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brown-little-robin · 1 year ago

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42: Dog with Two Owners

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Thad wakes up blearily. It’s really bright. His head hurts. He groans and throws his elbow over his eyes. He must have fallen asleep outside the nutrient womb. Feels like he’s laying on a computer or something.

“CRAYDL, turn down the lights.”

Silence.

Max Mercury’s voice says, “Are you awake?”

Oh.

“Yes.”

He keeps his elbow over his eyes. His cheeks are burning. Where is he and who just heard him talking to CRAYDL? The last thing he remembers is being on Joseph’s lap in the lair. Did he lose time, or just fall asleep?

Thad sits up and eases his arm away from his face, letting his eyes adjust to the sunlight. He’s above ground somewhere he doesn’t recognize, surrounded by concrete blocks and rubble. Max and Joseph are looking at him searchingly. He suppresses the urge to hide his face again.

The surrounding pile of rubble looks like the aftermath of a fight or something, but Max and Joseph seem calm.

Joseph smiles at him and signs, “You fell asleep. I texted Max to come get us.”

No fight, then. Good. Relieved, Thad allows the adults to coddle him.

Max holds out his hand, and Thad lets the man pull him upright. Joseph asks if he can touch him, and when Thad nods, Joseph hugs him. Not just a quick hug, either. Joseph holds onto him. Thad buries his face in Joseph’s shirt. He feels hidden. Safe, for the moment.

Max asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” Thad reluctantly disengages from Joseph. “I can’t tell if the experiment did anything permanent to me.”

The white lightning has died down to his usual yellow, and the unnatural happiness is gone. Thad reaches for the void in his chest, the thing that Raven said was where a lightning rod was supposed to go, and can’t even tell if it’s there. He just feels embarrassed, and, under that, empty. Empty, empty.

His CRAYDL is dead and Thad isn’t even mourning it. Doesn’t have the capacity.

Thad is so close to being safe from the Allens forever. All he has to do is go to Doctor Morlo to get examined, which was part of several agreements he had to make to get this far. And then, provided his new lightning rod isn’t killing him, he can move in with Joseph. Today.

“Can you bring me to the lab, sir?”

“Of course. Come on.”

Max holds his hands out. Thad approaches him, conscious of Joseph watching. He hates this. He feels like a dog with two owners. Who is he supposed to obey? Who is he supposed to wag his tail for?

He allows Max to pick him up and carry him to Morlo’s lab. Max sets him down on the exam table and touches his cheek gently. Torn between the instinct to flinch back and the aching emptiness that makes him want to lean in, Thad just freezes. Max smiles sadly.

“You did good. I’ll be back soon.”

It takes longer than Thad expected for Max to return. He looks around the lab, idly refreshing himself on the equipment layout, and wonders what Max is doing. Probably reporting to the other speedsters. Bringing Joseph back to the house, too. There’s no reason for Joseph to be in Nevada when Thad will be delivered to his house soon enough.

Examination, then goodbyes to Max and Helen, then being taken to Joseph’s house. Then he can relax.

Thad shivers. It’s cold down in the lab with only a t-shirt and shorts.

Doctor Morlo comes in at last, clumping heavily down the stairs. Alone. He sets down his suitcase with a huge sigh.

“Well, boy,” he says. “You survived.”

“I survived,” Thad agrees.

Morlo nods. Then he puts his hands on his hips and stretches, grumbling quietly. Thad is content to watch.

“How do you feel?”

“Full report?” Thad isn't really feeling up to all the joking he usually does with Morlo, but he's content enough to relish the words. He likes play-acting, too serious or too casual, around Doctor Morlo. The "doctor" gets it.

“Full report,” Morlo agrees.

“Physically undamaged. No bones broken, no muscles torn, no nerve damage that I can tell. But I was hit by lightning, so it’s worth running a test, probably.”

“What about your powers?”

“I don’t know definitively yet. I need to do more testing. They changed… not permanently, though, I think.”

