start teaching you discipline from the very start again, my pet. I will see you in my quarters tonight. I trust you will keep yourself properly hydrated until then." With that, his master left him to his shame.

*********

Mortified and wrathful as he had been, it turned out, it didn't take Mairon long to wish himself be back in that moldy conference hall full of people amused by his comparatively meager suffering.

"Is this not what you wanted, my favorite pet?," Melkor chuckled when another pained groan came from Mairon's lips at the merciless metal pull of metal rings around his cock and balls, endangering his skin that was already stretched beyond its limits, raw and chafed, more by the minute.

Even if he could have, Mairon would not have granted his lover the satisfaction of an answer. But he tried to turn his head away from the thick metal phallus stretching his mouth open anyway, in vain, when another gush of ice cold water came through the hole in the middle of the toy, flowing fast and harshly right towards the back of his throat. Which left him no choice but to swallow again though his belly was already bloated painfully from too much fluid once more, hanging low from where his master had strung him up by his wrists and ankles, swinging and gurgling lazily with every thrust of his master's enormous cock into Mairon's lube-dripping hole. Swinging, just like the huge bucket that his master had tied to his swollen genitals with heavy chains, positioned in such a way that every unwanted new stream of waste from Mairon's bound cock filled it up further. It was really only a matter of time until this easily breakable flesh would no longer be able to resist that gruesome tug, and Mairon had a vague idea, his master had no plans of patching the deadly, tasteless kind of wounds up that unpleasant moment would leave. Apparently, another body had run its course. What bothered Mairon most about spending all his energy once more on another disposable shape, was that his lover was right, of course … This was exactly what he had wanted. Finally being the center of his lover's attention again, being speared open by that magnificent cock, used and abused only for his master's pleasure … He thought he might even have been able to come just from this, in spite of the pain in his groin, if his lover had not once more made sure he couldn’t. No, the noises from his lips were not of protest. They were offense. After all these punishments Mairon had endured today – in all of these last years, really –, the least he deserved was finally being allowed to come properly again.

But his wishes, as was life in Melkor's fortress, were rarely of any concern for his lover, so he had to be satisfied with the telltale twitch of his lover's crooked cock inside of him when Melkor reached under him to feel the grotesque swellings of Mairon's overfilled stomach and bladder and press his sharp-nailed fingertips deeply into the cramping organs until Mairon screamed around his gag and relieved himself unwillingly into the bucket once more.

If it was only the pleasure of his suffering that could close the wound of hurt pride and tactical disadvantage that Mairon's mistakes a few years back had torn, he would happily sacrifice another dozen bodies. Something tore between his legs that was not supposed to come off when the relentless pull of the chain ripped harder on his flesh, and Mairon was pretty sure, that was no longer just waste in that bucket, but that was also when his lover came deep inside of him, finally, the comforting, too-hot pulse of rotten seed warming his shaking body from the inside. Mairon's trapped balls gave another helpless pulse of their last ruined orgasm before they came off with a wet gush. As he gave him to the darkness of agony washing over his mind, Mairon decided, his next shape definitely needed a bigger bladder.

[katygorl]

TTM Concept: Queen Delula Vale of Valemont

So since I’ve been so inspired by all the parent and royal exploration happening lately for the “The Three Mages” verse, I thought I would go ahead and spruce up a bit some of my concept ideas from last year for Cole’s mother, the queen of Valemont. Now, none of these ideas are officially canon, since they were just what I envisioned for her at the time, but I hope you’re still able to enjoy them~ ^w^

The Three Mages and any character mentioned belong to @thethreemages, whose blog and original universe is something I highly recommend you guys check out, since it is so amazing and is one of my most favorite fantasy stories to have witnessed from when it was just a dream concept to the expansive world and lore it has now~ :3

But anyways, onto my little ideas for this queen! Info under the readmore^^

(I’m still working on drawing this concept of her out, so no visual for now. Also, a little bit of this info will be in relation to Cole’s dad and deceased older brother, and I have no name ideas for them yet so they won’t be mentioned much in detail here.)

