#not beyond “this would have a lot of potential if they went that route���

[epiphainie]

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[scribeofmorpheus]

Dragon Age Veilguard: Love, Wisdom and Pride

A very long Dragon Age post!

Warnings for: Veilguard Spoilers, Solavellan spoilers.

Okay, so I will preface this by saying that this ‘analysis’ primarily focuses on Solas’ arc; both romanced and unromanced. It isn’t intended to be a romanticised analysis, though it is very much enamoured with how a romanced Solas and his relationship with Lavellan foils (and informs my reading/reception of) that of Solas and Mythal’s relationship in Veilguard. There is a relationship I will address that I feel does parallel Solas and Mythal! Scroll down to “Reading Between the Lines” if you wanna skip my little intro below. Spoilers follow.

Truth be told, I wasn’t ever expecting much in terms of actually getting a sequel to Inquisition. The game dev market went through a tumultuous reshuffle before the remake madness breathed life back into many studios. Bioware game sequels (Mass Effect Andromeda) were underwhelming and not as fleshed out since the EA acquisition. I absolutely believe Bioware would have been shunted had Mass Effect Legendary Edition not been so successful. EA’s reputation was always lacklustre and underhanded, but laying off or losing several head writers attached to Bioware with almost two decades of work under their belts was the biggest red flag. Trevor Morris not being asked to return in exchange for a ‘bigger name’ was also a grave warning that returning to the atmosphere, ambience and world of Thedas that we knew was getting further and further away from a plausible reality. And on top of that, there’s the fact Solas was never intended as a romance interest during early development of Inquisition.

Solavellan seemed doomed!

Despite this, I still held out hope for a sequel, but I feared we’d always be in permanent Solavellan/developmental hell. Heck, I’m still waiting for a Beyond Good and Evil sequel—the game released in 2003! So, actually witnessing people play Veilguard, seeing reactions to it, seeing memes and gifs and essay pieces (like this one), it’s like my community has awoken again, and I never thought I’d see the day. Yet I am not blind to the fact we were robbed of so much potential. I knew thing’s wouldn’t live up to re-emerging expectations when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was rebranded to Veilguard—the shift seemed to imply less of a primary focus on Solas (and apparently, according to the artbook, the early concept art proves this implication correct).

Things seemed even more dire when the devs revealed there was no tapestry mechanic. I had only one hope: that with the Inquisitor’s confirmed return, we’d get at least some form of catharsis for our Inquisitors (Lavellans and otherwise), if we couldn’t get the conclusions to so many storylines present in each of our worldstates. My main fear was that they’d go the clichéd Ultimate Sacrifice route (which happens anyway, but in a way that makes thematic sense given the stakes and heavily blighted worldstate).

Suffice it to say, there was a lot of evidence that Veilguard would disappoint me in the end. But it hasn’t. It hasn’t lived up to the many expectations and marks of excellence that the Dragon Age world built itself into with the first three entries, that’s for sure, but I am also just so deprived of conclusions, of endings (whether it be because TV doesn’t exist in a sustainable format anymore or that comicbook movies are made with a sequel in mind, never letting anything just “Exit Stage Left” gracefully; or the fact we live in a regurgitating content cycle with late-stage-capitalism where anything remotely profitable gets turned into a caricature of itself: Squid Game, Star Wars, etc.). The cycle is so exhaustive that I am actually at a point where I can say I am content with the ending we were given (on a Solas/Solavellan front), Veilguard gave me relief, and beautiful, achy pain to boot. Though I would absolutely be disappointed by both the "non-romanced Solas" endings, given that Solas winds up either "dying alone, forever" or turns to Tyranny.

Now onto the actual review of that Solavellan ending, Mythal and themes of Love!

Note: I have only gotten the ‘best’ ending in my first playthrough, but I also thought the consequences of not maxing factions would be more… dire? Another note, pls, if your romanced Inky swore to stop Solas, how does that ending differ, if at all? Let me know, I’m dying here!

Sidenote: I’m working on writing another review about my views on the ‘sanitised’ worldstate, the new companions (and why I think Varric was the wrong choice to have as an advisor in the game, given that the Inquisitor or Morrigan would have been more impactful; and not to mention that Cole or Briala should have been companions), removal of the tapestry and what it means for the future of stories in Thedas (The Story We Lost is such a poignant compilation of the sheer volumes of lost lore and depth that I honestly think I won’t go as in-depth on that review as this one), and why I think Veilguard is my final entry into Dragon Age.

Reading Between the Lines: What Pride Hath Wrought

One thing is for sure, Trick Weekes flourishes when writing within the ambiguities and complexities of meaning. This makes every word uttered by Solas so great to dissect, he's a god of lies not because he 'lies' but because he's so careful with how he phrases things, what he holds back, and what he reveals.

For instance, the famous Trespasser exchange where Solas mocks his own follies with sarcasm by saying:

“What is the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf Take you.”

Then a softer, more saddened and beaten-down Lavellan replies:

“And so he did.”

This irks him. Because he then realises in that moment that he absolutely did take advantage, but for some reason he frames it around sex rather than power because that’s easier to address than the latter. And he rejects the notion, even though he brought up the expression he knows to mean nothing close to a sexual inuendo for being ‘taken’, and yet he has the gall to try and derail the conversation by pivoting and saying:

“I would not lay with you under false pretences.”

When I first had this dialogue exchange, I was baffled, because did this mean that there was another meaning to ‘Dread Wolf take you’ that Dalish clans lost through the years, or was it more of a self-deprecating joke Solas had with himself because he, the Dread Wolf, romanced (took) a Dalish Inquisitor (away from her people’s beliefs, histories, past), and he found irony in the saying?

On the surface, “wouldn’t lay with you under false pretences” could simply mean “we didn’t sleep together” or “we did sleep together, but I wasn’t taking advantage as the Dread Wolf, I was simply Solas in your presence”. But I have recently thought of a more… ambiguous reading.  Lay could have been used in a milder, more vulnerable way; to mean to be at peace, to be completely vulnerable, as if to sleep. In that sense, the phrasing becomes: “I could not be at peace with you because I was living a half-truth”.

I absolutely think the moment he feels he is truly beyond hope is when we see his expression of abject horror as Lavellan shouts: “I would have had you trust me!”. He realises then that he did fuck up, he did take the choice away from her because he thought he knew better, him and his pride led to a decision that hurt someone close to him, and he could finally see how wrong he was, how alike the entire situation became to Mythal’s treatment of him. Especially if Lavellan asks to go with him. Because he can see that despite the hurt, the lies and the betrayal on his part, Lavellan still wishing to join him draws too close to his first regret: following Mythal.

Whether he likes it or not, Solas’ love which could burn like a bonfire was directed at a powerful woman—a Herald, an Inquisitor—and inspite of her greatness of character, it still shaped her into someone willing to follow him on his dinanshiral out of love, much like he left the Fade and took physical form for Mythal. So now whenever I hear Lavellan shout “Var lath vir suledin”, Solas replying with “I wish it could, Vhenan,” changes drastically with the Mythal reveal, knowing he always walks away from the Inquisitor in Trespasser.

“I wish it could, Vhenan” sounds heavily like: “You would regret me, as I regret Mythal, and I cannot bear for that to happen us.” More poetically, it could read as: “I wish our love could overcome a duty that has lasted an incomprehensible amount of time, I wish I could change my nature, but then I’d be twisted into a demon, like the spirit of Wisdom in the Dales; and yet again, I would become your regret.” These two readings are very, very romantic. Realistically, given what we know of his kinship with Felassan, and how they were comrades and friends for centuries (“A story unfinished. His back turned!”), and given what we know of the complexity of Mythal’s will that presides over the creation of his very being, and yet he was still able to muster the strength to kill a fragment of her to fulfil his mission,  “I wish it could” was most probably a lament: “Do not ask me to hurt one of the two women I’ve loved on this journey, because if it ever came to it…” he would.

Knowing what I know of Solas, of how he was able to convince himself that Varric’s death (avoidable as it was) was just another necessary step, that it was just another sacrifice, another loss that would be worth something only if he completed his ritual, I have no doubt that Solas would also be able to rationalise hurting Lavellan (which is why in his mind, turning away from her, breaking her heart, leaving with no explanation and aiding her in Trespasser so she could live whatever few years remained in “relative peace” is actually an act of preserving that love). I partially think the reason he reveals the truth in Trespasser (especially for a romanced Lavellan) is in the hopes his ‘truths’ will push her away. But on a deeper note, I think he also thinks of it as some twisted form of repaying her for loving him to the point that he could have almost forgotten what it was to be the Dread Wolf, to just be with her as Solas, that night at Crestwood. Maybe his harsh truths would push her to the point where she’d give up her love for Solas, now that she knew he was the Dread Wolf, freeing her from the shackles of their love. He’s very self-flagellating, all about self-sacrifice for the ultimate goal, the ends always justify the means, he will endure any pain and punishment as long as Arlathan returns in the end.

What is his love of a mortal compared to the despair and loss of an entire empire? Solas views himself as selfish for falling for her, and that nearly broke him, if he was selfish enough to leave the dream of Arlathan behind for her, what would that do to his spirit then?

In his way of thinking, perhaps telling the Inquisitor the truth is a way out, a rationale they can use to justify stopping him or to make it easier to hate him as the Dread Wolf rather than love him as Solas (someone he hasn’t been in so long).

‘Masking’ as the Dread Wolf

During Trespasser, the Inquisitor has every right to despise Solas after all they’ve learned, and I think he half reveals the truth as a tactic so the Inquisitor can have an excuse to hate him, to be driven to anger and have less pull over his choices, once they learn the truth. Solas is particularly skilled at making other’s play the role that makes his own choices seem inevitable, he orchestrates a lot of events to play out in a manner where it's easier for him to talk himself into bringing down the veil.

He goads Elgar’nan to anger easily. He inspires the spirits to fight for him to the death as a necessary distraction during the war. He absolutely allows the Inquisitor to speak to him one last time so he can offer insight, yes, but also so he can easily frame his actions as just and inevitable. But, Oh boy does he get in for a shock if the Inquisitor shows empathy towards him, it scares him because he’s become accustomed to being seen only as the Dread Wolf. To be understood? That gives way to remorse. And remorse gives way to doubt. And he cannot doubt his purpose, twisted as it is, it is all he has left of his former self. Without it he would most likely change into something different. Someone he doesn’t recognise.

This fear intensifies more so if a romanced Lavellan asks to go with him, and in that case, he takes command and distances himself away (rejecting the help of someone close to him; the chance for a possible betrayal; the chance at another Felassan or Mythal [x]; the chance to twist Lavellan outside of her purpose, in this case, the purpose would be love/empathy) but not without showing remorse at having sacrificed yet another relationship for his crusade.

“Ir abelas.”

Sorrow for what cannot be is at the heart of why the Solavellan romance is so powerful, especially because even though both Solas and Lavellan love each other passionately, love alone cannot be enough when faced with regrets. Love would ultimately be stifled. Corrupted into something else over time. And so, for Solas, having loved and lost tragically is better than having loved and corrupted.

He will not do to Lavellan what was done to him, even if it is her choice, because she knows so little, her naivete cannot close the distance of a millenia’s old sea, and it would hurt him immensely to take advantage of her kind heart [x].

By leaving, he keeps her heart pure. And the yearning! Knowing the love is there, but on its own it cannot be invulnerable to corruption, so it is better to lose it than twist it. Ugh! Him leaving Lavellan is the ultimate show of love! IT IS A WISE DECISION. A rare glimpse into pure wisdom. Which is why he kneels beside Lavellan in Trespasser, he does not “Stand Tall” in the face of Wisdom’s heart. He kneels beside her. And when he stands tall again, he is Solas once more, filled with regret, and once through the eluvian, he returns to masking as the Dread Wolf.

Sidenote: It’s especially confounding that Veilguard allows Rook to push the Inquisitor to save or stop him after you’ve reached act 2 despite your world state choice (I think this was done in case they feared the Inquisitor wouldn’t stand by Solas after everything he was revealed to be responsible for in Veilguard, however it doesn’t work because the Inquisitor wasn’t an advisor, Rook never told them what they learned from the wolf statues, so having a stranger hold the ability to make Lavellan keep her promise or not rings hollow). Personally, I wish the Inquisitor’s presence had more weight in the non-Solavellan endings, too. I wish the Inquisitor could end up being the last friend/former love that Solas destroys (if you don’t collect the wolf statues) which then prompts Rook to fight him because Solas’ last tie to empathy failed to redeem him, that the Inquisitor falling is the last straw and Solas snaps, choosing to be a villain in the hopes of being stopped because he can’t stop himself, and not the ‘I am a God’ ending they gave us. Same for if your Inquisitor vows to stop him. I also wish the Inquisitor was the one to do the wolf statue missions. Would have been a nice secondary protagonist mission like the switching perspectives between Kratos and Atreus in GOW: Ragnarök (the old guard and the new; Inquisitor and Rook). I would have loved if they dedicated more dialogue to Inquisition days too, which is why I think Cole should have been a companion (if he wasn’t recruited, he could simply be a compassion spirit that ‘follows’ the greatest pain in the Fade that yearns to be healed, giving a compassionate viewpoint to Solas’ folly; recruited Spirit Cole could have a greater connection to Solas than even Varric, seeing as Cole was most likely a literal representation of Solas rewriting his own history by preventing a spirit from becoming too ‘real’; Human Cole would have a deeper connection to the world of Thedas, and could have been a great tool to prove how change was inevitable, not always a bad thing, and inevitably out of even Solas’ control. But alas, we live with what we are given! Even Imshael could have served in this role! Spirit/Demon of choice and it wasn’t incorporated into the game that supposedly asks you to make the greatest world-changing choice ever; redeem the Dread Wolf or end the age of the Evanuris entirely?!

