#off topic a bit but I am Slightly Concerned Tech is in one of those fridges in the Vault that was shown to Palpatine

[katara-stan-club]

So my mom and I were talking about the upcoming tbb episode on our video chat today, and she hasn't read The Dark Disciple/seen most of Clone Wars since it aired, so I was explaining some of the Nightsister magic and who Quinlan Vos is to give her some context for potential theories. As I was telling her about Quinlan's psychometry, I was describing how it works and I got hit with the terrible/brilliant thought:

The batch has Tech's goggles from when he fell.

If who Fennec was contacting was Quinlan Vos undercover as a bounty hunter to try and rescue other Jedi/force users as he establishes The Path, he could find the batch and tell them about the m-count stuff, but. He has psychometry. And Tech's goggles are Right There. He could find out what actually happened and tell them.

Anyways, I'm gonna go chew some drywall and try not to let this thought consume my every waking moment until 3 AM on Wednesday as if that'll stop me

[biisexualemma]

unrequited pt.2. peter parker

word count: 3.6k

warnings: anxiety, panic attack? i guess kind of

requested: yea a few people asked for this lol

plot: you haven’t seen peter for weeks and start to worry about him

a/n: i finished re-writing this late last night and i’ll be honest with you i haven’t checked it over so sorry if there are any mistakes but i’m tired sis goodnight! lmk if you like this! pls comment / share!

pt.1 / marvel masterlist / multi-fandom masterlist

"ned... you're so wrong for so many reasons," m.j.'s expression was flat, her eyes rolling before she continued to fight ned on who was really the strongest avenger. you were supposed to be working on a group project for your history class but somehow the topic of the avengers came up and the conversation derailed. ned was making a, somewhat, compelling case for the hulk but m.j. was clearly winning with her argument for wanda.

"nobody even knows the full extent of her powers... and the hulk? what? he's gonna smash some more?"

you sat quietly, chin in the palm of your hand, listening in and out of the conversation. you didn't really feel much like contributing. you would occasionally chime in to support m.j. but mostly you just heard the noise of their bickering and let it happen.

you didn't want to be that person, but your mind was (much to your frustration) completely consumed with thoughts of peter. and at the worst time, you had so many tests coming up, and essay deadlines were also creeping up on you. usually you were on top of this stuff, but your mind was preoccupied almost all the time.

because of peter, who was no where to be seen. in the past few weeks he had stopped showing up to school all together. ned said it was something to do with tony stark but you had a feeling it was more than that. you didn't know how to explain it.

you hadn't spoken to him in a long time now, and you didn't exactly leave things on good terms. it was the longest you'd gone without talking since peter called you a poopy head in the third grade.

you just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. especially since you had no idea what he was getting up to, peter was known to get himself into some messes when he was left to his own devices. and you just knew ned was lying to cover for his best friend but that only made you feel even more out of the loop.

everything felt a bit off without peter around, like something was missing. that, on top of the guilt and worry you were feeling, was turning your head to mush. last time you'd spoken to peter, he was erratic and wounded and desperate. something bad had to have happened for him to be gone this long.

the bell rang, signalling the end of your last period for the day, and the rest of the week seeing as it was a friday. you snapped out of your daze, jolting as your eyes focused back on your surroundings.

"what time did you say again, y/n?" your eyes drifted to m.j. who was collecting her notes on her desk, her eyes meetings yours, waiting for your answer. a crease formed between your eyebrows, you hadn't heard a word of the conversation before right now. m.j. seemed to realise this, rolling her eyes at you with a playful smile. you did this a lot lately, she was getting used to it. "homecoming? what time did you want to meet tonight?"

"oh," you nodded, still sitting at your desk as your classmates hustled around you. "right, homecoming— i— uh—"

"tell me you're still coming," ned interrupted, his eyes wide suddenly, clearly desperate that your answer was anything but no. "c'mon we've had this planned for ages!"

"no— yeah— of course i am," you nodded quickly to reassure him. "yeah— sorry— i just spaced. is seven good for you guys?"

they hummed in response, nodding.

you packed up your books, shoving them into your bag, still in a slight haze with all these thoughts running through your head about peter. you couldn't think about homecoming, it seemed trivial now compared to the worst case scenarios running through your mind. maybe you could try to call peter again? you thought to yourself as you quickly left the classroom, forgetting about m.j. and ned and homecoming, your muscle memory alone leading you to your locker.

you swapped out your books from your bag with the ones you needed to study from for your biology test next week. after slamming the locker door shut, a familiar face was met with yours.

"jesus," you muttered as he stood inches away from your face, your heart racing from the shock. clutching your books to your chest, after nearly having a heart attack, you let out a loud sigh and furrowed your eyebrows. "peter? where the hell have you been?" you regained some of your composure, enough to find some anger in you towards him. he was the last person you were expecting to see today.

"you're ok?" his usual soft brown eyes looked sunken and tired, his hair was scruffier than usual and his lips chapped as they hung open, his eyes scanning over you.

your mouth hung open to speak but he just shook his head as if answering his own question. he gripped your forearm, urging you to walk with him. you dug in your heels, yanking your arm back, wanting him to slow down and explain before you went anywhere with him. "will you just walk," he muttered sharply when you tried to resist him. "please," he softened quickly, his eyes meeting yours.

you frowned, uncomfortably shifting the stack of books in your arms as peter pulled you along behind him hastily. you watched his eyes shifting about the hallway as students weaved around the two of you, his grip not loosening for a second. he was definitely up to something stupid and dangerous that he absolutely should not be involved in.

he'd dragged you all the way out into the parking lot, pulling you aside and away from the crowd of people.

"what's going on? why do you look like— i mean no offence but— you look like crap," you couldn't help but show some level of concern. no matter how complicated your feelings were for him at the moment, he was still your best friend, and he looked like hell. you couldn't stop yourself from staring at him.

"i need you to just— stop talking and listen to me," the look in his eyes made your heart beat a bit faster, your eyes darting between his trying to understand his urgency. "you're not safe—"

"no— i'm fine—" you were never very good at doing what you were told. you glanced down at yourself, perfectly safe and standing in front of him. "see?—"

"no— no you're not," he gulped, his eyes darting away from yours for a split second. "i'm taking you home and you have to stay there. ok? please."

his voice was horse, cracking when he spoke. you didn't understand any of it. peter was the friendly neighbourhood spider-man, what the hell had he gotten himself into that had him this worked up?

you tilted your head slightly, he couldn't think you'd blindly do whatever he said. you needed some answers. "pete," you mumbled, shaking your head with a faint frown. "can't you just tell me what's going on? you're kinda' scaring me."

"i screwed up," his face contorted, his eyes screwing shut for a second and his nose scrunching. you were glued to him, following his mixed expressions trying to understand what was going through his head. he took a deep, shaky breath, running a hand through his hair. "and i know you— you hate me and the last thing you wanna' do is listen to me but i need you to do this for me."

"alright," you said after a moments hesitation. you just wanted him to relax. all your pent up anger and hurt that you'd felt over peter had dissipated quite quickly. you were too occupied with trying to ease some of his stress, and if that meant becoming a homebody for a few days, you would do it. "alright— don't worry. i've been putting off my english essay for a week now anyway, it's about time i cracked down on it."

you tried to ease the tension, act like he wasn't asking much of you. he let out a heavy sigh, looking over at you with those brown eyes. "it's homecoming tonight, i know w—"

"is it?" you feigned forgetfulness, not wanting to make him feel any worse than he already did. you shrugged. "i was never one for socialising anyway."

peter knew you better than that. he knew what he was asking you to give up. "i'm sorry," he took a step closer to you, his hands hovering in front of you, unsure that you wanted him to touch you. "i'm sorry you got dragged into this."

your eyes lingered on his hands before you pulled back up to his stare. you pursed your lips and shrugged. "i'd feel better about it if i knew what i was getting dragged into," you pulled away from your conversation for a second to slip your books into your bag. "walk me home and you can explain everything."

and he did. he told you all about the vulture, the weapons, what really happened during the decathlon trip. all of it. right up to when the vulture figured out his identity— which lead to him finding out about aunt may, about his friends, and about you. he told you about how he'd spent the past few weeks figuring out where the vulture's next major deal was being held, how he'd messed up so bad and how mr stark had taken his suit.

by the time he'd finished, your mouth hung open slightly. you didn't know how he'd been dealing with all of this by himself. spider-man helped old ladies cross the street and returned stolen bicycles, he didn't fight men in bird costumes to stop illegal sales of dangerous advanced weapon tech.

"peter, this sounds pretty dangerous," you spoke up after he told you about his plan to intercept the vulture's airplane heist. "don't you think you should just call happy? or tony? this sounds like iron man territory."

"i can't do that," he sighed. "besides, i already tried happy— he's not taking my calls right now. something about a time out."

you let out a heavy sigh, having taken everything in that he'd told you. you had reached your door, peter standing behind you with his hands stuffed in his pockets. you motioned for him to come in but he hesitated, opening his mouth to decline. "c'mon," you grabbed his arm and tugged gently. "this heist isn't happening 'til late tonight. you can keep me company 'til then."

"maybe, get some rest, too, you really do look like hell," he let you pull him inside, following behind you. he ignored the second dig you had now made about his appearance.

"may must've been pretty mad when she found out you'd been skipping school?" you collapsed onto your bed, crossing your legs over and watching peter perch himself on the edge of your bed. he leaned forward, his hand running over his face with sheer exhaustion.

"you have no idea," he groaned, holding his head up with the palm of his hand now. "i'm pretty much grounded for the rest of the year. and i have to send her a pic' of me sitting in every one of my classes from now on," you nodded, pursing your lips because that sounded about right. "but mainly she was worried."

"well, she wasn't the only one," he glanced at you over his shoulder, his eyes lingering there for a while. you breathed through your nose, looking away from him and down to your hands to give yourself a moment. you'd forgotten how difficult it was to have him look at you like that. "you just took off with no word, peter."

he turned his gaze away from you, focusing on the wall in front of him, his eyes glossy. for weeks that last conversation with you had been sitting at the back of his mind. he knew he'd handled everything in the worse possible way. he tried to protect you, hurt you by doing so, and then had everything he tried to protect you from blow up in his face anyway.

"i haven't been able to think clearly for weeks," you gulped, scared to meet his gaze again, in fear that you might lose your confidence. "i missed you. and i was worried out of my mind about you."

"y/n—" his voice was quiet.

"and i know i was the one who told you to leave. but i was hurt and sad. i'd convinced myself that you felt the same way, and when you—" you closed your eyes for a second, feeling him watching you. you hadn't been able to say any of this out loud for weeks and now it was just spilling out of you. "anyway— i shouldn't've punished you for that. they are my feelings i need to get over. it wasn't your fault and i'm sorry i made it seem like it was."

he shook his head faintly, sniffling slightly, catching your attention. "i screwed up," he shook his head a little harder, pushing himself up off your bed, his back turned to you. "i screwed up so bad," he ran his hand over his face, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose. your eyebrows knitted. "it wasn't supposed to turn out like this."

"don't," you shook your head, willing him to stop. "it's not your fault. i shouldn't have—"

he cut you off, turning to face you as he did. "i'm in love with you," his mouth hung open slightly, his eyes now stinging red. "i was in love with you then, and i'm in love with you now. i think i always will be."

your eyebrows unknitted, your mouth opening to speak but nothing came out. you watched his hand tug on the ends of his curls, his eyes locked onto you the entire time, trying to read your expression.

"i was trying to protect you and it went completely wrong—" his breathing was erratic. "i thought you'd be safer if i distanced myself—" the look on his face was breaking your heart. he knew how stupid it all sounded now he explained it out loud. "i screwed everything up— and now you're in more danger than ever— because of me."

"you— you—" your brain was trying to keep up. you shook your head. you had spent the past month telling yourself that everything you thought he'd felt for you wasn't real, that you'd over thought everything he'd ever done for you. you'd been telling yourself for a month to move on. "you didn't screw up, pete. i know you. whatever you did, you did for the right reasons."

the lump in your throat was growing as you tried to keep some kind of composure. it wouldn't do either of you any good to get upset with him when he was worked up like this. he didn't need to be told he'd made a mistake, he was already painfully aware.

"you don't— you—but— i—" he was hyperventilating, completely vulnerable as he fell apart in front of you.

"pete," you mumbled carefully, climbing over to where he was stood, hand in his hair and he pulled on the loose curls, his eyes wide with anxiety and stress. you moved your hands to his, pulling them down to his side and giving them a small squeeze. "calm down," you cooed. "everything will be ok."

you trailed your hands up to his shoulders, giving them a soft squeeze before pulling him into a tight hug. you wrapped your arms 'round his shoulders, one hand moving to the back of his head, running your fingers through his hair. his head ducked, burying into your neck, his arms wrapping around your waist in a desperate grip. his breathing was heavy at first, uneven and jagged as he clung onto you. your heart was beating out of your chest, you were sure he could hear it, but you held onto him as tight as you could, pressing your whole body against his trying to offer him as much comfort as you could.

after a while of standing around, holding each other, peter's breathing began to grow softer and slower. he began to notice the sweet scent lingering on your skin. his lips innocently hovering over the curve of your neck, breath fanning against your skin. you could feel goosebumps growing on your skin, the hair of your arms standing on end.

"better?" you mumbled softly. he gave you a faint nod in response, his lips leaving your skin as he pulled himself back from you. your hand slipped from in between his curls and down to the neck, your thumb brushing over his skin as he looked straight into your eyes. you gulped, eyelids fluttering.

he was a state to behold. his nose was pink, under eyes wet, your eyes trailed down to where his lips parted. he hiccuped a breath. you tried to push away the impulse to kiss him because he was clearly vulnerable. you didn't want him to later regret anything. "thanks," he mumbled breathlessly. "i don't know what happened there."

you pouted your lips, about to reply when peters eyes fluttered down your face, catching you off guard. his eyes lingered and you noticed his head tilting down and nearer, his lips catching onto yours before you could register what was happening. it was soft, gentle and didn't last longer than a couple seconds before you had to force yourself to pull away.