Thad tells Morlo about speaking to the spirits. He describes, as best as he can, the spirit that took him into the blank white space and then touched him, throwing him back into physical space. He leaves out the part where it called him beloved. That’s… private.

“My trace lightning was white for a few minutes. You know—what sparks from speedsters as they move?”

“I know. Is it back to yellow now?”

“Yes.” Thad frowns at his hands. “I think I was faster with the white lightning. Fast enough to outrun Wally West, although of course his top speed varies based on his emotional state. And I was… I was so happy…”

Thad’s throat closes up.

Morlo clears his throat loudly and clumps over to his minifridge. He tosses Thad an apple juice over his shoulder.

Thad catches it perfectly, of course. He tears the little plastic opening with his fingernail. Destroying something helps him focus again.

Morlo asks, “Any guesses about why?”

“Because I wasn’t afraid. I think I wasn’t physically capable of fear right then.”

“I meant the powers, but good to know.”

Thad flushes. “Right. I… I don’t know, but I felt like the white lightning was a gift. From the spirit.”

“You’re catching Mercury’s Zen thing,” Doctor Morlo grunts.

“I am not!”

Morlo shrugs. “I’m joking. Anyway, electricity overload, possible nerve damage, and your powers changed? Sounds like we should run a plate test.”

Morlo hooks the metal plate he uses to test Thad’s vibrational and speed abilities to one of his machines. Thad follows his directions perfectly, as always. His powers are working perfectly, forcing the world slower and faster at Thad’s whims. His lightning sparks and shines as poison-yellow as ever. It’s a relief.

Morlo starts to put the plate away, then turns around abruptly.

“Wait. You were hungry?”

“Yes. I ate… fourteen food packs.”

“How big?”

Thad gestures with his hands. “About the size of a 21st century granola bar.”

Morlo frowns. “Hmm. It could be the massive energy expenditure of communicating with this “spirit” of yours. Or your heat-shield aura trying to protect you from the lightning tunnel. On the other hand… it could be a symptom of something… bigger.”

Thad’s stomach sinks. He should have realized hunger was a bad sign. Being hungry is not normal for him anymore.

“You’re right. I haven’t had much of an appetite since I was in the speed force,” he confirms, and then realizes that he’ll have to distinguish his… reappearance… in June from his recent brush with the speed force. “I mean, since I…”

“Ran away?”

Thad winces. He can’t exactly refute that.

“You make it sound so petty!”

Morlo shrugs. “If you have a better thing to call it, let me know.”

Thad sits silent. Everything he can think to call it would be… dramatic. ‘Revoking my existence’ would be most accurate… ‘running away’ will do fine.

Morlo puts the plate away.

“I need your blood. I’ll run some tests.”

Thad straps his arm into the cuffs and strains to keep himself at normal speed. He hates feeling the needle go in, and the weird coldness of getting his blood drawn disturbs him. He’d rather just cut himself and let the wound drain, but Green Lantern was disturbed when he did that in the Watchtower.

Morlo holds up the vial of blood and grins at it.

“Mad scientist,” Thad teases him.

Morlo guffaws. “Little villain.”

Thad grins.

Doctor Morlo separates his blood into several vials, then pours some of it into what looks like a bunsen burner. Thad could come over and watch, but honestly, he’s tired. His own inertia keeps him lying on the exam table, waiting.

“So, Max tells me you still have that Inertia suit.”

Thad tenses. His arm pulls against the cuffs again, not vibrating, just digging the metal into his arm.

“Yes.”

“Ever think about trying it on again?”

“No!”

Thad stares at Morlo’s back, feeling nauseous. What did he do wrong? Why would Doctor Morlo think he wanted to be Inertia again?

“No,” Thad says, quieter, uncomfortably aware of how rough—how evil—his voice sounds. “I don’t want to be Inertia. I swear.”

“I said trying it on, not being Inertia.” Morlo looks at Thad over his shoulder. He doesn’t look angry, just curious. “No interest in spandex at all, though? Not even to make your own vigilante identity?”