Now onto the next segment: I want to talk about Solas’ regrets and how I read the ‘love story’ between Solas and Mythal, and why Lavellan (and what she represented) wasn’t enough to get through to him (and that’s a very believable thing, that’s what makes their love both tragic and epic!).

The High Price of Redemption

A romanced Lavellan has the most agency to see through his guises, if she resolves to save him, but even she cannot undo the shackles that still bind him to Mythal—the binds that twisted Wisdom so far from its purpose it became Pride, even when he burned (Mythal) from his face. (Likewise, A close friend Inquisitor who promises to save him is most likely a parallel to Felassan, again, they cannot undo the shackles of regret either.) I fully believe the vallaslin had a deeper magic than simply marking one as being committed/devoted to an Evanuris, I think it linked them magically, and since Solas was the first to burn the vallaslin away, he probably wasn’t as good at severing the link on himself as he was for other elvhen, so maybe a part of Mythal’s will still lingers in him, twisting him to Pride still.

In Veilguard’s final confrontation, I love the intention of showing how Lavellan approaches Solas slowly, as she doesn’t know who she’ll be faced with up those steps, Dread Wolf or Solas. But when she speaks to him, trying to get him to change his mind yet again, forgiving him for his wrongs, we are reassured that Wisdom hasn’t been completely consumed by Pride despite everything we’ve witnessed in the game because he bows his head at her in reverence as he apologises.

He shows humility towards her. He elevates her and her enduring love as worthy of his respect, but he does not consider himself worthy of hers. Thus, Lavellan pries open the door to acceptance but his heart is still not enough. Which is why love alone cannot turn the tide. He’s too broken to accept it. He doesn’t think he deserves it, so the only way out is through; to continue the ritual, to prove he was right. The shackles persist. Varric’s death weighs on his conscience now more than ever. Possibly members of Rook’s team too if they died on his crusade. But he is vulnerable enough for Morrigan to approach, and now Rook can use Mythal’s essence to make the final push. The only way he could be with Lavellan, the only way he could atone for the past and shed the weight of his armour (his crushing duty to the Elvhenan) is as Wisdom, fully restored, unbound by mistakes.

“Ar lasa mala revas.” He could only find absolution once Mythal (the angered and more brash essence of Mythal, the one unchanged by Flemeth and all the human women’s lives she’s been shaped by, but the closest iteration to that of Mythal in Arlathan, the version that he perceives as having every right to be angry at him for turning his back on her, for not going that last final stretch with her and subsequently, not being by her side when she died) severed the final connection: facing his regrets, showing humility and apologizing, while not taking away the blame but sharing it.

What is Benevolence without Wisdom if not Hubris?

We know Elgar’nan was twisted to Tyranny during the war, and I saw a post somewhere where someone wondered what led to his corruption, and what he was before (leadership/command). Likewise, Mythal was not above corruption.

So far, I’ve seen a lot of takes on Solas’ ties to Mythal, the power dynamic of being a student/disciple enamoured (could be romantic) with the benevolence of Mythal, but not how Mythal’s purpose was possibly also twisted towards hubris the moment she asked Wisdom to turn physical and build weapons from its knowledge, twisting it to Pride. Without Elgar’nan’s tyranny to rally against after the war with the Titans, Mythal would most likely turn a similar route, seeing her ruling as “necessary” for the people: “If not me then who?”. And that is a very short stop and quick drop to “I am your all-powerful ruler, I liberated you, and only I can guide the way”. Benevolence twisted by hubris can easily turn to Tyranny too, only one more subtle, a kind of cultish indoctrination compared to violent subjugation. If Solas had not turned his back on Mythal when she chose to be Evanuris (a god over her people) then they most likely would have made the worst (best) pair in the Evanuris. Pride is the Seventh Deadliest Sin. But imagine Pride next to Godhood?! That is frightening. So, when Solas burns the vallaslin, walks away and works against the Evanuris, I believe that he also inadvertently stops Mythal from becoming a corrupted version of herself. The sorrow at having lost her closest confidant and “love” grounds her, keeps her saintly in Solas’ mind, and in some ways, perhaps saves the Elvhen empire from a worse fate than him erecting the veil to begin with. But neither of them ever consider this. And I think that sort of self-blindness perfectly encapsulates how flawed both Mythal and Solas are. Now onto love.

Solas and Mythal – a Love too complex to simply classify as mortal ‘Love’.

There’s no doubt Mythal and Solas shared a deep bond, one that definitely had love in it, when we hear Mythal calling him ‘love’, without the possessive ‘my’ in front of it, it’s easy to misconstrue what type of love they share. A small nitpick, but like a thorn, it applies sometimes just enough pressure to change a perspective. Not calling Solas “My love” but instead choosing to simply use “love” works within those wonderful ambiguities/complexities that Weekes thrives in.

If one started out as a spirit, it’s safe to say concepts like familial bonds, romantic bonds, and blood ties mean little to nothing. There is no one type of love and there is every kind of love all at once. It is only once physical bodies are introduced, that physical touch, the ability to stab someone in the back, to kiss out of affection, to hug out of empathy, to strike out of anger, that love now becomes this twisted thing too. There are no spirits of love because spirits always possessed love, but there are demons of Desire (Gluttony) and of Rage (love denied).

I believe, from GDL’s acting skills, his soft whisper, his almost submissive smallness in the breadth of Mythal’s already soft voice, that Solas was in love with Mythal, devoted as a student, beguiled by her benevolence, content even in her shadow, and possibly star-struck. He was in love with someone who doesn’t have the possibility to love him back the same, it is not in her nature to love those beneath her in the same intensity that those who look up to her do. It’s like a priest being in love with God. The priest can devote themselves, sacrifice everything, but a God will always love their flock equally, but they can still play favourites.

Benevolence cannot be enamoured with Wisdom because to be truly benevolent they must possess Wisdom but there is also Pride to be had in walking beside benevolence, but they can never be on equal footing. Likewise, Solas’ love is not reciprocated entirely by Mythal, but she does love him back in her own way. While Mythal is definetly Solas’ first love, layered and complex, it is also strangled by regrets and twisted by uneven scales of power. It would never be a nurturing love, only a consuming kind.

When he speaks of Mythal during the Solavellan ending, he calls her his “oldest friend”, much like what Mythal says, (paraphrasing) “would you have me be angry at my oldest companion whose experienced so much with me”. Because friendship is perhaps the easiest way to describe their companionship. They went through many iterations, one certainly holding romantic tensions (specifically from younger Solas), but ultimately, with that much time shared, kinship/friendship becomes the easiest to surmise. You can love your friends, fall in love with them, fall out of love with them, only to love them again, be disappointed in them, etc.

Media today is flushed with romance as a linchpin for driving a hero to make dire choices, and that has warped our perception of how a platonic/non-romance-based relationship can be all-consuming, and sometimes more impassioned than strict romance. But, to make it easier for people to understand Solas’ motivations, it's easier to see their love in the light Taash sees it (an unreliable, somewhat “still juvenile” narrator, in that they are still growing into themselves and their culture and the world): “They were doing it”.

However, Bellara, a companion whose entire companion story is linked to her strong, deeply character-driving relationship with her brother (platonic love) refutes that reading by saying (paraphrasing here): “We don’t know if their ‘love’ is the same type of love we tend to think of in a masculine and feminine relationship.”

Felassan’s letter after the Mythal Dragon fight alludes to Solas having been in love with Mythal, but nothing about how she felt. This is why I consider the Solas/Mythal relationship to be more of a one-sided romantic love, but a requited ‘love’ relationship for them both.  

A parallel I find so compelling: Solas and Mythal vs Briala and Celene. Solas and Briala both hold deep emotions for people in great power with the ability to end a tyrannical cycle of subjugation, enslavement and classism, yet for both of these ruler’s charisma and well-meaning intent, they often are swayed to side with tyranny. For Mythal, that was Elgarnan, the Evanuris who made all the other’s worse tyrants; as well as her own hubris for believing her presence alone could dampen the ravenous hunger for power that the rest of the Evanuris held at the small prospect of leading the Elvhen in a time of confusion (being a North Star is hard when all the other lights around you aim to blind the flock into submission). For Celene, this is more about the nuances of retaining favour, pull and power over other noble families, their backing (be it financial, political or simply cut-throat), and their support so she can be the ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to Gaspard’s warmongering personality and Florianne simply being a puppet with no backbone. Both Briala and Solas are turned to pawns despite their immense strength and compassion for their respective elven plights; Briala is rendered a fangless lion (for lack of a better metaphor) if she is reunited with Celene, whereas if she is chosen to puppet Gaspard, there’s every likelihood her story could parallel a ‘power-mad’ Solas if he’d been tethered to Rage (at betrayal) and not Regret (at having not rejected Mythal when she asked him to take a physical body) throughout his tenure as the Dread Wolf.

Solas and Lavellan – a Heart that was never intended to be Given/Taken

Now I will compare the lack of possessives in front of Mythal’s “love” to Solas declaring Lavellan as ‘Vhenan’ and then ‘Ar lath, ma Vhenan’ vs ‘Ar lath ma vhenan'; again, the coma is the thorn, the pause that shapes the quiet unsaid things we can deduce. In the Trespasser cutscene DGL puts the pause after “Ar lath”, even though the subtitles construct the sentence with Vhenan as a proper noun since it’s a nickname often used by Solas: “Ar lath ma, Vhenan”. But I believe Solas actually says “Ar lath, ma Vhenan”.

With “Ar lath, ma Vhenan” the stressor is after the pause, so the line reads: “I love [you], my heart.” And with “Ar lath ma, Vhenan” it makes even less structural sense but can be inferred to mean: “I love you, Heart”.  

The possessiveness of “My” is what definitively differentiates the love Solas feels for Lavellan as one more of the romantic side, it is a love of yearning and desire and a wish to have one last good thing that is pure and incorruptible. The one thing he had left to give. His heart. But that does not mean his heart is enough! The rest of him is still bound to the love of Mythal that was twisted through the ages. That changed him. And given how Pride often comes before a fall, I absolutely understand why Solas is actually very brash and ill-considering when he’s romancing Lavellan (“The kiss was ill-considered”/”It would be kinder in the long run”/”I wanted to show you what you mean to me”). He's on a precarious cliff during Inquisition. His first plan failed. He's allowed ancient elvhen magic to fall into a blighted Tevinter magister's hands. Literally everything the Inquisition did could have been for nought if the Mark had fallen to the wrong person. Things could have easily fallen apart for Solas too, so why not indulge in something trifling and fleeting? Execpt it wasn't trifling. Nor was it fleeting. And when he saw that the fall could potentially not happen, that the Inquisitor could do it, save Thedas and retrieve the orb, he was struck by the gravity of his brashness, of letting impulses control him instead of acting according to a plan. But it was too late. They'd both fallen for each other.

Solas didn’t expect to form entanglements within the Inquisition. He was committed. He was angry at the world, “walking through a sea of tranquil”, called flat-ear by the Dalish that later chased him from their village when he proved he was the Dread Wolf. He was despised by people who looked like him. Spirits were constantly being abused and turned into demons. People erected monuments to heroes who slew demons. Mages were caged. Elves were subjugated. The empire fell. Humans razed the lands with their wars and petty squabbles of succession. The darkspawn tainted the land. The dwarves would never dream. Solas awoke to the worst possible fate; in his eyes, it was all his fault.

So when he kisses Lavellan in the Fade, impulsively, he isn’t kissing her there because it is less ‘real’ than if they kissed while she was awake, it makes it so much more real. He’s kissing her in the space where he is most himself. Where he can shed the body he was forced to build and trap himself within, the body of Pride. He is acting on the impulses of an enlivened Wisdom spirit that does not consider tomorrow, for the first time in a long time. It isn’t a long game with Lavellan, like so much of his life has been about always thinking to the future, always considering the outcome, machinating, scheming, the wiles and woes of every trickster god in mythology. It’s being in the moment with her that is all-consuming. It lowers his guard, leaves him vulnerable, and when she enquires about the Fade or spirits or histories, he gets to be useful as pure Wisdom again.

Lavellan challenging him when he first shows animosity or irritation towards the Dalish (a prideful act), and then him being taken aback when she explains that maybe the Dalish could be shown another way (making him consider her words, being given a morsel of wisdom back, reminding him of his old self), these are all small moments where Solas can begin to see springs of hope in the broken world. And that’s terrifying. It means he’s destroying not just himself, but the memory of Mythal and Arlathan too, all for the love of a woman who fell for an apostate.