"peter— you're overwhelmed right now so maybe we shouldn—"

your whispers against his lips where cut short, he pressed his lips to yours again. unable to resist now he'd had a taste. his arms tightened around your waist, pulling you back flush against his chest. you swallowed a gasp, feeling his full weight behind the second kiss. his lips pushed against yours a little more desperately this time, you fell back a step, peter's arms where the only thing keeping you upright at this point.

both your hands where either side of his neck, trailing up into his hair where you pulled softly at the roots of his messy curls. he let out a soft moan against your lips, and you stumbled back once more, your thighs hitting your bed.

your hands quickly slipped down to his chest as you gently pried him off you. your head was spinning a little, his lips were plump and pink and the way he looked at you, with pure love and obsession, made you want to kiss him again and again.

"did you mean it?" you muttered breathlessly.

his eyes trailed back up from your lips, his gaze locking with yours again. he noticed the vulnerability and fear in your eyes now that he was paying you his full attention. he felt a wave of guilt hit him, knowing he was the one that put that look there.

"yeah," he hummed. "i did," he said with his chest. "i do. always will," he was breathless.

"you're not just saying it 'cause you've missed me?"

he shook his head quickly, shutting down any traces of doubt in your mind. "i have been in love with you since that summer we took that trip to coney island when you threw up after you ate too much cotton candy."

your scrunched up your nose at the memory. "gross."

he shrugged. "i don't know what to tell you. that's just when i knew."

your lips twitched into a small smile. "you should probably get some rest," you diverted the topic, trying hard not to kiss him again. he looked so tired. he had poured out months worth of anxiety and stress all in the past ten minutes. "you can't chase bad guys if you're half asleep."

he wore a half-hearted smile, his mind clearly flickering back to the task he had to take on later tonight.

"you can crash here if you want," you motioned to your bed.

"y'sure? i don't wanna get you in trouble."

"mom's working late, so you're good. plus she loves you, pete," your hands slipped down to his, giving them a quick squeeze of reassurance.

"sure she'll still love me when she finds out about us?" he quirked an eyebrow, the small smile on his lips was sloped and tired.

"m'sure," you hummed, biting back your growing smile at the word us. you moved him to sit on your bed again, his hands lazily holding yours. his eyelids fluttered as he looked up at you, a small crease forming between his eyebrows again. you could tell his mind was wandering again. "lie down, you need to rest or you're no good to anyone."

he nodded hesitantly and followed your instruction. "i'll sleep better with you next to me."

his voice was soft after you'd turned your back on him to leave him to rest. you rolled your eyes faintly, smile tugging your lips again. "is that right?"

he hummed, his arms outstretched, waiting for you to fall into them. you dragged your feet back over to him, biting the inside of your cheek, the corner of your lip twitching upwards. "there's a scientific reason behind it but my brain's too sleepy to think right now, so you'll have to take my word for it."

his words slurred together, his eyes rolling slightly the longer he forced them open. you just nodded. "alright, spidey, just this once."

"hm," he hummed as you climbed in next to him, his arms wrapping around you and immediately pulling you against his chest. "thanks," he muttered, his lips pressed against the top of your head. "don't know what i'd do without you."

[mwolf0epsilon]

What's your stance on the UnwhitewashTBB movement?

While the confusing chatter regarding the blog itself concerns me slightly (hard to tell what's true or not on this hellsite), I do sincerely understand where the movement itself is coming from.

I'll keep this under a read more since this is a bit of a hefty topic, and not everyone needs to see that all over the tags.

---

I'll be quite frank here: When TCW series first came out, I had no interest whatsoever to watch it. At the time I wasn't sure why, but the character designs put me off a LOT, and I was just a kid watching Cartoon Network on the weekends when I first caught a glimpse of the clips for it... I wasn't completely aware that the reason why, was because I saw Temuera playing Jango and the Clones when my mom showed me the prequel trilogy. I recognized that those faces were wrong somehow, but at that point wasn't completely aware of the underlying racism.

Recently it took my best friend forcing me to watch the series for me to grow to like some of the characters and arcs, but I still feel the way I did back then... Only now I understand why.

It's clear the models in TCW always had a glaring design issue regarding the physical traits the artists chose to impose on a lot of their POC characters (and this is me putting it politely). The clones especially, have eurocentric features in a lot of aspects (noses, jawlines, eyes, even the hair texture...).

For TBB, I could understand some divergency in regards to Clone Force 99's overall appearance compared to standard clones, but let's face it: I'm not blind to the implications of their specific physical traits, especially when you compare Wrecker, Tech and Crosshair to one another, not just physically but in the way they behave as well...

And then there's also Omega who's supposed to be an unaltered clone, but looks suspiciously different to even Boba (I can sorta excuse the hair color, the gene for blonde hair is in Jango's DNA, but it's still clearly a very standard 'male vs female' character design choice sorta deal that we got going on in media), and Echo who after being a POW is impossibly pale, constantly has a blue tint to him, has inexplicably paler eyes (what???) and is treated like a prop in most episodes of TBB (which is honestly disconcerting). Those are not reasonable stylistic choice, that's lack of understanding on how skin pigmentation works in the face of illness (which was an issue addressed in the early days of the Overwatch fandom in regards to Gabriel Reyes's base model being an unnatural color after his "death"), and really poor writing... Not to mention pretty offensive to both poc and disabled people.

Hell, the closest we got to better physical representation in the Star Wars animated universe was in the Rebels series (Rex, Wolffe and Gregor actually look more proportionally correct, and their models more closely resemble Temuera himself which I can definitely appreciate), and even then there was a bit of trouble when it came to how PTSD was portrayed...

Sure, some of the arcs in TCW itself were good. There's at least one I had to applaud in terms of handling a really important and heavy topic (the Orto Plutonia arc). But unfortunately it doesn't erase the fact there's a lot of really poor choices that go into making TCW and TBB series. Especially with how the clones are written off as incompetent canon fodder post-order 66. It's passive aggressive in TCW, but a downright slap in the face in TBB.

Now, as a Portuguese white girl, the appearance of the clone models really doesn't affect me much on a personal level despite making me feel slightly uncomfortable. But it affects others, especially how younger audiences view themselves and those around them (kids do watch these shows and they're impressionable). And, as such, who am I to say no to positive change? I've certainly seen some people arguing personal enjoyment vs representation over and over again, which confuses me slightly... It's a bit of a game of cat and mouse in the main tags sometimes, I swear to God...

Point is: Just because it doesn't hurt you personally, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt others. I like the show, but I can see why people are offended by whitewashed designs, poorly written character portrayals, callous efforts to brush serious topics aside, and the likes... At this point pretending it's not distastefully racist isn't really gonna benefit anyone, and trying to belittle the people striving for a better representation is just really taking the time to be a jerk. Enjoy the show, just don't pretend there's zero wrong with it.

So what do I think of the movement? Power to the people who have the balls to speak up about it. Especially on an IP that now belongs to Disney.

My word probably means nothing, but I'm happy to do my part by simply drawing the clones to the best of my ability with proper proportions and skin tones. I'm not the best at it, but I'm learning... And hey if the batch are so divergent, I'll make it in the range that's actually believable in regards to their genetic coding (Temuera Morrison if you're out there I hope you never find out how many hours I've had different angles of your face slapped over my canvases to figure out how to draw these boys properly...).

[dramaticsnakes]

The Revived - Chapter 2: Connected

This is chapter 2 of the Dream SMP multichapter fic @rainbowbutterfrosting​ and I wrote together! I hope you’ll enjoy!

Thank you to @ r0w3n-1n-d0ugh for beta-reading this chapter.

AO3

Read in order (on Tumblr)

Characters in this chapter: Wilbur, Ghostbur, Technoblade

Word count: 3268

Cw: arguments, yelling, insults, miscommunications, recklessness, mentioned suicidal behavior, cursing, mentions of crying, mentions of food, jokes about drugs

Fic summary: Wilbur was alive, and it was such a magnificent feeling, that made his mind spark with anticipation. It didn’t take long, however, for Wilbur to realize that this new breath of life, was not just his own. An echo-y voice hides in the back of his mind, and before he knows it, the transparent version of him he saw at the endless train station, is a lot more ingrained than he’d expected him to be.

And Wilbur really shouldn’t care. Because he’d be damned, if he spent the life he’d awaited for so long, babysitting a lost cause of a ghost, stuck in the very same limbo Wilbur spent so long in. It was an even exchange, and one Wilbur wasn’t going to mess with. Why exactly he ends up setting out to get the ghost out of his mind, in order to save the both of them, however, is beyond him. And perhaps Wilbur’s past isn’t as easy to leave behind, as he’d hoped it would be.

Wilbur had barely acknowledged his surroundings until they’d made it to the house, tucked in among the mountains and the snow. Once Phil opened the door, Wilbur groggily wandered inside, recognizing the smells, and the familiar furniture, that had changed quite a bit, but still held the same atmosphere somehow. Wilbur didn’t have a home, but this house with all the strained emotions and uncomfortable attachments related to it, was probably the closest he would get. For now, of course, because Wilbur had plans, even if he couldn’t think of them at that moment.

As they entered the home, Phil turned to Wilbur, with narrowed eyes, wrinkling his nose. “No offense, mate, but your eye bags are deeper than the hole of L'Manburg. When have you last slept?”

"Haha, good one," Wilbur said, absentmindedly taking his first steps up the stairs.

Phil had hesitated, his eyebrows furrowed. "Wil, please tell me you've had some kind of sleeping schedule since you've returned."

"And I wished I had a house when I returned back here, we don't always get what we want." Wilbur had responded with a shrug, because it didn’t matter, really. Wilbur was alive, and he didn’t have to count the days anymore. He stumbled, grabbing the nearest stationary object he could reach to prevent himself from falling on the stairs. Phil sent him a concerned look.

Before he knew it, Wilbur had found himself in a room with a little bed that he wished wasn’t as appealing as it was. The mattress was soft, accompanied by the sheets, and Wilbur was brutally reminded that he hadn’t truly seen a bed for thirteen and a half years. Soon, he was tucked underneath a duvet and felt himself drifting off into a dreamless slumber, which was far better than the nightmares he’d half-expected.

He woke up to a plate of food, sat up, and ate a few bites before he fell asleep again. He wasn’t certain how much time had passed whenever he dared open his eyes. He should get up! He should face the world he’d been denied for so long, but getting up meant so many things. He had so little time to finish his work, though the darkness called to him, like a friend he never wanted to leave.

And the voice was there too, unfortunately, whenever he woke up. The cries, the whines, and the words that became clearer and clearer. Wilbur held his eyes open for a long time, as if he was in a staring contest with the ceiling, as the cries refused to settle. “Ugh, would you shut up for one second.” he groaned.

When the cries immediately ceased, Wilbur tensed up.

“You can… You can hear me?” was all Wilbur heard now, and he stayed completely silent. “Please.” the voice added after a short while, “It’s so lonely here.”

Wilbur almost feared his heart had stopped once again before he whispered: “Ghostbur…” it wasn’t a question, nor a statement. He wasn’t certain what it was, but perhaps he shouldn’t have said it.

“Yes!” the voice said, giggling with more relief than Wilbur had ever heard from anyone else, “It’s me, Ghostbur! And you’re Alivebur, right?”

“Alivebur?” Wilbur chuckled to himself, “I’m certainly alive, but I typically go by Wilbur.” If Wilbur could hear someone smile, he would describe it as the sound of Ghostbur’s voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry! It’s been a while since I’ve talked with anyone… Gets quite lonely here. Hey, where are you?”

“Phil’s upstairs. Maybe you weren’t here often. He had to make a bit of room up here since he didn’t expect my arrival.”

Minutes went by without a response from Ghostbur. Just as Wilbur was about to ask if he was still there, he heard the friendly voice again, “But… I’m sorry but this doesn’t make much sense to me. I- I’ve been to Phil’s house, and this doesn’t look like a house of any kind.”

Wilbur made a confused noise. “I don’t know if ghosts are constantly on weed or some other shit, but it’s pretty live laugh and love in here. Spruce shelves with some nicknacks and those little windows halfway covered in snow. Hey- I just realized. The windows are made out of spruce fences because Dad can’t see glass! That’s sorta neat.” Wilbur felt proud of his realization, even if someone else probably realized it before him.

Ghostbur’s voice on the other hand held a slight amount of fear, “Nono, there’s… I’m not really sure what this whole place is. It’s this big cylinder tube. It’s… It’s gray and there’s some benches here, but there’s also this really long tunnel! I tried walking to the end, but I- I don’t think there is one.” Wilbur’s heart dropped when he heard that. “Ghostbur… brown benches with some shitty lights in the ceiling?”

“Yes!” Ghostbur let out a soft gasp, “Have you been here before? Are we on some long-distance phone line? I- I don’t see a phone here.”

Wilbur thought for a moment, “It’s… It’s more than a phone line.” He should’ve remembered already, but his head was groggy. The transparent version of him, tears streaming down his face, almost as if they were burning him. The one who took his place on the platform. Wilbur didn’t know how to break the news to his Ghost counterpart. “I think you’re in my limbo.”

Ghostbur giggled, “I love limbo! I’m not very good at it though, whenever I play the pole just goes through me.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes at Ghostbur’s train of thought, “Nono, it’s… a little more serious than that.” Wilbur’s words became more spaced out, trying his best to avoid the actual topic.

“Does the bar actually hit me now?”

Wilbur awkwardly laughed, “No, it’s-” he quietly groaned from frustration, he’d never been good at breaking bad news to someone. “There’s no limbo bar.”

“That’s silly. How are we going to play limbo, with no limbo bar?”

Wilbur sighed, Ghostbur deserved to know, “You’re-”

“I know,” Ghostbur’s words were covered in child-like excitement, “we can just pretend there’s a limbo bar! I’ll go under it first.” There was silence for a few moments. “I did it! Now it’s your turn.”

“Ghostbur, this isn’t some kind of game.”

“It is though! I can’t find a dictionary, but if you try lookin’ in one of those, you-” Ghostbur quietly gasped, “Do you not know how to play limbo? Oh, you poor thing.”

When Wilbur spoke, his voice was louder than he meant it, venom dripping off each syllable, “You’re in prison. You’re never getting out and you’re stuck there!”

The silence that extended between them was louder than Wilbur could ever yell. “Ghostbur, I’m-”

“Wilbur?”

Wilbur jumped from the sudden noise, looking over and seeing Technoblade at the other end of the room. He seemed confused, which Wilbur thought must’ve been from the thought of him being alive and well, but it didn’t take him long to realize it must’ve been from talking- and yelling- to himself. 