- Bio: The current reigning royal of the kingdom to Valemont, her son Cole being the heir. Her people are known to be some of the fiercest and strongest warriors in the land, her own family having a long line of strong and proud warriors the citizens of their country to look up to. It’s always been something that fascinated her, even as a young child, as hearing her papa’s stories of his adventures inspired her at an early age to become a warrior herself. She started training as soon as she could, eager to get out and fight for herself, ignoring the strange looks and hushed whispers of the nobles and older warriors for having the then-tiny and frail princess trying to join their ranks. She was determined to prove her strength and her worth, no matter what others thought. When it became apparent around her pre-teen years that she possessed no magic of her own, she did not let that get her down as she continued her training and by the time of her young adult years, had already made a name for herself as being a formidable opponent to face on the battlefield. During her young adult years she was courted by a few other warriors, at least ones that were brave enough to approach her, but Delula had never been one invested in romance as she much preferred continuing on with her life as a warrior. During her mid-twenties her father had set her up with a hunter who was fairly reputable, though no one knew of his coldness at first. After marriage they eventually bore two sons, but Delula’s husband was always very stiff and emotionally-distant around them, often preferring to go out on his hunts then spend anytime at home tending to his families or duties as king consort. Delula was never entirely invested in him romantically, but she was having enough of his attitude after a while. In private they would have many heated arguments and fights about his inattentiveness, eventually leading to him walking out on his family when his sons were quite young. 

Even though she did not want to be like her former husband, a part of Delula’s heart went cold from his leaving as she was not so carefree as before, being a lot more strict and firm in her ruling and parenting. Though despite her harsher disposition now, Delula loves her sons no matter what, even if she’s always been awkward at expressing affections. When her eldest son expressed interest in becoming a warrior she was more than willing to allow him to, often being one of his main trainers. Eventually when he was old enough he started to go off on his own war missions, though one in particular proved to be fatal as he was never seen or heard from again, presumably “dead” to the public and any who knew him. With her eldest son now gone, Delula has shut off all her emotions as a way to cope, though she greatly mourns his loss and focuses on maintaining her bond with her remaining son so she does not end up feeling totally bitter and alone.

- Appearance: A bit on the shorter side compared to Terra’s other queens, with a stocky and muscular figure, a light brown skin tone much like her son’s, hooded gray eyes(a signature feature of Valemont citizens) that have the slightest tint of icy blue to them, a short, black pixie haircut that’s on the more spiky/messy side, fashion sense being more on the warrior/tomboyish side as she’s not a very girly queen in the slightest sense. While her warrior days are over as she is more focused on her queenly duties and dealing with the territory disputes between her kingdom and the kingdom of Everes, she is still quite strong in her own right as she makes sure to work out when she can, and is still quite the arm-wrestling champ from her younger warrior days.

- Personality: Delula is more of a “socially-distant” kind of person and ruler, mainly focusing on her son and duty as queen and not trivial things like socializing with the other royals unless she has to. Very guarded and aloof, her warmer side only coming out around close family like her son. She can hold a grudge for a long time, being quite stubborn, but would secretly like for things to be better. Like previously mentioned one of her ways of coping with her husband walking out on their family and her eldest son disappearing was for her to “shut off” some of her more sensitive emotions, though underneath the harsh exterior she’s made for herself Delula has a big and noble heart for her closest loved ones and allies, and would be quite selfless in the fact she would do anything to make them happy despite what her normal disposition would suggest.

[unmaskinglynz]

I HEARD THE RUMOR OF: STEVE HELPED LYNZ TO JOIN MSI

Many have been the rumors of Lynz's entry into the band, however, it has been herself who has told in various interviews how she joined the ranks of the controversial band.

In April 2017, Lindsey gave a short interview to the monsterecords site.

 Q: When or how did you find what you wanted to do?

L: Well, for art, it was something I always knew. I really didn't think about it. I realized that I wanted to go to art school as I grew up. While I was in school I started playing bass and I got into a band and then the music took over for a long time. Art was always my first love, music was secondary. It's not that I don't love music. Art is my right hand and music is my left. I don't want to be without one, but if I had to make a decision, I'd cut the left.

 Q: How did you chase him?