The best, most genuine unmasking of Solas for me is during Wicked Hearts, when he’s tipsy on wine, has no inhibitions, and revels in the intrigue, the gossip, the dancing, the music (something we now know is important enough to have an entire music room in the Lighthouse), the sex! He is at his most relaxed, and then he asks Lavellan to dance, not caring about how it would look for the “Inquisitor’s serving man, Solas” to be intimate in a fucking Orlesian palace with the Herald of Andraste, right after stopping an assassination attempt! He finds comfort in the world of Thedas at that moment. Something he rarely shows so outright.

When he takes Lavellan to Crestwood to confess, I believe removing her vallaslin wasn’t entirely just for her, it wasn’t just to free her from slave markings or to simply reveal a form of a truth he wanted to tell her, it was to resolve himself of what his first purpose was supposed to be, what she distracted him from. Removing the vallaslin had been something he’d done for the slaves of Arlathan, it was what earned him the mantle of Dread Wolf. When he removes Lavellan’s vallaslin, he resets.

Thedas cannot allow Wisdom to truly exist without fear of corruption to Pride, Thedas the world he was responsible for shaping, literally the Maker of the Veil, and he falls for a woman Heralded as Andraste’s Chosen One, Mythal’s incarnation in the South. The irony. The cruel, cruel irony. The Inquisition is tied to his past, every Andrastian he meets, every Dalish person with vallaslin on their face, every slave or city elf. Tevinter worshiping the dragons that still have the essences of the Old Gods. His heart alone cannot withstand all of the punishing, gruelling, oppressive weight that is Thedas. Even for Lavellan. So he frames their romance as this tragic, short-lived tale that was beautiful but ultimately destined to end. He expects it to pass for her, she’s mortal after all. But he also leaves his heart with her, literally giving her power over the last uncorrupted part of himself. Think Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann at the end of World’s End, but metaphorically. He gives her his heart to safe keep as he goes on a journey that could corrupt a heart, turn it cold and bitter, destroy it.   

Ar lasa mala revas. You are free.

He frees his heart.

Lets it go.

Twice!

So only once he is relinquished of his regrets, once Mythal does the same for him, only then is there “Nothing left except their love”. Because Lavellan still held his heart there was still something left after. Something beyond despair and regret and loss. He had given his heart to her to safekeep. And she did. Lavellan returns his heart to him when he is freed. What Mythal had to break so Solas could heal right again (like a bone), Lavellan casts a splint around so it can be set and heal properly. This is the difference between Mythal’s love and Lavellan’s. Both Mythal’s love and forgiveness broke him, but Lavellan’s love gives him the strength to Stand Tall one last time.

Solas, before Pride alone, as Wisdom (perhaps Solas always meant both Standing Tall and Wisdom, for Wisdom can grant one pride to stand tall for what they believe in), finds contentment with the rare and marvellous spirit that endured (his Vhenan). Wisdom endured because of humanity, something benevolence is beyond.

Bellanaris

When Lavellan offers to go with him, to continue on the dinanshiral that she already considers herself a part of, Solas is legitimately taken aback. His expression is soft yet full of disbelief and awe. He actually stops walking a few frames before Lavellan says this, as if hoping Lavellan would say something to him!

And then she basically proposes to him! “Bellanaris!” I absolutely adore the fact that Lavellan promises them eternity. A vow as sacred as a death right, as protected as an ancient, elvhen, undisturbed burial ground in the face of Orlesian colonialisation. They endured and now they will have an eternity. For once, we have an elvish tale that is not a curse, it is a love story with reunion at its core, where both elves reclaim something precious that was denied them.

Lastly, i am absolutely frothing at the mouth that Solas and Lavellan primarily speak in elvish! And even more feral at the fact Solas does not try to talk her out of joining him (because this sweet talker very well could!). He simply tells her where he is going is terrible. And she shuts that shit down immediately. No repeat of Trespasser. She's standing beside him, the South has all but fallen, whatever ties yet survive are strained, and she has fought the good fight for 8 years. I think the Inquisitor was about ready to leave Thedas behind.

The last decisions Solas makes are of his own volition. Entering the Fade for atonement. Stepping into the Fade with Lavellan (It was confirmed by Weekes that Lavellan’s presence in the Fade prison would fundamentally change it in a way we haven’t seen!). Thanking Rook for giving him one last shot at getting happiness. All his own!

This is the look of a man finally reunited with his wife! So much emotion in ONE frame. God! There’s never been a character like him. A love story like theirs! I’m so happy I got to see this ending. Full circle!

P.S. If you read this far, woah nelly! That’s crayyzeee, so here are some more great pieces: Why it was important for Lavellan to kneel for Solas as he knelt for her in Trespasser in the Solavellan ending [x], and here’s a great deep-dive on Solas as a spirit of Wisdom [x].

[justali-anne]

What I think the Undertale characters could really use: Part 1

Frisk: A councillor. This poor child has been through so much, from monsters trying to murder them (and sometimes succeeding), to potentially abandonment, being essentially kidnapped and taken hostage, being stalked by several characters, having to choose between their life and the salvation of a whole society... Yeah, I imagine Frisk might be a little messed up. They're a fighter (not literally... mostly), though, and really resilient, so I think a counsellor would help them get around their trauma.

Flowey: Compassion. As twisted as he is, Flowey has also been through a lot. He probably hasn't been around compassion in a long time, whether it's because he can't feel it anymore up to rejecting the notion of compassion altogether after what he went through as Asriel. However, as shown in the Pacifist Route, he's pretty easily swayed by someone with genuine compassion for him - he's fond of Papyrus, who's practically compassion incarnate, and as Asriel, he gets redeemed by Frisk's care and compassion as well. He needs someone to care for him, and not just pity him.

Toriel: A purpose. Poor old lady isolated herself for who knows how long, waiting for humans to fall down so she can futilely try to protect them, only to end up failing time and time again. Years of doing that would definitely diminish one's sense of purpose - it would have a profound impact on Toriel's self-esteem, self-worth and mental health in general. If she's not about kids, then who is she? Sans' knock knock jokes definitely helped her a bit, but I think what she truly needs is a reason to move onwards, to look forward to life again. A different purpose that extends beyond motherhood. The school she created on the surface is perfect for her because she not only gets to work with kids, it's also her dream job, and she gets to work with a lot of adults too! Taking care of a school is more than just looking after children, even if that is one of the primary goals. It's perfect for her.

Sans: Safety. Poor guy... Between the reports of timelines stopping and starting to the prospect of everything suddenly ending, him knowing you're resetting the timeline, the fact that you could kill anyone if you wanted to, especially his sweet, precious brother, and judging by the bits of pieces we got of his backstory, losing an ENTIRE FREAKING DIMENSION, he probably hasn't felt safe in such a long time. Seriously, though, if you were in Sans' position, you'd be scared out of your wits! Sans desperately needs stability, and he's grasping at that with his constantly going to Grillby's, making jokes with Toriel, working 5-6 jobs... his daily routine. He's quite a paradox, isn't he? He comes across as calm, lazy, relaxed... but at the same time, I get the sense that he might be trying to keep himself busy? Ironically, what the slacker really needs is a chance to relax. Genuinely relax. He needs a safe, stable environment, so he can heal, and love, and live again. Luckily, we have the power to give this to him. If we just don't reset after the Pacifist Route...

I'll add part 2 later.

[stusbunker]

Spotless: Mordent

Chapter Eighteen

Featuring: Dean Winchester/Reader, Dean/Bela

Other characters: Sam, Billie

Word Count: 2880ish

Warnings, etc: Mutual pining, this turned into more of a brother chapter than I originally intended, talk of tattoos and body mods, unbeta'd

Series Masterlist

Dean walked out of the studio with a cassette recording of their album, a CD and a thumb drive. He always asked for it to be playable in the impala and Ash always came through. The other options were for Bobby and Sam, respectively. Sam would send the files to everyone else. It was finished, set to be released while they were on tour, with the label’s stamp of approval and all. ‘Waysides and Regrets’ was thirteen songs packed with everything they could pour into them.

"Don’t call it a comeback,” Dean muttered to himself as he slipped into the driver’s seat and popped the cassette into the deck. The opening to Rupture ripped through the speakers and Dean cackled at hearing it like a civilian. He drummed along with Pam on the steering wheel as he turned out of the parking lot, saluting the guard at the gate as he went. 

He listened to it all before going back home. Rupture bled into Pushing Through which mellowed out to the subdued Brothers Keeper. Then they cranked it back up with Route 666, which slid into the angsty Prophet and Loss that showcased just why Kevin was Cas’ replacement (musically at least). Beyond the Mat and Goodbye Stranger were two sides of the same coin, introspective but in different tones, soulful and combative respectively. Then there was the first single, Annie’s duet, Baby, which Dean unabashedly wrote about his car, but as if she were real and he could thank her and praise her for everything she meant to him. He sang out loud with every word of that song as he cruised faceless side streets letting the music wash over him. 

Everybody Loves A Clown, Except Sam was supposed to be a joke track, but they got carried away with it and it actually was one of the funnest songs to play for Dean, and Kevin going full calliope for the chorus was totally worth it.  Gods and Monsters was fueled by Dean’s inner rage and where his anger came from, also known as John Winchester and his own self worth issues. Missouri had a field day when he sent her those lyrics. Then there was Lee’s track which Dean helped merely tweak some lines, Give Me My Axe: An Executioner’s Song. It was even better with the windows down and the road disappearing beneath his tires. The final track was an anthem, not quite what the kids would call a banger, but celebratory enough to be the potential second single from the album. It’s about the weekend Dean finally came up for air, when Sam holed him up at Bobby’s cabin in Tahoe and they had his come-to-Jesus intervention thing. It’s about letting go and letting your people catch you, aptly named Weekend at Bobby’s. It turned out better than Dean could have hoped.

He turned into the canyon when the bonus tracks started, knowing the album was drawing to a close and wanting Sam to hear it before he got too emotional about it. The house was quiet when he walked in, the coffee still in the pot, but Sam’s rinsed-out smoothie blender upside down in the sink. Dean found Sam outside, despite the cooler air, going through his yoga routine. 

Dean teased Sam about a lot of things, but it held little venom with the things that brought Sam well-being. 

“Hey, mop-head, got the album when you’re ready,” Dean called from the doors off the kitchen.

Sam exhaled and smiled, eyes closed in concentration. Dean didn’t know how he did it, but he understood sometimes other senses just get in the way of an experience, almost like they try to crowd it or consume it because it’s not about them.

“Gimme like ten minutes,” Sam replied and shifted into mountain pose. 

“Fair enough.”

Dean left the thumb drive on the counter and made his way into the living room. They had speakers in their jam room, but Dean hadn’t eaten and lunch was sounding better by the second. So he popped the CD into the stereo and paused it with one of the many remotes they’d accumulated through years of technological upgrades. Sam had an app on his phone for half of it, but Dean still favored physically punching buttons to get what he wanted done.

He made his way back into the kitchen and started pulling things out for BLTs. Sam had some tofu-bacon in the drawer and he fried that up too, and if a little of the real grease got on it, it was too bad for Sam. He grabbed a couple of bags of chips from the pantry and then some leftover fruit salad from the fridge to even them out. Life was about balance after all, and having a health nut for a brother and roommate Dean had learned to pick his battles. 

“Hey, that smells amazing,” Sam broke through Dean’s little self-congratulation.

“Yeah, mine does, yours smells like a nursing home cafeteria—- You ready?” Dean asked, holding up the remote with one hand while popping a chip into his mouth with the other.

“Hit it,” Sam agreed, sitting at the counter as Dean slapped his sandwich down in front of him.

They ate and listened, commenting here and there. Sam helped Dean clean up the kitchen and they both gravitated to the couch to finish listening. Dean took out a bowl he kept in an end table and packed it, smoking casually as Sam took in each song, each transition. 

It was one moment, but it was also a hundred others in the years before it. Brothers sitting in comfortable quiet as music spoke to them instead of one another. They were thirteen and nine and Dad had brought home a signed Lyle Lovett album for them to ingest. While neither of them were yet prone to country, it shifted their ideas of just what good music was. They were fifteen and eleven and done enough chores for a trip to Record Town in North Platte where they each got a tape apiece. Dean got Jar of Flies by Alice in Chains while he convinced Sam to get The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails instead of Tori Amos’ Under the Pink. They read every line of production details and lyrics on the pamphlets tucked into the plastic cases. 

Sam came home to find Dean back for the weekend. It was early ‘98 and it felt like everything had turned horrifyingly pop focused. The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land was playing on the boombox Dean had dragged out of Sam’s room as his big brother cleaned the kitchen back to his standards and not Kate’s livable level of clutter. They were waiting to hear if they had a brother or a sister. The only thing said between them was Dean reassuring Sam that he put his Celine Dion CD back in its case. 

They sat in Lee’s dorm room, stoned and drunk, watching as his roommate's computer uploaded their album. It felt like it would take forever, but it was also insane to think that people all over the world could listen to their music. It was full of possibility, but it was also just two brothers and their friends in their habitat, existing together.

“Dude— did you autotune me?!” Sam gaped, chuckling self consciously while listening to his line of the acoustic track of Brothers Keeper.

“Barely. Like nobody’s gonna notice, they’ll be too busy balling their eyes out,” Dean reassured.

“Yeah, like you, huh?”

“Shut up.”