“Is Techno with you?! How is he?” Ghostbur excitedly squealed. Not now, Wilbur responded in his head, but Ghostbur must’ve not been able to hear it as he rambled off other questions. Through his babbling, he could hear mentions of Tubbo and Ranboo, but most of it was muddled together from Ghostbur’s cheerfulness. 

“Hi, Techno!” Wilbur said too loudly. “How are you? I uh- hope you’re- it’s all going well.”

Techno raised an eyebrow, “I, uh… I guess it is. You’re back and stuff.”

Wilbur nodded, “Yeah, yeah I am.” 

Ghostbur jumped in, “Techie, it’s been forever! What adventures have you been up to?”

A rough silence extended between the three, time feeling more present by the second.

Ghostbur chuckled and whispered, “I think Tech is ignoring me like you were.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes which only made Technoblade even more suspicious of the newly revived man in front of him. 

“You alright? Phil told me you nearly died from hypothermia. Probably not the best way to reunite with your father.” Techno snorted quietly.

Ghostbur’s voice turned sadder, “But, I- that didn’t happen. I saw it myself, Phil gave you an enchanted golden apple and you guys hugged. Nothin’ bad happened, you did look a little uncomfortable though.”

That caught Wilbur slightly off guard, though he couldn’t quite respond properly or ask for more information. He nodded bashfully, “Yeah… uncomfortable is a word to describe it.”

“Yeah… hey, Phil told me to show you to the portal and stuff. He doesn’t want you dying again.” Although Techno didn’t say ‘literally,’ Wilbur could hear it clearly.

“Oh, Don’t worry! I can show him where it is! I’ve followed Ranboo through those portals a few times. He’s really nice. He seemed a little worried last time I saw him though, but Tubbo was there and he was also worried. Maybe we could give him a visit. We can visit both of them!” Wilbur heard quick echo-y claps, presumably from Ghostbur’s enthusiasm.

“Mhm, sounds like a plan.”

“Great…” Techno said, and Wilbur started to notice that there was something hesitant in the other’s posture. Something awkward, and restricted, though Wilbur found it difficult to place why. “Let’s go,” he said, gesturing with his head towards the door, and that was when Wilbur had no choice but to leave the comforting darkness. Perhaps it wasn’t too appealing after all because Wilbur had been alone for so long, so maybe it was time he saw how much the world had changed without him. Wilbur stood up from the bed and followed Technoblade out the door.

“Oh! I guess Techno is taking us to the portal after all. That’s great! Aliv- I mean, Wilbur! Haven’t you missed this place too? Did you even see this place, while you were alive? Did they-”

“Shh,” Wilbur said quickly and harshly, closing his eyes.

“Heh?” Techno said questioningly.

Wilbur’s eyes widened. “Oh, nothing! I was just thinking about something.”

“Thinking about something hush-able?” Techno said with a hesitant smile, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were hearing voices too.”

Wilbur chuckled awkwardly, though he didn’t say anything else on the matter.

He hardly had the time to consider what it was like to see Technoblade again because Ghostbur was certainly an unexpected turn of events. Wilbur had simply assumed that hearing the cries and the begging words had been a side-effect of the revival. One he would get rid of eventually.

Prime, he hoped he could still get rid of it. He wasn’t sure if he could handle all the questions in his own mind, let alone whatever it was Ghostbur was talking about. There had to be a way to break the connection because that was what Wilbur did best. It was getting rid of things once they were a lost cause, and Ghostbur’s situation was a lost cause, wasn’t it? Even if Ghostbur wasn’t quite bright enough to realize it himself.

Wilbur and Techno walked outside, the wind reaching Wilbur’s hair and face pleasantly, making him realize that it was before noon. He wondered for a moment, how long he had slept. Wilbur looked at the surroundings properly, now that he was no longer collapsing from exhaustion. “What’s that place over there?” he asked, pointing towards what looked like a solitary house, nearby Phil and Techno’s.

“Oh. That’s Ranboo’s place,” Techno said. He glanced at Wilbur. “You know Ranboo?”

“I met him briefly,” Wilbur simply said, remembering the moments after his revival. The way Tommy had stared at him with fear, Tubbo looking vaguely concerned, the new face that stood slightly behind all of them, and all the words that didn’t matter, because Wilbur was alive, and this was his sunrise. “What’s he like?”

“He’s good.” Techno said, “I don’t know how long he’s going to stay here though.” 

“What do you mean?” Wilbur asked.

Techno breathed deeply. “He just spends less time here is all.” He shrugged, “It’s not my problem. Plus I don’t think I’m the best choice for filling you in.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s with Tubbo now! I- I’m not very sure though, I just know they make each other very happy.”

Ghostbur had mentioned those names together before. The two stood next to each other, at the sight of Wilbur’s revival. Yet it was still odd to hear this stranger mentioned next to the man Wilbur remembered so clearly. The president of the fallen nation. Wilbur would almost say it was a failed nation, but that wouldn’t be true at all. A failed nation would leave him marked as a nobody. No, L’Manburg made everybody know his name. He even got power for a long while. It was all he could ever ask for.

“Soot?”

Wilbur slightly jumped, from the sudden noise, “Yes?” Techno let out a small laugh, but his eyes were tinted with concern that made it feel like it was supposed to comfort the two of them instead of being a genuine expression. “I’m not the best at conversations but I’m pretty sure that isn’t a yes or no question.”

Wilbur nodded, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, ’m just a bit tired. Sleep works a bit differently when you’re alive. Well- I suppose everything is a bit different. What were you asking?”

“Just if you were gonna stay at Phil’s or if you want a house for yourself. I was uh… offering to help if you needed it.” 

“Awww, Techno is trying to be your friend. He seems all big and scary, but we were pretty close! Well- we never really talked or hung out much, but sometimes I saw him searching through some chests and he seems nice. I tried to offer him some blue, but Tommy said not to. Not sure why though.” Despite the topics he was discussing, Ghostbur’s voice stayed passively happy as Wilbur assumed would be a new norm. Yet, he’d never heard of this “blue” before. Maybe Ghostbur was on drugs after all.

“Actually, that might be pretty nice. I’ll admit L’Manburg was a flop, but my house won’t be! What should we call it? I’ve been thinking about what to call it if I started a new nation., or country, tomato potato, and- I think BimBom sounds neat.” 

Techno glanced back at Wilbur, “BimBom was the best you could do? Look, man- I don’t respect government. Y’know, that’s my main thing. But I wouldn’t even respect a girl-scout cookie organization named that.”

Wilbur pouted, “Hey, you try spending thirteen and a half years alone and come up with good ideas.” His words became sharper near the end, becoming defensive as he subconsciously thought Techno would be on his side.

However, Techno only gave him a confused look, “It wasn’t-” he bit his lip, gave Wilbur a quick contemplative look, and turned away, “Nevermind.”

“Oh no, he’s in a bad mood now. You should apologize,” Ghostbur’s voice whined in his head.

“I-” Wilbur was going to claim that he wasn’t going to apologize, but he realized he couldn’t say that without Techno hearing him.

“Don’t worry, everyone gets a bit tongue-tied. I’ll help you!” If only Wilbur could communicate silently with the ghost. “The first word is ‘I’m’ and the second is ‘sorry.’ Words can be a bit hard sometimes, but I’m sure Tech will accept your apology even if you’re a bit bad at it.”

Wilbur frustratedly sighed. He didn’t know if Techno heard it and was pretending not to, or if he genuinely didn’t hear the exhale, but Wilbur was grateful to not be called out about it. Once enough seconds had passed with what he felt was an expectant look from Ghostbur he mumbled a quick “‘M sorry.” just to get the ghost off his back. He caught a nod of acknowledgment from Techno, and let out another breath.

Simultaneously, Wilbur heard what sounded like a relieved sigh in his head. “There we go.” Ghostbur said, “Good job! You’re getting the hang of it, I think. I don’t like it when people are mad. It’s hard to tell sometimes, but it’s good to try to keep them happy.” there was something strained in the last words, as if they held a hint of something less joyful, that someone attempted to shove out.

“We’re here.” Techno stopped walking, only a few steps away from the nether portal. Wilbur instinctively ran his hand along the border of obsidian, it was cool to the touch, and vibrated with a low hum. “We were planning to make a path, but we always had other priorities too.” Techno explained. 

Wilbur nodded and walked towards the portal, only for Techno to grab his arm and pull him back. “For the love of subscribers, are you an idiot?” He heard Ghostbur mumble something, but he didn’t bother to pay attention.

Wilbur pulled his arm out of Technoblade’s grip, “Have nether portals changed since I was last here?”

Techno snorted, “No, but that’s exactly why you shouldn’t be going yet. I’ve got some armor back at my base, even some golden apples I can spare. Unless you’re-” realization spread across his face, “Oh that makes sense.”

“What makes sense?”

“This-” Techno sighed, “This is just a suicide mission, isn’t it?”

Wilbur made a small step away from Technoblade. “What are you even talking about?”

Techno rubbed his head, he looked like he was trying to relieve a headache of some kind. “Look, I know that it’s supposed to be ‘twice is a coincidence and three is a pattern,’ but…” Techno groaned, “I’m not gonna sugar-coat with you. You were reckless before you died, you thought you could walk into a freezin’ cold biome without anything on you, and I don’t need a third time to realize what you could be doin’.”

Wilbur nodded despite not necessarily agreeing with his claims. Wilbur didn’t want to die anymore, and Wilbur wasn’t going to die. That couldn’t possibly be that hard to understand. “L’Manburg was ages ago and I’m a grown man, I can handle myself.” It wasn’t his strongest argument, but he knew he was right in the end.

“You’re the same grown man that thought he could run a nation with one of your dumb protocols bein’ that you don’t wear armor. You might be able to ‘handle’ yourself, but I feel like you’re gonna do a poor job at it.”

Wilbur’s eyes burned with fire, because while he didn’t care deeply, not really, that didn’t mean it was something that could be brushed off so easily. “It- It wasn’t dumb. L’Manburg was my nation-”

“Surely you aren’t blind. It’s in ruins!”

“It doesn’t fucking matter if it’s in ruins! I’ve done more than you will ever achieve in your whole pathetic life.” He shouted harshly, “All you go on about is how you hate governments and orphans, and it’s because you’re nothing more than that. It’s not my fault that I actually make an impact in this world while you’re up in your stupid house because no one can stand being around you.” Wilbur’s chest was heaving at this point, both of his hands curled up into fists.

Technoblade spat out at Wilbur, “Oh my fucking Blood God, Soot. Fine- I promised Phil that I wasn’t going to let you kill yourself, but if you’re so passionate about blindly throwing yourself at whatever comes your way, then go at it.”

Wilbur practically screamed, “Fine, I will!” and with that, he threw himself into the nether portal and felt the purple wisps surround him so loudly that he couldn’t even hear Ghostbur’s pleas. 

[amberstormblade]

Totally Transparent (In All Ways but the Important Ones)

I got socked in the face with a story idea for the @devil-may-care-series universe and this is the first chapter! Since I’m not actually a writer, I have no clue how long this will end up being and only a vague and shifting mental image of where it will end up. Please enjoy and feel free to leave any helpful criticism!

Part 2

Steph had a three day weekend from work and her and Matt were planning on enjoying every last second of it. It was going to be them and Skip vegging on the futon, watching movies and goofing around. Matt had even agreed to put his research on halt and just relax for once. These plans all flew out the window when a distressed sounding Ro called.

“Hello?” Matt answered, after the second ring.

“Matt! Hey, um, I don’t want you to panic but something happened here at the Roadhouse and, well, your brother… well it really would be easier to explain in person. Are you able to come over?” Ro flusteredly replied, trying and failing to hide the panic in her voice.

Worriedly, Matt asks, “Did something happen to Nate? Is he hurt or dying or-”

“No, no, no! He’s, well, he’s okay physically but, like I said, it would be better to explain in person.” Rosanna interrupted.

“Alright, I’ll get there as soon as I can. Should I bring Steph with me? She’s got a long weekend off right now and I’m sure she would want to help out in any way she could.”

“Of course! I was actually hoping she would be able to come. Just, try and get here quick!” Responded Ro.

“Alright, see you soon.” Matt sighed.

The phone clicked, signaling the end of the call. Matt pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to look at Stephanie who had walked into the room halfway through his and Ro’s conversation.

“Looks like we’ll have to put our movies and munchies marathon on hold,” Matt explained, “Nate’s gotten himself into trouble at the Roadhouse but Ro won’t tell me what happened.”

“Ah, man! You pack the gear, I’ll grab the tech and notes.” 

Steph took the news rather well and within a few hours of receiving the original call, they had arrived at their destination. The sun was getting low in the sky, helping to highlight the oddity of the almost empty parking lot. For a Thursday night, they had expected more than just Ro and Nate to be there. Then again, Rosanna did say that something had happened recently. The couple walked through the entrance, and stopped dead in their tracks.

                                        ---------------------------------------

Nate had been trying to have a normal life recently. Well, as normal a life as a hunter of supernatural entities with a head full of ghosts could have. He’d taken up work at the Roadhouse; cleaning, making drinks, taking inventory, usual restaurant activities. He had even been making friends with some of the regulars! So when he woke up actually excited about life, (he was supposed to have cooking lessons with Ro later and that was always fun), he was very confused, and slightly concerned, about why his body was still in bed. He reached out to poke it, but then noticed that something was wrong with his hand. It was transparent! He could see his hand but he could also see the bed and himself through it. He turned around to look in the mirror over his dresser only to find that the transparency wasn’t contained to just his one limb. His entire body was slightly see-through and would occasionally flicker around the edges. In the back of his mind, he thought about how similar his current state looked in comparison to how Charlie appeared. In the front of his mind, he was screaming. He was also screaming out loud though, which is what brought Rosanna barreling through his door. 

“Nate! What’s wro-“ she cut herself off as she took in the body on the bed and his ghostly appearance. “Oh… Oh my goodness! How… How did this even- And Why?”

“I-I don’t know! I literally just woke up and- oh gosh, am I dead! Did I like, die in my sleep? Can you see if my body has a pulse or something?” Nate fumbled over some of his words as his mind raced to process what was happening to him. 

Ro edged over to the bed and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, trying to find some sign of life. 

“Well, your body has a pulse, and seems to be breathing, too.” Both of them let out a sigh of relief at that. “From what I can tell, your physical body is just...  sleeping? I guess that’s the best way to explain it. Maybe this is like an astral projection type thing?”

