#people should generally be less assholes maybe? that would be nice

[willoftrees]

that bullshit with the minecraft server honestly just made me so much more anxious about gaming with people. like, it's honestly part of why i just DON'T.

every co op or multiplay game i join, everyone goes off and does their own thing. in MC, it's fine, that's chill, go make ur own base and eke out ur own niche in the world, it's awesome we can make stuff super far and then invite ppl to come see what we built and it's like having neighbors and stuffs, i find joy in that- most other games i join tho, even ones where i need helpppp, everyone just fucks off and leave me and i'm like "ok why did y'all want me to play again? cuz ur not playing WITH me now, we just happen to be playing the same thing......." but the way my friend's friend treated me in their server was completely unfair and just unfriendly. because of their inability to voice to my friend that they just wanted it to be the two of them, they decided to be a bully to me???? like, i didn't fucking invite myself. my friend asked if i wanted to join and then asked his friend to invite me. also his friend up and deleted the first world they were working on because they didn't like the spawn point and couldn't be bothered to explore far enough to get out of their current biome. the second world they started had no mobs and no hunger so they could get ahead quickly and then when they turned mobs on they had gathered so much they could easily reach the end. their friend acted like they thought they were some badass for having frost walker boots even tho they had to play fucking baby mode to get them. idk why but they also seemed pissed that i wandered off to explore and gather resources on my own accord, then they for some reason decided they should run all the way to me instead of me just going to them, to have me follow them all the way back to the base i already knew the location of - i think because they wanted to show off their boots to me, since there's no water near their base and there was plenty of water on the way to where i was - and then once there, as i was handing over some loot to them and my friend, that i had collected from the mine i was disassembling in the badlands i had found, they (the host, not my friend) sudden fucking lit me on fire -_- i then helped my friend clear a room, got bored and wanted to explore a lil more so i left their base, then my friend tells me the host wants me to go to the end with them. mind you.... i have like, no armor, and i been fucking sick and barely able to play lately. so i let them know i'm good, and that i would be hopping off since i was getting a headache and still was sick. i sign off and the next day when i sign in, i see i am removed from their server. :'D i message my friend and say i think his friend removed me from the server and am ttly confused about why, and he's like "sssssssss *inhale* yeahhhh they weren't really happy with you hopping on without telling anyone" and my wtf ensues, and he tried to tell me that it's common courtesy to let someone know when they are going to be on a server?

like, not only would i simply not have known because this is unfamiliar territory for me (i usually play solo, realms is ttly new to me), but that.... didn't sound right but also hypocritical, because he himself rarely lets me know when he would be on my household's server either. :| then he tells me they only wanted it to be him and them in their server

then he tells me they didn't really like me - and THAT

that's the one that really really got me. i never SPOKE to his friend aside from literally "HAIIIIIII" in text chat when i met them, and then an "ayyyyyy" the time i signed on and apparently pissed them off cuz i didn't inform anyone i would be getting on. when i met them they didn't even reply to me, and the second time they replied "no" and that was it. they said "no" to my "ayyyyyyyy" - to which i didn't reply because wtf even. plus i was in discord call with my friend so i moved along and thought nothing of it. i am pissed because i did just SOME work in their server, i would be fucking furious if i actually spent the time to build some neat stuff only to have it all taken from me like that. can't tell you how many times, how many different ways, that has happened to me in my life. from different games, to things i have made, to my literal life and living situations - had everything i did and worked for taken and reduced to starting all over all again. i think in the end, and ima just speculate here based on how they seem to wanted it to be just them and my friend, how they treated me, and how they would interact with said friend - that mayhaps they have a crush on him and they felt i was getting in the way. that's cute and all and i'm happy they like my friend so much - but i think their behavior is a slew of red flags tbh. a lil possessive, much? idk y'all, i gotta rationalize this somehow because the way they treated me was rly unfair and it needs to make sense somehow. :|

[artdolliewishes]

Something I’ve seen a few times before is the idea that, to contrast the NRC crew, the students of RSA have nice facades but are secretly condescending, arrogant, rude, etc. The reasoning for this is pretty solid: the students at NRC are villains with secret good sides, so the students of RSA should be heroes with secret bad sides.

But the problem with this - at least in my humble opinion - is that it’s just wrong in a major way.

There’s no doubt that the NRC students, especially the Dorm Leaders, are complex characters. They’re people who have been greatly hurt in some fundamental way and have thus developed a hardened exterior, shunning away that softer part of themself.

And after their respective chapters, each character is allowed to become better, make better choices, do nicer things, and just improve as people in general.

But let’s not kid ourselves, these characters are still fucking assholes.

When we finished Chapter 2, Leona rude and lazy nature didn’t instantly melt away to reveal that he was a sweetheart this entire time, he was still rude and lazy even if he was slowly improving. And the same goes for Azul’s scheming nature and Riddle’s strictness, etc; they aren’t as one dimensional as their facade would suggest, but it’s not like their bad attitude is skin deep.

So, why can’t the RSA students be genuinely kind if the NRC students are genuinely mean?

But on the other hand, it also doesn’t make sense for them to be one dimensional, non complex heroes who’ve never don’t anything wrong in their life. So I have a solution.

If the NRC students are arrogant little dickheads who have been hurt in the past in a way that shaped them into what they are now, then maybe the RSA students are genuinely kind people who have been crushed by the weight of expectations and the pressure to be “perfect.”

They can’t be rude, or selfish, or mean, or anything that would paint them as being less than the golden child the world expects them to be. They are good people at heart, but they’ve suppressed their “bad” side like how the NRC gang has suppressed their good side.

Anyways, these are just my thoughts.

[mr-president]

if sean and yun met would they explode i neeed to know

TLDR; i think they meet, maybe get into a fight, realize their mental illnesses are compatible, and then explode into a fire of pure bromance.

i really don’t know how i’d describe their dynamic the moment they meet—yun, for one, is waaaaaaaaaay stronger than sean, considering that everyone kind of is. yun’s kind of a huge narcissistic asshole sometimes, so if they had met through a fight (perhaps gill’s tournament or just being like ‘yo are those the twin dragons? let’s fight!’), then he’d probably just clown on and torment sean with taunts. or, based on yun’s win quotes, pity him and not try at all in the fight and still win. not a great start (i have my own headcanons about that tournament, and i like to think sean faced alex).

either way, it’d be interesting to explore on sean’s part: how do you forgive/bear with someone like that? how can you consolidate being friends having also been hurt quite deeply with regards to something you’ve tried so hard with? it would be interesting for yun, who’s used to being superior and holding it over people’s head, to try and not be an asshole, be a good friend that recognizes sean’s worth. i think this goes for sean’s relationships in general, and part of why i include him in my art is to show that he has other elements and skills that are valuable.

like, sure i think the 3rd strike kiddos all fight each other and spar for fun, but most people aren’t friends with each other to do one thing. elena and yun complain about shitty customers at their part time jobs over ice cream, makoto and sean ramble about their respective masters and martial arts movies they’ve watched, and ibuki and yang (i’ve already drawn) swap daydreams and go to pet cafés. there is more to sean than being ass at fighting—he is worth more than that, and though the series itself can’t explore that by the nature of being “street fighter,” guess what, i’m a fan artist, and i can explore that.

i like to think they either met through elena, but they probably jsut met at gill’s tournament or the classic “yo you’re that guy? let’s fight” plot. when they first meet though, they definitely click personality-wise, and yes, they explode.

what’s important about sean is that he’s the one who doesn’t just tolerate yun’s mischievous bullshit, he fully understands and bounces it back. it’s like, jock-to-jock communication (yang’s tired of living with his brother’s bullshit for the entirety of his existence, makoto gets pissed and kicks the shit outta him, ibuki tolerates it to an extent when their goals match up but also jsut punches him when she gets annoyed, and elena’s autism isn’t on the same wavelength and yun feels bad teasing her).

yun says something weird and sean just nods and it becomes a whole bit between them, growing more and more absurd that the others are like “we don’t know these people.” pure bro-i-ness, and i’m sure it’s nice for sean to be involved in things, and yun enjoys a willing accomplice in his bullshit.

that being said, they balance each other out really nicely. sean’s a loser younger sibling, neglected by a shitty mentor, and what skills he does have are understated and belittled. he’s trying to carve out his own path, but despite trying so hard, it isn’t enough to impress anyone much less win.

yun’s an older sibling, and i’m sure he’s handled yang and jamie’s feelings of inadequacy quite well (yang hasn’t dumped yun onto the street yet, and jamie’s…like that now). hence, i think he’s really good at boosting sean’s confidence when they’re not fighting, and he has the balls to be like “ken masters is a bitch for doing that to you, man.”

meanwhile, yun’s never taken seriously, so he doesn’t try at anything. at the same time, he’s the eldest sibling in an asian “family,” and though they don’t have parents, there’s still that expectation that he is the best, that he is the role model his brothers should look up to and try to become. not to mention, he’s the beloved protector/peacekeeper of hong kong—that’s a lot of pressure, but he’s the chill, swag party boy he always is anyway.

i think yun would have a hard time talking about anything emotional—he’s the role model to yang and jamie, so he can’t falter there. hoimei is seemingly hostile to him, and though i could see ibuki and elena lending a helpful ear, i don’t think yun would be comfortable talking to them (partly due to internalized misogyny, but also he’s not as close with them) beyond everyday issues. sean’s just a good friend for him in this regard, and they could learn a lot from each other by sharing their upbringings and experiences.

it’s a comfortable role/dynamic they’re accustomed to—teasing, older brother and teased, younger sibling—but because they’re not actually siblings, the “sibling dynamic” and the expectations that come with isnt so rigid. sean can tell yun when his teasing gets too harsh without fear of being electrocuted, and yun can seem “weak” without the fear that he’s not living up to the expectations of his brothers. additionally, yun build’s sean’s confidence while sean keeps yun grounded, not becoming too cocky.

but of course, that’s later into their friendship! i think they meet, maybe get into a fight, realize their mental illnesses are compatible, and then become close friends. close bros, even.

early in their friendship, i think both kind of “test the waters” with jokes, saying something weird and then seeing if the other will continue the joke. when it becomes clear they’re on the same wavelength all the time somehow, yun starts hanging out with sean without yang (very significant), and keeps doing that. it helps they have similar interests—the skate park is pretty close to the basketball court, infinite—the guy who does the third strike opening and select—is the greatest rapper of all time, the arcade’s the absolute shit, and a quick spar’s always welcome.

you probably did notice that i “paired up” the third strike kiddos, but i hope to mix and match them more! i kinda didn’t have much yun and sean drawn, mostly because their dynamic feels very obvious to me, and i usually draw to “make a statement.”

thanks for reading, if you got this far! here’s some seanyun yaoi as a reward.

maybe i’ll write a bit about that; haven’t thought about it very much

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not getting my cousin an eras tour ticket?

This happened back in the summer of course, but has been brought up by the family recently, because apparently a lot of them think I was in the wrong here. I had early access to the pre-sale for the international leg of the eras tour, through which I could get up to four tickets. I planned on going to the tour with my two childhood best friends, bringing our number up to three.

My cousin also wanted to go to the tour. Important info: she wanted to be on floor, while me and my friends didn’t, for a variety of reasons (more expensive, less comfortable, very crowded) including medical reasons of my friend. My cousin ALSO wanted to go with her friend, but I simply was not allowed to get more than four tickets. Also important information which may have swayed me here: my cousin and I never got along as kids, but we’re adults now and perfectly civil, and I’d say get along fairly well. But we’re also very different people and I know her plan for the concert would be to get very very drunk, which is fine, but it’s not the vibe me and my friends are going for. Nevertheless, I said that if I could, after getting three tickets for me and my friends, I would try to get her a floor ticket for one of the nights, or she could join us if she was willing to be seated in the stands.