Sam laughed, but let his embarrassment go; the nervous bastard always hated singing which was why he wasn’t as good at it. 

The album reached its end and they started talking about ideas for the tour, things to write down and beg Charlie for like lighting designs or album specific imagery when they hop back into their older stuff. It was almost four when Dean finally got over to Bobby’s with the CD, but he didn't stay for another listen. He let Annie have her moment with Bobby gushing, as much as the geezer could or would gush.

On the way home, you called him squealing with excitement.

“You listen to it already?”

“No! I just got the files from Sam. I guess I shouldn’t have called until I heard it all, huh?”

Dean chuckled. “Maybe. Or maybe you’ll hate it and never want to talk to me again.”

“Ha-ha. But no, seriously, I’m so excited. I’m going to blast it as I meal prep. Do you want my review long hand or can I just call you back and talk your ear off?”

“Whatever you’re willing to give me,” Dean tried for playful.

“Dangerous, Winchester. Okay, well I have like ten more things I have to do now that we have a single. But I’ll be in touch.”

“Sounds good— and thanks.”

“No— thank you.”

Dean hung up and let the fear roll in. You were going to hear it all. Everything he had been through and everything you had helped him overcome. He only hoped you wouldn’t be upset by making a cameo on something so public. Or embarrassed by the way he still needed you. 

Dean promised he’d be on his best behavior. Part of that was putting out fires for the band, to try and help make your job easier. So after the shake up from Kevin and Cas, he called Billie and apologized for his bandmates’ (both past and present) disrespect. She told him he could make it up to her. But there was no way Dean was going under the needle again, last time he even looked at one he almost threw up. But, it just so happened he knew someone who was in the market for some art. 

Unfortunately, that meant Dean would have to tag along.

Billie’s studio was modern and bright, with different colored walls contrasting the silver accents, both mirrors and shelving. From the outside, Reaping Ink was a small sign on a battered street, but inside it felt like walking into an art gallery and not someplace that had hard sharps containers and enough first aid equipment to stock an ambulance on hand.

And the furniture was always so damn comfortable.

The last time Dean had been here was for a memorial tattoo for Jo that you got on your right shoulder. He nearly broke your hand holding it as he tried and failed not to watch your skin be pierced continuously. It was a beautiful tattoo, everything Billie did was masterful. It just wasn’t something Dean wanted to sit through again.

Luckily for everyone, Bela didn’t need Dean to hold her hand. But she did need him as in with Billie, who usually booked appointments six-to-eight months out. 

“Hello, Dean,” Billie’s dark voice called once they walked in, she stood so still and so silently, he hadn’t even noticed her among the cacophony of color in the waiting area.

“Heya Billie, this is Bela,” Dean guided Bela with a hand on the small of her back, the way Billie’s dark eyes clocked the motion made Dean want to step back. Like a nun catching you standing too close to your crush in the hallway. Dean never went to Catholic school, but that feeling of getting caught, of doing wrong was universal.

“Pleasure,” Bela smiled at the artist, while Billie just nodded.

“I have a couple versions for you to pick from, I think I got the gist of what we talked about, but I wanted to be sure on sizing and layout. So come on back and we’ll get started,” Billie went straight into business mode. No whining about Cas’ impulsiveness or speculating on Dean and Bela’s relationship. At least verbally, her eyes held a very different story.

She had three different stencils already cropped and laid out for Bela to see as Bela rucked up her top and rolled down her leggings. It wasn’t a tramp stamp, she was insistent on that, but it was on the back of her right hip, something she could glance at or hold if she needed to. The way she talked about the position of the tattoo, made it seem just as important as the content or the coloring of it.

“Dean?” Bela’s voice drew Dean out of his thoughts.

“Hmm?” 

“Can you take pictures with my phone? Before, during, and after?” Bela handed him her unlocked iphone and he turned it around to focus on her nearly bare back. He took a few shots and gave it back. 

“You’ll want that to distract you, trust me,” Dean assured.

Bela rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

Dean went green. “As long as I don’t have to watch.”

“Really?!” Bela exclaimed and looked over to Billie for confirmation.

“Mmm-hmm, boys one of the worst I’ve seen around needles. No wonder he doesn’t even have his ears pierced.”

“I guess I never noticed—- wouldn’t have thought. Poor thing,” Bela sighed as she settled on her stomach on one of Billie’s many specialty beds. 

“Can we not? I mean, I’m here ain't I?” Dean huffed and pulled out his own phone. You still hadn’t texted him what you thought about the album, but he also knew you were busy, so he didn’t want to rush you or look too desperate.

He felt Bela and Billie have a silent conversation as he pulled up his sudoku app, but ignored them as Billie got the stencil in place, only getting up to snap another picture. Then, they were off. Bela and Billie making small talk about the design, which Dean knew Bela had put a lot of thought into, especially since it would officially tarnish her good girl image. Even in this day and age, most of her fans were in their fifties. A tattoo could rattle the masses. But getting one with Dean seemed like a good compromise of their images.

He was rubbing off on her, so to speak. Well, he hadn’t done that literally since his talk with Sam, but you know.

They sat for an hour and a half and took a break, Dean went to get food and coffee, which he left in the lobby so as not to infringe on Billie’s strict rules. Dean took a couple more pictures and some stupid selfies for Bela to find later. The shop was closed to the public and since Billie’s latest playlist had started over, Dean asked if he could hook up to the bluetooth. 

Billie looked at him appraisingly as it became clear that he was playing his own music during his girlfriend’s appointment. 

“What?”

“You’re either looking for my approval or you’re buttering me up by letting me hear this first. Which is it?” Billie manhandled Bela back into position to get going on the shading.

“I don’t know, man. Both?”

Billie hummed, but didn’t reply.

Dean walked around the studio, looking at the different sets of flash and paintings that covered the walls. He flinched away from the spinning display of rods, tapers, disks, and rings for piercings and stretching. He felt like a waste of space, but mainly because he was never any good with boredom. Being idle in a place he was already uncomfortable, for a plethora of reasons, was akin to torture.

He remembered to breathe.

He checked his phone. He put that back into his pocket. He stole Bela’s phone for a few more pictures, trying not to look directly at her raised, red flesh.

“How’s it going?” Dean asked, after giving Bela her phone back, his album running its course around them.

“I’d say another twenty minutes and then I’ll bandage her up. You good?” Billie asked, surprisingly sincerely.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. Just curious,” Dean muttered.

“Hey, Dean. I like the music,” Billie said, waiting for him to make eye contact.

“Thanks,” Dean nodded, trying not to let his blush show.

“When’s it coming out?” Bela asked, suddenly reminding Dean why he was there in the first place.

“End of April,” he said. “Single’ll be released week after my birthday.”

Bela paused and looked up at him, but Billie was the one to break the ice.

“Which is?”

“Uh, the 24th. Baby hits your airwaves on the 29th.”

“Is that Annie Hawkins on that track?” Billie asked.

“Yup,” Dean grinned.

“Damn, almost forgot about her. Nice pull,” Billie praised.

Dean chuckled, not explaining his connection. She’d find out eventually, if it even mattered. “Yeah, we got lucky with that one.”

Bela was inked up, wiped down and vacuum sealed over the following half hour. Dean paid for the work, plus a generous tip. And posed for a few promotional shots with Bela and Billie alike. Once everyone was satisfied that what they had would help all involved, Bela and Dean said their goodbyes and thank yous and headed out for a late dinner at Elizabeth’s. 

“Do you want me to send these to you or to Y/N to latergram?” Bela asked as their drinks arrived. 

“Just send ‘em to Trouble. She’ll know what to do with them better than me,” Dean ducked out of the responsibility, unaware he was planting another social media minefield for you to navigate by doing so.

Tagging:

@deans-spinster-witch

@mrswhozeewhatsis

@cosicas-cuquis

@fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like

@suckitands33

@ladysparkles78

@deans-baby-momma

@stoneyggirl2

@sassy-pelican

@leigh70

@globetrotter28

@winharry

@lastactiontricia

@rockhoochie

Chapter Nineteen: Pizzicato

[senblades]

oh unrelated to my cracked into ask, what persona ships are your fave/do you ship? Obviously shuake is great but I've started to like sumifutaba lately, all the stuff I've seen for them has been cute even though they have like no canon interactions (you could say that for most of the phantom thieves but I digress) and also I am starting to like haruann because of cracked into. Not just talking about p5 I've just only seen p5 fan content recently! also also out of curiosity who did you date in each game and why? Feel free not to answer that one I'm just curious, sorry for the long ramble ask I like talking about persona

o7 i do have a list of ships actually

okay, obviously: shuake. lmao who would have guessed-

beyond that, my main protag ships are ryomina and souyo. yes yes i'm very basic but we also knew that already HAHAHA (i'm not as fussed about Kotone, (never played portable and i don't really care to) so i don't have a particular ship in mind for her. though i appreciate her and Aigis i guess lmao (and ryoham!!))

i'm kindaaaa weird about what i ship, in that i can only seem to ship the protags with one person; but everyone else? multishipping free-for-all

for Akechi specifically, the only two PT i don't really ship him with are Futaba and Makoto, and that's mostly because of the sibling (found family (derogatory) or otherwise (also derogatory somehow)) headcanons i have for them. some standouts for me are akesumi, akeharu, and ryugoro.

akishinji! what's not to like about them? they'd rather punch each other in the face than talk about their feelings and apparently i like that in a fictional relationship

i like ryuann a fair amount, too, though they fall into the category of "i'm not that fussed either way". though if anyone has some good fics centred on them i'm all ears

i don't really have any p4 ships beyond souyo that i'm that fussed about? actually as i say that, i do find adajima hilarious. toxic old man yaoi. comedy gold. and angst or whatever

there are a lot of things that i'm just... neutral (potentially leaning positive) on? like, i like them well enough. i also don't care enough to really make a stance fhdkjfsd

OH YES almost forgot: who did i date in each game? an easy question with an easy answer! i didn't. HAHAHA i just don't see the appeal. I considered romancing Aigis at one point, but then i hit the end of her SL and was like "ehhhh nah". Her friendship route was very sweet, though, so i don't regret it

annnnd that's all i got! if i went into detail for how i feel about every ship we'd be here forever, so it's gonna be a roulette wheel of "absolutely hates", "neutral (true neutral)", "neutral (leaning positive)", and "absolutely loves but i forgot to mention it"

[onepunchcatboi]

PATCH STORY SPOILERS

I have thoughts! They are below! Please remember that we are a DawnTrail-Critical household!

[Not in the sense that I hate it but I actually really loved a lot about it but that I think the writing was extremely mixed]

WE FINALLY. GOT TO HAVE. OUR TACOS.

!!!!

Ok for real now-first of all really loving everything going on with my beloved Dawn Throne family. Wuk Lamat is being amazing as usual. I love that we got closure about Koanas folks [cuz like, c'mon there was no way it went down as he remembered as like 2 year old LOL;;]. LOVE THAT HE REALLY STOOD BETWEEN A RONEEK AND A GIANT CHARGING DINO OF DOOM LIKE THAT WAS GOING TO STOP IT YOU WEIGHT LIKE 120LBS KOANA LOL

And I love that we've finally got something about Galool Ja and who his mom was, even if everything about it was so sad and broken from the start. I figured it would have to be, given Zoraal Ja's staunch denial of the child's presence. It still hits the right amount of tragic in the reveal of it all.

Also very excited that yes, Y'Shtola will be bothering me to examine the magical maguffin, even if I still don't like that it exists lol.

But also

You know

SO LIKE

Yo.

I can't even.

And I'm not even talking about hologram Sphene. BUT ALSO I AM 100% SURE HER ATTENDANT DID IT. OR SOMEONE CLOSE TO HER. Someone rebooted the system and then yoinked themselves back into the matrix.

ANYWAYS. I MEAN THE REAL SPHENE. THE ONE Y'SHTOLA JUST FOUND IN LIVING MEMORY.

I just. Its gotta be her, bleary eyed and confused about where the fuck she is. I'M CONFUSED TOO THE AETHER JUST SPAT HER BACK OUT FULLY FORMED. She sounds like she just woke up from dying!

At first I was just too mad about the whole thing with AI Sphene being back to think too much on it. On the extremely sus set up of it all, and what those neo regulators are *really for* bc you know Wuk Lamat is right. The AI Sphene we know was prepared to sacrifice the whole damn universe to save all her people, not just a few. Whoever this is realizes they only have so many resources to do this with.

BUT NOW WE HAVE REAL SPHENE IN THE MIX TOO. AND GUYS I UH...REALLY HOPE THIS PLAYS OFF WELL.

Because AI Sphene was a monster, cute smile and all, and I did not enjoy how hard the narrative tried to make us see her as a good person, or how inactive we were about it. Wuk Lamat is new to this, but we, and not just the WoL, but Alisae too, were right there and never said anything about how much this resembles past foes.

But guys. Real Sphene has the possibility of making all that just...a little bit less annoying. I hope. It wont fix the first half's writing issues, but it can turn it in a better direction. Especially if what it is, is that the writers decided to play the long game in terms of their two story halves more so than they have in the past.