“Doesn’t astral projection require you to actually try to project yourself? You need to be all calm and focused and crap, and we both know that I’m none of those things!” Nate’s form flickers suddenly as a strong jolt of anxiety washes through him. “Ah! What the heck was that!” His form flickers more as his panic increases. He would probably be sobbing out of fear and confusion by now if it hadn’t been drilled into him from a young age that men, and hunters, don’t cry. Instead, he smothered his emotions and took in a few deep breaths. “What should we do about this? There’s got to be some way to reverse whatever this is, right?”

“Honestly, I don’t have a clue! I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before. I do have some books I’ve collected from hunters over the years that we can look through. Maybe one of them has something?” Ro reached over to comfort Nate by placing her hand on his shoulder and surprised both of them when she was actually able to make contact with him. “Oooh! I didn’t think about that! You still feel solid like this, but also kind of... fuzzy? It’s like what a cloud might feel like if you could touch one, solid and soft, but not all there.”

“Well good to know I can still interact with things like people but, we should probably go test it out with those books now.” Nate says, unsure of what to do with that information.

The two head out of Nate’s room into the main area to where a little bookshelf sits, practically unnoticed, near the door. The shelves are loaded full of various books on a wide variety of topics ranging from cooking to the formation of black holes to American poetry from the mid 1800’s. Most of the books were for decoration, to fill up the shelf and give it justification for existing but the top shelf was dedicated to books left behind by hunters who, for one reason or another, never bothered to retrieve them. Ro and Nate each grabbed half of that shelf and set up a sort of study section at one of the empty tables. Ro left for a second to go grab a plate of peanut butter cookies she had made earlier that morning and set them on the table for the two of them to snack on. She was surprised when half an hour later, there were still cookies on the plate. She looked at Nate with worry upon noticing this. He always loved her peanut butter cookies.

It was another two hours when Ro made a decision. “We should call Matt and Steph. They might be able to help us search through this stuff easier. It would also be nice to have someone search online for a solution so we have something to fall back on in case these books don’t have anything.”

“Are you sure?” Nate asks, looking up from his reading. “I wouldn’t want to bother them…” He runs a hand through his hair as his form flickers a bit.

“Nate, we’re getting nowhere searching on our own. I think it’s time to call in some help.” With that, Ro turned and headed into the kitchen, already dialing Matt. Nate sighed and continued reading. 

He must have gotten too absorbed in the book because the next thing Nate knew, the door to the Roadhouse was opening and Matt and Steph were bustling through the entrance and staring at him in shock.

[multifandom-stranger]

4 . 10 . 16

The Broken Few Pt. 2

Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3

Genre: Angst, but like more light-hearted because my heart needed a break

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Some swearing here and there

That night Mark came back to the apartment he could barely keep his shit together. He wasn’t depressed by any means. He was pissed off to no end. Mark had this sudden wake up call as he ran back to the new place he called home. Why did he ever listen to that foster dad of his? He held no power over him, had no real connection to him, and Mark could care less what that shit parental figure thought of him. This epiphany had him sitting on a big bean bag in the corner of the eclectic room completely zoned. For the other boys it was even weirder to see the poor kid up at 1 AM staring off into space. Taeyong had left to go do something and so did Ten. Doyoung was the only one conscious in the room since Jaehyin passed out around 10:30. “Kid, you good? Where did you run off to anyway?” Doyoung got up from his spot where he had been sitting with his knees tucked under his arms as he hunched over his phone. The older boy shuffled his way over till he was now lying on the floor, his head propped up by the same beanbag Mark placed himself upon hours ago.  “Go ahead. Speak.”  Doyoung said in a sarcastic tone that drew out a small laugh from the two of them.

“I’m just amazed at how much I’ve let other people control me. For the dumbest reasons as well. It makes no sense why I let myself suffer for so long when I could do something the whole time.” Mark finally let his gaze fall to Doyoung who looked up at him with thoughtful eyes. 

“Maybe we were the push you needed. Something to prove there’s a way out and a place of belonging.” He gave Mark a small nudge to his leg before seeing if he could push a bit further without getting too deep. “Still didn’t answer my last question.” Mark took a deep breath before nudging him back with his knee.

 “Maybe another time. It’s really late so we should get some sleep.” Doyoung chuckled and started to saunter off to his little cot in the corner of the room. “Beddy-bye for the little one.” He teased before plopping down with a smile. “Night hyung.” Mark said with a hint of his laughter carrying over into his words. 

The next morning when he woke up their tiny room was rather full. Ten and Taeyong had come back at some point in the night and now were asleep in their beds. Well, not beds. Taeyong had the other extra large bean bag and Ten had this cool hammock setup where he hung it from these really sketchy makeshift hooks. He shifted as quietly as he could to not wake anyone as he headed to the outside area at the rooftop surrounding their little home. Mark was simply trying to get some fresh air so the last thing he expected was another person to be sleeping outside on the large wooden table out there. Some dude with short grey hair and sharp eyes was lying on his stomach and holding his phone in front of him. Once Mark let the door close a bit louder than expected, though it wasn’t loud enough to wake the others, the man looked over at Mark. “Uh, hey?” He said as awkwardly as he normally would when meeting strangers.

“Sup kid. I heard you're the newbie.” The unknown man shifted till he was sat criss-cross on the platform. He patted the spot next to him casually but Mark was very curious and hesitant to sit. As far as he knew this was just some dude who snuck up to catch some z’s somewhere. Then again, he had a feeling new faces were gonna come at him left and right. “I’m Taeil. Also a part of the family so no need to… look at me like that.” 

“Huh? Oh uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to stare.” Mark rubbed at the back of his neck as he apologized for the accidental unnecessarily long stare. What was he supposed to do? He just bumped into some new dude in a new place. He was beginning to worry about fitting in. How many people were there anyways? What did they really do? He still had too many questions and concerns about something he already swore a blood oath to. A hand waved in front of his face to catch his attention after another hardcore zoning out session.

“Hello?~ Earth to new kid. Wanna introduce yourself or will I have to just call you newbie forever?” Taeil was already taken by the poor kid. Taeyong had texted him about a new member to their little family last night. He could see he was probably still trying to figure out what the hell was even going on in his life. It was just so sad to see kids like him join though. Mark was young looking, probably not even eighteen yet and here he was living with them now. The only upside that lessened the pull at Taeil’s heartstrings was the idea that at least with the family these poor kids off the street may have a chance in this world. Something slightly better than before at the very least.

Mark snapped his head to Taeil and apologized again under his breath before another shy introduction. Before he could finish a thud was heard from behind them.”Yah! You fucks woke me up with the-”  Mark jumped a bit and whipped his head over to the source of the voice yelling at them. Taeil lulled his head over to the small shack that was outside the actual apartment to see Kun peeked out the door to it. 

“Meet Kun. Our local Chinese nagging mom.” Taeil said with much amusement in his voice. Mark was really thrown off at this point. First a man sleeping outside, not an angry man in the shed. What next, someone popping out from the roof? Kun was flustered as well. He hadn't even said hi to the kid before screaming at him. Not really his style. Not at all. 

“Ha, good morning. Your name's Mark, right? I’m sorry I yelled. I just really like my sleep.” Kun slumped his way over, seemingly still half asleep. He stuck a hand out to Mark, which was taken and shook by the younger boy. “I claimed the shed because I was promised quiet anyways.” An awkward slightly ticked laugh followed. Man, what a character.

“Thanks for waking the whole family fatso.” Taeyong chirped in, his head peeking from behind the door to the apartment. “What are you doing with the baby? Mother’s should treat their kiddos nice after all.” He stuck his tongue out at Kun before ducking back into the home for safety. Taeyong was well aware of the nagging he’d receive, even at eight AM, from Kun and he was not having any of it. Not this damn early. 

The three on the rooftop were left to stare at the door in silence before Taeyong peeked around it once more in a rush. “Oh, and all three of you get in here. Time to break in down for said baby.” He pointed to Mark with a big grin before leaving once again in a flash. 

“Best not to fight it. Come on guys.” Taeil said as he got up with a stretch and quick yawn. Kun followed suit without a word and he patted Mark’s shoulder gently. Mark got up as well and followed the other two into the small building. It was two rooms, and yet they found a way to fit all seven of them in the small space. Mark and Doyoung sat upon his big bean bag, Ten and Kun were on the hammock, Jaehyun and Taeil on the cot, and Taeyong sat on the other bean bag. The gang's all here.

“Alright Mark, you’ve already met Kun and Taeil I see. There’s still more people to come though. Yuta’s off with Winwin trying to ease up some conflict we’ve been having on the streets.” Jaehyin scoffed at the mention of the fights. It was so dumb. Recently a gang on the streets of Seoul had been giving them shit for running activities in their area. They called themselves Got7, and they were known for their wide and vast network of connections. Jaehyun had only met them once to discuss the very topic of who got which parts of the city to roam around. He was rather upset to hear that they had told Taeyong that their family was breaking the agreement even though they had not once had anyone cross any lines. His best bet was that those bastards were trying to cheat them out of land simply because they could. They were bigger, better, and more powerful so they easily could corner their rag tag group of kids. He was pissed. 

“So, today is the day we go over what we do and then send you off to do it. So far we do work for hire and take fees from local businesses as well. That’s our main income. It used to be a lot of petty crime like pickpocketing and breaking into cars, but we’ve made somewhat of a name for ourselves. No more of that shit.” Taeyong was hoping the kid wouldn’t freak out and bail. Most of the time they were hesitant, which was understandable. Some people, like Kun who patches them up, just aren’t meant for the life they lead. “Also, how old are you exactly? Not that it particularly matters.”

Mark gave a confused look before responding with “Seventeen. Why?” He was kind of lost as to how this related to anything they were talking about. What could Taeyong be getting at? Taeyong smiled and clapped his hands once for emphasis. He looked oddly satisfied.

“You also gotta get one of these. Can you show him Doyoung?” Douyoung nodded before pulling up his sleeve and revealing a small tattoo. Mark looked over to see the long and thin letters that spelled out NCT. He tilted his head and furrowed his brows. He had no clue what was going on or what that even meant. 

“Wait a sec. You’re saying I’m gonna get that tattooed on me? What’s it mean and why?” 

“Where you from kid?” Jaehyun asked out of the blue. Once again, Mark hardly saw any relation to the current subject. What’s with these random questions to answer his own questions?

“Canada originally. Could you please just answer one damn question I’ve asked” 

“It stands for Neo Culture Tech. It means we want to spread our family’s ideals to the world in our own way. So, for example,  you came all the way from Canada and now are a part of it. Ten’s from Thailand, Kun and Winwin are from China, Yuta is from Japan.” Jaehyun sighed seeing that Mark was still a bit lost. He could see in the unchanged look on his face that was true. “You get the fucking tattoo to rep the family. It’s like an ID to prove your one of us if you run into trouble. God.” All Jaehyun could think was that Mark was just dense enough to be slightly annoying. He’d have to prove himself useful in his own waay at some point.

Mark could clearly tell he was not on Jaehyun’s good side. He came off as very blunt and result oriented to Mark. A man who just wants to get shit done as soon as possible but still does it right. Probably made him very good at whatever he did. Mark made it a point to especially work hard around him and be on his game.

“Ease up on him Jaehyun.” Taeyong butted in after Jaehyun had stopped. He knew how Jaeyhun could get with these newer boys sometimes and it seemed to be worse than usual with Mark. The reason why was something he’d never know but he wasn’t having any hatred. Not in his family. “Know what, you and Ten can take him on the day's errands as well as getting tatted up! Isn’t that just lovely?” He gave a shit-eating grin as he leaned over just enough to lay an arm over Jaehyun’s shoulder and make eye contact quite obviously. Jaehyun closed his eyes and sighed knowing full why he chose the three. 

“Got it. Let’s head out guys.” Jaehyun said flatly as he rose to his feet, brushing Taeyong off. Ten got up with a smile and made his way to Mark in quick, eager steps. He pushed him playfully from behind to tease.

“Let’s go newb! Time to learn the ropes!” Mark went along with it easily and walked out the door with Ten following right behind. Jaehyun left last, rolling his eyes at the duo’s antics. All three of them were certain this was gonna be one hell of a day, for different reasons obviously.

The trio headed for the streets with Jaehyun leading the way as Ten and Mark held a light conversation the whole way. He would rarely add in his thoughts or remark on their silly topics. Mark was slowly learning to like Jaehyun. He certainly could throw in his own sarcastic remarks on a whim and end up cracking the other two up. It was surprising to Mark and welcome to Ten.  Ten and Mark hadn’t talked much till now and boy did they seem to get along. Both were childish in nature and liked to have fun. It was like talking with an old friend, yet this was their first real chat. All in all, the three of them were slowly growing on each other.

Mark and Ten were lucky to have Jaehyun around since they could barely tell any time had passed at all. Their seemingly short journey had already led them to a small tattoo shop lit up by neon lights that spelled out open even though it was a bright and sunny morning in the city. Mark peered into the shop windows to see that not much was going on in the small building. There were empty chairs he could see from the back and one girl at the counter with all the artbooks of designs on display. All three of them entered the tattoo parlor to be greeted by the rather pretty girl.

“Hiya boys. ‘Nother new face, huh?” Jaehyun and Ten struck up a bit of small talk with the girl for a while before she leaned over to a quiet and curious Mark. “Alright cutie, head to the back and I’ll take care of you real nice.~” She added a wink just to tease the young boy to which Mark could only blush a bit and remain silently flustered. 

“Thanks again Sunmi. We owe you.” Ten sang out as Mark followed said girl to the back. She gestured for him to sit with grace before getting inks and her machine ready. 

“Okay hun, you know where you want it?” Mark though on it a bit. He’d obviously never had a tattoo before since he was still underage. Wait… It was just now occurring to him this was kinda illegal. He had a feeling this would be far on the tame side of things to come so fuck it. If he wanted to commit to this shit, he was gonna really commit. “Can I get it here?” He places a hand over his heart. Why he did so was a simple reason. He already felt like he got along with these boys better than anyone else who had come into his life beforehand. Taeyong instantly empathized with his pains and struggles. Not in a patronizing way, but as someone understanding; Someone who lived it. Him and Ten were already friends as far as he was concerned. All the others opened right up to him with full honesty. Even Jaehyun was nice to Mark in his own way. He was family now and he meant it with all his heart to stick together. Especially if Taeyong planned to help others like him get to a better place in life. 