Thad hesitates.

“I… I don’t…”

If these metal restraints were any sharper, he’d be bleeding. It feels far away. He’s staring at the back of Morlo’s white coat, only half perceiving it.

“I don’t know… I’m… useful, I know I could be useful, hypothetically. I’d be an incredible asset. But… even the issue of running aside, I don’t… want to.”

Pathetic.

“What if I hurt someone? Or what if the Flash got angry at me, or… I don’t want to put myself in a position to make a catastrophic mistake. I’d be done for.”

But Thad would be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t… thought about it. Being… a hero. Being someone useful, confident, adored.

He got a taste of the hero life when he was Bart. He loved being “Impulse”. It was so much better than being Bart Allen. He was fast, he was strong, he had a team and a mentor… everyone trusted him…

Foolish fantasies. Thad Thawne was ruined for that a long time ago.

Morlo sets the blood carefully in a rack in the fridge, then comes back and releases the restraints. Thaddeus swings his legs off the bed, grabs his arm, and squeezes where the upper restraint was, just below the elbow. The dull, bruise-like pain gives him something to focus on. Anything is better than the purposeless void of his new life.

Doctor Morlo heaves himself up onto the bed beside Thad. Thad freezes.

Morlo says, “All I’m saying is, it would be good to get you moving again. I’m not trying to pressure you into being a hero or anything. But you need the exercise.”

Thad flinches at the reminder of his failure to keep his body at full functionality. He’s been trying not to think about that.

“You’re a speedster. You have to run. For your health.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t!” Thad snaps. “I know I ran away today, but I wasn’t in my right mind. Running triggers my fight-or-flight response. I can’t let that happen.”

“Work up to it, then.”

Thad shakes his head.

“I can’t do it.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Thad laughs. “I murder someone and get executed for it? It’s not some kind of social anxiety keeping me from going for a nice little run, Morlo. I’m dangerous.”

“Dangerous my sweet butt,” Morlo growls. “Boy, just say you’re traumatized.”

“What’s the difference?” Thad snaps. “I still can’t run.”

Morlo turns and grabs Thad’s shoulders, forcing him to look into his face. Thad goes very tense, heart hammering.

“Listen, boy,” Morlo growls. “You and I are a lot alike, which is how I know you’re making a huge mistake.”

Thad tries to say “Let me go!”, but all that comes out is a whine. Morlo’s hands squeeze his shoulders harder.

“You are making your life into a big drama about mortal enemies and living weapons. It doesn’t have to be that way. Got that?”

Morlo lets him go. Thad covers his face. His arms are shaking.

After a minute, he can speak again. “I’m not like you! You were never a weapon!”

“I don’t have as much excuse as you, but I certainly was a weapon. You studied me, didn’t you?”

Yes, he did, but… well… maybe they are similar. Thad has to admit that Morlo is just as much a potential killer as he is. He was going to kill Max, even.

Morlo huffs.

“Look. You don’t have to start running if it’s that upsetting to you. But you have to know you're allowed to be a person. Pete's sake, boy, your family's not going to kill you if you slip up a bit.”

“Yes they will. I want them to.”

“Thad,” Morlo growls, and Thad glares at him through his fingers. This is about that stupid ‘suicidal’ thing again, isn’t it? Why is Morlo so bent on deciding that Thad’s suicidal?! It’s ridiculous!

“I don’t want to die,” he snarls, hating that he even has to say that. CRAYDL would be disappointed in him for sinking to the point where that’s even in question. “But I can’t be allowed to kill people. I made Max promise he’d kill me if I was going to.”

“This is above my pay grade,” Morlo groans. He gets off the table and goes to the stairs.

“MAX!” he hollers. “A little help here!”

Max appears at the top of the stairs, calm and elegant as always, and Thad sighs in equal parts frustration and relief. Max will know how to explain.

“Max, tell Doctor Morlo I can’t be allowed to kill people,” he demands.

Max gives Morlo a look. Thad waits.