Imagine. Queen Sphene wakes up. Finds the kingdom has lived far beyond her expectations. They survived and are wondrous and innovative...and they are also throwing the cycle of life and death out of wack. They are forgetting themselves and each other for the solace of avoiding death and pain. They are hurting others to do it. They are being lead by someone who looks like her, but has no compassion for anyone outside her own kingdom. If Sphene is even half the person the AI made her out to be...then she would be heartbroken to see what has become of her kingdom. And she has the power and authority to stop it.

The story has made a point to say "we don't know what the real Sphene would have wanted". Well shes here now, and boy wouldn't it be fucking amazing, if she said "not any of this".

It has real potential now too, to talk about the difference between the memory and actuality. How memory can distort and change over time, be a shadow of the truth. And...idk that they are going to go this route, but if Sphene is not going to be the only one to come back from Living Memory-then all the Alexandrians have to be confronted with those they forgot. Fucking imagine coming back from the dead only to find none of your loved ones even remember who you are?? What would even be the point?

I also. Really just want this to happen in the middle of the square in Solution 9:

WE COULD BE GOING PLACES PEOPLE!!!

[protectmuriel]

Just your average angry rant on Muriel's route development.

Warning: it contains nothing but spoilers! And I probably missed some points and it's nothing that hasn't been said before and it's probably not very well written because English is not my native, but still.

So, I finished Muriel's route last night for the second time and it was going okay! I like the route, I loved learning about Muriel's past and his identity, I loved watching him grow and learning to trust others and himself. But then... The ending books. The freaking games? I think the first time I was too absorbed to actually stop and think, but... Are you for real?

The battle did have potential, at least a lot more potential than the final confrontation, and after all that training and Nadia's speeches I was so disappointed not to get more immersive scenes or descriptions of MurielxMC fighting together side by side beyond of a few lines like "we were like a whirlwind together" or something like that. I would have enjoyed to see Vesuvia's people fighting for more than 5 minutes, and not to have it all depend on Prakra's army. And by the way, you're telling me the /Devil/ reincarnated in Lucio –who was already depicted to be very good at battlefields– decided to build an army and it was so weak that it went down in ten minutes?

Then Valdemar summons Muriel and MC to the Lazaret where Devil! Lucio asks them for a... Fight? Honestly, the goddamn DEVIL, with all the cleverness in its deals and plans it'd struck during the main routes, who yearns to be entertained BIG time... It settles for a fight two on one? A series of simple games? It seems very out of character, even if the Devil did merge with Lucio. And the Devil/ Lucio relation is not greatly explained either (or, at least, not to me.)

The games are treated so carelessly. There's a feast during them, like the entire future of a country was not at risk. Where did they even get all that food...? Vesuvia was in ruins and people were not even working since they were focusing on training like their lives depended on it, because, well, they did. Where did all that food come from? Prakra? It made little sense.

The games were not taken seriously, either. Where was the tension? The build up? In the other routes MC has to break the Devil's chains, they have to go through so many dangerous, weird, amazing stuff and in Muriel's route it's just... Archery! Wrestling! Racing! And then puff! Puff, Lucio's gone, route over!

And what really bothered me too was that Muriel and Lucio's fight wasn't even fully written!!! We just see Lucio saying something along the lines of "We all knew you were better at muscles than me" or something like that. This was THE MOMENT I was expecting to see. Muriel facing Lucio, facing his past, the past that tormented so, so much that led him to strike a deal to be forgotten by the rest of the world, and it was treated like nothing.

Why is Lucio and Muriel's past not discussed more in depth? Lucio kept talking about it, kept insulting him, and none of it was actually used as an opportunity to do explore it. Actually, before Lucio died/ disappeared at the end, Muriel says "I know you didn't mean it, but I know you won't change either". What are you saying? He didn't mean to force kids to work for him? He didn't mean to have you chained to a coliseum? Why would Muriel say that so casually? It felt very OOC. Honestly, it could have been good, Muriel could have gotten at least SOME closure.

We also get to see so little MC development... They learn little about their past/death and have little to none exploration of his true potential. And just... WHAT happened to Muriel's curse??? It just... Disappeared????? What?? So many plotholes.

All these things have been said before, it's nothing new, but I just HAD to rant about it because everyone in this route (everyone) deserved better.

[cofeeban]

I like strawberry smoothies and I, and I alone, with no one else to give me this idea, had the random quirky idea to talk about food and determine whether I like it more or less than a smoothie of my preference. First off, the Strawberry Smoothie in question, which I'll refer to as SD for short. I don't make the SD but at a place near my house it's so good I just love strawberries. I'm a person whose ideas are a bit off the stove so I like when granola is added in, but after the SD has been made. Unblended granola in the SD. So good. I love chewing it throughout the my experience. It's like infused with strawberry goodness. :yum_emoji:

Some other drinks that's popping into my head to compete with it is like a fancy restaurant that gave us watermelon water. I know I said restaurant but that thing was so good I wouldn't be surprised if I died and went to heaven. Utterly divine drink a 10/10 and the SD has finally had it's glazing session ended.

The Sujeonggwa from a sushi restaurant I went to was quite good. It was a dessert given to us with a cookie. It's basically just cinnamon and ginger but it's so nice and warm for the heart. From memory I only had it once and attempted to make it once. Less than the SD. Herbal tea is good I think it's probably on par with the SD at least one I've had before but I would rate it slightly less than the SD anyway because I want to. It's not sweet and I love sugar.

Water is the goat actual 10/10. I love and live for that.

I used to like carbonated drinks in the past but now I can't drink them at all. Too much for my petty little stomach to handle. Green tea is absolutely goated on the sticks. Chocolate milk is so delicious especially from a Filipino restaurant I sometimes go to is delicious. It tastes like they use real chocolate and it's not overly sweet like straight syrupy. I think I'd put the SD over that one because I could drink the SD non-stop, but the chocolate flavor would be too powerful for me to consume so much of.

I've had alcoholic drinks but none have been good. I consider good if I would choose to drink for like a non-party function. And I've yet to find any. Something almost drinkable outside of functions was an alcohol ice cream shake thing that began to resemble something my tongue would rate beyond mediocre. It didn't quite get there but I think there's potential on that route. Which is just icecream and alcohol I think. So maybe I just like ice cream a lot. Not maybe, I am a love of ice cream. Some sake goes down so smooth though. I've had one at a sushi restaurant that smelled great, smelled like flowers. London fog at the same place I go to is quite good. Less than the SD but I like it. Reminds me of warm milk and the flavor isn't so powerful. Kind of like a relaxing thing to drink. I think it's like earl tea with milk instead of water. Sounds strange but idk it's good. Try it. I get oat milk with that one though.

I once paid 12$ for an iced hot chocolate. Very good. Can't say I'd get it all the time because again, the chocolate would overflow my dainty little body. The marshmallow they gave it with is so good. OMG that reminds me that once at a cafe I frequent kind of close to my house I would supply marshmallows for them to accessorize my hot chocolate with and that thing was probably like very very very very slightly baby a nanometer over the SD. I think those marshmallows kind of carried the drink. And I know the marshmallow haters are gonna swing by and say "it's just sugar" but no, these were marshmallows of quality and you truly can't compare the kind you find at grocery stores to this. I promise you, head to a bakery and buy some to truly understand the taste and power of those fluffy white sugar balls/cubes. Anyway that was a really good hot chocolate. I liked that the marshmallows were blow torched.

Champurrado is good as well. I have no clue how it's made properly. I just go to someplace and buy it on occasion on the winter. It's like hot chocolate. Chocolate is showing up a lot in here. Hmm maybe I like that thing a lot. Any way less than SD. Which will be henceforth shortened to LTSD. Or, BTSD. You can figure it out.

Sushi better than SD. No contest. I would even honestly say I didn't realize food could be so good until I had sushi. I didn't even like raw fish sushi until I had it a place that served it fresh. tbh I'd say Ever(a 2 Michelin star restaurant) on the whole is less than SD, although the watermelon drink and butter are better. Everything else wasn't exactly it for me. I couldn't even find the lights for the bathroom and had to pee in the dark, feeling my way around the room.

Avocado on cow tongue tacos are BTSD. Avocado on things absolutely hard carries some stuff let me tell you. Like putting it on a burger just makes it better. Have you ever put it on a hot dog? If not try it and be shocked. People will look at you like you're crazy, but no, you're just early to a trend. Chex mix is quite good. Pop corn is quite good. Bolios and Naan are very good. Honestly I like plain stuff like just eating regular bread. I liked for cereal eating like the chex rice version. It's so good. So simple. Wasa bread is good too. Just simple stuff. LTSD stuff before. I eat oatmeal. That thing is awesome. Steel cut oats in milk(oat or soy)/water. Then you put in banana/strawberry/blueberry and honey. Then yogurt and I promise you'll find heaven on earth. The yogurt seems sus. But it's so you don't die of too much carbs. For sure if you make it right and add strawberries it better than the SD. So good, I even decided not to use the acronym.

Eggs with scallions are good. I do love that. When I put it in a tortilla and even with avocado it's like on par with a strawberry delight.

Deep dish pizza is the BOMB. I love pineapple on pizza so sue me. Deep dish depending on the place is BTSD. But I've had LTSD as well. So really you may just be rolling the dice depending on where you go. Pineapple on pizza does make it better though. That's a hill I'll die on. It's not even an opinion. I'm telling you a fact.

Fish tacos at a taco truck are better than SD. Although, if it didn't have avocado I don't think I would rate it as highly. It gets a plus 10% stat bonus from avocado. It's too broken of a fruit. Could put it on practically anything for improvement. The texture really. Pampazos are quite good. They are like a spicy bread sandwich. That was an awful description. The top and bottom of the bread are dipped in some salsa and then inside the bread it's like potato and chorizo. Fry it and then you put in your toppings like lettuce, cheese, sourcream. Lettuce too. That's very good. LTSD. An SD is just so good, really. I could eat that thing all the time.

OMG guacamole. There was this one restaurant in the big city that was sooooo good. I had to ask for extra. That was the best thing I had tried. Guacamole is the bees knees. That one was for sure the best one I've had in my life. BTSD. Most of the time though I think it's LTSD.

Idk that's all my brain could think of to rank food. That's it. Good bye. If you read all this way dang you should try something here. Maybe a strawberry smoothie. That or a bannock. A scone if you're uneducated. Something you may actually be able to find are here:

Chex mix blue one, some taco with avocado in it, deep dish pizza with pineapple, oatmeal with strawberries, go to a cafe and ask for an iced hot chocolate, Sujeonggwa or water.

There those are your choices.

[l-una-c]

scattered taash thoughts (spoilers)

So, Taash. I think Taash was a character with a lot of missed potential. Their whole gender exploration arc, combined with the very shallowly explored cross-cultural arc, really showed how the lack of skilled writers made this one hard to pull off. Let me start with praise, though: I did think that the interaction between a trans Rook and Taash was quite well written, and miles ahead of... everything going on with Krem. Krem was just awful, I'm glad the writers learned a little more beyond that. It's also pretty cool that the Shadow Dragons are a resistance organization with a side helping of gender clinic; this isn't uncommon among resistance groups in real life. There are many examples of this, but I am deign to turn this blog into an explicitly political one, lol. People might talk about their verisimilitude being broken with the whole modern gender terms in Dragon Age. I'm... ambivalent about this. On one hand, the fantasy genre is more or less a genre about contemporary society, with swords and point ears slapped on these days, but on the other hand, a genuine exploration of an interesting gender system and interaction between the cultures of Thedas could have been cool. It's not like these things didn't exist, but the terminology being different would have been quite interesting. The idea of nonbinary... suggests a theorizing over a gender binary, which suggests Thedas has gender theorists, lol. Where is this study happening? Again, could have been interesting if they went that route, but it basically took things for granted by trying to be 'nonoffensive' and 'safe'. Veilguard smacks of 'safe'. There's a tiny, tiny hint of alternative gender systems with the Qunari, but really, the whole thing should have been much more fleshed out. The whole gender conversation could have been woven into the cross-cultural narrative, the difficulty of sussing out one's gender identity when caught between two worlds, which, again, ALSO relates directly to the trans experience as I know of it.

Taash could have been a character who had to straddle the lines between two worlds. The whole dragon-breath thing feels a little tacked on; they could have tied that in, as well, making it somewhat of a sexual characteristic, with Qunari considering fire-breathers to be a distinct gender with expectations. Again, this could have been so good, if it was good. Taash's whole gender situation is basically, like "Hey, Taash, you know that being nonbinary exists?" and they just respond "Huh, yeah, I'm that, I guess." There's not a lot of pathos there - the best part of this conversation is in the beginning. The whole pain and resolution happens OFF SCREEN! There's a seed of good writing; again, the interaction between Rook and Taash on the subject was well done, and more of that quality of writing would have been nice to see. Veilguard tackles these issues... less hamfistedly than some of the writing in Inquisition on the subject, but the writing in Veilguard definitely suffers. On a side tangent, seeing how Dorian changes his mind on Tevinter's society would have been interesting to see! But he's just like "slavery bad", lol. Overall, I don't think it's bad, per se, just bland. But I don't expect much from Bioware these days. I liked Origins the most out of DA; I was with the series from the start, though I never ended up finishing up 2 and I.