Sunmi smiled at him before nodding. “You got it. Now off with the shirt.” 

“Huh?” Mark huffed out a little louder than intended. “Oh uh- Yeah.” Sunmi could only giggle at the young boy’s antics. The boy was just too shy, sweet, and awkward. She hoped he had what it took to live the life of a Neo Tech member. Mark pulled his t shirt over his head and continued to sit there looking like a fucking dope. He shifted back and forth before Sunmi came back over to transfer the stencil to his chest with ease. From then on Mark made no eye contact, even when spoken to by the sweet girl. He also noticed the stifled laughter from not only Ten but Jaehyun as well. He leaned over to see them both doubled over and laughing to themselves. Or so they thought. “Hey!” He hollered at the two with a new subtle blush forming on his cheeks. That only caused the two of them to continue their laughter freely and stumble around a bit. 

After Mark leaned back to a comfortable place again Sunmi held up her tattoo machine with a half smile. “Wanna know what it feels like first?”

“Sure.” A small hum was heard as she switched it on and pulled Mark by the hand. She placed the machine to the skin of his forearm causing Mark to jump just a little bit at the unfamiliar feeling. He scoffed with amusement due to the fact that it wasn’t that bad at all. “Not as bad as I thought it’d be.”

“I’m surprised, kid. Just doing this has made some people back out.” She pulled back and dipped into her ink. “Ready for the real deal”

“Go ahead.”

After a not so bad session of tattooing with small talk between Sunmi and Mark he finished up like a champ according to her. She covered the tattoo and told him how to care for it. Mark put his shirt back on. He thanked her with a smile before heading back to the front of the building again. Sat there was Tan and Jaehyun who both smiled and smirked respectively once he entered.

“What?” He asked flat out. Jaehyun shook his head and both him and Ten ros to their feet. 

“Tell ya in a bit.” He said with much amusement, something rare for Jaehyun. He headed to the door, the other boys joining him as they all waved and said their goodbyes. “Thanks again Sunmi. You’re the best.” 

She smiled and leaned over the counter with a coy smile. “Bye guys,” She made direct eye contact with Mark before adding “Hope to see you soon.~” with a quick wink. Mark was once again left a blushing awkward little kid. He gave her a shy wave once more before leaving with the others. Once they had left the beauty alone at the small counter of the shop she sighed. “If only he was older.” 

The moment the boys were past the building and on the streets again he was met with a swift slap to the back from Jaehyun. “Damn dude.” He chuckled at Mark’s obvious confusion before Ten joined him just like before.

“What?! I don’t get it. Tell me what’s so damn funny to you two!” 

“Poor thing doesn't even know!” Ten managed to choke out in between wheezes and fits of laughter. The youngest was looking back and forth at them, as if that would give him an answer quicker.

“First of all, you are soooo fucking awkward.” He patted a hand on Mark’s shoulder for emphasis. “Second, your one lucky kid.” 

Mark persisted to question them over and over as to what the hell they were talking about only to be met with more chuckles and grins but never an answer until finally Jaehyun gave in. “Did she kiss the stencil?” 

Mark thought back to sitting there in the chair and staring off into space. He did see Sunmi raise it to her face at one point. He thought it was to look at or something. He didn’t really put much thought into it till now because why would he? “Yeah, I think she did.”

Ten elbowed Jaehyun harshly, almost pushing him into a passerby. “See! Called that shit. You owe me.”

“Ohmygodcouldyoujusttellmealready!” Mark groaned out, highly frustrated. Why was he always left out of the loop?

“Means you're gonna do well. That and she likes you. The only time she does that is when she gets a good feeling about someone so we consider it a lucky sign.” Jaehyun finally explained.

Mark tilted his head a bit. “Who else did she do that for?” 

“Taeyong, Kun, Yuta, and you so far. And me of course.” He nudged Ten back just as hard, almost sending him into the side of a building. “One of these things isn’t like the other.” He teased.

Ten rolled his eyes after recovering his balance and shot back with, “Whatever man, not like it matters too much. Let’s just go get to work already.” 

Once again Jaehyun led the trio to their destination. Though Mark had no idea where it was or what they’d do he was surprised at how good he felt. He was oddly excited to see what his future with the family truly held.

Author’s note: Hiiii! I feel like I wanna explain a bit of my story so that they have a bit more meaning so expect a post dedicated to that soon. Also, I’m SO HYPE FOR MANDATORY JACKSON CAMEO. You know I had to. Aaaaanyways, thanks for reading! The next chapter will finally get into the serious stuff so if that’s what your waiting for then stuck around! Also, low key messing with format and stuff so let me know if it’s still okay. Love ya all! ❤️

[thegeneralsnotebook]

July Feature: History of Colours Part 3 -- Purple

One of the things that I was a little afraid of going into this series about the histories of each of the main colours was that after the first few entries, the series would start to get a bit dry. I would have already talked about the big decks and so the later colours wouldn’t have a whole lot left to mention that hadn’t already been said. So far at least, I’m glad to say that this hasn’t happened, and now it looks like maybe it’ll be okay. After all, we’ve got a lot of important cards to mention when we get to Pink, and again when we get to Orange, and again when we get to Blue. So I don’t think that we’re going to run into any problems on that front at all. In any case, this month is about Purple, and it’s a colour that has its own narrative to tell.

That, by the way, is another thing which has surprised me so far in my research. Each of the colours so far has had a relatively nice theme emerge around their history as I pulled it together. Yellow’s was a tale of a brilliant beginning, a long period of loss, and then a slow but strong rebirth. White’s was a surprisingly thematic tale of a colour that, while it had given up the spotlight, had never given up the stage. For Purple, things are a little different, but no less appropriate, especially given the colour’s new royal connotations. Purple, I’ve found, has been a colour all about establishing dynasties, lines of decks passing a torch from one generation to the next, traceable back to a touchstone concept from older times. It was impressive how far back some of these lines reached, and indeed a few decks that I had thought emerged from whole cloth were actually perched on the shoulders of past giants that I had never even heard of before. 

Before we get started, I want to again extend heartfelt thanks to my source on all matters of the predate my experience with the game’s competitive scene: the one and only Emperor Bugle. This time I really would have been up the creek if not for him, though we’ll get to that particular event in its due time.

For now, come along with me, as we unveil the saga of the Dynasties of Purple.

Two big cards with big effects, but generally used for slightly different things.

Formative Days

As with all of the colours, the story of Purple has to begin at the beginning, at the dawn of Premier. There were three major decks featuring Purple at the time, but I have covered Royal Guidance and Taxes in the Yellow and White articles respectively, and I won’t be going into further detail on them here. Instead, let’s focus on our first touchstone, though in this case the torch first lit by Big Bombs was not to be picked up by Purple, and instead was eventually passed to a different colour, which we’ll talk about in its due time.

Now, I would not be surprised by a slight sense of deja vu encountered when first clicking on that link, because indeed this early deck does bear a striking resemblance to some Harmony Purple Farming decks that have been active as recently as this year’s Winter Store Championships. The modern versions have significantly less Friends, different Epics, and some useful Resources in them, but the basic idea is absolutely still the same. PR Twilight contributes well to fighting Epics when paired with a lot of extra flip Events and a high-flipping deck in general. In addition the deck features a good host of what Purple control tools existed at the time, capped off by the brilliant Ursa Vanquisher, a card which may or may not be showing up again in this article a little ways down the page. Indeed, this was Farming before the term “Farming” was even part of the CCG vernacular. And, your eyes do not deceive you where that Full Steam in the upper left is considered. Once upon a time, a 4/0/4 vanilla actually did deserve to be a Rare, and especially in a deck so focused on its flips it was an excellent card to have.

As we move along into Canterlot Nights, we come to a deck that I’ve mentioned before, in the moment that it came during White’s article. I gave it little more than a footnote at that time, but I don’t believe that this time I can get by without giving it a full treatment. Unfortunately, I am also not qualified to properly discuss the minutiae of its construction, so for that I will defer to my source, who has written rather extensively on the topic. I refer of course to One Pace (and seriously do block some time from your schedule if you intend on clicking that link; when I said Bugle had written extensively I wasn’t kidding). One Pace is an important deck for a lot of reasons, and probably could serve as the basis for a whole article all on its own. From my research I can confidently enough say that what you see in there is the foundation upon which combo was built, a formulation of reduced-cost Events and deck-thinning that rings eerily recognizable even today. History may not repeat itself, as Mark Twain said, but it sure does often rhyme.

Finally, we close off these early days with a little list that may not have ever captured much in the way of tournament success, but certainly captured a fair few hearts and minds in its time in the public eye. This being the Antisocial Luna Farming deck that first came at the concept of building a deck with no Friends, and was a popular-enough topic of discussion.

The times, they were a’changin, and Purple was finding its stride.

The Great Realignment

Every one of these articles, I’ve realized, is going to contain a section that could plausibly be headlined by DJ and Maud, even in the colours other than Orange and Pink. Simply put, Rock & Rave was such a momentous and seminal event in the history of the game that the time before and the time after it must be kept separate from each other.

In Purple’s case, however, there was at least a small amount of time before the Great Pink & Orange War fully took hold where one new dynasty was able to be laid down, and what an important dynasty it wound up being. At this point, we have advanced to the 2014 NA Continental Championships, and within the Top 8 of that event there were two important Purple decks.

The first was the winner of the whole thing, a deck named Maudlike, notable for being one of the very first competitively successful tri-colour lists, and itself a harbinger of things to come with its relatively slow, Farming/Control oriented playstyle. Indeed, while Maud was to become best-known in a pure Farming context, her strengths in a Control deck willing to use her Power to consistently confront Problems have also been broadly recognized throughout history. And yes, here we see Ursa Vanquisher again, still devastatingly effective at defending Troublemakers in a world so lacking in other ways of dealing with them.

But in actuality I think that it is the other Purple list that appears in the Top 8 that is the more important one to take note of. It’s a deck that I personally had never heard of before doing this research, but it appears that it may be the progenitor of the Vinyl/Purple control dynasty, which as we all know eventually led to brilliant success. Unfortunately the original primer for the deck has since been removed from Reddit, but here again Bugle saved me, and so I can present to you Charlotte’s Tower. The key theme that I would pull from this deck is repeatability, as so many of its key control features are repeatable, and especially difficult to deal with in an era where Resource removal was not always considered quite so essential as it is today. It’s easy to see the hallmarks of features that we would come to expect in a modern control deck, with targeted answers against opposing Troublemakers, limited but effective removal, and so much value generation, whether it be AT with All Team Organizer, or cards with DJ. It’s an important piece of history, so I was very happy when this decklist surfaced.

Now, as we move on to the Absolute Discord era, it is true that Purple’s fortunes fade somewhat. Pink and Orange rose to the fore, and there will be more to write about this time as we get to those colours. But I do want to make two important notes here.

The first concerns Princess Luna, The Setting Moon, a card which entered the game in Celestial Solstice and left an indelible impression, particularly in the field of combo. I don’t believe that I’ve managed to avoid mentioning Dragon Express in any of the previous articles, but I’ll save the full writeup for one of the most infamous decks in history for the Orange article.

The second is about a deck that I discovered while hunting around for decklists of the other items on this list. It hadn’t come up in my discussion with Bugle, but the contemporary sources mentioned it as a “meta” deck of the time period, so I thought it was probably worth including. It went by the name of Dusk Radiance Mastery, and is mostly closely viewed as an evolution of the ideas first expressed in Royal Guidance, though with a few key updates. Most notable at the time was the inclusion of Twilight Sparkle, Friendship is Magic as the Mane. It also included some fine tech to deal with the meta, like Critter Stampede to crush One Pace’s needed 6 AT to play its Element of Magic. A fine inheritor of what was at the time a flickering flame. Not to fear, though. Unlike Yellow, Purple’s time in the shadows turned out to be very brief.

Stride found.

EO Block: The Age of Legends

EO Block is where the modern Purple story really starts. All at once, the colour got a lot of amazing cards. And then it got even more in HM. And then even more in MT. The result was a colour that was a juggernaut in competitive play, with multiple viable archetypes, and a foundation for a dynasty that was set to last a long time.

Before we talk about decklists, there are a number of individual cards that need to be mentioned. The first is the new Mane Character that the colour received in EO: Princess Twilight Sparkle, Ambassador of Friendship. It didn’t take long for people to realize that Purple’s new keyword in the set, Meticulous, was an excellent ability for Control, and this card’s ability to start making it happen on Turn 2 when paired with Ancient Research as a starting Problem was a great starting point for any Control deck. Plus, Twilight got you extra AT too, a theme that was going to keep building as more sets came out. HM granted the colour Princess Twilight Sparkle, Cover to Cover, an absurd value generator that quickly earned a reputation as an automatic inclusion in virtually any Purple deck. And finally, there is the Purple EO Event suite, backstopped by the card that eventually got banned, Interdimensional Portal.

Portal, by the way, was already doing unfortunate things as soon as EO released, though at the time everyone was blaming the new Pink/White Bulk Biceps. All Tied Up, which made a strong impression on the scene before being quite swiftly banned, offered only a taste of what was to come. In addition to using Portal for its more traditional Control roles, that deck was able to take advantage of a fortuitous interaction with Bulk to create an infinite supply of 2-AT Immediate speed removal.

HM and MT were where the colour really hit its stride though, with HM offering us another touchstone, Zipporwhil and the dynasty of classical Purple/X control that followed it. By the time MT hit and gave us Purple/White multicolour cards for the first time, White was cemented as the dominant secondary colour for Purple, and the combination became a mainstay in tournaments all over the world. The two colours admittedly suffered somewhat from being incredibly slow when paired together, and often failed to win within the allotted time limit even if they would have theoretically pulled ahead if given infinite time. But Purple had established one of its most successful dynasties, and one that would continue right up to the establishment of Core.

However, Purple/White was not the only important multicolour combination that we got from MT. Indeed yet another dynasty was going to be founded, this one utilizing Orange, and blazing a trail for classical Chaos Control, best typified by Grand Pause’s Waking Nightmare, here depicted in its 2016 NA Continentals T8 form. Similar to how archetypal Purple/White control relied on Eff Stop to replay control-oriented Events, so too could these make use of cycled Chaos effects to frustrate an opponent’s attempts to break down its walls. This also maintained its form for quite a while and inspired many successors, including (one assumes) the Chaos Control that New Dawn seems likely to bring us.