Art: I went to college, and for music: I lied. My roommate bought a drum kit and I had a bass. She went to CBGB’S and boasted that we had a great band. Mindless had their last show there with their former bassist. His manager asked Asshole Dave, the goalie, who could be a good stand-in bassist. He recommended me, so I got a call from his manager, who gave me one of his CDs when he came to my art show. Jamie Hewlit, one of my favorite artists, made the album cover, so I thought about how bad they could be. I had to quickly learn three songs for an audition and I couldn't play bass. So a friend of mine came to show me what a tablature was and taught me. I spent every moment where I was awake to learn. It was a really decisive moment in my life. I learned that if you really work hard and work very hard at something, you will succeed.

I applied to the audition unsure of my abilities, but decided to stick with the position, so I filled a can of film with Bacardi 151. When the ten-second break in the song Tornado came, I ripped matches from my hair and blew fire all over the room. I almost caught Jimmy, the singer, on fire. I got the gig!

 Another thing that she has also told in numerous interviews and that is known to all, is her previous punk band tribute to country singer Dolly Parton, called "Beg Yer Parton" where Lindsey was a bassist.

 Q - When did you join MSI? You had no music experience, did you? I know you said before that you didn't even know what tablature was. How scary was it to jump straight into a touring band?

L: I joined MSI in 2001. Before, I had no formal training but had a bass and played with friends. It was very scary, jumping like that, but more than anything it was exciting. He had never been on a plane before and was suddenly flying to Las Vegas to perform in front of thousands of people. A lot of it was not knowing what I was getting into, but most of all I was hungry for an adventure. I also felt like I had nothing to lose and if I at least failed miserably I would have a great story to tell my friends. I think that was the key, that I didn't care if I failed miserably.

Q: How long did it take you to start getting comfortable playing bass? Was there anything in particular that helped you feel more comfortable with him before?

L: I was in the band on tour constantly for years before taking over the term bass. I will say that although I didn't really know how to play before MSI, when the opportunity presented itself, I made a commitment to learn and practice tomorrow, afternoon and evening. I have never understood the mentality that complicated equals good. My favorite bass lines have always been the simplest and if I had to list all of my favorite songs, none of them contain any crazy bass lines that only Les Claypool can master. In fact, they are probably so simple that I could teach you how to play them in an hour. I'd rather be Dee Dee Ramone than Flea.

Q - Rumor has it that you were ever in a punk band from Dolly Parton, true or false? (If false, I'm totally starting one!)

L: A truth! Beg Yer Parton was the name and it was great fun and very short lived. Did I mention it wrong? We were terrible, I think you should start your own punk rock band Dolly and do the woman justice.

So far everything in order, right? Very inspiring and novel.

The doubt arises when we look at the dates:

 Lindsey allegedly joined MSI in 2001, giving us a 19-year gap between Lynz coming into contact with the band to this day.

But then why does Lucinda Montano (Steve's wife, MSI guitarist) say she has known her for 25 years?

Note that this capture is at least 2 years old from its posting on the lynzuglyliar blog. So what about the rest of the years Lucinda says? Either one must be lying, who will it be?

  Recently on Twitter a woman named Charlsie Astrid made an appearance.

At first she was nothing more than a stranger, but when we investigated her twitter account we realized that she is followed by Lola, Jonathan Rivera (Gerard's friend and collaborator), Anna Milanollo (Lynz's watchdog), Weirdtrufax (the fake account Lynz), Lauren Valencia (recently deceased MCR manager), MSI, Aaron Hoye (Lindsey’s tech and witness to L's alleged infidelity in Russia according to Jessicka Addams), as well as Chantal Claret. Weird, no?

Charlsie defended Lindsey in one of her tweets, which is why several accounts began to question her about whether she was a faithful follower and advocate of MSI and LW.

Charlsie claims to be friends with Lindsey Way since they worked together as bartenders in Brooklyn. Recall that Lynz lived in Brooklyn during her stay in Pratt, which means that she was still in her student stage.

This girl said she was a friend of Lucinda Montano despite knowing Steve's infidelity with Lynz…. But wait a moment, so Steve, Lucinda and Lindsey knew each other long before Lynz's entry to MSI ?? So LW is the one who lied ???

It all sounds very strange. And if Steve was that "friend" who helped Lynz learn the songs for her “audition”? What if Steve really was the one who interceded for her to join the band? Maybe their romance could have happened a couple of years earlier. How comfortable it would be to have your lover in your same band to be with her under the guise of tours and concerts.

what do you think?? true or false?