[egg-emperor]

What's your opinion on the Sonic Prime Eggmans? /gen

Do I get to talk about regular Eggman too? At first I thought this was asking about him and I really wanna gush about him again but now I realize you probably mean the council more lol

I really loved the Prime version of regular Eggman! It was literally only five minutes worth but a very beautiful five minutes at that. Deem Bristow and Mike Pollock play huge parts of why I love Eggman and find him so entertaining so I didn't know how I was gonna feel about the change but Brian Drummond doesn't do a bad job, he could easily become my next favorite voice after them if he worked on it a little more.

I enjoyed how simplistically enjoyable Eggman was. Funny and silly and getting up to evil to find and steal the paradox prism and use it in his schemes. His ambition and motivation to take over the world there strong as ever and talking about wanting a world that's more him in neon was cute, I like and am fascinated by bright colors and pretty lights and want everything to be about you too Ivo dhfisbgjsbgkdh

I love the classic bickering and scolding Orbot and Cubot. I love how he tricked Sonic and went the route of taunting him then targeting his best friend Tails to piss him off enough to bait and make him snap for his plan to work, being a real bastard and calling him "stupid as Tails is ugly" lol. I loved how happy he was for it to work and how he laughed maniacally and looked like such an adorable evil bastard doing it!

Everything I love about Eggman was intact there and I was looking forward to seeing more. I expected it was gonna have the vibe of my favorite parts of X as that's what that five minutes felt like and that's exactly what I've been wanting for years, for modern Eggman to come back in a show and be just like that. I really miss Prime Egg and I wish he would come back but they threw him out in the first ep :(

He was so beautiful and charming and entertaining 🥰

I miss hiiim but I'm gonna bet that he won't return in any form beyond the prismatic titan until the very end of the show or something

As for the Chaos Council, I unfortunately have much less to say as I'm personally not a fan of them. The concept certainly had the potential but the execution is lacking. They just don't have a lot going for them, they're kind of just generic character archetypes such as Baby, Teenager, Hipster, Old Man, Not Eggman, etc. They don't have regular Eggman's personality and charm and are just like strangers in his skin.

I really wish I could like them more but both their designs and personalities don't grab me. For that I only watched the first eight episodes and never watched the second batch besides the prismatic titan Eggman parts. I'd at least have been happier if they had kept regular Eggman with them, as depicted in the concept art as he was going to be a part of the council but they decided to rid of him completely.

The most cool and interesting part of Prime to me outside of regular Eggman to me is New Yoke City. I always love seeing a world taken over by Eggman and I'm a huge sucker for the dark controlled industrialized polluted dystopian hellscape where there's propaganda everywhere on the walls, orders and rules constantly being enforced through the robot patrol saying stuff like and over PAs blasting through speakers

It's an "Eggman" ruled and controlled place, a dark shitty oppressive place and people are just mindless zombies and slaves to the harsh system because they feel hopeless to break out with no freedom, controlled, restricted, and watched. The way it's spelled New YOKE city so it sounds like "yolk" like egg but is potentially a reference to a "yoke", a type of leash to control cattle, fits how they're oppressed and controlled was right up my alley.

Seeing the real Eggman in a place like that leading the Chaos Council would've been so cool. Then it could've looked like the concept as the version that I liked a lot more than the look of the final for all the regular Eggman designed inspired assets, it even has the beautiful neon and cool lights like he wants! And I just love how much it looks like Eggmanland hehe. I really wish they'd tapped into that potential.

[lesbianrobin]

i was rereading light my way and i'm just curious about how you decided to write eddie as having difficulty forming closer bonds that go beyond doing shared activities together. also in your rockie fic you mentioned eddie never having plans except on certain days. i keep seeing ppl portray the cc boys/older hellfire members as being v close w eddie, and ppl mentioning the list of eddie's friends dustin and max were calling when they were trying to find him as proof that eddie is a social butterfly/v extroverted. i don't disagree but i'm curious about how you decided to characterize him that way.

hi thank u for reading my fics!!

so i know i'm like the odd man out in this and it's entirely just like my own opinion/creative choice like i don't think i'm any more Right than other people. just like to preface my justification. so anyway there are a few different reasons why i went that route!

personally i had a lot of good friends in high school who i literally only hung out with during theatre classes and rehearsals. while we spent a lot of time together and considered each other good friends, we didn't often hang out outside of those activities, and i think that's pretty common as a teenager in school, you know? eddie in particular seems to self-identify as an outsider and he emphasizes hellfire club as a place for "lost little sheepies," which makes me think that maybe he started/joined corroded coffin and/or hellfire specifically to find and keep friends because he struggled to do so otherwise. also, being a DM requires a lot of planning time alone, and so does learning sick-ass guitar solos almost immediately after an album drops, so i think eddie probably spends most of his non-club time either by himself or dealing.

the sheer number of friends they check on when searching for eddie makes me think that eddie is the kind of guy who's outgoing and has a lot of casual friendly acquaintances, but very few people who are actually close to him. in episode one we primarily see eddie with hellfire/corroded coffin, and he is just flat-out performing the whole time. he isn't just having lunch with his buddies in the cafeteria scene, he's holding court. he's putting on a show! it's quite a stark contrast to how he behaves when the group finds him in the boathouse and for the rest of s4, and later in the season we see a far more self-deprecating and unsure eddie. while i do think eddie and the hellfire guys are friends who genuinely like each other, i just don't think they're like... super close. i personally get the impression that eddie is always performing around them, probably because he thinks that being funny and outrageous is What Makes Them Like Him and that he's gotta keep it up or he'll lose them. the fact that he chose to hide out alone in the boathouse indicates to me that he doesn't feel safe enough with any of his friends to have gone to them for help. he didn't think that any of his friends would believe him or have his back, and i think that if he were really close with the hellfire guys, he probably would have gone to one of them first, because i think he was very freaked out by being alone after chrissy's death.

also, on a more practical level, in light my way that just served the story far better. i had zero desire to make up personalities for eddie's friends and write them interacting with the rest of the gang, especially because it would limit my ability to let el just exist as el and let the characters potentially reference Strange Things if they wanted. but of course if they're really close friends of eddie's it would make sense for them to be at his birthday party. so it was just easier to go with the idea that they typically hang out at school and predetermined meetings for hellfire/corroded coffin and that their friendship is relatively surface-level. it also served the emotional arc of the story about eddie finding a sense of belonging! in the rockie fic i put less thought into it, but eddie's hardass nature about lucas missing hellfire in episode one makes me think he's very big on sticking to plans and schedules, and in the rockie fic universe he's become quite good friends with steve and robin, so they can assume with relative certainty that if he's not doing hellfire or with his band he'll be down to hang with them. i imagine they hang out most of the time anyway.

so yeah that's most of it ig?? i also just think eddie is afraid of how people would respond to The Real Him and thus he keeps people at arm's length with his hellfire persona and the only reason dustin and the others managed to crack open his shell and get to the eddie inside is because he witnessed a brutal supernatural murder and was scared shitless. so yeah <3

[spiderman616]

do u have an arc in archie that you wish got fleshed out more? maybe it should have been longer, or should have been done differently, or whatever?

ummm well obviously the last one ended on a cliffhanger so id like if they resolved that. i made a post before complaining about tossed in space. the space adventures were cool and i liked them but archie sonic as a comic has a big focus on the supporting cast beyond sonic too and it was super weird that we didnt get to see literally anybodys reaction to sonics death or their perspective during the year he was gone. ummm i think a lot of old stories couldve been longer. since they were kind of just 1 or 2 issues and were pretty simplistic. like while mecha madness is kind of cool it is also really short and i think didnt really use the potential of sonic being roboticized as well as it could have. although we did kind of get to see something similar w mecha/metal sally so its not too bad i guess. ummm i also wish the game adaptations couldve been longer but i get why they werent. a proper sa2 adaptation with all the characters and such would have been extremely cool but considering how the sa1 adaptation went the current route is probably for the best.

[yuexuan]

[Review]七天七夜

Title: 七天七夜 Seven Days, Seven Nights

Author: 春风遥

Length: 165 chapters + 6 extras

Tag: Unlimited flow, supernatural, comedy

Summary [taken from novelupdates]:

‘Seven Days, Seven Nights’. Initially, he had thought it was forbidden due to explicit rated contents (er*tica). In order to survive, he behaved so unrestrained he was basically flying. Later — I’ve already flown out of the sky and only now you tell me it’s an ‘unlimited flow’ horror novel?!

Novel | Novel [translated]

Comments *contains spoilers**

There was a rumored book called ‘Seven Days, Seven Nights’ that was banned for allegedly explicit content. Strangely, despite how viral it was, no one had actually read the book. Except perhaps Su Er (MC)’s deskmate. One day, said deskmate went missing, leaving him with nothing but a mysterious taser. Upon touching the taser, he was transported into the world of Seven Days, Seven Nights. Turns out this wasn’t an erotica novel, but a series of games. The mechanics of the games were simple: each game had a ghost boss and a host that oversaw the rules of the games, and players had a maximum of seven days, seven nights to complete the game. Follow along as MC flew through the games with flying colors, much to the horror of the game bosses and hosts.

Main highlights of the novel include:

The MC. I freaking love the MC. He can best be described by the words: 浪 and 贱, just someone full of chaotic energy. He wasn’t afraid of being cringe and his approach to each game was basically taking the unconventional route and finding loopholes in the rules. Where other players shied away from the bosses and hosts, he married or adopted them. And when none of these worked, he opted to destroy the games. At one point the hosts became so afraid of MC that they developed an insurance package to cover the risks of MC ruining the game lol.

Due to MC’s unconventional ways of handling the games, the novel was highly entertaining, despite all of its shortcomings. Despite being an unlimited flow novel, the story was light-hearted. Sure, players do still die, but in terms of the overall tone and plot outcomes, it stayed pretty comedic throughout. So if you want to try out an unlimited flow story that doesn’t require too much brain power, I’ll say this might be an entertaining read.

Aside from the MC, I also enjoyed reading about the different hosts. Unlike game NPCs, they were all so full of personalities and had their own methods of maintaining the rules of the games and dealing (or failing to) with MC’s antics. Their exasperation, frustration, and pure despair were fun to read about. My fave would have to be Mr. Chinese Rose. He seemed like such a stern host but was a big softie, adopting the numerous little mud people that MC created~

Things I don’t like

Now as much as I found the novel entertaining, there was also a lot to nitpick about. One thing that irked me was the writing style. The scenes tended to jump from one to the next without being fully elaborated on, making for a disjointed reading experience. There were many moments where I went “wait, how did we get here from the previous scene??”. That said, it got easier to read later on, though I’m unsure if it was because the writing got better or that I got used to the writing.

Of all the unlimited novels, this one has a weaker worldbuilding. Most of the games didn’t have a very coherent setting and were composed of random horror elements. In one game you might have parasitic invasion, ghosts, taoists, buddhist monks, and mummies all put together. It’s just very random and the full potential of the game mechanics were not explored. For example, all players have spiritual, martial, and seductive points. But beyond the initial mention in the story, these points barely played a role in the latter parts.

Also as a heads-up, if you are entering into this for romance, there is practically none lol. Generally I’m used to romance being a more subtle and secondary element in unlimited flow stories. But this novel barely had any romantic plot points and ML didn’t have a prominent role other than being a conveniently strong teammate for MC.

[laf-outloud]

They can’t cancel WIndy, this show gets better every week omg.

First off, am I the only one who is annoyed at the way Gus, Hoyt and Kate are treating Abby? It’s not her fault you guys followed her pretty blindly. And while I can understand that reaction initially, personally the moment I saw Shane I would have been like “oh wow, Abby was right. There’s two Tom Davidsons, what a reasonable thing to be confused about!” They made it even worse by treating her like a small child when she wanted to help out with Kai. Abby’s not even my favorite character and I still think her friends are doing her dirty…and chased her right into Tom Davidson’s arms.

At least Calian is a true friend, and the only one with wise words and support to offer even when he’s going through it. I thought it was so sweet that she went to check on him, and by his reaction I’m guessing no one else has yet. I love Abby and Calian’s friendship. To me, their chemistry has mellowed out and they’ve gone from potential love interests to twins souls. They’re both wise people who despite their on the surface stoicism are soft hearted and both are destined to be leaders, even if they don’t feel like they’re up to the task. Taza dying and his faith in Calian to guide their people had me tearing up. Calian walks a hard road, especially because there’s really no right route and suffering at the end no matter which way he goes. But Taza was right, him being pulled between two worlds make him the right leader to guide people into the uneasy new world. I also loved the one door closing, another opening with Taza dying and Calian potentially finding his sister. Lots of siblings popping up in Independence these days, I’m half expecting Hoyt to have brother next week lol.

We finally got the Kai centric episode we’ve been waiting for, and they did not disappoint! Even though I was suspicious of Lily from the get and figured she betrayed him for the Tong, they were pretty cute together so I was hoping it would all work out. I loved that he called Kate out for using him and proving that he knows a lot more than he lets on. And the detail about the change in his cadence! I thought his halted, accented English going to fluid Mandarin was a great detail, and it became 10x better when we found out the accent was all an act. So happy they didn’t shy away from badass Kai, a man who can dish it out whether it’s violence in streets or business negotiations. I want a whole season dedicated to a Kai and Tom partner ship and the two of them running Independence. I was shocked that Kate was so disgusted with him though. Ma’am, get off your high horse.