My cousin said no, because she wanted to be on floor and be with her friend, and asked if I could consider having the two of them join me and one of my friends, to which I said no — we already planned this. She said that was fine and she didn’t feel right going without her friend, which is totally fair.

I figured that was the end of it and not a big deal. My cousin and I are very different people in terms of socialising and going out, and much as I love her, I can’t imagine either of us would have had the experience we hoped for if she joined me and my friends. She never said anything more about it except to say she didn’t get tickets in the general sale, which I felt sorry for her for. But apparently she is still mad about it, as are her parents, because as her older (by a year) cousin I should have helped her out and she’s claiming that I just don’t like her.

I really didn’t refuse out of any malice. It just didn’t work out with the number of tickets I could get, and our priorities for the event. If I could have gotten her and her friend tickets, without messing up my own plans, I would have, but I couldn’t, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to throw my own friend over, or to change my plans. Maybe I didn’t want her there, but I did offer, and she turned me down. My auntie thinks I should have gotten her a ticket anyway since I COULD get four, but my cousin explicitly told me she wanted to go with her friend and be on floor. Apparently she secretly thought that I would just get her a ticket to be nice, her reasoning being that if they did get tickets of their own for the two of them in the general sale, I could have just sold my fourth one. Which yeah, I guess, but it didn’t occur to me to do that.

I also just really don’t think it’s that deep. Like, I would be upset too if I didn’t get tickets to the concert, but at the end of the day, that’s just what happens sometimes, and it’s not really my fault. Maybe I’m being callous about it, because I know I’d be upset in her position, but I don’t think I should be the target of her upset. Maybe I am the asshole though. So, tumblr: AM I the asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[magadauthan]

Ep 25: Live Through

@trigun98watchparty My time has come.

I watched "Live Through" in Japanese and English for this recap. For science. It's not because this is my favorite episode, no. That has nothing to do with anything.

--How did Milly and Meryl get Vash away from LR? Does 1 ile = 1 mile? Did they swipe Legato's Cinderella coach?

--that floppy hair *swoon*

--Some have criticized Meryl for ducking outside as soon as Vash begins to talk. Perhaps that is merited, and she does carry a good measure of guilt for following him, but it felt to me more like she wanted to give him space and / or privacy. Having loud emotions all over the place is frowned on in Japanese culture, and Meryl is very, very polite. Maybe she just doesn't know what to do and panics (Vash has not always been encouraging in terms of having her around, in general). Either way, it tears her up inside to hear him wailing in despair.

--Obviously Meryl has been home tending to Vash while Milly works. It's nice to see Meryl recognize that Milly is busting her butt, but she doesn't know how to address Milly's feelings, either.

--Vash should not be up and about - he's weak and feverish and not a little delirious. Good thing Milly can carry him.

--Get in there, big sis, and tell Meryl it's okay that she loves him. She's absolutely right in that Legato would have found a way to make Vash shoot him whether or not the two of them were involved. Never hold back in matters of the heart.

--My favorite scene. Meryl, alone in the light of the fifth moon, diligently mending Vash's coat. She wants to put him back together and make him whole again, even if she gets hurt in the process. She's desperately in love with him, and she holds the kind person he is close to her heart... but he was the one who put the hole in the moon. How can she reconcile that?

--Vash does look happier.

--He tries to pet the kitty, and Kuroneko gives him a swat, which some interpret as the Trigun Goddess telling Vash to get it in gear. This is incorrect. Cats are just assholes.

--It didn't stop with Legato, now, did it. Knives is pressing harder.

--"Sound Life" must be a song they teach in NML kindergarten. Many people seem to know it, including Kaite and Meryl. (the lyrics really need to scan better, it's so awkwardly phrased)

--This scene is such a tough one. It's lovely - two lovers out under the stars, right? And Meryl is so happy that Vash is considering staying with them. But it's also plain to see that he might have given up. It would be easy, wouldn't it? Let the girls take care of him while he hides. Don't do anything, and wait for an answer.

--What were you doing up so late, Meryl? (we had some ideas)

--There's no way that the townspeople could have captured someone like Vash if he hadn't let them do it. He's so broken that he won't fight back. He's a sinner now, like Knives, like Legato, beyond redemption.

Except...

...Knives assumes that Vash would sacrifice himself for everyone else. Someone else sacrificing herself for him had never been part of the equation.

--So many have stopped believing in Vash, or he thinks they have. They turn their backs on him and he accepts it as the normal course of things. Jessica's crush was childish (I was gonna marry Luke Skywalker when I was four, just saying) but even she ran away after what happened to the ship. That's why it's so important that Meryl loves him. She has made her decision, and she's steadfast in it.

--Maybe Vash doesn't realize how much she loves him until she puts herself between him and the gun, and he hears Rem's words from Meryl's mouth and sees Rem one more time. If Meryl still loves him, then Rem can still love him too. Mistakes happen but you can learn from them, and if you have the right people in your life, they will love you through your mistakes and help you to make it better.

--And finally, Vash realizes that Rem's words apply to him, too, and that he is no less deserving of a second chance and a future than any of the others he's impressed those words on. Does that make Meryl the analogue to Alex? I think it does.

--Awww, such a sweet snuggle. And then Vash has to go doof it up like normal and Meryl has to freak out like normal. It's their love language. (TBH I'd punch my husband too if he rubbed his stubbly face on me like that.)

--What happened after that? (we have some ideas)

--Vash gets ready to go. Seeing him wash up and shave is oddly pleasing, a reminder that despite his Plant-ness, he's a regular dude who has to wash his face and brush his teeth and get haircuts and have breakfast and do all that human stuff.

--Meryl wants to say something to Vash, but she's gotten wiser too. She recognizes that even though there might be a lot that she wants to tell him (and, I think, he might want to tell her too), stating her feelings in the open would be a distraction (or even a burden) he doesn't need right then. Milly is right. There will be time when he gets back.

It doesn't come through in English, but he's so gentle with her in Japanese. He knows what she wants to say. In his own way, at that time, he's saying I love you too.

--Vash takes WW with him, with Milly's love and blessing. May you go with God's protection.

[purplerakath]

MiyagiDo Karate and Protagonist Morality

So when I watched the first two seasons this bothered me and then last weekend I watched everything else (thus far)... and this still bothered me. So here we are.

Spoilers for all five released seasons of Cobra Kai (although I'll mainly be talking about Demetri, Sam, Danny, and Hawk).

Before I get started...

As much as I'm criticizing the writing of these characters, I don't think the characters are bad, or hate the show. I just think more could be done with them, or in the case of Sam they could have started the ball rolling sooner and she could be a better character than she is.

Except Demetri, they really screwed the pooch on his writing.

Protagonist Morality

So I guess I should explain this term. Protagonist morality is where a show doesn't question the behavior of it's protagonists, assuming that whatever action they've taken is morally correct (for the setting). In a video game, you know all those unguarded chests full of stuff for you. The ones all across the countryside and in towns and often people's houses? The ones you can loot freely and nobody cares or is concerned with all the robbery you're doing?

That's protagonist morality. If the game labels you a thief and you get run out of public spaces for your actions, then the game is labeling your actions as maybe less than a paragon of virtue, and giving you reason to think about it. (Then you do it anyway because it's really nice loot.)

So what about the ACTUAL protagonists?

Johnny, Miguel, and Robby are questioned and judged by the narrative constantly. They generally do things right for them, but not universally seen as correct. And generally the narrative is about them moving forward and making less questionable calls.

The whole point of the start of S2 is that Johnny realizes "No Mercy" is a bad motto, because it just gets people hurt, and changes his teachings to match this bit of character growth. Characters backslide, Johnny and Robby both crash spectacularly at the start of Season 3. Each needs to dig themselves out of the hole their in all through Season 3 (Johnny) and 5 (Robby).

So the show never treats them as not needing growth, as the show is all about their growth.

Daniel

Danny is a hyper-judgmental asshole due to unresolved trauma from his youth and it's a problem. But also the show would be a lot less interesting if he worked through all of this in a timely fashion. Primarily the issue is his reaction to "Cobra Kai" just being back at all, and how he never once gets pushed to question if Cobra Kai in Johnny's hands changed.

Some of this is miscommunication, which is the cornerstone of the Unresolved sexual Karate Tension with Johnny. But his absolute refusal to see good in Cobra Kai had a direct hand in breaking up Sam and Miguel in Season 1 and Danny... came out of it believing he was right.

And when he goes out of his way to try and destroy the S1-2 era of Cobra Kai, the narrative never once actively punishes him for his prejudice. He's also never forced to face why he's like this. It's kind of shit but very much a plot lodestone.

Sam

Like her father, Sam often rushes to a moral judgement on bad info and never goes back. Even if she's wrong. So much of her Season 1 behavior is swept under a rug so that other characters (Kyler, Yaz, Miguel) can be her personal villain. And the worst being Season 2 with Tory.

Sam rushed to 'all Cobras are evil' while in a plot trying to fix her friendship with her best friend, she instigated things with Tory, and blamed Tory for all of it without having to think about why she's following her father so readily. Of course, with the end of Season 2 it didn't matter what her behavior was prior, she had every justification to treat Tory as her own personal satan.

Fortunately for me, and everyone else who likes Sam, most of the later seasons focus real hard on having her grow as a person. Maybe not facing all of her personal failings, but she does grow past them in respectable ways. And while her behavior toward Tory is... still bad, Tory is her personal anxiety attack she's allowed it now. (Unlike someone else.)

She also unpacks some of the prejudice she learned from her dad. Sneaking off behind his back to learn Eagle Fang and figure out before Father Dearest that balance is better than pigheaded arrogance of your own greatness. Leading to the Season 4 finale and her mixed styles.

Demetri Hawk

Before I rant about Demetri, I need to explain why Hawk's narrative, regardless of his failures, is better. Eli starts the show with a clearly defined failing (confidence and courage), focuses hard on overcoming it (through Cobra Kai Karate), and turns him into someone new.

That new person is a loud abrasive asshole, but it's a growth arc.

When Hawk behaves badly, it's treated as a start of darkness. As he grows to love having the power his weaker nerdy self lacked. His acts of vengeance make sense as the flexing of power he's never had before. To the point he becomes the sort of bully he feared. His reactions are all overreactions and that's good writing. You understand why he beats Kyler's flunky to a bloody pulp, it's cathartic but also framed as an act of pure violence and destruction. He needs to live in his anger, his violence, listening to the whispers Kreese offers.

Season 3 is Hawk struggling to choose between good and evil, and in the end he chooses good. Leading him on the path toward balance and being better than either side of him before. Honestly of every character in the show his path is the best defined.

Now Demetri

Demetri is a anxious pessimistic leech. He feels he'll fail before he starts, and therefore doesn't try. He rides the coattails of his friends as they become cool and popular and Hawk was right to call him out. But rather than investigate that, he becomes the target of Hawk's new villain arc, and rushes to the arms of MiyagoDo.

Where he proceeds to never actually face who he was, and just... get to be a cool martial artist with a hot girlfriend as the show sweeps his negative traits under a rug and never touches them.

The narrative never confronts how 'it's fine for me to reap the benefits of your hard work' (start of season 2) or 'I can humiliate my best friend by spilling all his secrets then hide behind my badass martial artist friends' (late season 2) were bad calls, because at the end of the season he just... gets to beat up Hawk to establish the full defeat of Johnny's Cobra Kai.

Directly into Season 3 where he's just as aggressive and antagonistic as Sam is, while neither is treated as being 'over the line' by the narrative. Which is all before Hawk breaks Demetri's arm, meaning he doesn't have the extant trauma reason Sam has.

By Season 5 Demetri is a pretty cool person, but as there's no actual focus on how he got there, it feels cheap. Which really sucks.