Morlo tells Max, “He thinks you’re just waiting around to kill him or something.”

Thad is offended on Max’s behalf. “I’m trying to tell Morlo that you promised you’d kill me if you had to. He doesn’t believe me!”

“Ah.”

Thad rests his hands on his thighs, waiting for the sweet triumph of being proven right.

“I did tell him I’d stop him if I absolutely had to, in order to save lives,” Max tells Morlo pointedly. “But clearly something got lost in translation.”

Oh no.

Max comes down the stairs and makes eye contact with Thad. Thad looks away. He can’t do the emotional openness thing right now, not while being reprimanded for whatever it was that he misunderstood.

“I’m not going to kill you for making a mistake,” Max tells him. “And neither will Wally, or Jay, or Jessie, or Bart, or anyone else. We don’t kill in revenge, Thad, or as a punishment. We only take a life to save a life. As long as you didn’t mean to hurt anyone else, no one would hurt you.”

That can’t be right. That can’t. What about the vindictive streak of the Allen family? What about justice? What about Wally West?

Thad opens his eyes again, finding his argument. “What about Inertia in the museum, then? The one who killed Bart?”

Max inhales sharply.

Thad continues, a little spark of anger lighting in him, “Bart was already dead when the Flash crippled Inertia. I know that! I heard Wonder Woman say so! You’ve taken revenge before; don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same to me.”

“Thad…” Max sighs. “We should talk about that more later, but that won’t happen to you. I promise.”

“How can I trust you?” Thad spits. Baiting him. His heart’s not really in it, but Thad is good at performing anger.

“It’s not the same,” Max says firmly. “That Inertia was an active risk. And Wally wasn’t in a good place then. Bart had been killed, Thad. We all thought he was gone forever.”

For an insane moment, Thad wishes he was the other Inertia. He wishes he could have been part of a world where Bart was dead and gone and he didn’t have to think about him anymore.

“You thought Bart Allen was dead,” Thaddeus says slowly, savoring the words, rolling them in his mouth like he’s forming them into a knife under his tongue.

He glances at Max. The older man is watching Thad warily.

“Bart Allen, dead and gone…”

Thaddeus’s mouth pulls into a terrible grin. He knows exactly what he looks like. He used to practice his grin of dark triumph in the mirrored surfaces of televisions.

“So why did the Flash have to cripple Inertia?”

Max hesitates one crucial second and Thaddeus launches himself into the metaphorical crack Max left there. “I know he was dangerous, but the Flash could have just taken his speed and left him normal! You claim that won’t happen to me, but are our situations really that different?”

“Yes.”

“No they’re not!”

“Death changes things,” Max says quietly. “I won’t claim Wally was right in what he did, but he was grieving.”

“So what,” Thaddeus hisses, throat burning. “I’m grieving too and I haven’t killed anyone over it.”

Morlo clears his throat. Thad’s eyes snap to him, and for a moment all he can see is how to snap the big man’s neck, sweep his legs out and punch through his stomach, yank him down by the beard and kick his teeth out.

“You’re a good person,” Max says.

No. He’s exactly like every other nameless clone who tried to kill Bart Allen. Thaddeus is cold as ice. Angry as an arctic storm. Empty.

“Liar.”

Max flinches. Doctor Morlo hurriedly turns his back on them and heads upstairs. Good idea.

“Thad, I—”

“I don’t want to hear it. You only protect me because I tricked you into loving me when I was Bart.”

Max’s eyes snap open.

“That’s not true.” Now Max is angry. “Sophos Thaddeus Anacletus Free, that is not true.”

“Then what’s your excuse?” Thaddeus snarls. “Go on, lie to me.”

“I love you like a son,” Max says, low and furious. “Thaddeus, it kills me inside every time one of you clones dies. I would protect you all if I could. But I can’t.”

Like a son!

For a blinding moment, Thad wants to cry.