Shane Davidson was not what I was expecting. I thought he was going to be the competent golden child, not the party boy recklessly skating by on his family’s name/wallet and his ego. With every episode, I’m more convinced that Tom is trying to make a name for himself beyond his family, and that in his own way he really does care about Independence. I wonder what he was going to confide in Abby about, maybe warning her away from his brother? It must have stung to have disinterested Abby appear so into his brother. I was not expecting Abby to go to Tom about her suspicions regarding Shane! I wonder how her relationship with Tom is going to change going forward, and if that’s going to prevent her from making up with the rest of the group whose distrust of Tom runs too deep. I also wasn’t expecting Tom to have already hung his brother up! Like Tom, why do you have a murder shed? I figured last week it was a one time thing, but two people back to back? Tom you rascal. It shouldn’t make me like him more, but it does lol.

And while we saw a decent amount of Gus and Hoyt this week, there wasn’t much going on with them. I liked the hint of Hoyt’s more serious side, and the two of them work so well together I hope they continue to have more side storylines. Hoyt is a great character because everyone brings out a different side of him. Abby and Kai bring out his protective nature, Kate brings out his humorous side (they’re like bickering siblings, I love it), and Gus and Calian bring out his potential to be his own man who would make his father proud.

Another beautiful review! I know there was a lot going on this week, but I felt like it flowed a better than the previous week and had a bit more focus.

As for they way Abby's friends treated her? I think there's still an element of Abby being an outsider. Hoyt, Gus, and Kate have been in Independence longer and have a stronger relationship with Kai. They all went into protective mode and maybe they weren't sure how willing Abby would be to help Kai. (Though it was still rough to see them not even giving her a chance.)

The chemistry between Abby and Calian is ridiculously hot! I loved hearing Abby speak a bit of Apache. Even if they don't become love interests, their friendship is incredibly sweet.

My heart absolutely broke for Kai in this episode. They took us through the emotional and character gamut with him. Kai is a man of many talents and I can't believe Lily played him like that. The last thing he needs after going through such a harsh betrayal is for Kate to turn her back as well.

I will forever be confused by Tom. He seems to have so many righteous intentions, but his penchant for torture is pretty worrisome. How long before he turns on one of our WIndy favorites if they cross him?

Loved your analysis of Hoyt! It's so fun to see the different way each relationship develops.

[loregoddess]

Frederica Aesfrost or Cordelia Glenbrook for the ask game?

Oh, I'll do both, they're both great!

First impression: For Frederica, it was something along the lines of "Oh, she seems cool, I bet I'll like her" when I was watching the early trailers. For Cordelia, after meeting her for the first time in the game I didn't...actually have much of an impression of her, she seemed very bland "youngest sister, most gentle-hearted princess" and nothing more (I was very wrong).

Impression now: Love them both lots! Frederica went well beyond whatever I was expecting of her characterization, she's really interesting and I love how she comes into her own and really starts standing up for herself and her ideals as the story progresses. And I was SO wrong about Cordelia, she's literally one of the most interesting and complex characters in a "royalty" role I've ever come across in fiction, and I love her so much for it. She's got an incredibly strong will, she's very intelligent, and she was actually shaping up to be a really extraordinary leader. I'm sad she gets sidelined in the story as soon as Roland's able to reclaim Glenbrook Castle, because she had all this budding potential to be one hell of a powerhouse of a character.

Favorite moment: Hmm, it's been a hot minute since I played TriStrat, so my memory of the story isn't as sharp, but I really enjoyed the scenes where Frederica fights against Thalas and Erika (in her route of Ch13, "Born of Strife and Sadness" specifically, although her battle dialogue with them in Roland's version "Time to Say Goodbye" is good as well). It marks an interesting turning point in her character growth, and it was really nice to see her finally oppose them without fear.

For Cordelia, I'd...have a harder time combing the wiki for the specific chapter, but all of her cutscenes from her father's death to Ch13, where we get to see how she starts to come up with a plan to retake Glenbrook, and how she's able to inspire Avlora to her side, those were really interesting scenes, and I had a new appreciation for her character after watching them because I simply wasn't expecting her to deal with the grief of loosing her entire family (as she didn't know Roland was still alive at this time) to be "well, I'm the only one left and I am Not going to take this lying down, I will be queen of my people in my own right". Just, mm, really interesting character growth, I would have loved to see the type of leader she would have become if things had gone differently.

Idea for a story: Well, I'm always interesting in post-game type narratives that explore how the characters and world begin to heal after all is said and done, and I think that type of story would be really interesting to explore for both Frederica and Cordelia, but in different ways. For Frederica, exploring how her life as the official Lady Wolffort is, and what work she does to help the Rosellen people after the war while also balancing her new married life would be really interesting.

For Cordelia, I think there's a lot of potential to explore the intricacies and power dynamics behind the scenes of Glenbrook's restoration, as I'm sure she ends up doing a lot of work to help Roland even if she isn't the official ruler (again, all that potential she showed as a leader, you can't tell me she doesn't take up some sort of important position in helping to lead the country)--all this while she also settles in to learning that Serenoa is her half-brother (I like to think she learns that at some point), and her life with Avlora as her knight, and just, stuff in general for her since she has a lot to recover from and grieving she can finally go through.

Unpopular opinion: I don't think I have any wildly unpopular opinions about Frederica. For Cordelia, I guess I'm not keen on the Cordelia x Avlora ship, I just...can't see it as romantic (and the age gap doesn't work for me, I'm fairly certain Avlora is in her thirties at the youngest due to in-game dialogue about when Svarog took her in), although I am partial the idea of the platonic knight-liege friendship between the two, but platonic stuff isn't as popular in most fandom spaces.

Favorite relationship: I'm really fond of Frederica's canon romance with Serenoa, like, normally I'm kinda neutral on canon romances, but the way this one was written was so, so good, and I loved seeing her interactions with the other House Wolffort members. I also like her friendship with Geela a lot.

For Cordelia, her familial relationship with Roland is very interesting (somewhat bittersweet at times), and I would have loved to see and know more about her relationship with Frani and their dad. As I mentioned above, I really like her friendship with Avlora, because it was so unexpected but it makes a sort of weird sense. Would have loved to see more of her interactions with the House Wolffort members, and also would have loved to see how she reacts to learning Serenoa is her half-brother and how that shapes her relationship with him and Frederica after the game's events.

Favorite headcanon: Hmmm, I don't have as many headcanons for TriStrat in general but, I guess for Frederica that in Benedict's ending she eventually ends up breaking away from and opposing Serenoa so she can take up defending the Roselle (probably sometime shortly after Benedict's death), and that in the Golden Ending she grows into an excellent leader for both the Wolffort Demense and Roselle people alongside Serenoa, and the two are fondly remembered by their people in histories later on.

For Cordelia, it would be that her capability and tact for government makes her vital to ensuring Roland's rule is successful in the Golden Ending, and also that she eventually becomes very close with Frederica and Serenoa after learning she's related to Serenoa (catching up on family time), enough that if the two ever had kids she'd be the favorite aunt (she'd be their only aunt technically, but she probably spoils them more than Roland would).

[nehswritesstuffs]

Lackluster

My brain: write this niche ship

Me (in an Uncle Stan voice): I don’t know how to respond to this.

Also me: *writes it anyhow*

3980 words; someone said it was rarepair month, which meant this has been haunting me and idk what’s going on but now everyone else gets to suffer as well; I guess we’re talking a post-Wano AU? Maybe shoving it into what we know? You know idk; moral of the story is that these two would look good together and there’s nothing anyone can do about it; please don’t ask me about the prevailing implications of this ship bc wtf no one has time to dissect that; I feel like this ship has the potential for something really neat, but they’d have to get over a lot of other shit first in order to get it past a series of one-night stands like this

Lackluster; The Polar Tang makes a proper stop in Dressrosa after the insanity that was Wano, leading to a bit of unexpected shore leave for her captain. [Law/Viola, mature rating]

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Okay, so, he lied.

Although Law wanted to push forward and see what was beyond Wano, he also really, really wanted to put distance between himself and the Straw Hats. Kidd as well, for that matter, but definitely the Straw Hats. Instead of going off towards the Pose’s locked reading, he had Bepo save it for later, instead going back along their prior route. There had to be somewhere for them to lay low for a while Strawhat-ya wreaked havoc, because as soon as they started again, they were liable to create an even bigger mess than before. Did Trafalgar D. Water Law wish to endanger his crew by bringing them within a Log Pose’s distance of those lunatics again? Not really.

Hence, going backwards. Just for a little bit. Strategically, as it were.

“Dressrosa? Really?” He stared at the port for a bit, then looked over at Bepo, who cowered at being caught. “You do know that I just came from here.”

“Sorry, but we all wanted to see!” the bear defended sheepishly. “It’s supposed to be a beautiful country…”

“…with beautiful women!” Shachi added. Law could feel the twitch in his lower right eyelid returning. Shachi and Penguin both appeared, ready to disembark based on the fact they were wearing clothes that were definitely not their boiler suits. “Come on—you can’t just decide that you get to have all the fun!”

“You were at Onigashima.”

“You know what the man meant,” Penguin said. In a tone—no less—as though there was no room for argument! “The guys and I all took a vote…”

“…I’m still sane, Cap…!” Ikkaku shouted from the back of the crew. Penguin closed his eyes and winced.

“…the guys, Ikkaku, and I all took a vote and, aside from the lone dissenter, we decided it’d be good to hang around Dressrosa for a few days. You said we should figure it out.”

“Yeah, but…”

“…and we figured it out,” Shachi finished. “C’mon—it’s not even like they’re worried about anything now that they’re cleaning up and it’s after the Levely. Live a little.”

“I hate you.”

“Heh—no you don’t.”

At that, most of the crew went and disembarked onto dry land, leaving only Law and the ones who already seemed to have drawn first lots. How long had they been planning this? He stood there for a moment feeling rather defeated before heading down below, because if he was going to be wandering around Dressrosa, at least he was going to be doing so in something other than the coat he saved her in.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Sitting down at a cafe, Law sipped at his coffee and honestly enjoyed the sights around him. With sunglasses on and leaving his hat in the Tang, he felt comfortably different enough to where few people would stop and bother him. In fact, no one seemed to take notice of him at all, which was a relief. He never liked being the center of attention, all things considered, and he was glad that he could simply give off the air of someone passing through.

Trying to ignore the sight of Clione and Uni on the other side of the square attempting to chat up some ladies, Law decided to dive directly into one of the newspapers he had acquired. Plenty of things had happened since they had disappeared into Wano, and it seemed as though the surprises were almost limitless.

“Are you sure you want to trust what’s printed in that fire-starter?” Law glanced over the top of the paper and saw he was no longer alone at the table. Viola, wearing her own set of sunglasses and a surprisingly tasteful skirt-and-polka-dot-blouse outfit as her hair sat pinned elegantly in a bun. He suspected it had been hiding in the back of her wardrobe.

“There’s some actual journalism, if you know how to look.”

“The comics page?”

“Mostly in the language being used, as well as corrections,” he shrugged. “Normal, accurate, fully-respectable journalists can get things wrong, which is why such a page exists to begin with. We’re fallible that way. However…” He laid the paper down and tapped the page full of small, barely-legible text. “…and for this to be a normal amount? A full double-spread on a bad day? It’s like they put out two completely different newspapers at once.”

“Hmm… you’re not entirely wrong,” she conceded. She played with the rim of her own cup and he could feel her eyes boring into him, hidden by the tinted lenses. “Word travels fast anyhow—what are you doing back here after causing that ruckus in Wano? Here I thought you’d want to chase a certain trouble-making carnivore down.”

“As strong and chaos-inducing as he is, he’s just a kid, and I got enough annoying kids on my crew to worry about some teenager who refuses to follow a plan.”

Her eyebrows shot up at that. “So you think of him as a child?”

“An insanely powerful and charismatic one liable to stress me into going grey by thirty, yeah.”

“Hmm.”

Viola sipped at her coffee and hummed. It was a surprisingly quiet moment for a bustling street in the middle of a rebuilding country, and yet there was something about it that sent the hairs on the back of Law’s neck in shivers.

“Maybe I did underestimate you,” she chuckled, putting down her cup and placing it and the saucer aside. “Then again, much of what I heard was myth and legend over the years.”

“Much of it was unfounded, I can assure you.”

“Possibly. I’ve had a bit of time to assess you for myself as well.”

“…and…? Do I pass muster?”

“You pass… something alright.” A smile tugged at her lips, twitching the corners up coyly. “Doffy might have mourned your loss, but I see no reason to wail and shed tears.”

“Not that way, anyhow,” he quipped. He immediately regretted his word choice—the idiots in his crew (and Strawhat-ya’s, let’s be honest) were really rubbing off on him—as her smile widened.

“Is this you saying you could… satisfy my curiosity? That you’re… up to the task?”

“Your last paramour, from what I understand, still thinks he’s twenty years younger than he really is—I’m surprised he could get anything going at all, let alone sustain it.”

She let out an undignified snort and laughed—warm and genuine. “I admit it wasn’t anything aside from practical maneuvering on my end, but sometimes it’s not entirely bad doing what one must when in the correct mindset.” He shuddered, which made her laugh again. “What? Too much for your delicate sensibilities?”