What I'd Write-

I don't want to rewrite the whole show, and that makes Danny hard to fix. As so much of him is that paranoia of Cobra Kai. Like- best I could ask for is him going to therapy and trying to work past it (and just being bad at it).

Sam the easy answer is Aisha not forgiving her (at least during S1-2). Where Sam tries to get Aisha back, but every time she either says something about Cobra Kai, or Miguel, or Tory and Aisha points out Sam hasn't given any of them a fair shot, and that Sam has no room to talk after dating Kyler and being Yaz's friend.

Bonus points if Sam also gets taken to task for her going after Tory when Tory was working. Because Amanda already got Tory fired once, but she felt bad about it.

Demetri has a similar route of 'best friend does not forget.' A simple 'why should I ever trust you again' after Moon's party would go a long way to rub Demetri's face in what he did, how he was as bad as everyone who made fun of Hawk's lip at school. How Demetri, for one brief moment, was worse than Kyler.

I want all the characters to either get the kind of care in how they change direction that Miguel has, and failing that being absolutely perfect like Devon (the only person to join Silver's Cobra Kai and not turn evil).

[yoshizora]

Hello!!! I'd like to ask you a few things about Megumu (if that's okay!).

How would you describe her? I think there's more to the "greedy tengu" impression that I'm getting from the wiki and from her routes in UM. Her and Momoyo are friends after all.

Would you say that Momoyo brings out the best in her? (or, at least, better than Tsukasa does).

Thanks in advance!! ^^

THANK U for giving me a chance to blab about megumu because if i was more outspoken i would never shut up about her. warning, this is going to be long as fuck because when i said i wouldn't shut up i MEANT i wouldn't shut up

honestly the first thing to keep in mind is that Megumu isn't human, so human moralities shouldn't be so strictly applied to her. i often see people exaggerating her less palatable aspects, but she's........ not a human!!!! because of this i like to apply more leeway to her personality; she's not strictly black/white in terms of whether she's "good" or "bad", which is what i think the main issue is when it comes to general perception of Megumu (she often ends up being watered down to Mean Greedy Bully Boss). it's also more fun when characters have personality traits that should logically contradict each other.

i think she genuinely does have tengu society's best interests in mind, but it's more about the whole vs the individual which can also be seen as a reflection of Japanese society. ayahatamomi's complaints in altfacts was essentially both a comedy bit and meta commentary on Japan's toxic work culture, but it shouldn't be seen as a 1:1 situation imo. but anyway, i think Megumu does have issues with connecting to the other tengu on a personal level because of her position as middle management, but she doesn't like...... go out of her way to be deliberately cruel to them either. at worst it's indifference, at best it's a "means to an end" sort of situation, which results in disgruntled workers on the lower rungs of the ladder suffering because the higher-ups believe that's what's best for the group as a whole. Megumu sucks! but she's not a deliberate bully. maybe an accidental bully but that just makes it funny.

she does obviously care about the consolidation of power as well, but from her weird villain monologue in LE38 it doesn't seem like she's interested in gaining power HERSELF, but rather having the tengu as a whole being the top dogs of youkai mountain and in control of Gensokyo's flow of information. so Megumu is greedy, but not in the sense that she'd do anything that wouldn't benefit the other tengu as well. idk, we'll see if ZUN says anything about what she used the card market profits for in the next scoow issue, but for now i think it's a big stretch to say Megumu had ulterior motives beyond gathering economical strength for the tengu in 18. she's not the type of antagonist to try to grab the throne all for herself, because that would throw off the balance of tengu society.

she's honest! sort of! i don't think she lies to people's faces like Tsukasa does, but prefers lies of omission. if she says she's going to do something she'll do it, but it's the things she doesn't say that would warrant some alarm. this is more headcanon than anything else, but i also think Megumu is arrogant/strong enough to believe she doesn't have to outwardly lie to get what she wants.

going back to what i said about Megumu being unable to form personal friendships with other tengu, i like to imagine she has a weird interest in outsiders that would ironically go against the tengus' isolationist policies. she readily picked up Chimata off the ground and rekindled their friendship after 18, and is friends with Momoyo, and she even expressed interest and concern for Marisa. she was worried about Marisa!! that's kinda funny! Marizza Kirisame strikes again— but yeah, Megumu may be an asshole but she's still nice, and i think consolidating those two ideas is what throws a lot of people off. she's not a good person by human standards, but she's still courteous in general and wouldn't insult others because... she just doesn't have a reason to. but she would still totally throw hands with Kanako.

since she's directly inspired by Izuna Gongen i also like to imagine she also has a weird charitable streak as well. Izuna Gongen fed humans who were going through a famine and one of Megumu's major motifs is her onigiri. hell, even her ability card is her onigiri instead of something with her star lasers. Megumu once said she's interested in brave, powerful people, but i think she also does take pity on weaker beings and likes to help out just because she can. maybe it's to flex her power but it could also just be a Thing she does as a tengu.

MOMOYO..... ok now we're going into fanon territory LOL but her friendship with Momoyo is SO interesting because there's technically 0 canon interaction between them but we do get tidbits of their dynamic, like the fact Momoyo agreed to work for her and also seemed excited to introduce the humans to Megumu. Momoyo also says that Megumu is a "combat-lover" but apparently they also hang out just to hang out, like when Momoyo implied Megumu sometimes vents about work (Kanako) to her. i like to place importance on those scraps because they do show that Megumu isn't just about work work work work work, she does have hobbies and is strong enough to have befriended Momoyo. granted, Momoyo isn't 100% loyal to her either, but since they're both powerful youkai i don't think that really means much. they're on friendly terms!! that's the basic gist of it!!

i do think that Momoyo brings out the best in Megumu!! again, she's not human, so her "best" is probably something extremely deranged, but i like to imagine she's so close with Momoyo because she doesn't have to put on pretenses as the Daitengu with her; Momoyo dgaf about her standing in that youkai hierarchy, so Megumu earned Momoyo's respect and friendship through her own merit and strength. with Momoyo, who does not care about all that Daitengu stuff, Megumu can be true equals with her, and that's what makes their friendship really sweet to me. and inversely, Megumu doesn't mind that Momoyo is a gross centipede monster, but it seems like ZUN kinda walked back on the idea of Momoyo being a loner since she's described to be popular with other youkai in 18.5. Hisona made a series of momomegu doujinshi that really digs into that idea of their friendship being based on pure personal wants outside of their respective social standings that i draw a lot of inspiration from.

also in 18.5 Megumu is described as a festival-lover so she's totally a raging party animal. Fratboy Megumu is VERY funny to me. y'all can pry Fratboy Megumu out of my cold dead hands.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

NEW HAVEN WARDS THOUGHTS. ok i have. many. primarily though i would love to hear what fucking. tide's pov of insane tidalwave situation is. or just like. nhw tide thoughts in general!!!! him!! he!!! ok ok gotta go put goats 2 bed brb

AHAAAA HAHA I LOVE YOUUUUUU TIDE LAMBERT. i love you tide lambert. i also am extremely delighted by the fact that you and whiskey both sent me asks at the same time indepenently asking me about tide and mark. awesome little bowl of seeds for me in my inbox. under the cut with you

i haaaaave so many emotions about nhw tide the more i think about him.

i am still so MASSIVELY undecided on the whole clone thing but i do feel so strongly about the endbringer thing i brought up one time. i dont remember the way they are in canon but i have a lot of thoughts about tide and his siblings and their "ages" (magma is the oldest, tide is VERY close second (theyre not twins, but theyre probably only a year or less apart so they are The Oldest as a unit to the others. magma still plays the "im older than you" card to tide though). whirlwind and seismic ARE twins and they have such middle child energy. shockwave is the youngest until elle and has a complex about not being the youngest anymore. elle is the beloved baby girl. trust me i have experience in this this is basically the way my dads side of the family is) . anyway im getting distracted. anyway. tide and magma being the oldest and also being given powers specifically to counter leviathan and behemoth. i have emotions about this !!!! (i actually still dont really know whether behemoth is specifically fire coded but he does sleep in volcanoes so let me dream until worm proves me wrong). so like. even if theyre not clones they still get the whole "i was created for a purpose and i feel like i have the weight of the world on my shoulders because of it and its my only purpose and without it im lost and i dont know what to do with myself"

anyway. thinking about. tidalwave first meeting or like. early stages of meeting or whatever. tide is fucking INTIMIDATING. hes REALLY powerful, and also including that thing i put in my one liveblog the other day about Sere- if tide Wasnt A Hero it could be a goddamn disaster because his powers have the potential to be so fucking scary and bad and dangerous. luckily he is also the worlds biggest softie. tide is marginally less emotionally repressed than mark is, so he's more willing to initiate things.

i constantly think about tide in the context of that one post thats like "i hate when people say it costs nothing to be kind. it costs so much. i mean i'll pay it but damn" (im so mad i cant find that rn but. nhw tide thesis statement) hes not naive!!!!!!!! he knows how awful and shitty the world and the whole cape system is. but hes trying so so so hard to do the right thing and help people. that fucking gets on marks nerves so bad. tide is Too Nice and he hates it. "why cant you be more of an asshole so its easier for me to hate you" etc etc etc.

ANYWAY. early tidalwave. tide looks at wavelength and immediately sees a difference between him and some of the other villains hes fought. theres this almost feral desperation to him. outwardly hes cold and calculating and brutal but like. just a little bit beneath the surface he is. like a cornered animal. he doesnt Want to be doing this, but he Has To. and tide can. really sympathize with that and understand that i think. Mark Also Hates This, He Does Not Like To Be Perceived. i imagine theres a lot of back and forth like "i understand" "how could you possibly understand"

they become sort of like unofficial rivals- tide knows how the hero system works and how fucking nasty things could end up for mark if he fights someone who doesnt care about what happens to a villain, so its always tide seeking him out (fight to maim, not kill. sorry that sentence lives in my mind forever now). tide maybe lets him slip away and escape way easier than he should. because he Gets It. he genuinely does want to help mark, not in an "i can fix him" way, but in more of an "i can see youre in a horrible situation and i dont want to kill you just because of that, so im helping in the small way i can without making things worse for you" way. mark knows hes doing this. they never talk about it. they talk more than people who are supposed to be intent on killing each other should talk. neither of them will ever say it out loud but. the human connection outside of their respective Situations is kind of nice. regardless of how fucked up the whole thing is. ill-advised hookups, unmasking, etc etc all of that. but They Dont Talk About It Ever. next day theyre back to trying to kill each other like nothing happened. tide maybe privately mourns this, but still never says anything about it. tide visits mark in the hospital because no one else will. tide tells mark about ashe because no one else will, even if he knows that will basically shatter everything between them (its not tides fault, why would it be, but mark is a very "shoot the messenger, ask questions later" kind of guy)

anyway. i think about them a lot

[rookedcrow]

"Solas? Terrible fashion sense, the occasional rather cruel sarcastic commentary aimed at yours truly that was, of course, entirely uncalled for. And ah yes, a little too hung up on the Fade — if I didn't know any better, I'd say he had a special little friend hidden away in there — otherwise? Harmless. Well, that is until he decided to have a picnic with his... former little special friends. Alright, you may have a point, maybe not as harmless as I once thought." (from Dorian again!)

rook had made a point of asking about va.rric’s time with the inquisition as much as possible in their search for so.las  ---- her requests equal parts general curiosity ( and a good way to pass the time on their travels ) and wanting to get a better feel for possibly the most unique contract she’d ever been charged with.  more often than not, those requests were honored --- var.ric loved few things more than telling a good story, and she certainly loved hearing one, or two, or three — on any topic she could think of; the people, the places — all of it. ( skyh.old, of all things, had always been one of the more difficult things to wrap her head around back then, being that high up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere; her fear of heights assuming something like that would no doubt be her worst case scenario ... of course, that was long before she’d ever heard of the lighthouse. now, that image almost seemed quaint. and grounded. )

va.rric’s take on so.las had always felt ... measured somehow. it wasn’t so much as making excuses for his old friend’s poor behavior ( ro.ok wasn’t sure there were enough words out there to even get a start on that ) as it was reflecting on old times with slightly tinted lenses. maybe there was some guilt there; not knowing then what he knew now; knowing that there were ulterior motives to the help that was being provided. hard.ing had said she hadn’t known s.olas all that well save for polite conversation in passing, so that wasn’t anything really to go on, other than the fact s.olas sometimes knew how to hold his tongue. ( a trait rook didn’t seem to be keen on reciprocating, if her handful of little talks with him were any indication. she was going to run out of fingers soon counting how many times she’d more or less called him an asshole. )

so she had va.rric’s tapestry of recollections, and harding’s impressions from the outside looking in … which of course meant one of the first things she’d wanted to ask do.rian about after his dressing down of the first warden was what had he thought of his former companion. ( va.rric had always spoken highly about the mage from te.vinter; in both his prowess as a mage, and his snark. now how was she supposed to pass up a chance to see one of those two skillsets in action for herself without needing a swarm of vena.tori? )

and just as var.ric would have insisted, dorian certainly exceeded her expectations.  from the critique of his fashion sense ( or more accurately, a lack thereof ) to the series of events that lead up to the situation she currently found herself at the head of in relief of var.ric, there was a keen eye and keener words behind the lot of it. it’s funny, though ------- that va.rric never mentioned seeking out dor.ian outright while they were in minrath.ous.