And then the feeling recedes and Thad is filled and surrounded by that cold emptiness again. What good is Max’s love, anyway? Much good it did any of Thad’s dead clones. Max’s love means nothing. It’s a meaningless promise, just like everything else in Thad’s life.

He sneers, “That’s right. You can’t protect any of us. I’m leaving.”

Thad swings himself off the bed. He knows that he’s about to ruin all of his hard-earned trust from Max, but he can’t bring himself to care. He can’t do this. Sit there and look at Max’s guilty old face and pretend everything is fine. He can’t cuddle and cry with a man who let his clones—his clones!—be killed.

The only emotion that can spark through the clouds of this void of feeling is anger. They were his clones and the Flash and Impulse killed them. He feels like he’s been stolen from.

Max is speaking, but Thad doesn’t care enough to listen to the words. “I want to say goodbye to Helen,” he interrupts blandly, keeping the anger below his icy surface. “But I guess that’ll have to be later. I’m not in the right mood.”

“Thad, wait.”

“Don’t chase me. You don’t want to have to kill me, after all!”

And he runs away.

As Thaddeus kicks into motion, another emotion seizes him. Fear. He controls that too, allowing it to drive him faster but not to drive him out of his intended course. He’s going to New Jersey. He’s going to Metropolis to find Joseph.

And then he’ll never have to run again.

#The Strange Redemption of Thaddeus Thawne #soooooo #I'm... a LITTLE late #but chapter! written!#and I got the flashfam zine piece written too!#I'll be back for real on Tuesday. bye again <33

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restinpeacesensei · 2 months ago

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conquest club redemption is what i stand for

HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY BOUEIBU!!!! \;;W;;/ THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TEN YEARS!!!! 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭💖💖💖✨✨✨

(this is also my picture for the boueibu zine!! ;;w;;)

#boueibu #binan koukou chikyuu bouei bu love!#cute high earth defense club love #akoya gero #kinshiro kusatsu #arima ibushi #kusatsu kinshirou #my art #thank you koolkitty9 for permission to post this early!!!

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batbabydamian · 7 months ago

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ita bag setup for c2e2!! :] added the artists below!

a.) Kaichu - carrd

b.) Sonia Liao - tumblr, bigcartel

c.) Kohi & Andie - tumblr, shop

d.) helado_jpg - twitter (bought this pin 2 years ago and it looks like they're past dc since, so not sure they still offer it)

e.) The R Stands for Redemption Zine (pin designed by MarinaXStudios) - zine leftover sales closed and doesn't look like the design is in the artist's shop, but still worth a look! shop

f.) harem37 - instagram

g.) Tsukey - etsy

h.) old charm

i.) lstrikesart - linktree

j.) dewhander - tumblr

k.) komunhorangi - instagram

l.) missing24seven - instagram

#rambling #this was much more tame at nycc lol i was v inspired by other bags #the chaotic nature of them packed to the brim looked sm more fun so i added charms!!#used to think ita bags were cringe but now...i am free...

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theresattrpgforthat · 6 months ago

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Any ttrpgs with a distinctive “grunge” aesthetic?

THEME: Grunge

Hello friend, I’m really glad you asked this question! Grunge feels like it fits indie ttrpg design so well, because so much of it emphasizes low-budget, DIY and messy styles. As a style of music, I understand grunge is about being dissonant, dark, and “ugly”. As a theme, what I understand about grunge is that it’s about alienation, isolation, and disenchantment with how society is right now, which is so so relevant to how we feel about our current quality of life right now.

That being said, there’s so much that can be explored in grunge, I feel like there’s a lot of different pieces that could make a work “grunge’. So while I think the games that I’m presenting here all fit some element of grunge, some of them might not fit the elements of grunge that you’re looking for.

Games by Adam Vass.

Adam’s games are often nihilistic, horrific, and creatively designed with mixed media, visual distortion, and a focus on the grotesque or the weird. This includes No Future, a time loop game about punks throwing one last party, Born To Die, a pamphlet ttrpg about anthropomorphic animals in a post-human waste world, and Cybermetal 2012, a lo-fi metal cyberpunk game about surviving in an isolated city of warped technology.