Oh, by the way, Tantabuse was somewhere in here too, and included some Purple, but I will get to it in its own due time.

Finally, rounding off the EO Block, there was another entry in the 2016 NA Continentals worth mentioning, Too Spoopy, placing in the T16. This Blue/Purple combination was something of an oddity for its time, playing Purple at an extremely anomalous speed. Even so, its combination of large amounts of frighten synergy and strong Events from both of its colours proved potent.

Some dynasties are built to last.

The Modern Era

The start of Defenders of Equestria, even though it wasn’t actually the beginning of the Core format, is still the point I use as the beginning of the current “Modern Era” of the CCG. And from this point forward, most of the decks being covered here should be relatively familiar to most of the readership. Essentially through this era Purple remained the King (or should I perhaps say Princess) of value, though Ambassador began to fall off somewhat in favour of a resurgent DJ Mane. While DE may be remembered generally as the era of Hot Wings, and of Pink in general, Purple still managed to feature on both sides of the 2017 NA Continental Final.

Bugle’s eventual winning deck Vinyl’s Bag of Tricks was already mentioned in the White article, and will get its full credit in the Pink article. Instead, I want to dedicate this space to discussion of the deck that got 2nd, the one simply and poetically called Butts.

In some senses, as a DJ/Purple control deck, Butts appeared superficially similar to the broad direction that Purple was going in around this time. Indeed, watching the Finals match between these two offered a… qualified form of thrills, but I can personally attest that it was a grand thing to watch. When we dig closer into Butts though, it becomes plain that this is a deck absolutely going its own way. Most obvious is the 53 card total, even now an extreme anomaly, and quite a bit more so in an era where consistency was absolutely everything when playing control. But probably even more important than that is the fact the deck is only playing two colours, and bucked the by-then nearly-universal trend of splashing White for Eff Stop and point acceleration. Instead, eminently_sensible committed to making it work with only two colours, and it’s a testament to his own skill that he was able to make it work so well. Per usual on these important and highly-technical decks, I defer to the author himself, in the link above.

Now, that brings us to the Beyond Block, and, thankfully for me, brings the end of this article into clear sight. Not so quickly though, because no sooner did Seaquestria get started than we saw another dynasty laid down, its echoes and heirs still making themselves felt in the present day. That deck was BRB, here depicted in its 2018 NA Continentals incarnation, reaching second as piloted by George Z. Purple and Pink yet again come together, but in the new Core format and so decidedly changed from their past allegiance. BRB was a cornerstone deck in the realignment of the Control playstyle that was happening in the aftermath of the first Core rotation, and while honest debate persists as to whether it can be correctly referred to as a Control deck, I personally fall on the side that says it is. This simply was what Control had become in the new era, no longer so reliant on Troublemakers but much more keen on removal and taking its points from confronts and faceoffs when they were available. It’s even perhaps somewhat fitting that it passed its torch on to the same three colours that Bugle had won with in 2017, completing a thematic loop as Tempest Pink/White emerged as the Control standard-bearer in a meta that was getting swamped by the resurgent Yellow. Notably, there was a Blue variant as well that managed to reach 2nd Place at the 2019 EFNW tournament.

Finally, rounding out the notable modern decks, we do have one more that could form a dynasty all its own, that being Alicorn Tribal as popularized by i8Pages in an Everfree Northwest T4 from 2019. Certainly it’s an open question for the future to see if that style of deck will see any heirs, but in a world where tri-corns are going to keep being a thing it’s a reasonable guess to make that there exists some potential for it.

New Dawn: Looking Ahead

Purple has enjoyed an amazingly storied history over the course of the development of the game’s meta. Many trends and larger arcs owe their beginning to an idea that was originally expressed with a Purple deck, and in the present day the colour has a well-earned reputation for being very good at the things it does: control, Troublemakers, and value through AT generation. What this means though, is that New Dawn is shaping up to offer an exciting, if uncertain future. Current signs point to some novel directions to the colour, with a firmer eye toward farming, and some legitimate arrows pointing in the direction of aggro. And if there should be any theme that jumps out about the history of Purple, it should be the relative lack of effective aggro. Thus the onset of New Dawn appears to be precisely that where Purple is concerned, and who knows if next year we will even recognize the colour that it has become. Yet even then, I think we can rest assured when we look back on this era, we’ll be able to trace a line of decks owing their inspiration and substance to an important foundation that emerged somewhere in the mists of the new set.

[protagonistprepblog]

Protagonist Prep Ch 9 Team Time

All respective characters belong to their respective owners.

             Deep within the school all of the teachers were inside a room discussing a topic that concerned the students, this room was huge nearly two hundred feet wide and long, it’s ceiling round with images of various battles involving the teachers, and it was lit by a chandelier that made entirely out of fireballs of varying sizes. Normally in this type of room one would normally hear laughter and recollections of past victories or battles, instead only roars of arguments and anger were heard in that room.

 “Sargent, you can not be serious about this decision!” Barrage roared out in surprise, well granted he worked with Drooler he should start to expect surprise by now.

 “No, I’m Drooler.” Drooler told the bronze being with a completely straight face with tone being both serious and jovial, this caused the group of teachers to let out a groan. Like the surprises they should’ve gotten use to the terrible dad jokes but that doesn’t mean the jokes were any less terrible.

 “Fine no more dad jokes but I am serious about my decision.” Drooler told the group his voice no longer carrying a jovial tone, this caused the uproar to increase in the room loud enough to shake the fire chandelier.

 “Jefe are you sure about this, most of those ninos aren’t exactly amigos or the team type.” Ghost said remembering how Chloe and Marinette went at each other’s throats, from the observation videos they had to watch before letting the kids come to school though he was confused why Jefe was grinning like a Chesire when any romance happened.

 “Got to agree with spikes, leave those kids alone for a few minutes and they’ll tear each other part like sharks tearing apart a carcass.” Boulder said adding his two cents, thinking about how hostile Sashi and Gaz would act when faced with social interaction with others. The former a bit more than the latter considering Gaz would just ignore them but Sashi would react rather violently.

 ‘Heck, those two would probably maim someone if their buttons got pushed too hard.’ Boulder thought to himself, though he didn’t realize that familiar bird like was listening in and disagreed with the thought.

 “Actually Boulder, I have seen Ms.Membrane in action and she is willing to work with others. “Tech told the wolf dragon hybrid, who just glared at him and let loose a warning growl.

 “Now no fighting we can’t add to the chaos, but I do have do agree with Tech those children can work together at times.” Behemoth said both scolding the two and defending the idea.

 “I gotta agree with da boss, sooner or later dose kids are going to form a teams sooner or later.” Jack told the group throwing his hat in the ring with agreement of the idea, but all that did was increase volume of the argument. It took over a hour for things to quiet down, even then it was louder than a space shuttle taking off. Luckily all that ended when Zizzoro was tired of the bickering and just zapped almost everyone in the room leaving them a little annoyed.

 “If all you will stop acting like a nest of hatchlings, I believe I have an idea.” Zizzoro told them his tone stern and his gaze steely, the group slowly began to settle down though they won’t forget the little zap they got.

 “Anyway, the idea is that we test the kids in a holodome and one of us will monitor them. From the data we collected we find out which kids do the best with each other and from those interaction we form a team, next we assign a teacher to watch over them.” Zizzoro told, across the room there were mummers of agreement and it was much better than Drooler’s original plan. So with a chorus of cheers the teachers began to put the plan into action, so the next morning Zizzoro tapped the combination on the wall and dropped to his arms to walk through the hole. To his disbelief the students were already dressed and awake ready to start the today, also so that they wouldn’t experience anymore surprises.

                         “Huh, you guys are up early.” Zizzoro told them surprised, from what he learned about human teen is that they preferred to sleep in late and usually tried to avoid waking up or getting out of bed.

 “Well if we didn’t want anything else to be destroyed.” Sashi told him as she gestured to the girl’s dorm door, which was still crumbled up in a ball, and the boy’s dorm door, as it still laid flat on the ground. Zizzoro made a mental note to remind Drooler that new doors were needed.

 “Well since all of you are ready, follow me.” He told them as he turned back to the entrance and began to walk out, after avoiding Zizzoro’s sweeping tail the kids followed him out. However they began to worry as they passed the classrooms and went down an unfamiliar hallway, continued to do so for quite awhile it was also eerie that Zizzoro hadn’t said a single thing when they began walking.

 “Ummmm, where are we going?” Alya asked him but she met with silence, he then stopped giving the students a look of their destination, it was a surprisingly human sized door that had design similar to gears working in unison.

 “You guys have to go through there.” Zizzoro told, he then walked away from them later disappearing from sight leaving the kids alone in an unknown area. A sense of dread began to form within the stomachs of the students for a couple minutes no one did anything, but then Star carefully walked up to the door and opened it. From the opening the kids could see a strange room that was entirely made up by white cubes, with weird projectors in each corner, and large mirrors on the right side of the room. Slowly the kids began to filter into the room slightly creeped out by the lack of color or anything comforting, all of them having one question.

 “Where are those beasts??!!” That Zim yelled out in annoyance at the confusion and the mystery that the teachers created.

 “I suggest that you watch yourself private, Zizzoro is waiting for a chance to turn you into a fried snack and I don’t want to go through the paperwork right now.” A familiar militaristic voice rang out through the room, although it had a bit of anger in it. The kids jumped a little, slowly getting used to the surprises, and began to look for the owner of the voice.

 “Ummm, Mr. Barrage where are you?” Connie asked, hoping that Barrage wasn’t a telepath too.

 “I’m behind the mirrors, they’re actually a special type of one-way windows.” He explained although that did nothing to lessen the creep factor of the room.

 “So what exactly is this place?” Sashi asked rather hostile being in rather odd and unknown emviroment.

 “It’s called the holodome, it was going to be used for something else but Sargent thought it was best to use for all of you. So now it’s designated as the team training room.” Barrage answered, however there was one problem with what the bronze chitin beast said.

 “Not to put a kink in your armor dude but the only team here is me, Penn and Sash.” Boone told the Barrage, who just rolled his eyes.

 “You see Mr.Wiseman, we believe that a team of heroes is better than one. So we’re going to test how each of interact with each other, and those interactions will determine your teammates. Now team up!!” Barrage told the kids, quickly all of them began to join into teams not really thinking about who went about who they ended up with. What he forgot to mention that the process was a long and tedious, for five hours the kids were tested and each hour Barrage ordered them to switch. Finally, they heard Barrage told them that testing was done, which sounded like heaven, many of the kids were out of breath and some of them even collapsed on to the floor dead tired. The holodome’s door opened and the kids either walked out or they were dragged out, when they were all gone Barrage began to do something in the observation room. He walked over towards a huge monitor display that showed what the kids had to experience and for the first time since he was assigned here, Barrage actually smiled.

 “Heh, they might actually survive.” With his lower right arm, he plucked a small flash drive looking device from one of the monitors and walked out of the observation room. Later that day the teachers were back in the conference room ready to find out what the results of the holodome were.

 “As you can see the teams that function superlative are listed as Team Dimensions, Team Alien, and finally Team Miraculous. Team Dimensions is consisted of Star Butterfly, Marco Diaz, Penn Zero, Boone Wiseman and Sashi Kobayashi; though they tend to be a little crazy in planning and execution they get the job done. Next is Team Alien which is Steven Demayo/Quartz/Universe, Connie Maheswaran, Gaz and Dib Membrane, as well as Zim; now for the most part they would rather avoid conflict either trying to talk or deceive their way out however if there’s no other choice they’ll fight. Lastly is Team Miraculous those involved are Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste, Alya Cesaire, Nino Lahiffe, Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Chloe Bourgeois, even though a good portion of them don’t have any powers they seem to do well; they use the environment and their minds to defeat their enemies. Now any questions?” Barrage finished his speech with a question to the other teachers, who seemed to lose interest and Zapp even looked like was asleep.

 “What’s with da names?” Jack asked confused by the names, Barrage just sighed and muttered out.

 “I thought that assigning names to the kids would prevent confusion, and they sound pretty cool.” A small blush appeared on his muzzle, most of the other teachers were ready to tease the bronze beast but a harsh glare from Drooler quickly shot that idea down.

 “So, who’s getting a team and who’s going home a lonely man?”  Drooler asked, Barrage just rolled his eyes but answered the fire beast anyway.

 “Sargent this isn’t the Bachelorette, but since I’m already talking I should probably just tell you anyway. Team Dimensions is going to be assigned to you Sargent, Team Alien is assigned to Behemoth and finally Team Miraculous is assigned to Zizzoro.” However, that answer created more problems than it actually solved.

 “Umm incase you haven’t noticed two of the kids on Team Dimensions sort of, what’s the word, oh right. Hate me!!!!” Drooler exclaimed referring to both Sashi and Star, with Star he could understand since he did threaten her parents but with Sashi that girl just flat out hates him.

 “Though I do agree with most of the ones you picked, but I do have an objection with Zim. Irkens are known to be a rather war faring species so how would he react to being led by a pacifist?” Behemoth asked, actually sounding concerned for the small insect like alien.

 “I’m fine with it.” Zizzoro said his voice holding nothing negative in it, Barrage just sighed and began to explain the choices that were made.

 “Yes Sargent, but you do have a past to be an asshole. So could you please just try to restrain yourself form doing anything too drastic.” Said asshole opened his maw to defend himself but closed it as he remembered what he did in the past, Barrage then began to address Behemoth’s problems.

 “Behemoth, the reason why I put Zim with your team for his own safety. Considering the fact that Zizzoro will turn him into ash if he tries anything and Sargent would probably light on fire, either accidentally or by purpose.” Barrage told the gentle giant while Drooler just acted hurt at the statement, he did have a hard time containing his excitement which resulted in extremely hot hellfire.

 “Now Zizz—” Barrage began to speak until he was interrupted by something unexpected.

 “I said I was fine with it.” That little statement caused the other teachers to just stare at him with wide eyes and open mouths, they never thought in a million eons that Zizzoro would be fine with this. Heck he wasn’t that pleased about the plan to begin with but here is not really upset about being stuck with kids. Annoyed at the dumbfounded looks Zizzoro just glared at them and angrily asked them a question.

 “What?” His voice trying to reign in the annoyance he currently felt, after a few awkward mutters and whistling it was Jack who finally broke the ice.