“so should i pass along some well wishes from you to him the next time i speak with him?” ( or is this just another excuse to call him an ass to his face? who knows. ) “or perhaps some other choice words? i don’t mind, and i’ve got a pretty solid memory when it comes to giving regards.” the jokes a little cheesier than the food and drink laid out on the table, but for a moment it nice to not have to worry about being overly formal.

“i’m sure sola.s would love to hear from you.”

[astriar]

Would you like to ramble about your DCA headcanons to us, the audience ?

!! My first ask! Thank you so much! And DUHHH OF COURSE I love talking about the sillies!!!

okay so I have a lot of headcanons that stem from me either willfully ignoring canon or misunderstanding it, but hey fnaf lore is my kinetic sand and I am a child of the early 2000s so let’s go:

—Sun and Moon were good at their job before the virus infected them! I know this is now somewhat backed up by Ruin, with Cassie saying that she always had a good time in the daycare, but I feel like it’s nice to mention!

—Sun was as overwhelming as he was in SB because he was infected with the Virus along with Moon! Normally, he acts a lot more like you would expect a childcare animatronic to act like (again, somewhat backed up by HW2 as Sun speaks a lot more calmly! My little asshole <33)

—On the train of thought as above, here is my own personal interpretation of events that led up to SB: Moon was the first in the Pizzaplex to be infected, and after he realized as such, he blocked himself entirely out of the system and put firewalls up to hell and back, cutting off his communication with Sun!

—Sun started going a little crazy with the stress of keeping up the daycare entirely by himself, and didn’t notice the virus had infected him too until too late! (Basically right before the events of security breach)

—Moon would listen to and enjoy old Panic at the Disco if he had access to non fazbear-approved music

—…night shift employees also happen to find their devices go missing on occasion, only to be returned with some interesting Spotify history

—a lot of people I feel like think Sun would listen to soft indie stuff but I think he would either listen to hard rock or the most deplorable, insufferable hyper-pop on the damn market

—Moon and the DJ are besties!

—Sun can’t leave the daycare, but Chica will come and visit him every once in awhile! Sun gives her his latest knitting project, and Chica usually delivers gossip from across the Pizzaplex Moon happened to miss.

—The rest of the band members steer clear of the daycare, except for Freddy every one in awhile. And Bonnie, of course— Moon was friends with Bonnie.

—Also, non-virus infected Moon is a menace who is generally rude and disrespectful to Pizzaplex employees (smh moon) UNLESS you give him a reason to not be rude and disrespectful

—he operates on an guilty until proven innocent basis and Sun is absolutely the same way with Pizzaplex employees

—Moon is the more public menace, but everyone really should be afraid of Sun, who 100% has less morals

—I don’t even know what to make of canon Eclipse but I love them!! And I genuinely wonder if Sun and Moon were ever rebooted into safe mode before Ruin? If so, what kind of role did Eclipse play?

-I also don’t know what to make of Moon’s apparent lore relevance in HW2, and this may be denial speaking, but I feel like maybe Moon wasn’t infected during HW2? Maybe he’s just being his normal, menace-y self? That’s what I think at least but that’s just a theory (a GAME THEORY)

-Jack-O-Moon :D <3

….kay this feels like way too many words BUT I appreciate the chance to ramble!! I definitely try and keep their personalities based in canon (especially in my writing) but I also love everyone who hc’s them heavily!! The fandom is what makes liking these two so enjoyable, so I love seeing any and all takes :D

I sincerely apologize if the formatting is weird (mobile baybee) but! Thank you very much for asking :D

[stormxpadme]

Whumptober 2024 No. 12 - Underground Caverns

06/05/2018

In view of what his team would have to face upon arrival, Logan's relief that day was limited when his kitten – somewhat roughly due to the lack of exercise in the last few months – touched the Blackbird down outside the camp ruins. At least this Alaskan wasteland saved them the search for a landing site.

While Katja shut down the engines, he turned to the passenger area, still not very enthusiastic about the sight of his so-called task force. Fuck, after the last numbing years of uneventfulness, the X-Men had simply not been prepared for shit like in New York II. “No heroics, no solo stunts. Don't run off too far. Don't need anyone to get lost.”

A mocking glance from dark eyes, as young as they were far too bitter, met his. “Get lost? When everything that isn't a clean white attracts attention within a ten-mile radius?” Bastian reached for a chewing gum, demonstratively unimpressed by Logan's dark expression. Maybe he was just trying to avoid looking through the windshield at the weathered, partially fallen fence posts, the remains of generators and sheds almost completely covered by snow.

This stubborn avoidance would inevitably come to an end in a moment, and then Logan wouldn't have time for therapy after hysterical breakdowns. If the kid was, understandably, too unstable for this, they should have left him at home. “I've got better things to do than dig people out of holes who don't watch their step.” Logan unstrapped with an irritated blow to his seatbelt buckle. ”And unless they trained only your big mouths at that academy here back then, you might have heard of snow blindness, too.”

“Your sense of tact never ceases to amaze me, Claws.” Katja threw his jacket at him so roughly that it would have landed in his face if it hadn't been for his feral reflexes.

She herself didn't need any protective clothing, but still, Logan sometimes wished that she'd put something on over that sadistic costume of hers. Not because what had happened between them some 20 years ago would still have been of any significance, but because the open view of the traces on Katja's body from that asshole Anderson back then, the testimony of Logan's own failure to properly take care of one of his pack, didn’t hurt any less after all this time. Especially on a day when the fear was not unjustified that such dangerous conflicts would soon be on the agenda again. “Being nice is not in my job description.” He turned away abruptly, focusing his thoughts on the essentials. Even if that only meant scouring a godforsaken area for clues that the traitor they were looking for, or the person who had hired them, had surely destroyed long ago, if they hadn't been complete idiots.

To Logan's surprise, Bastian was at least the first to head outside, albeit with a very pained expression. “Goddamnit, I forgot that the fucking wind here almost kills you.” His teeth chattering, he jumped down the last part of the stairs and rolled his eyes when he immediately sank knee-deep in the snow. Disgruntled, he pulled his hood deep into his face, but thankfully stopped his whining.

Not least because Gringo ran past him with an excited whine, surprisingly fast for one or other age-related conditions, probably scenting his birthplace. However, the fur ball had barely made the first round through the few outlines that could still be seen of this former refuge when he let out a bloodcurdling howl and cowered next to a fallen pillar, with his head between his front legs, whimpering to himself.

Bastian quickly had a similar expression on his face replace that provocation from a moment ago. Logan thought he heard the boy's heart skip a beat in the silence, interrupted only by the whistling, cutting gusts, as he, too, spotted the first frozen human bodies between torn tarps and crooked wooden stakes. He turned very pale, even staggered back a step, but then regained his composure. And said something that sounded completely surreal at first ... But it was also one of the first things the boy let out that made Logan respect him a little. “Since you already dragged me here, I hope you don't mind that we bury these people. It's about time.”

Logan gave himself a push, jumped off the ramp as well and briefly put a hand on Bastian's shoulder. While he wasn't too hot on sentimentality ... No matter how much of human abysses that boy had witnessed in his youth, so many corpses of minors at once were probably a rare sight, even in a laboratory like those of these psycho fuckers in Helsinki. And the boy was standing before them for the second time in half a year no less. “If there's time.” He went for an attempt at an initial scan of the area of several miles that the outermost protective field had once surrounded himself but quickly realized that it was useless while everything was covered by that damn omnipresent white.

It had been necessary for Noemi to come along. Today was as good a day as any. Let her get to know the things she would have to face regularly sooner or later if she stuck to her career choice.

Luckily, in the midst of his far too melancholy thoughts, his instincts kicked in. His head raised on its own, his nostrils flared from a scent that he couldn't immediately place. But most of all, he was listening. His eyes narrowed. Not here, not now. “Firewing!” Within seconds, the situation had changed. Now Logan definitely couldn't babysit the girls on top, even though via Noemi's and his weak mental link, that his daughter's abilities had instinctively created years ago already, he could only too well feel the coldness of shock in her soul, and could see from the corner of his eyes how Saskia was clinging to her mother, too. This was the reality outside of their cozy little Danger Room right here; the sooner the two of them realized that, the better.

“On it. Stand back.” Pride stirred in Logan's soul when Noemi, using her telekinetic powers, swung up into the air, although she had turned quite a bit whiter in her face. Hopefully, his daughter had inherited his strong stomach. So far, this only looked like the hints of some sick shit. Soon, nothing of it would remain hidden, not from unenhanced eyes either, and above all, it would smell like it. Nevertheless, Noemi raised both arms without hesitation and sent a wall of fire racing through the air, across the ground, across the entire camp, while she protected the Blackbird and those present with separate telekinetic fields. A force of nature that made snow and ice disappear within seconds. When Noemi landed again, with a grace that easily broke Logan's heart every time, because it reminded him far too well of where the girl got it from, she had become even paler. Not even swallowing thickly several times could hide the glistening of ice crystals on her cheeks when her small group now stood in front of a huge field of black corpses, curled up in pain, lying in their own feces. Exactly as they had died back then, the ice had preserved them. For a few seconds, Noemi and Saskia looked as if they wanted to go back to the jet immediately. “And now?”

“We split up. Hurry up. Belt cams on. Record everything you see and touch. We won't be coming back here again. Hurricane, Beast and I will check out what's left of the tents while the others take a look at the bunker,” Logan explained harshly, not saying a word more about the scene of the accident himself. It wouldn't do anyone any good if he, too, let it show now how sick this all was. Or that in the face of it, an old fear was inevitably trying to surface in him. The concrete fear, not just the subtle dread that he'd had to live with every day of his life since the battle on the Scapels moon. The fear of losing someone he loved with all his heart at the hands of fanatical bigots. “Look for documents. Files, flash drives, anything that might be useful. Hurricane, turn on the heating.”

Taking a deep breath, Saskia pulled away from Katja who looked at the camp with a composure that already made Logan forget again how annoying his kitten could be at times with her lack of self-confidence and constant self-reproaches. This woman had seen hell from up close before, and that had shaped her whole life. She knew when to function.