“Not delicate per say; just… he’s the last person I want to think about doing that right about now.”

“Fair.” Viola stood and gazed down at him, still smirking. “Want to not think about it for a while?”

“I’d like to think of it never.”

“Then maybe I can… help your memory replace that information with something else.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned down. Her voice went low and she was so close that Law could smell her perfume—Alabastian, if he remembered a prior crew pitstop correctly. “You still remember your way around?”

“Of course.”

“Then don’t disappoint me, Trafalgar Law.”

Viola let her hand linger as she walked away, passing into the crowd behind where Law was sitting. He looked and she was gone—vanished just as discreetly as she appeared.

“Hey, Captain!” Law’s attention was pulled away from Viola’s disappearing trick, Clione and Uni suddenly appearing next to his table. “What’cha doing?”

“Never you mind,” Law grumbled. He downed the rest of his coffee and gathered up the newspaper, shoving it under his arm. “I’m just going somewhere quiet.”

“You know that’s pretty impossible, right?” Uni replied.

“Yeah, I mean, why would you?” Clione asked. Law stared in deadpan silence before he cast a Room and disappeared in silence.

Fucking hell… hopefully they saw nothing.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

After quickly depositing the newspapers inside his office in the Tang and dodging more of his crew, Law used his Op-Op ability to pop around Dressrosa, doing his best to figure out where Viola went. It was his Haki that eventually found her, walking calmly on her way to the edge of the townscape. He placed himself alongside her and locked their arms together.

“What took you?” she asked idly.

“Crew—they’re a rowdy bunch at times.” He heard her chuckle and he felt the tips of his ears grow hot. “What…?!”

“At first I found it difficult to believe that your crew is so full of mirth, but it does suit you,” she replied. They were now meandering down an unpaved dirt road, fields on either side of them and trees soon approaching. “They must be what keeps you from becoming Doffy’s true Corazón material.”

“Not entirely, but it does, yes, keep things lighter in mood,” he admitted. Law returned a nod to what appeared to be a passing farmer and then tried not to scowl. “Are you sure about this?”

“I have always been able to wander amongst the people—before, during, and after Doffy’s reign,” she stated. “The overbearing threat of him has ruined your sense of trust.”

“I can’t see into people’s minds and hearts.”

“There are some things I don’t need my Devil Fruit ability for, and that is often one of them.” He glanced at her—nearly his height in those heels—and saw the wistful expression on her face. “My father’s rule has been a good one, and the people are well-aware of the sacrifices I made to subvert Doffy. They will not give us away. If anything…” She trailed off in thought, not finishing her sentence. Law waited for her to complete the thought, giving up once they were under the shade of trees.

“If anything…?”

“Oh, sorry. If anything, I think they would be glad to see me acting normal for once. You know: administering law, representing the nation amongst other heads of state, meeting people…”

“The question remains as to whether or not I’m the sort of person they want you to be meeting with.”

“I’ll take my chances.” She went off the road and onto a footpath, where she took him through the grey-barked, virgin cork trees until they came across a small house hidden from the road. He raised an eyebrow at her and she winked at him. “What? My sister and I used to come here as children. The past ten years, it’s where I came to be alone.”

“No one else knows?”

“My family, but they are all at Kyros’s today.” She unlocked the door and began to flit about the house, opening windows and letting the fresh air in. It had only one floor, with a kitchen and sitting area taking up most of the space, while two doors let off to the side—presumably a bedroom and bathroom. Viola slipped into one of the rooms for a moment and Law could peek inside, confirming his suspicions.

“This is all fairly elaborate for what I imagine is a one-time thing,” he mentioned as she exited the bedroom. She shrugged at that.

“We both deserve a bit more than an alley, and Doflamingo was never in this place.”

Ah. That explained… quite a bit, actually.

“Forget that though,” she continued. She placed her hands on either side of his jaw, thumbs brushing against his cheeks and her remaining fingers pressed against his neck, pristine fingernails gently scraping over his skin. “I want you to do precisely what you followed me here for.”

Taking that as permission, Law leaned down the small amount it took until he was pressing his lips against Viola’s. They were soft against his own and he able to taste the lip balm she used. One of her hands moved to his hair and held him firmly, allowing his own hands to wander towards her waist to settle right above her hips. She slipped her tongue into his mouth to press against his, teasing and daring for more. He complied, deepening the kiss. A moan escaped her and he grinned as he continued.

“It’s been that long?” he smirked. She pinched his shoulder.

“Shut up.”

“I think I remember you invoking a horrible image in my brain, which implied that you had been getting enough to avoid such a response.”

“I said: shut up.”

At that, Viola maneuvered Law a few steps backwards and pushed him down into a chair. He landed hard on the worn lacquered wood, hissing in irritation before he realized that she was leaning over him, hands braced on the table as she caged him in, their noses nearly touching.

“Do I make myself clear?” The irritation and surprise left his face, leaving only cockiness in their place.

“Crystal, princess.”

Finding that acceptable for the time being, Viola sat down, straddling Law’s lap as she began to kiss him again. She worked at unbuttoning his shirt as he held her hips this time, his thin fingers caressing from her upper thighs all the way to the hipbone. Once she had his shirt open and shoved off his frame, she placed her hands on his chest, feeling the tight muscle under skin and ink. He pulled her closer, bringing her chest flush with his and hiking up her skirt at the same time. As she gasped, he moved to begin kissing along her jaw, her throat, her pulse point, gently biting down before she twisted one of his nipples and made him recoil.

“Fuck!”

“No marks,” she ordered. “I can’t show up to court with love bites where just anyone can see.”

“Cover them with makeup.”

“That’s annoying, and less-than-foolproof.”

“I thought you said your people want you to… you know…”

“…the people, yes. The same cannot be said about my father and brother-in-law.”

Law cast a Room in response and snapped his fingers, making Viola’s blouse and bra relocate to another chair. Once she was rid of the garment he leaned her back and plunged his face between her breasts in order to bite the underside of her left one. She sucked in a breath through her open mouth, her entire body beginning to tremble.

Oh, he was good.

The Room still up, Law transported them both onto the bed in the other room, placing them on the edge of the mattress instead. Viola took the pin out of her hair and placed it on the sidetable, letting her hair fall down past her shoulders in dark waves. It framed her face as she brought him back up to meet her lips, shielding them both as they continued to kiss fervently. They ground their hips together as they leaned back onto the bed, with her feeling the rough trouser fabric tight around his erection, while he could smell how wet she was.

A few more moments of kissing and Viola decided to break the action, concentrating instead on slipping out of her shoes, skirt, and panties. Law did the same with the rest of his clothes, pausing as he caught sight of her entire body. It had been a long time since he had seen a naked woman outside of a clinical setting, and it wasn’t until right then and there did he realize how long it had truly been. She caught him staring and it was her turn to laugh.

“…and you were giving me a hard time,” she snorted. “You look like you might not even last five minutes.”

“I wasn’t the one bragging.”

“By teasing me…” She sat down on the bed and pulled him close to her. “…that was insinuating that you’d had better in the meantime.”

“Mmmhmm… sure…” He bent down onto his knees and began to message her thighs. “Any requests?”

“Just make it good, Trafalgar, and I trust you can use that ability of yours to clean us up properly afterwards.”

“Of course.”

He pressed a kiss against her inner thigh, then another, and another, moving up her leg until his nose was buried in soft curls as he kissed and licked at her folds, fingers helping along the way. He slid two digits into her and flexed, making the leg resting on his shoulder tremble.

“Tease me later,” she chided between breaths. He grinned again before leaning back and letting his tongue dart over his lips, taking in her salty taste. Instead he slowly kissed his way up her body, taking note of each curve as he lavished attention onto her. By the time he made it back up to her neck and jaw, her breathing had become erratic, if slightly, and he was at least slightly proud of himself for getting her so worked up so easily. With the taste of her still on his tongue, he kissed her deeply as her legs settled on either side of his hips and he eased into her in earnest.

Law’s vision went white for a moment as the hot, slick walls around him clenched. It was obvious that Viola knew exactly what she was doing from the start, but… fuck, he hadn’t been expecting that. He started up a rhythm, thrusting slowly as he coaxed little noises out of her. She felt so fucking good that he wasn’t entire certain how long he was going to last, given the distance since his prior liaison. Her back arched and her legs shook as she suddenly crashed into… something… turning her attention to him as he stopped.

“What…?” she frowned.

“Are… are you alright?”

“Yeah. I’m just…” She avoided eye contact. “…I guess I really did get by on subpar standards, didn’t I?” She gasped as he rocked his hips into hers again, punctuating the silence.

“Don’t force yourself to do what I’m here for,” he said. He picked the rhythm back up and laced his fingers with hers, holding their hands on either side of her head. Before long, both of them were riding their orgasms. Law rolled off Viola and laid on his back, gulping down air as he stared at the ceiling. “Better?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “We’re not very good at this, are we?”

“Give me five minutes and we can practice being adults our age,” he offered. “By the end of the day, we might even be good at it.”

Something about the chuckle that escaped her suggested to him that she was amenable to that.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Exhaling heavily, Law found himself swimming back to consciousness feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks. Wait, months? It was at least months, bordering well on years, and he was glad for it. A reach with Observation Haki let him know that the woman in his arms was also awake, though also definitely enjoying the moment. He hugged Viola a big tighter, rubbing his face between her breasts.

“You are a bit of a pervert, aren’t you?” she chuckled. She began to play idly with his hair, running her fingers through it.

“I keep it well-hidden and in-check, unlike some people we know,” he replied. He looked at the bruise that was forming around where he bit and smiled inwardly. “We could shed tears and induce trauma with this.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Fine.” He disengaged himself from her torso and sat up, scratching his neck while stretching. “Did you still need me to…?”

“Yes—take care of it,” she huffed. He first popped Kikoku into his hands—how in the heck did it land on the kitchen table; he did not remember putting it on the kitchen table—and partially drew it from the sheath. Running a scan over Viola, he found where all his genetic variables were and plucked them from her reproductive tract, disposing of it all on a nearby dustcloth.

“I’d still take a tonic and watch yourself for a bit, but at least now aftercare is not such an emergency,” he said. Sheathing Kikoku and putting her bits back together, Law looked at Viola with a wan smile. “You’re right—maybe, in another world, things could have been different between us.”

“Pity it’s not this one, because I could stand to keep someone like you around,” she agreed. She eased him back down so that they could share one final kiss before departing the nest of blankets. “If you’re ever in the neighborhood again…”

“I’m no longer a Shichibukai, remember? You really should be turning me into the Marines right now, not fucking my brains out.”

“You are a national hero of Dressrosa—that negates the bounty within her territory.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Sure it does. I said so.”

“Ah… how convincing…” he snarked. “I’m sure an Admiral would love to hear that reasoning.” He gathered his clothes and began to put them back on, feeling her gaze as he dressed. She lounged in bed as she watched him, not wanting to look away. “Enjoying the view?”

“While it lasts.”

He paused at that, considering their options. “Maybe not another world, but possibly just another time frame…”

“Let’s see what that charismatic kid does to the world first, then see what cards we have to play,” she said. “Maybe, if there is a next time, I can stock the kitchen prior and we can eat literally as well.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Once he had everything but his shirt on, he leaned over Viola and proceeded to engage in a long, tender kiss. Their lips eventually separated and he exhaled heavily. “See you around?”

“In some way, yeah.”

“Good.”

After finding his shirt in the other room, Law put the garment on and left the house, sword resting on his shoulder as he made the long trek back to the port.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It was well into evening by the time Law made it back on the Polar Tang, slipping inside without being noticed by his crew still there lounging on the deck. He made himself some coffee and grabbed some old fried rice as a snack and went back to his cabin, not wanting to be bothered as he settled in for the night. Much of the crew was likely to spend the night on land, which meant that there was going to be a peaceful, quiet few hours ahead of him.

“Oh, Captain!” He twitched as he heard Bepo call out to him, just before he was able to slip into the solitude of his quarters. The bear came up to him with some papers in-hand—of course he was going to hide in the Tang as she was cooling off and empty. “I’ve got the course plotted for the next leg of the trip. We should be able to get to where our needle set within a week of sailing, if the winds are right.”

“Sounds good, Bepo,” he nodded. Law then raised an eyebrow as he saw a puzzled look come over his navigator’s face. “Yes…?”

“You smell different,” Bepo noted. “Were you just visiting someone from when you were here before?”

“You can say that,” Law replied. All the years of practicing his mask of stoicism were coming into use as he was panicking on the inside. “Just some negotiations involving further port visits, that’s all.”

“She smells very pretty,” Bepo said. Fuck—busted. “I almost couldn’t smell it under all your sweat—it is really hot in Dressrosa, isn’t it?”

“It is very hot, yes,” Law agreed. “Let me know if something happens that needs my attention; there’s a Sora collection with my name on it in there.”

“Got it, Captain!” Bepo saluted and lumbered off, letting Law slip into his cabin and hurriedly lock the door behind him.

Too damn close… and yet… he sat down at his desk and opened the newspaper back up, seeing a photo of Viola at the Levely. Yeah… it was worth it.