 “No offense Z but you ain’t exactly da most kid friendly guy.” He told the Godzilla like creature, still feeling bad for the child prince that they had to guard in dimension 687-903MJ.

 “Not to mention you have a rather short temperament.”  Tech mentioned, who still had nightmares about the mission on 248-92A and hoped that the inhabitants have gotten over the attack now. Meanwhile energy began to spark off Zizzoro’s dorsal spines, which caused the teachers look like as if a nuclear bomb was about to go off. For awhile most of them dared not to talk or move afraid for what could happen, however during this entire ordeal Drooler stayed eerily calm.

 “If you keep acting like this I’ll have to spill about your little trip to Dimension 298-556MA.” He told Zizzoro, with Drooler’s tone sounding completely calm and relaxed. That little sentence caused Zizzoro’s body to stiffen and the energy to just disappear, he just turned to his cousin and hissed out.

 “You wouldn’t dare!” His voice filled to the brim with anger and his tone more venomous than a thousand cobras, Drooler didn’t even react to the extreme anger. He just calmly leaned back in his seat and gave a warning to the lightning master.

 “I won’t if you calm down.” Begrudgingly Zizzoro did but he did send his cousin harsh glares, meanwhile in the kids in the student area were pondering why the teachers schedule the impromptu training exercise.

 “So, anyone else confused about what happened?” Marco asked the others from his position on the floor, he was used to an hour-long karate class but a five-hour long training session was something else. Still the kids agreed with tired groans and moans.

 “Yeah, what was up with that?” Star wondered, her abundant energy slowing returning to her but it had while until it was full.

 “Don’t care, too tired.” Chloe told them, her ill prepared muscles still aching and sore from the extreme usage.

 “We should care! For all we know they could be using that data to destroy us!” Dib yelled out from the couch.

 “Oh yeah, like a bunch of kids would be a threat to giant interdimensional monsters.” Sashi harshly snapped at the conspiracy theorist, which caused to blush in embarrassment.

 “I agree but not that rudely, maybe they were testing us for something important.” Steven suggested, offering Dib an apologetic look.

 “Can we talk about this tomorrow? Everything still hurts.” Boone complained, though no one was against the idea of going to bed but questions still buzzed around in their minds. Skip to the morning where many of them were sleeping peacefully, until a thunderous bellow woke them up. Grumpily they got out of their beds and did their morning routines, some of them still sore, as they exited the dorms they saw Jack standing outside the student area.

 “Ah youse guys finally woke up! Come on Boss and da others want ya down at the auditorium.” Jack told the kids, a little impatient from waiting and he heard that these kids were early risers. After a good five minute walk the group arrived at the first door they saw when they entered the building, when they entered the auditorium they saw Behemoth, Barrage, Drooler and Zizzoro. When Jack stopped so did the kid but they were slightly confused why there was only a few of the teachers were present in auditorium, then Barrage began to speak.

 “Thank you Jack, you may leave now.”  Jack just nodded and stomped out off, going somewhere else.

 “Now when I call your names come up to the stage and I’ll tell you which teacher you’ll be assigned to.” Barrage told the kids his strict military tone sounding even more serious, that made the kids a little nervous. However, they didn’t have time to try and calm those nerves as Barrage began to list off them off.

 “First is Star, Marco, Penn, Sashi and Boone.” The five teenagers nervously walked, well Sashi was indifferent and Star seemed to be excited, up to the stage. When they reached the stage, they revived news that they would rather not hear.

  “Your teacher is going to be Drooler.” Now this caused Sashi to gain a lethal glare and for the excitement in Star’s body just drained from her body as her facial features turned cold, Drooler just shivered from the looks and joked about it.

 “Brrrr, did Jack leave a blizzard or is it just Star?” Though none of kids laughed or even smiled, this caused Drooler to gain a sheepish grin and let out an awkward cough. Let’s not dwell on his embarrassment because if we did he would probably roast me like a rotisserie chicken.

 “Next group is Steven, Connie, Dib, Gaz and Zim.” As they walked up to the stage Zim was shaking with fear, especially when Zizzoro gave him a hard glare and a growl. When they reached it the five of them braced for what would come next.

 “Your teacher is Behemoth.”  A huge sigh of relief escaped their lungs as they realized getting Behemoth would be comparable to winning the lottery, considering despite his size he’s one of the nicer teachers. As they walked to the gentle giant he gave the group a warning, well mainly Zim.

 “Now though I do hope we forge amazing adventures I will not tolerate any tomfoolery understand.” Though his voice held no malice or anger, his facial features made the kids know that he wasn’t joking. Which surprised the kids they normally saw a kind and warm face on him, not one of fierce gravity that was currently on his maw. Then the final six, Team Miraculous, just walked up the stage and towards Zizzoro who currently had a small grin on his muzzle. While Barrage was just annoyed by that little action.

 “I did have a system, anyway I believe that all of you have some team bonding to do.” Barrage told the three groups as he walked off the stage and out of the auditorium, creating an awkward silence between the groups.

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

January 17, 2021

This is my weekly roundup of things I am up to and looking at. Topics include human rights, decentralized social media, the I5 bridge replacement, Kuznets curves, and the Trump administration rundown.

Human Rights

I added a bit more to the Social Well-Being section of the Urban Cruise Ship site, which is mostly on human rights topics.

Having followed the work of, e.g. Steven Pinker and Has Rosling, I had expected to present a view that the world human rights situation was getting inexorably better. The reality is that the picture is more mixed. Democratization peaked some time around 2007 and has been in decline since then, though the world is still much more democratic than in the 1970s. Education, defined as the number of children not in school, made great progress in the 2000s, but now progress seems to be stalling.

It is my read of the data that inequality is generally increasing in wealthy countries, and decreasing (though it’s a mixed bag) in poorer countries. More important than inequality within countries is inequality between countries, and that metric appears to be going down as the world undergoes the Great Convergence, or the tendency of incomes of countries to converge as poorer countries experience fast growth and richer countries experience slow growth. This follows the Great Divergence that occurred from around 1800 to 1975.

Economic freedom is generally improving across the world. It has been the case historically, and it remains true today, that there is a correlation between economic freedom and political freedom. But with the rise of state capitalist or illiberal capitalist societies, that correlation seems to be getting weaker.

Freedom House’s review of freedom of the press unfortunately had its last year in 2016, and it showed an improvement, following by a stalling, of freedom of the press worldwide. It does not appear to me that the situation has generally improved in the last four years.

I have to move on, but I would like to look at these figures much more carefully. Taken as a whole, the picture for human rights in the 2010s looks like a mixed bag, with some areas of progress and some areas of regression, without an obvious trend one way or the other. This joins other observations about the present state of the world, which is also seeing declining productivity growth, seeming technological stagnation, the spread of sub-replacement birth rates, and the proliferation of dangerous debt levels. Although it is premature to panic, it should be clear that at least something is not working as we might hope, and we could ask whether a person’s effort is best focused on returning to the roots of principles of liberal democracy, or on bringing about a post-liberal order.

Decentralized Social Media

The noise has quieted down a little bit now, but there has been much consternation lately about whether the tech industry exercises too much power. Major events that have prompted these concerns include Donald Trump’s Twitter account being disabled and the social network Parler having its AWS service canceled.

I’ve generally taken a hard-line market position, arguing that whatever the merits of actions by Amazon, Twitter, and other companies, they are private companies and should be able to set their own policies without government interference. This is a minority view, though, and it looks increasingly likely that there will be some kind of regulation. Balaji Srinivasan pointed out on Twitter that the major tech companies came out of an era (recent, yet feels long ago) when the dominance of both the United States and American technology companies was beyond reasonable question. Now there are more alternatives to both, as well as growing concerns about nationalism, privacy, cybersecurity, and other factors that may motivate regulation.

I think the only lasting defense against the impulse to regulate is to build decentralized alternatives to major tech services that are inherently impossible to regulate, both by governments and by major corporations. This sounds nice, but in practice the industry is moving toward greater centralization for a reason. It is one thing to built a decentralized Twitter; I could probably do that myself. It is quite another to build a decentralized Twitter with the security, scalability, and reliability that one expects from main service. Parler evidently failed in these tasks; not only could they not survive the cancellation of their AWS contract, they did not secure vital data of their users. It is even more difficult to replicate the community that comes with scale. Building a decentralized version of AWS is even harder, as this means replicating a large and growing volume of computing resources. These companies have thousands of software engineers each.

So, “if you don’t like [Facebook/Twitter/Uber/Amazon/AirBnB/whatever] you should build your own alternative” is not yet a credible response. Such alternatives don’t exist for lack of effort. We don’t even have a widespread decentralized app for identity. I would start there. If that problem can be solved, then maybe there is some hope for more complex issues.

Metro and the I5 Bridge Replacement

Oregon Metro is getting off to a new term. In a work session this week, we heard from Metro’s lobbyist. He lamented the fact that there will probably be some security added in Salem, taking away the historic openness that the state capital has had. Aside from being closed due to Covid, there was a security incident last month which now implicates one of the legislators.

The main event of the work session, though, was the I5 Bridge Replacement, a project formerly known as the Columbia River Crossing. This project has been on the agenda for Oregon and Washington for most of my adult lifetime, and the states are now aiming for construction to be complete in 2025. I’ll be happy if it’s done this decade.

The main topic this week was the restorative justice program, which basically boils down to paying people with homes or businesses in the Albina neighborhood, which will be the site of much of the construction. The money didn’t seem to be sufficient for some council members. In addition, others are concerned about the fact that there is any highway project at all, wanting more money for local streets and/or non-automotive transportation.

While I am not without sympathy for the opposition to the bridge, I find the CRC and successor project to be prime examples of the syndromes that prevent the construction of any kind of infrastructure. Portland is one of the worst cities in the country for traffic congestion (though it has recently improved slightly), and the cost of living is significantly higher than the national average. If you don’t like highway projects, then fine, but propose credible alternatives that work for the region as a whole. There are some, but I don’t see Metro pursuing them. Simply obstructing projects, or adding ancillary priorities that raise costs, make problems worse for the region.

Kuznets Curves

Back to Urban Cruise Ship stuff, I whipped up a plot on Kuznets curves this week. An (environmental) Kuznets curve is a hypothetical model under which an environmental impacts shows a U-shaped curve with income. In other words, as income grows, the impact gets worse to a point, but it tends to get better after a certain level of income. Generally speaking, water pollutants and localized air pollutants show clear signs of Kuznets curves, while for other impacts such as municipal solid waste and CO2 emissions, the evidence is inconclusive.

To be honest, I have my skepticism about the whole business. I find Kuznets curves exhibit the “reading history sideways” fallacy, where the development of countries is assumed to be a predictable, linear process such that poor countries today look like rich countries yesterday, and rich countries today look like poor countries tomorrow. Some, though not many, scholars seem to have noticed this problem specifically in the context of Kuznets curves.

Misgivings aside, I hope to have several more results to present. Perhaps at some point I will attempt my own analysis. I tried something similar a few years ago when I was at The Breakthrough Institute, though those efforts were not successful.

As for other work, I also spent some time on the section on Economic System, though that is still not uploaded. I had hoped to have it down by now, but the section is turning out to be both longer than harder than I thought.

Some thoughts on the Trump Administration

This will be my last blog post while Donald Trump is still president, so I thought I would review some of what I see to be the highlights and lowlights of the last four years. The administration published their own list of accomplishments. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but rather a list that I find to be of particular interest.

The Good

There has been some significant reductions in regulation, which has helped power the economic good times of the administration’s first three years. These regulations have, in particular, helped the production of natural gas, which has done more than anything else to replace coal power (though, in fairness, the development of fracking and tight oil has been a bipartisan effort that goes back to the Ford administration).

Trump has had three appointments to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Bret Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Each of these justices have earned strong credibility through the Federalist Society, and I think they have generally done a good job.

(Fun fact: Jimmy Carter is the only president who served a full term and did not get a Supreme Court nomination.)

The Mixed

In 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill was signed. This was a major tax reform bill which did far too many things to comment on, but a main thrust was bringing corporate tax rates in line with international standards. I give this legislation significant credit for the strong economic conditions that prevailed prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The cap on the SALT deduction was good too.

Unfortunately, tax cuts were not balanced with spending cuts, raising the deficit to around $1 trillion per year prior to the pandemic. These are dangerous levels that the United States should not be running during good times. Now we have deficits exceeding $3 trillion per year, a debt/GDP ratio in excess of a dangerous 100%, and an excuse for Democrats to embark on their own reckless spending plans.

(Another fun fact: U.S. federal budgets were last balanced under Bill Clinton. Before that, budgets were balanced briefly under Nixon.)

The Bad

Immigration and refugee rates have fallen significantly, in large part because of administration policy, and international trade has increased, despite administration policy.

The list of accomplishments above has a long section about the Covid-19 response (or the “China virus”), but there is no way to spin the fact that the American response has been atrocious. The best defense for the administration is that most governors and mayors have also responded poorly.

Much criticism has been directed at Trump’s personality and use of conspiracy theory, much of which is fair and much exaggerated. I think the least that can be said is that the Trump administration, like other recent administrations, provides a strong case for Congress to reclaim the authority that it has ceded to the executive branch.

Missed Opportunities

At HUD, Ben Carson started writing a rule to replace the Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing regulation that would have been the strongest federal action so far on liberalizing zoning. Those efforts were scuttled by the rest of the administration.

In 2020, the Trump administration embarked on an effort to cut the time of environmental assessments and environmental impact statements under NEPA. However, the effort has not been completed and I don’t think is likely to continue under the Biden administration.

[stillness-in-green]

Human Debris Masterpost (10/?)

I LIIIIIIVE.  Welcome to the latest in a series of posts documenting (extensively) the presence of the Human Debris and ex-Human Debris cast in Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.  Today, we (hopefully in one post) bring an end to the Silent War arc.  Join me as I finally resolve my feelings on the conflict in Aston’s words and Aston’s actions, and we finally get to see Akihiro use The Clamps on someone.  

EPISODE THIRTY-ONE — Silent War

We return to find our Earth branch kids, barely more than children all, out on an honest-to-god warfront. I much doubt it’s something any of them are familiar with, beyond those few days outside Edmonton; I can only hope their shelter and food situation is slightly improved this time around thanks to having official government sanction.  

Aston is taking out his frustrations by punching the hell out of Earth-type Grazes. 