Unfortunately, Saskia tried to follow this impressive example in vain. Occupational hazard when a mutation depended on emotions. It was understandable that Saskia didn't feel like laughing right now. She tried hard to concentrate, with her eyes closed ... When she opened them again, there were tears in them. “I'm sorry...”

Logan just shook his head. Such experiences were also part of a first mission. Hopefully, the fleas would learn something from it. ”Keep trying. Get to work.”

“I don't think there's much left in the tents. After the force field was deactivated, either the storms or wild animals have destroyed everything haptic here. We'll have more success down below.” Despite his renewed outrageous objection, Bastian didn't sound as if his mind was still really present. Tears were freezing on his cheeks. The now completely empty look in his eyes felt damn familiar to Logan. It wasn’t a surprise when the boy's legs suddenly gave in, at the first step towards the said underground facility already.

Logan would have to squeeze in some extra shifts in the Danger Room; he was starting to rust. But the truth was that he knew what it was like to have the world start to blur before your eyes, to see the ghosts of people flickering through your field of vision, until you forgot where you were and when. Kit had had to rudely shake Logan out of this trance a few times during his occasional trips to Africa before he could have made the acquaintance of a poisonous plant or a predator's teeth. He turned away abruptly before his own concentration could wane. Thinking of people like Kit had just as little a place on a mission as untrained beginners. “Kitten, do something. We need him.”

But before Katja could take even one step towards Bastian, he raised his hand sharply. His other hand dug into the ground, snow trickling through his long fingers, again and again. With each time, his eyes cleared a bit, and when Noemi knelt down next to him, concerned, there was a jerk going through his body at last. “In the tents, we never kept many things of importance.” Now his tone, fortunately, was stabilizing again, too. “But you could check here on the surface to see if any of the residents are missing that I don't know about. Then we can at least rule out the possibility that one of the teenagers helped the attackers. If we're in a hurry, I'm more useful downstairs, but you'll need a resident list with photos; those things were also stored in the bunker. The power cells down there will last for decades, so there shouldn't be much damage.” He slowly raised his head to look Logan straight in the eye. “That is, if you don't mind, Sir.” Actually, it was admirable that even in the deepest state of mourning, this brat could still make a "Sir" sound like a "Fuck you".

“Hurricane, go with them, bring that list. Until then, we'll be done with the tents and have all the bodies on tape. Close the hatch before something freezes off of Bastian that might not grow back,” Logan growled, but not half as unkindly as he'd spoken of his latest favorite pacifist a few minutes ago still.

Despite his age-related immaturity, Bastian was doing quite well right now, and if taking care of him also gave the teenage girls the strength they needed to get through this, all the better.

The rest of them would have enough to do, turning over every stone up here. “And when I say we're leaving, you don't ask, you just get your asses out of here.”

“Why?” Noemi asked suspiciously. ”What did you hear earlier?”

Sometimes it was annoying when your own daughter had telepathic gifts. Logan shook his head harshly. He didn't know anything yet. It could have been any other helicopter, which was hopefully already heading in a different direction. “Move your asses.”

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

Noemi, Bastian, Saskia and Katja had quickly reached a decayed horse barn, which, apart from an unserviceable dog sled, contained nothing of value. Outside the sled, Gringo was already waiting for them, restlessly pawing at something metal in the ground.

The key to the hatch almost invisibly embedded in the frosty ground, which Bastian got from a barely inches-sized secret hiding place on the underside of the sled, they didn't need as they soon discovered – the entrance, through the width of which two people could just barely squeeze if you snuggled, was unlocked. “So much for that.” Bastian pulled open the unpleasantly squeaking metal cover, already slightly bent due to the weather, and carefully descended the icy first steps, ignoring the rusted railing, which would have been more likely to slit one's wrists than to give support. ”Careful, don't break your ankle. Winter service stopped coming by here a few months ago, unfortunately.” He quickly lost interest in his forced humor, but Bastian didn't seem particularly surprised by the chaos that awaited them downstairs either. “We're not the first ones here.”

Overturned chairs, pictures torn from the walls, half-tipped over cabinets ... The deactivated protective field after the viral attack had apparently been seen as an invitation by some scum.

“Why would anyone break in here? There's nothing of value here, is there?” Saskia was the last to join them, pulling the hatch shut properly this time to keep out the relentless storm.

As Bastian had predicted, both the heaters and the lights were still working, so at least they would be able to work under humane conditions in a few minutes.

“For mutant haters, there is.” Katja exchanged a look of sad agreement with Bastian. ”They were probably looking for data about New York II and mutants in general. Jericho has done a lot of research.”

“But he was smart enough to hide all the results and inventions in his laboratory,” Bastian added, his voice trembling ever so slightly. ”Apart from him and the older students, no one ever got in there. Over there. But first …”

He jumped over a few scattered items on the ground, swiftly pacing the large common hall, his eyes fixed solely on objects on the ground.

Katja caught up with him and grabbed his hand to stop him. “You can go back upstairs if it's too hard.” She had an idea what it was that the boy didn't want to see under any circumstances in these underground rooms.

You could smell it immediately, too, coming from the direction to which Gringo had instantly scurried, alternately whimpering and growling. It wouldn't be good for Bastian's state of mind if he were to track down what the dog had found himself.

Katja couldn't say that she was eager to do so either. Unfortunately, she wouldn't have a choice.

Bastian firmly shook his head. “I knew what I was getting myself into.” With his shoulders tight, he began to rummage in a rusted storage cupboard that had tipped over onto a table, while Katja set out on an obligatory first tour of the common room, and to the most necessary of duties, as far as the victim in here was concerned.

“You can save yourself the time. There's nothing left here.” Bastian ducked his head back under his hood uncomfortably when three questioning glances turned in his direction, nodding at the scorch marks on the door of the cupboard. ”This looks like artificial radiation rays. Someone was here looking for something so important that they fought for it. I doubt that these were people who just leave things lying around. Stop looking at me like that. I've had plenty of time to read and to do computer games in my life, and in our lab, they mainly tested mutants with destructive powers. There are hardly any traces of any kind of radiation that I haven't seen before. With a little time, you could recreate exactly how they wreaked havoc here.”

“I'll get back to that.” Katja nodded appreciatively at the boy, although she felt her throat tighten again instantly. The Avengers' hunch seemed to have been right. Artificial radiation weapons was what Jean's killers had also used back then, as Katja knew from that one gruesome mission report. “The lab it is.” She held out her hand to Bastian pleadingly. Logan was right: They couldn't linger here. And Katja and Noemi still had at least two rooms to search, including the private quarters of the former camp director. ”Ready?”

Bastian nodded jerkily and finally pulled a crumpled piece of paper from between the shards of crockery and some books. He pressed it into Saskia's hand before heading for the massive metal doors that separated the research area from the general one. “Just as I thought: It's intact. They probably didn't dare to blow it up for fear of destroying something important in there. Jericho had some pretty tough security systems.” Now he couldn't and didn’t want to put it off any longer; the renewed memory of the man who had given him a home back then, like so many others, was probably too painful for that. He turned his head abruptly in the direction of the corner where Gringo was cowering, where the smell of decay was most intense. He wiped a few new tears away, as his gaze fell on a snow-white, cramped hand, encased in the long black sleeve of a priest's robe, protruding from under the shadow of a long wooden dining table. “It wasn't the virus, was it? His skin looks normal.”

“Thirty-eight.” Katja squeezed Bastian's gloved hand once more. The fact that they had all known didn't make it any better. It was a more than unfair end for this dedicated clergyman, who had married Scott and her back then, and Jean and Logan, too. ”Don't do this to yourself if you want to remember him in a better way.”

Bastian nodded slowly, swallowing thickly once more. “I could really use a smoke right now,” he murmured, staring absently at the lab door. He gasped in surprise when Katja tapped his arm with a crumpled pack.

“You don't tell my husband, and I won't tell Hank.” Grinning wryly, with a shrug, Katja accepted Noemi's downright stunned scrutiny from the side, too, lit a cigarette herself and promptly coughed. She was definitely getting too old for some things. After a few drags, however, at least she no longer felt as if she wanted to run screaming from this damn bunker any moment.

“You don't sound like you should start again, to be honest. But thank you.” Bastian visibly felt a little more grounded, now that he had something to hold on to. As long as he didn't look into that one certain corner again, he would hopefully be able to get this all over with somehow. And tonight, probably the very first thing he would do would be to try and find out where the booze at Mutant High was hidden. He used his teeth to pull off the glove of his free hand, wiped over the side of the doorframe and placed a fingertip on a dimly glowing spot in the middle of the display, peeking out from under the dirt. “Murray, Four Seven Alpha Tango.” A red ray of light first grazed his skin, then his right pupil.

The display changed to a confirming green. Almost silently, the door's halves slid apart.

“Damn it!” Katja stumbled back, the moment she could see as much as half an inch through the gap into the white-paneled room, bumping into Bastian without even realizing it. Her eyes were wide open when she saw a person floating in a clear liquid in a huge glass tank in the corner, a person she had thought – hoped – she would never have to face again. What in the …? How could that even ...? The answer flashed through her troubled mind as quickly as the reassurance that followed the first moment of shock, when it got clear to her that she definitely had nothing to fear from this unexpected encounter, at least for the moment. This time, she definitely didn’t, after the X-Men had already had fallen for the same misapprehension for the last fifteen years. No one could blame them for that, really ... They'd been made believe extremely thoroughly, just like the rest of the world, this obviously faked death of a terrorist icon. And Scott had had to deal with a whole bunch of annoying and completely unjustified self-reproaches in this regard ever since, on top of that. Mystique, that goddamn ... “Magneto.”

“What the ...?” Noemi hectically pushed past Katja, at first too disgusted by the fate even of an enemy to feel the same displeasure as Katja that the X-Men hadn't been rid of the guy as they'd hoped for so long. ”Seriously, what is wrong with these people who were in here? Isn't it bad enough to rob graves and kill someone? Why exhibit them like a zoo animal?”

“The attackers didn’t do that,” Bastian objected, audibly alienated himself still. "As I said, they couldn't have gotten in here, not a chance. Otherwise, the place wouldn't still look like it's been wiped clean either. Maybe ..." He hurried over to the man-sized tank, admirably suppressing his own shock.

When Katja followed him, she quickly realized from the corner of her eyes that the boy was right once again.

Unlike the others, this room was completely intact. Microscopes and monitors were in their usual places, covered only by a very thin layer of dust. Some of the machines were even still on standby. The colorful contents of countless test tubes seemed to be just waiting for someone with a keen scientific eye to bend over them and work with them ... Except that that would never happen again.

Only the amazement at seeing a face from the past in these rooms, now filled only with memories, a face that actually had nothing to do with this camp whatsoever, pushed this sadness into the background. And the faint hope that maybe not everything in New York II was dead. Even if this was truly the last person Katja would have wanted to see again. “This is a cryogenic bath,” Bastian confirmed her suspicion. "One of Jericho's last inventions. Just look." He tugged at Noemi's cape to draw her closer, and pointed to the lifeless shape inside the thick, slippery liquid, to the healthy, slightly tanned skin color, the peaceful features.

“Cryogenic?” A look of vague recognition spread on Noemi's face. ‘The guy's alive?”

“As of yet. Wait ..." Katja took a closer look at the tall, powerful figure of her old enemy. Quickly enough, she spotted a jagged hole in his dark uniform, right in the heart area, and a dark spot below; the edges of the wound looked deep black. “Whoever this was, he must have been ambushed. He's been shot, but the wound isn't bleeding. Cryo-stasis. At least that's how Jericho described it to me. No breathing, no pulse, no bodily functions. Everything's stopped.”

“Just so you know: That's pretty freaky.” Shaking her head, Noemi, together with Katja, examined the control terminal of the tank more closely. “The guy's lucky. The energy display is already down to ten percent. In a few days, the tank would have ceased to function. Didn't Uncle Scott get that guy six feet under a long time ago already?”

“It seems that his successor once more did a good job of making it look like it,” Katja replied, annoyed, still offended by how much they had all fallen for that blue-skinned bitch once more. ”Maybe she did no longer want to wait to inherit his legacy and tried to kill him herself. By framing us, she had the perfect excuse to continue the cold war against us, even after her people had been immunized.”

“Maybe Magneto sought help from U.G.E.R. and Jericho brought him here,” Bastian nodded thoughtfully. ”He has always been very ambitious when it comes to hopeless cases. It seems that he didn't succeed with this one though.”

Katja felt something like satisfaction well up in her. Not that she would have wished such a cowardly, painful attack on even an enemy, but she couldn't feel sorry for someone either who had made her early days at the Mutant High a living hell. “If Magneto went along with it voluntarily, it must have taken a lot of balls to jump in there. They say cryogenic fluid, that feels like ice at first and then burns like fire, until you pass out. In any case, he's not going anywhere for now. But if we take him to Westchester, Hank might even be able to fix him.”

She tightened her lips harshly. “There are too many crucifixes hanging around here. I'm actually considering helping this asshole. Me pulling the plug would be more what he deserves.”

“So much for Westchester idealism, huh?” Bastian couldn't help but give a cynical little snort, momentarily lost again in the aggression with which he had already confronted Ororo and Logan in the sick bay yesterday. ”Your team already left people here to die. I'd say that's more than enough. The guy missing a couple of sandwiches, fine, but he might know what happened here, and that, I want to know, so can you calm your tits, Mrs. Summers? Wasn’t it you who tried to tell me about how revenge is not worth it yesterday?”

“Revenge is Mystique's style, not ours.” Katja had to turn away, and from Noemi's similarly uncomprehending expression, too, before an even harsher comment could escape her. They had dallied enough, and getting a medical emergency out of here under time pressure would be a whole new challenge on top. If the teenagers would start to get that underway, at least she wouldn't have to deal with this damn tank anymore. The decision as to whether or not to take this risk would ultimately be Scott's anyway, and that was probably for the best. “I, for my part, would just rather avoid Magneto looking for new research subjects again soon to enforce his plans of artificial mutation.” With a harsh movement, she pointed to the old but still clearly visible x-shaped scar on her lower abdomen. ”I don't ever want to have to pick people up like my own child from his damn table again, especially not with marks like this. There's a kind of hate in your soul that you don't get to choose, Bastian, I think you know that best yourself. Not acting on it is the balance we have to seek every day, that's all I was trying to make you understand yesterday.”

“I lived as a guinea pig for years. Don't you think I had enough time for that?” Bastian reminded her with a depressive levity in his voice, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. As if he didn't just have to wear this serenity like an iron mask on the outside because he had long integrated it into his soul. “Those bastards took an extremely long time to find the limits of my healing powers and to test my pain threshold. I have been exposed to more physical, medical and sexual torture in this place than many of the residents of your school put together. It's really not cool to have to bathe in liquid gold or when your skeleton secretes the titanium that they wanted to put on your bones so badly, probably because they've jerked off a few times too many to the files of that Stryker guy back then.” He probably saw that Katja was struggling for words, with a hint of guilt, and forced a weak smile on his lips. Maybe said healing powers had an effect on his soul too ... In any case, he seemed to have truly put this terrible thing behind him. Katja could learn a thing or two from that, and it left her feeling reassured that Bastian would hopefully not pursue his desire for retribution in blood as far as the disaster in this camp was concerned either. “It's okay. But maybe you're starting to understand now why this whole X-Men thing is not for me. What I've learned to hate is violence, because I couldn't guarantee that I would stop once I started. That's the decision I consciously made when your people got me out of there back then. The one for a life in peace, except in extreme emergencies.”

“Sometimes they don’t make such a life possible for you,” Katja replied quietly but firmly. "I hope you don't have to learn that the hard way again.”

Bastian tiredly shook his head. "As I told you: If someone threatens me or those important to me, I have no problem using what I've learned here with Jericho. But until then, I prefer to use my energies for contrary efforts.” He nodded pointedly at the cryo-tank. ”Especially if someone is useful to me. But Mrs. Freeze will have to wait, one way or another.”

“Already on it. The data from this network is protected multiply,” Noemi joined the conversation again, audibly shaken herself by what she'd heard, but more professional than the other two combined. Katja's appreciative smile, she met with a short, proud grin, pulling a USB stick barely the size of a finger out of one of Jericho's computer towers. “Our experts at home will take a look at that. Without a few weeks of hacking, this is just a few terabytes of data garbage. And Jericho's bedroom was also ravaged by the attackers. Just debris and shards.”

“Then we have everything that could still be found here.” Trading a noticeably grateful fistbump with this remarkably tough young woman, Bastian hurried back towards the hatch. On his way, his gaze fell on Jericho's body once more. After a moment's hesitation, he ignored Katja's advice earlier after all and approached the motionless body with trembling knees, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat. He probably owed the man at least a brief farewell.

It wasn't a pretty sight, but not as bad as the remains of the teenagers. Thanks to the much more protected underground location, for once, but above all because the sight of a normal decomposition process was almost reassuring in contrast to these damn disfigured black corpses. Only a little blood and hardly recognizable remains of something else at the back of the head. The handle of the weapon was still in Jericho's hand. He, of all people, a deeply religious Catholic, had really chosen this path. Either because he couldn't have borne to see his charges suffer or to escape the effects of the virus before it could really wreck his body. That didn't matter anymore.

“What was he like?“ Noemi had stopped close behind Bastian. She sounded more curious than upset.

“Jericho... was an angel for mutant world. They kicked him out of the church years ago because he had an affair and someone ratted on him, but he was the most Christian person I ever met.” A sad smile curled on Bastian's lips. “He managed to show each of us a way back to life. He only lived for this camp and for his research. He was just a bit quirky sometimes. Because of his mutation,” he answered Noemi's unspoken question. ”I was here for years, but I never saw him use his powers. He was always kind of angry with his God because he made us what we are.”

“About that, he's not the only one in the Catholic Church,” Katja remarked quietly. "Shall we?”

“One second." Bastian took a deep breath. It wasn't quite that easy to carry on as if nothing had happened after all.

“Tell me,” he whispered absently, closing the dead man's eyes carefully. ”Tell me what happened here.”

He bowed his head to say a short prayer, and after a moment's hesitation, Katja joined him. Not that she herself had any connection with faith, but she knew that Jericho would have appreciated it. That was when she suddenly noticed something sparkling under a wrinkled fold of Jericho's robe, almost at the same moment that Bastian unexpectedly reached for it. “That's weird.” He removed the small pin to take a closer look. It was a flaming heart, pierced by a cross. “I don't recognize that. He always wore a different one, openly displayed over his robe.” And something about this fact visibly made the boy uneasy. This cross looked somehow strange. Eerie.

“Are you sure?” Katja took the pin out of his hand with narrow eyes, an old memory grazing her. ”When Jericho worked with us during the Great Inferno, I saw something like this on him. The symbol gave me nightmares back then already.”

“Something's not right here. The fur ball there isn't usually so paranoid either, is he?” Bastian uneasily looked over at Gringo, who kept growling unwillingly in the direction of Jericho's body.

“Not with someone who helped his mother give birth to him back then, no.” Fighting sudden nausea, Katja bent down next to him and, with a diamond-sharp knife from her belt, cut off a small piece of Jericho's robe, then led Gringo by the collar to the hatch, where she held the cloth in front of his muzzle. “Look! Come on, flea carpet, I know you can still do it. Look, Gringo!”

She had to repeat the game twice before the husky realized that he shouldn't run back to the dead body, but should search for other places in the camp that had its scent.

Bastian looked at her and Noemi critically from the side as they hurried after the dog. “What are we looking for this time?”

“Still the same ... clues.” Katja exchanged a gloomy, understanding glance with Noemi. ”We've all trusted this man unquestioned for decades. I mean, damn it, he used to be a priest. But Magneto didn't shoot himself, so it wasn't him who helped the attackers. He wouldn't have had any reason to do that anyway, even if he hadn't been in a deep sleep for years.”

“This is absurd, I hope you realize that.” Bastian was also visibly fighting nausea, which threatened to rise in all of them just from the thought of this monstrosity. With gritted teeth, he made his way back up the slippery, steep steps.

Katja didn’t say anything. If this really ... That would have meant that the X-Men had failed in a way that they could never make up for. That was bad enough. If she now let herself be overwhelmed to such an extent that she would not be able to complete this investigation, then she would have failed these children, who were lying around her in the snow, even more. So she forced herself to walk past the deceased with a fixed gaze, following nothing but this tunnel vision, the iron determination not to give in to premature hysteria, to continue functioning, on and on, until she would have certainty. Then it would still be early enough to take out her anger on the next best thing she came across.

Bastian was already busy before she got there, tearing down the last remains of a shelter on the husky paddock, under which Gringo had crawled, barking, upset, and promptly came across another hatch, apparently to a second underground facility that none of the residents of New York II had ever known about. “What the ...?” He stared at the heavily bolted opening with his mouth open, growing horror, as Noemi discreetly directed him a few steps backward so that he wouldn't catch a few extremely unpleasant sparks when Katja blew the obstacle to pieces with a single targeted flash.

“I hope that's not just the sewage plant,” Noemi whispered in an almost desperate attempt at a joke, as they all stared hesitantly into a small pit of less than two square meters, in which even the sudden morning light revealed only a yawning void.

“Hardly. We had Shi'ar vaporization technology here,” Bastian replied absently, watching with clenched fists as Katja was the first to descend the far less well-maintained staircase to this secret place, waiting, surely hoping that it would all turn out to be just a stupid misunderstanding, that this was nothing more than an unused storage room that Jericho himself had probably forgotten about at some point ... He leaned down lower when Katja, who was quickly scanning the completely smooth walls, lined with heavy metal, stopped at a certain, equally uniform-looking spot, with her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open, stiff as a pole, almost like Logan had been earlier. “Cat?”

“Take cover again, both of you. I need more juice here.” Katja was more and more confused herself, but she didn't hesitate for a second to retreat to the other side of the chamber and release another, this time much more powerful bolt at the spot that had caught her attention. With a crunching crack, the metal panel in question was torn in two, revealing another door like the one in the main laboratory facility. A final, well-measured, lightning discharge of artificial energy sent the display at that very entrance going up in smoke, which this time would surely not have responded so obediently to Bastian's input, but would probably have reacted with some kind of automatic gun instead.

Bastian stared from the open door into the pitch-black room beyond and at the wreckage of the first barrier, completely stunned, and then at Katja. “That thing, Jericho could only have moved with the help of its powers. So much for him not wanting to use them.”

“Apparently it just needed the right motivation to make him forget such principles,” Katja spat out between clenched teeth. ”Flashlights, you two. Mine didn't survive that.”

“What was that, if you don't mind me asking?” Bastian inquired, his head cocked to the side. "How did you do that? How did you know what was behind there?”

Katja slowly raised her shoulders, dropped them again, but then straightened them and pointed at the secret hiding place in determination. "Later. We're already way too late.”

Even though her curiosity was also visibly piqued, Noemi could only agree with this sober assessment. With flying fingers, she activated the aforementioned lamp on the multi-purpose wristband that Hank had provided her with in the morning before take-off, with an integrated com for emergencies. Katja doubted that she would need the latter. The only danger in this damn camp, they should have eliminated years ago.

It turned out that they didn't need to bother with far too small light cones. As soon as they took their first step into the room, motion detectors above the door activated bright ceiling lighting. Katja only managed two more shaky steps before the nausea choked her again so badly that she had to put her hand over her mouth. So it was true.