Afterwards, we find that Takaki is, predictably, much more outwardly affected than Aston by the Tekkadan losses that the Silent War is piling up.   Aston remains watchful but largely straight-faced as Galan Mossa comes over to lay on some pretty but solemn words about how well they’re doing so far, the two of them in particular.

Throughout the series, we’ve seen the Human Debris are largely awkward about being praised (save Dante, who always just looks pleased by it); Aston takes the compliment with no more than a blink, and I can’t imagine he thinks that Galan is being sincere here.  As ever, though, he keeps his thoughts to himself.

The next morning, we find the two of them dealing with some grousing from the troops. Aston begins the scene with his attention seemingly elsewhere, but he’s quite quick to turn his attention to the matter at hand when people start making things difficult for Takaki.

It’s interesting that everyone in the tent jumps when Aston speaks up and tells them not to question things too much.  The guy in the front looks legitimately spooked, even, and afterwards one of them gripes that Aston scared him by talking so suddenly.  It certainly indicates the degree to which Aston has shut down interpersonally with the onset of the war.  Or perhaps he never engaged much with this group to start with?  That would certainly be in line with his characterization before and after here—that he connects with precious few people even on his own “side.”

He looks slightly put-out after the fact, like he feels awkward about something.  It could be that he himself isn’t sure what prompted him to speak up—unsurprising, as he still hasn’t put a finger on his feelings for Takaki—or that he’s aware that it’s an unusual thing for him to do.  

Afterward, though, he and Takaki retreat to go hang out by some Landman Rodis (get used to these; they’re pretty much the mobile suit of choice for the non-Akihiro members of the Human Debris cast).  Here we find Takaki talking out his feelings while Aston eats one of the energy bars Takaki turned down earlier, when Galan offered.

I know; color me unsurprised that the ex-child slave Aston is more capable of eating food when it’s offered to him than Takaki, though he has a moment of pausing and staring at the energy bar when Takaki brings up Fuuka’s cooking.  

Takaki asks Aston if he feels anything (an awkwardly-phrased question, given who he’s asking it of), then clarifies that he feels like the whole situation feels off, and confides that he can’t seem to keep on top of it. 

For just a moment, Aston leans over, about to say—well, we don’t know, because he pulls back into himself almost immediately, and doesn’t manage to get an answer out before they’re interrupted.  

Aston then gets to watch Takaki have a very small meltdown—a mere lapse, really—when some Tekkadan kid calls Galan Mossa their captain, and this clearly gets Aston thinking. When we next return to them, we find him with a renewed determination to protect Takaki and Tekkadan, propelling himself to the front of the detachment.

He calls for the other mobile suits to follow him, demonstrating that he almost certainly has a ranked position of his own.  Assuming he’s on a comparable level with Derma (who, you’ll recall, performed quite well in team maneuvers with Shino and Dante), it’s no surprise that Aston is a fine squad leader, regardless of how much he’s personally connected with those under him.  

Very gratifyingly to me personally, both Takaki and Aston’s thoughts go to Chad in this sequence, the former thinking he has to be strong while Chad’s gone, the latter wondering if Chad’s awake yet.  It does my heart good to see people within this show caring so much.

We return to space, where Tekkadan Main Branch is still very concerned about how little information they have about matters on Earth.  Speaking of things that do my heart good, there’s also Orga’s comment that he chose people for the Earth branch that he knew he could rely on. Ah, Chad, so trusty.  I wish we knew how long the Earth Branch had been in place; I’m very curious how long Aston had been with Tekkadan before he got designated “a person Orga could rely on” and sent (or chose to go) with Takaki and Chad to Earth.  Had it been only a short time, leaving Aston to be taken aback by Orga’s trust, or long enough that it wasn’t such a wholly strange concept?  Alas, we have no way to know.

Akihiro, characteristically working out his stress with exercise, and engaging in some renewed ship-teasing with Lafter, the first time the show starts actively highlighting their developing bond via lingering shots and other characters’ responses.  He claims, when Lafter teases him about it, that the working out is just his hobby, but his thoughts are, we find, with the Earth Branch, as are everyone’s. (This layover marks, incidentally, the first time Eugene and Kudelia work closely together for any stretch of time, which is interesting to see in light of the finale.) 

We get a very brief shot of Chad in one of the regeneration baths when Fuuka goes to visit him at the hospital, along with the frankly baffling tidbit that regeneration tech takes longer on Earth, despite being allegedly more advanced.  I have to regard this as plot handwaving of the highest order, or else assume that there is some money changing hands behind the scenes to keep Chad and Makanai under.  We know that it’s Rustal’s specific goal to draw the war out for as long as possible (or at least we know that Iok assumes so; Rustal has a bit of a funny look on his face and is, as ever, enigmatic), so it’s no stretch to see their influence here.

We have another scene that reiterates what we already knew—that Aston is willing to hurl himself indiscriminately into a fray he just got out of for Takaki’s sake, and that Galan is playing Takaki like a fiddle—so while we wait for the plot to give me something new to talk about, here is this amazingly relationship-accurate photo of the stars of this arc:

Meanwhile, the Hotarubi arrives on Earth, and Akihiro, keyed up and ready to get some actual news on what’s going on with one of his best friends and adopted kid brother, does some rare out-loud complaining about how long it’s taking to get down to the surface.

Following, there is a staggeringly interesting exchange between Radice and Galan Mossa, in which the latter comments that animals (the Tekkadan kids) just need to be fed and petted now and again, and they’ll follow orders without thinking.  He singles out Aston in particular, as Human Debris, and I am left completely floored at how little this man has grasped the personality of the boy he’s jerking around.  Just because Aston is a quiet sort and doesn’t complain, Galan assumes that it must be because he’s just so grateful for the attention?  Like, holy shit, how can one man be so wrong in so few words?  Rewatching this arc only increases the satisfaction of watching Akihiro stave this guy’s everything in with Gusion.  

In any case, back on the topic of relationship-revealing framing shots…

Cee-ripes.  

Anyway, Aston finally, after who knows how long in-story, has an answer prepared for Takaki’s question earlier in the episode, about why their current battle feels “off.”  He posits that it’s because it’s the first time they’ve fought under anyone but Orga, and is quick to second-guess himself with I thinks and maybe nots.  He’s deeply uncomfortable sharing his thoughts and feelings (and his thoughts about his feelings) this way, as we can tell by his muttering and refusal to turn around and face Takaki with his answer.  

He says, though, that he doesn’t really care who the orders are coming from, as it’s Human Debris’ job to fight (whoops, it still matters).  Takaki, as he’s done every time, gets upset and Aston, as he ever has, fails to predict or comprehend Takaki’s outbursts on the matter.

Takaki confesses his fear in watching Aston fight, the recklessness of it, the disregard for his own life, and nearly begs that, while he knows their work is dangerous, to please not give up from the start, because the war is drawing to a close, and soon, they’ll be able to go home. Aston agrees, but he still clearly has reservations, and we are still left with framing like this:

Two boys, two cots, two guns leaned against the wall, sharing space in a single tent, united under a single light, but still irreconcilably separate, the gap between them never bridged, a border drawn out in the form of that rear support bar.  It’s unsubtle directing, but tremendously effective in leaving the audience with chills of unresolved tension.  

In the final scene, we see McGillis launching solo, ready to put an end to the whole farce after a full month of hit-and-run tactics from Galan and Tekkadan.  As Galan tells everyone the battle to follow will be the last one, Takaki eschews his normal squad leader position in a mobile worker and climbs into a Rodi.  He and Aston share a last glance, and, as one of them always does, Takaki turns away.  

Akihiro gets the preview text, with the same sort of conceit his preview was given the last time—grunting underscoring his narration, as if we’ve caught him exercising (and, in this case, complaining about Mikazuki ditching training).

This brings us on into…

EPISODE THIRTY-TWO — My Friend

We find the Arbrau forces stalking an unaware McGillis, and Takaki rapidly getting lost in his own head at the prospect of finally putting an end to the conflict. In some marvelous continuity from his very first appearance, Aston pulls Takaki out of it with talk of methodical execution of their usual tactics—exactly the same way he talked to Vito way back when.   

They renew their promise to go home to Fuuka together, and, shortly, find themselves assaulting McGillis, while Galan, oh so gallantly, holds off some random Gjallarhorn goob.  

McGillis pegs them as Alaya-Vijnana users immediately, and tries to call on them in Orga’s name.  His language here is, frankly, kind of above their level—he doesn’t tell them he’s allied with Tekkadan, or that he has any kind of communication with Orga, but just asks if Orga has given them their orders (which of course he knows Orga hasn’t). Takaki is largely confused by this, but the more practical Aston has got no time for idle talk from an enemy. Thus bolstered, Takaki takes the lead and charges McGillis first, much to Aston’s chagrin.  

Alas, Takaki is not the fighter Aston is, and the ensuing fight does not go well for them.

Aston, like a champ, even as he’s horribly wounded, manages to lockdown McGillis, who we finally get to see in a truly dangerous situation, one that is out of his control. This will become a growing problem for him, and one that made me like him way more, but we’re not here to talk about him, are we?

Mikazuki shows up just in time to save McGillis, looking none too pleased about it.  He gets ready to pursue the fleeing Galan, but pulls up short as we find Takaki, not taking the time to ask a bunch of stupid questions, has already made it out of his Rodi, across the field, and up to Aston’s busted cockpit, yelling his name and already in tears.   

Aston isn’t doing so hot, and his mind is in a pretty bad place, and we finally get that bit of his characterization I’ve been puzzling about from the very beginning.

Amid flashbacks to his life with the Brewers (perhaps the one on the left in the top picture is the unseen Pedro?), he narrates that Human Debris couldn’t survive if they had feelings, that the feeling of mourning your comrades would get you crushed, so you killed your soul instead.  However… 

The flashbacks move to Tekkadan—not just Takaki and Fuuka, but Akihiro as well, still marked with a red stripe and wearing a searing look of tenderness on his face—and Aston says that he wishes he’d never met any of them, so that he’d never have to lose a life in which he had them.

I remember watching this scene for the first time with my heart in my throat, terrified that the show would let those be Aston’s last words, and leave Takaki to carry them forever.  It would be breathtakingly cruel, I thought, and nothing made me more emotional in this episode than the release of tension when Aston’s tears spill over, and he breathes out a ‘thank you’, and smiles. 

Having watched the series again, my thoughts remain largely as I’ve laid them out previously: I don’t believe that Aston was ever as shut-off as he believed himself to be. Even in his own memories, we can plainly see the anger in his face as he watches Masahiro get kicked around by Kudal. But I’d also forgotten how prominent Akihiro was in his last, fleeting memories, so his heightened emotions clearly aren’t for Takaki alone.  The primary difference between Aston with the Brewers and Aston with Tekkadan is that Tekkadan values his life and, more importantly, values the lives of his comrades. This means he can speak out in their defense, if he chooses to, and he can let himself get attached, because he knows that neither he nor they are going to be ordered to die meaninglessly.

Tekkadan thus becomes a place of freedom for Aston, where his opinions—seldom though he offers them—are valued, even sought out.  Where he can spend his life—spend it like coin, if he chooses—actually protecting people he cares about, rather than being forced to stand by and watch them die for overseers that view them as worth less than the grunt suits they pilot. With Tekkadan, Aston can allow himself the freedom of caring and so, over time, he does.  It doesn’t mean that he didn’t care when he was with the Brewers, just that Tekkadan’s approach of treating every member like family actively encouraged the caring he’d always done, and it wasn’t until he was on the edge of his own death that he realized: caring for others doesn’t just mean that you want to protect their lives, but that you are allowed to grieve for your own when you can no longer be with them.

Did Aston have romantic feelings for Takaki?  Well, all that talk of the both of them going home to Fuuka is pretty telling, given that no other members of Tekkadan talk of anywhere other than HQ as being their home.  But in the end, I think it matters less how Aston thought of Takaki than it does that, through Takaki and Tekkadan, Aston learned what it meant to value his own life—even if that was just in the moment of losing it.

Meanwhile, back at the Earth Branch HQ, some long-due karma is catching up to Radice.  Eugene and Akihiro set to interrogating him, mostly through some very convincing intimidation and a bit of restrained violence against nearby inanimate objects. He flips on Galan like a salmon breaking the surface of a river.  It isn’t until Lafter comes through with word of Aston’s death that Akihiro begins to get physical, with spasms of rage that he keeps admirably on top of, all things considered. 

I include this to marvel over Akihiro’s upper body strength, as he just casually overhand tosses an adult man of no small size across the room.  All that exercise is certainly not just for show!  He tells Radice quite plainly that he’ll be next, after Galan Mossa, and claims the right to deal with the latter.  No one contests him.  

Echoing Aston’s disinclination to talk to McGillis (and Mikazuki’s disinclination to chat with anyone), once Akihiro tracks down Galan, he wastes no time attacking him, not responding at all to the man’s verbal sallies until Galan guesses that he’s lost a family member. Even afterwards, he doesn’t really engage except to grimly return a taunt—that if decent people die first on the battlefield, congratulations, Galan Mossa, on being such a decent man. 

Afterwards, when Lafter calls to him, he tells her he’s alright, adding, with bitterness like we’ve never heard in his voice before, that he’s alive.  This bitterness—over surviving when the people he cares for most dearly keep dying all around him—is something he’ll have the whole rest of the series to carry, and it’s not over for him yet.  But, all in due time.

We get one last mention of Chad before he’ll be back onscreen, as Takaki requests permission to deal with Radice himself. When challenged by Mikazuki—who has a dangerous impatience about him, very ready to gun the man down and be done with it—Takaki proclaims that the issue is the Earth Branch’s problem, and per Chad’s word, he is in charge of the Earth Branch.  The others take him at his word, with Akihiro commenting, once they’ve reconvened in the hall outside, that they don’t really know what happened, so it’s best for Takaki to make the call, for all that the Turbines gals think he’s too kind a boy to kill someone.  

That’s the last of the Debris cast for the episode, save another shot of that recurring photograph of Aston, Takaki and Fuuka, seen as Takaki goes back home, and, as Fuuka realizes the significance of his coming back alone, his narration draws the Silent War arc to a close.  

I hope no one got too tired of me rambling about Aston, and everyone will join me next time for the wrap-up from this arc and the beginning of the Mobile Armor story, at which point these write-ups should get back down to a reasonable length again.