Symbols of occultism sprayed in silver adorned the pitch-black walls of the barely ten-square-meter room, which, judging from a computer corner lying in ruins and thousands of shards and mixed substances on the floor, must also have served as a laboratory ... and as a refuge for a sick soul. There seemed to be only black furniture, and it was simple and scratched, with traces of kicks. There was also utter chaos, with photos that had fallen, been torn, or written on in black, wherever Jericho had been. All the mirrors were broken, and there were broken, half-empty alcohol bottles... Not exactly the kind of furnishings you would expect to find in a parsonage.

“Looks like he wanted to live out all seven deadly sins at once after they threw him out,” Bastian commented with an almost hysterically forced snort. ”The desk.”

“I see it.” Katja had to brace herself on the tabletop to keep from giving in to the tremors in her body. Part of her had suspected it for minutes, but that didn't make it any easier. She leaned over the carved words on the rotten wood, reading out loud what someone had left there in a scrawly handwriting, probably in a completely dazed state. “'I can feel the darkness surrounding me. My God, stand by me, lest I break under your cross. No less cursed my own life than that of the demons our Holy Spirit commands to banish. How I wish you had never been born.'” It took her a moment to realize ... Then, deep hatred clouded her vision at last. Hate for him, but also for herself. Because she had been too blind to see the signs. “Damn it!” With sudden aggression, she kicked the table so hard that it slid away against the wall. With flying hands, she freed the laptop in the middle of the piece of furniture, the only electronic part in the room that still looked reasonably intact, from all the cables and stowed it under her coat. Hopefully, if there was anything left to salvage, the data pushers in Westchester would be able to do that as well.

Next to her, Bastian was already tearing open all the desk drawers with a similarly angry expression on his face, pulling out a few documents at random without taking more than a quick glance at them. The same symbol as on the pendant of Jericho's robe was printed on the letterhead on most pages, which was enough for them both as a clue.

“Noemi, film everything we can't take with us. Time to get out of here. There are people pulling the strings here who are way out of league for our little squad here.” Only that she spoke a whole nuance deeper than before, betrayed that Katja was just as close to freaking out as Bastian. In a way, this might help the boy more than any comforting touch or soothing word. Right now, they both didn't need any reassurance. Right now, they needed this unholy, helpless rage of heaven.

“And please hurry, Noemi. We have to get back to Mutant High as soon as possible. I have to talk to Magneto ... Can you get this one open too, Cat?” Almost simultaneously, Bastian and Katja had noticed a barely visible indentation in the wall at the back of the room, in the same direction as the camp, the bunker.

Katja let out a growl that would have made Logan proud. “With how pissed I am right now, you'd ask what I couldn't take apart with my powers right now. Keep your head down.” Manipulating lightning down the exit hatch and through entire rooms was a completely different challenge than controlling a storm in the open air, but for the moment, her instincts had completely taken control of her gift. Her eyes were shining in the light of the energy that turned another hidden passageway into a pile of rubble, her chest rose and fell a little too fast as she ran ahead through the passage behind it. Her half-come-apart braid blew in the strong wind that surrounded her body and cleared all the suffocating, dust- and insect-polluted air in the narrow corridor before Bastian had even caught up with her again. This time, the boy kept his distance all voluntarily, because what was all but a corona of glistening energy surrounding Katja's body probably elicited a great deal of respect in him. With the help of the same, Katja also managed to rip the hopefully last massively bolted door that day to pieces, this time the one that led back to the public laboratory.

By the time the last bright glow had faded, the last dangerous volts had been scattered in a shower of sparks and Bastian could follow Katja, Noemi had also joined them again. “We got it all. Should we take the body of this psycho with us, by the way? Maybe there's more to discover about him that will help you, Cat.”

Bastian grimaced. “Just leave the asshole here to rot. Nobody needs him anymore. But we need him.” He hurried past Katja, in a rush because he surely didn't want to spend even a single damn minute more than necessary in this cursed place, and slapped the energy display of the cryo-aquarium with his hand. The temperature of the liquid inside began to rise instantly. With that, there was only one thing left to do. With tight lips, he took a long knife out of his boot. “My parents gave this to me when they kicked me out like a dog. Touching, isn't it?” Without waiting for an answer, he rushed out of the laboratory and bent over Jericho's body again. ”I just wish I'd done this earlier.” He grabbed the weapon tightly in both hands and plunged it into the heart of his former mentor. “What a shame you can't die twice.” He laughed bitterly even as he was bursting into tears and fell backward into the dust and dirt of the stone ground. “But I'll find someone else to blame for this just yet. Have his bastard of their god mercy with them.”

“We just had that conversation earlier, I think.” Katja took him firmly by the shoulders. ”You're not going to run off rashly without even knowing where you have to go, understand? You think you can do this alone? Take on people who have the money and the power to breed viruses like this? You need our help! If you keep running off alone like this, that can only end badly.”

Noemi came over immediately and looked Bastian firmly in the eye as well. “Listen to Cat, okay? People die if you don't work together. And I don't feel like sewing the pieces back together when Logan is done with you until your body reassembles itself. My masochism doesn't go that far.”

Bastian bowed his head, visibly ashamed. Now he was clearly uncomfortable that he had spoken to Logan and Ororo like that the whole time, even though the children in that camp hadn't even realized that they had had a traitor among them. “I'll probably be stuck with you guys for a while longer after all, won't I?”

“At least for as long as we're hunting the same people, definitely.” Katja let go of him abruptly. ”Let's get Magneto to the jet. Now we need to be fast.” The soft, regular beeping that had indicated the tank was working had stopped. Katja climbed the ladder on the side of the long cuboid almost completely made of glass, and she and Bastian opened the heavy lid together.

With her help, Bastian somehow managed to get Magneto's body out of the water. He wasn't much taller than she was; Katja was surprised that he could even hold the guy. But he managed it, trembling from the liquid that soaked his clothes and smelled sharply of disinfectant. “I'll so start lifting tomorrow, I swear,” he gasped when they finally made it up the stairs and Katja opened the hatch ...

And before either of them knew what was happening, all hell broke loose around them.

Obviously, the quick departure was not going to happen.

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

@whumptober | @whumptober-archive

[broodwolf221]

since idk how many blorbos i'm gonna do this for yet, i'm gonna start by just linking to the question post -> here <- and when i'm done i'll link all the posts to that :')

so for now... halcor brosca:

your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor's opinion on Orlais?

indifferent, kinda? he never understood orzammar's high society, he sure doesn't understand orlais'.

are they skilled in The Grand Game?

lmao. hell no.

opinion on blood magic?

initially very wary, then more or less ambivalent. all magic is freaky, but he gets close with morrigan and realizes that she has control over her magic, so his opinion shifts substantially. he's also naturally inclined to question authority/conventional wisdom, so that is an aspect of this

attitude towards Andrastianism?

indifferent. it's a faith. he doesn't get it. some of its practitioners are assholes, some are nice, all of them are people.

attitude towards the Chantry?

early on: indifferent. as time progresses, though, he becomes more wary about it. he's... not Big on controlling sociocultural mechanisms in general.

attitude towards the Qun?

at first, very, very ignorant, with only fanciful stories to give any context. after meeting sten and hearing a bit more about the culture itself, his opinion becomes more grounded and more critical. overall, he's not a fan.

if they had to choose one person most important to them, who would that be?

rica and morrigan are pretty well tied, actually.

who do they hate the most, and do they have an arch-nemesis?

um… hm. he’s not really one for hate? the way he is, being casteless and all, he grew up expecting to get the short end of the stick, and he grew accustomed to that. I think he was very angry for a while growing up, but then that anger began to poison him and he worked - hard! for a long time! - on letting it go. now it’s like… are you going to be angry at the cliff because you fell down it? that’s kinda how he views things now. because of that, people being genuine, trustworthy, and kind freaks him out a bit. he keeps waiting for the betrayal. the point where keeping him in their good graces costs more than it’s worth. it’s part of why he gravitates towards morrigan - her anger and condemnation are open, obvious, transparent. so when it stops being directed at him, he actually trusts that.

that all said… probably leske. because that was a betrayal, a real betrayal, one that cut deep.

what is their love language? 

hm. don’t rly buy into love languages, but he’s pretty open with his feelings. less “i love you” and more “i think you’re glorious” all starry-eyed

are they good horse riders?

ehhhh… it takes a bit to get used to, but he gets there in the end!

what are their religious beliefs, if any?

none. if he prays - usually before a battle and out of desperation - it’s to the stone, although sometimes he casts a wider net “the maker, andraste, elven gods if you’re listening, whoever the qunari worship-” kinda thing

attitude towards Mabari?

okay so they are Big Dogs and he’s not used to dogs and they freaked him out at first!!!! but then he saved that mabari and now he loves them.

their thoughts on the Grey Warden order?

little opinion on it prior to joining; after joining, very “wtf, this is it?” because it should NOT have been just him and alistair for so long

who are they closest to from their family?

rica! 100%

preferred weapon of choice?

two daggers

do they get sentimental about their weapons or armour?

nope, although he appreciates having nice gear and he maintains it very well.

what were they like as a child?

angrier, bitter. tried hard to reach his mother. 

do they have any irrational fears?

falling into the sky is still sorta-kinda there. he prefers forests or mountainous areas; flat areas freak him out

are they afraid of death?

no

where would they like to be buried?

doesn’t think about it. probably doesn’t want to be buried at all though. burned, maybe.

what is their biggest regret?

not being able to help rica more. he feels like he abandoned her to run off with the grey wardens.

have they ever been to Tevinter?

nope

do they have, or want to have, children?

kieran is his son, although he hadn’t ever thought about having children before. he ends up wishing he could be a father to him, but of course morrigan goes her own way and he does not pursue her; he respects her choice, even if he disagrees with it. he thinks about kieran often, though

what languages can they speak?

common

what did they plan for their life to look like before the events of the game happened?

nothing good. surviving until he was killed.

do they get a happy ending?

not… really? he finds happiness, but it’s always fleeting. still, it matters.

[sukunasun]

i think about your kendallroyfication of gojo at least once a week

*gazes longingly at the succession poster on my wall*

its impossible to compare two icons against one another but i will say gojo would cope better than kendall ever did. only he suffers a fate worse than not becoming ceo. (i would have wanted satoru to have it, his name is on the building people, it was literally named the GOJO deal. wake up.)

do you think he's ever stomped his tiny foot down exclaiming "i am the honoured one!" when his favourite double XL digimon t-shirt had been confiscated in exchange for yet another haori because he insists on wearing it to every formal event. who cares about a tea ceremony with the royal family, he needs everyone to know about his beloved agumon.

some corrections should be made, he doesn't actually drown himself in a fishbowl's worth of alcohol because he's not even a fan of it. not a single drop. pure dislike. gojo's infamous creator has unfortunately disclosed that information after i decided to turn him into an alcoholic slash drug addict slash rehab enthusiast. yes, he's been to a few. so we'll just have to believe he'd deal with the pain of privilege in other ways. makes you wonder how much of a bore satoru actually is when he doesn't drink, doesn't fuck, only takes drugs when he has a boo boo, and most probably spends that allocated funding for idk...parfaits and sanrio themed desserts. saccharine and colourful, unlike the kind geto likes which are reminiscent of red beans and taro.

there's a nice place somewhere in ginza they frequent. although 'nice place' is rather generous considering suguru calls it a "piece of shit chain with the best fucking ohagis in japan." satoru rolls his eyes because geto says the same thing about everything he tries. the novelty doesn't last very long before he gets bored. rice crackers, pain au chocolat, satoru's actual body and soul for like three years in college.

ugh, that's a can of worms he doesn't want to unleash on a depressing and grey rainy morning. he's got no time for this when he really needs to get suguru's opinion on what to do about bankruptcy. something about his father borrowing billions of dollars. whatever it's complicated and the asshole had never really cared for consequences. gojo doesn't need to remind the world of his father's iron fist and small ego. but he explains just enough of the situation to geto. in corporate jargon with an eerily uncharacteristic 'i'm in deep shit' tone. he's never been one to panic.

"so what do you think?" he rushes geto for an answer and to the untrained eye, geto seems like he's hardly listening because he's busy tsk-ing and rolling his eyes at the servers who are obviously ignoring his request for extra napkins. not that they're busy with the morning rush or anything. 'they just hate me because i'm pretty' yeah yeah, we know suguru. your face card is platinum and so are your graff rings. please. you're perfectly capable of getting your own napkins. (it's purpose is less to do with wiping the crumbs off his lips and more as a buffer between his oh-so-sensitive hands and this piping cup of tea. you want me to touch this cup? with my bare hands?preposterous. it's filthy!)

"what if we came in, took the whole thing off your family's hands," geto suggests like it were so simple and not at all a ploy to bring gojo's family to ruins. that's the thing with suguru. he doesn't know how or why he says these things so casually.

jokes aside, he genuinely wonders if his best friend even likes him. there's this awkward tension to prove they're more than just two guys who get coffee every week. maybe if he stared at him for a second or two longer, he'd give in and comfort satoru like no one else in the universe ever had or will be able to.

they leave with umbrellas in hand and coats that are so expensive it's the same price as a car. or a down payment on a house. not that they'd know. they don't pay for these things like normal people do. satoru doesn't have a thing for labels, too gaudy, too showy. it comes off as some stealth-wealth bullshit but the truth is he won't admit his mother buys his clothes for him and now, that task has fallen into suguru's authority.

this might be a good time to note that he's barely gotten a pastry for himself. and the news of his father's company has yet to hit the headlines. it's enough to drag him out of his thoughts and back to reality before he smirks and shoots geto a sweet little "yeah? go fuck yourself." turning his suggestion down.

suguru laughs cheerily and it's so beautiful the clouds part for a ray of sun to catch the droplets off the edge of canopy shielding geto's profile. "you know i'd never...i'm on your side, toru," he whispers so fondly. a soft, gentle pull of syllables masking something he knows geto is dying to add to that sentence.

right then, they reach the street crossing where they usually part. he wants to ask him for more advice, more options, something that'll stop him from staring down the glass panes of high-rise windows. "i'll figure something out," suguru assures him, leaning in close because they wouldn't want any spies to hear, and leaves a kiss on his lips tasting like tea and glutinous rice.

satoru's gonna be sick.

[cepheusgalaxy]

On inclusive language: by a nonbinary transmasculime person

"Ladies and gentleman", "boys and girls", "man and woman". Gendered language is everywhere, and if we want to pratice more inclusive language to represent more people and not be dumbass assholes, we gotta be thoughtful.

I see some people around trying to substitute "ladies and gentleman", with things like "ladies and gentleman and those of us who know better" etc and etc, but I'd like to offer the inight that maybe that's not themost inclusive language out there.

We are accidentally excluding questioning people, people who both "know better" and are a lady or a gentleman, etc etc.

But that would leave us down a rabbit hole, where we keep adding and adding specifics to include every person out there, and it wouldn't work.

The solution? Generalize.

When we try to substitute "women" in certain cases, like with people who have periods, we might feel prone to say "afab people" but wait! What about intersex afab people without uteruses or afab people who had their uteruses removed? What about amab people who have uteruses? What about afab people with uteruses that don't have periods for a variety of reasons? We couldn't possbly list them all in a practical sentence!

Unless we generalize. Say "people with periods". No need to specificate. That's what relevant for what you're talking about.

"Men and women?" Avoid "men and woman and nonbinary people and multigender people and questioning and...", try "people/human beings/mankind". What I've found extremely upsetting with inclusive language is when people take an outdated but generalized term (e.g. using Men to say Human kind) and specify it more to include more people ("men and women") but by taking the generalization away, you exclude so many people. That's why we should generalize.

Another example of overspecifying is in my language, with lots of gendered nouns (like president or doctor) who were usually used in a masculine looking form, are now being susbtituted by alternatives that include a masc and a fem form. O presidente + A presidenta. That includes she/hers but its not including everyone. Sometimes it includes less people, because it takes the generalization away. But does that mean we should go back? No! No, I say. We need to go further. Include more people by saying less.

That said, my favorite substitute for Ladies and Gentleman? "Beloved audience". It's classy, it sounds nice (unlike esteemed guests, for me dont judge me) and better, it's general.

So, yeah, TL;DR: Don't overspecify. Generalize.

[super-hero-confessions]

Here's something I found pretty interesting. I've seen plenty of Clois/Lark shippers call SuperWonder shippers misogynists or harass them and fic writers.

But I actually haven't seen them going after the SuperBats or Clex shippers even if there is blatant or misogynistic undertones (though to be fair it's pretty hard to compete with Golden and Silver Age Lois if you wanna make her look bad). Which is weird I guess?

I'm sure it's happened. I wouldn't deny the experience of it from someone. But I find it very curious as I've seen similar if not the same rhetoric at the prospect of Superman being with Maxima and other claims the like that if a story focuses on Clark moving on and moving forward, it can only be misogynistic fridging.

But with the catch "only when he moves on to another woman" (never seen this argument against him moving on with a man).

And to that I say... What the fuck? No, seriously what the fuck? The logic makes no sense as it did to begin with. If the problem is Clark "moving on" specifically with women, then he should never "move on" from Lana and never marry Lois. Everything said about accusing those shipping him with women other than Lois after a relationship with Lois can be equally said and applied to shipping him with any woman after Lana if we're to believe any of that crap.

Meaning shipping him anyone other than Lana would be misogyny that devalues Lana and makes Lois and others look bad.

You can't have it both ways. If it's misogyny, it starts after the FIRST girl. Clark's ACTUAL first choice (by virtue of becoming his wife, Lois must be his literal last, final choice, and she is for a time and that's fine). And it should be applied to any ship after the fact, not just the ones with women, whether you fear being called a homophobe or not. Where's this "bravery to defend" Lois with the men at play, huh? Do you have any idea how many fics make Clark cheat on Lois for Bruce?

A lot. It's a lot...

And even then with the arguments made it should be LANA getting the defense, not Lois.

And look, I'm a multishipper, I like all the ships in actual good and nontoxic portrayals of them, but I hate a good deal of shipping discourse and more ridiculous arguments that are used to be against ships and often more specifically against certain female characters.

Maybe the Clois shippers don't bother SuperBats or Clex shippers because the misogyny is more often against either Lana or Diana. And I don't mean fair criticism of the characters, certain portrayals or even making a minor villainess or love rival for story and drama purposes. I mean using the lady as the butt of a joke and making her unreasonably OOC in order to make the men look better and "less misogynistic" by shitting all over this woman.

And this kinda shit isn't exclusive to this part of fandom or fiction in general either but it is all equally stupid and old and especially terrible when you have people being disgusting and egging it on in real life like with the Bieber nonsense. What the fuck people, let them live.

These accusations are frequently without merit and sound a lot more like confessions. No one shipping for fun ties the value of the women in these ships to the men they are with besides the worst of the worst in the shipping and real world. The actual misogynists that love purity culture and think only men and a body count can define how much a woman is worth.

So in essence. Slut shaming.

Ya sound like some goddamn Andrew Tate Fanbois, misogynistic slut shaming and all.

If you like a ship. Fine. If you dislike a ship. Fine. But accusing others of who they are based on FICTION. That makes YOU the asshole, not the other way around.

And more people need to ship Clark Kent with Jimmy Olsen. That right there is the real OTP and who DC shoulda chose from the start. He got saved way more than Lois back in the day, and always cared for and was nice to Clark.

[rmorde]

And JJK S2 wraps up!

Once again, I'm reminded of how annoying it was that Gojo took the high road with the higher ups. Those wrinkly old good for nothing assholes should have been massacred a long long time ago. They do not actually give fucking damn about peace and order. They all just want power and with Gojo gone they were drunk with it. Idiotic selfish self-centered bastards.

I swear Geto should not have helped Gojo grow a moral principle of killing only when there is meaning to it. It made him less inclined to commit homicide no matter how justifiable it already is. Because while I do see his perspective - *that it is meaningless to kill the higher-ups if his goal was to ensure that the youth would have a better life, it would have been so fucking cathartic if Gojo just Hollow Purple'd them all way back when they set up Yuji to die in the Juvenile Detention Center.

*Gojo is right (as much as it pains me to say it). He cannot kill the higher-ups because he would create a vacuum of power that would have resulted to any of the following: REPERCUSSION 1: Other seniors from the powerful clans would power grab leading to a civil war among sorcerers which can lead to many meaningless deaths. Lots of dead sorcerers = Less sorcerers to fight the ever growing number of curses = Gojo fails to ensure that young people enjoy their youth and have allies. ---> Less Sorcerers VS Lots of Curses = More Solo Missions. With the unpredictability of Curses, the new gen may even be forced to fight those above their Grade like Haibara. And, as proven in Hidden Inventory, Gojo maybe The Strongest but he cannot be everywhere and save/protect people all the time. The mortality rate of young sorcerers may raise even further no matter how much Gojo, Nanami, Shoko, Utahime, and Yaga overwork themselves to death to mitigate it. REPERCUSSION 2: Other seniors from powerful clans would fill the vacuum of power and unite to expel Gojo from jujutsu society and label him as a mass killer. Again, this can lead to a civil war among sorcerers: those who side with Gojo and those who do not which can lead to many meaningless deaths.

Lots of dead sorcerers = Less sorcerers to fight the ever growing number of curses = Gojo fails to ensure that young people enjoy their youth and have allies. -> Yeah. Yeah. Gojo is The Strongest. However, people that desire power are not very smart and can do a lot of stupid things (like what the higher-ups did after the Shibuya Incident). They can easily use the mass killing as an excuse to paint Gojo as the new "King of Curses" or something.

It is also highly possible for these power-hungry people to put an exorbitant bounty on Gojo's head that maybe even Mei Mei would be tempted to kill him.

Another likely result is for them to ally with Kenjaku. The Kamo clan did it so easily (if I remember it right). The Zenin clan may even use this as an excuse to also take away Megumi since they can claim that Gojo has gone crazy.

REPERCUSSION 3: Gojo takes all the power for himself and, as I have elaborated from REPERCUSSION 2, he could just be branded as the new "King of Curses" by the others and end up in an unwanted civil war with lots of unnecessary deaths. While he is powerful enough to be feared, envious assholes full of stupidity and hatred towards him can easily override common sense and still pick a bloody fight. Not to mention the ignorant "Yes Men" of the clan heads. So...

Lots of dead sorcerers = Less sorcerers to fight the ever growing number of curses = Gojo fails to ensure that young people enjoy their youth and have allies.

So... as cathartic as it would have been (like Maki's revenge on the Zenin clan), Gojo cannot exactly kill the higher-ups easily - not for the goal that he had in mind. He has to take the high road and play nice with them so he can focus more on helping nurture the next generation of sorcerers towards a better future.

It's sad tho. Regardless of his efforts to avoid bloodshed among sorcerers and protect the youth, Gojo failed anyway. He even blames himself for the entire fiasco after he got out of the Prison Realm. He doesn't fault anyone except himself (just like when Riko died). Gojo's choice to care doomed a lot of people.

Maybe if Kenjaku hadn't meddled through the Shibuya Incident, Gojo would have succeeded with his plan. He'd continue dancing through the finicky political games of the dying elderly jujutsu higher-ups while acting as a buffer for the new gen sorcerers. Eventually, the old clans would lose their influence as the youth grew strong together enough to change their society and render traditions as obsolete.

Sadly, it was not meant to be.