If you love horror as well as a bit of a dystopian edge, you’ll probably want to check out Adam Vass’s work.

Here, There, Be Monsters, by wendi yu.

No matter what they tell you, there’s still weirdness and wonder everywhere. You just have to know where to look. At the edges and cracks of ‘normal’ life we exist, we persist, and we resist: the monsters, the magicians, the anomalies, the freaks, and the outcasts. We gather in the shadows, trying our best to live our lives in a world that, when it doesn’t exactly fear or hate us, doesn't even believe in our existence.

But we’re still here. We’re not going anywhere. And we fight back.

While the layout and art direction of Here, There, Be Monsters is purposeful and cohesive, the goal of this game feels very grunge in the sense that it is meant to acknowledge the messiness and unapologetic anger present in the monster characters. There's a lot of bodies in this art, and these bodies are meant to challenge you - if you find them difficult to look at, that's a you problem, and that feels in tune with the spirit of grunge.

I feel like this game is probably more on the border of punk and grunge, but if what you’re looking for is a game that feels chaotic and embraces the dark and “disgusting” material that grunge is known to celebrate, than this might be worth checking out.

Dead Mall: The Last Great Beast, by Hunter J Allen.

They built us altars only to abandon them. Now they sit as dying, empty relics. No matter what they tell you never forget: These are our relics, not theirs. Don't let them pass gently into that sweet goodnight. They were made for profit but they remain as our playgrounds. If we choose to let them.

This here is a mini-zine and Bingo card about the American shopping mall and its relationship to us, our collective nostalgia, and the significance of cultural ruins.

This is more of a solo bingo game than a roleplaying game, but I think it might be an interesting way to build a modern “dungeon” for something like Liminal Horror. The zine also re-contextualizes a piece of American architecture that was so ingrained into the middle-class experience of the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s. I’m intrigued by how you could use this idea of decay and neglect in other urban fantasy and horror games.

MÖRK BORG, by Ockult Örtmästare Games.

MÖRK BORG is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world. Who are you? The tomb-robber with silver glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the world’s heart away from it’s inevitable end? Confront power-draining necromancers, skulking skeletal warriors and backstabbing wickheads. Wander the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, the catacombs beneath the Bergen Chrypt or the bedevilled Sarkash forest. But leave hope behind - the world’s cruel fate is sealed, and all your vain heroic efforts are destined to end in death and dismay. Or are they?

This is a black comedy style of game that I think has a lot of overlap with the grunge aesthetic. It’s received a number of awards for its art style, which is chaotic, monochromatic, and as best as I can describe it, “sludgy.” Then again, you might look at Mork Borg and feel like it’s more metal than grunge: it’s not casual, but rather designed for shock value. The world is destined to end, and your characters are futilely trying to make a difference in it; a lot of the cues seem to point to your own characters being not necessarily good people.

The Prophet, by The Punk Theologian.

The Prophet is a solo-journaling role-playing game. It requires a tarot deck and can be played in as little as 30 minutes or over days.

Receiving Revelations: Turn over a tarot card and let the prompts and the card image be the revelation from the deity that called you. Navigating through visions of struggle and cries of despair, following the guiding flames of insight, to help turn your people’s trajectory towards justice and equity.

Overcome Events: Flip coins to find out if the people heed your warnings and are aided by their deity in overcoming enemy invasion, surviving a great earthquake, or a raging fire, or are crushed by the weight of divine condemnation reaping upon themselves the consequences of sewing the seeds of inequity.

When it comes to aesthetics, The Prophet feels very DIY-inspired, and when it comes to design, I think the fact that it’s a solo game contributes to the feeling of isolation: your status as a prophet may separate you from your peers, and if your predictions go unnoticed, you could feel even more alone. The inspiration of the creator is defined as “punk,” but since punk is a genre that grunge pulls a lot of inspiration from, I don’t think that this necessarily disqualifies The Prophet from being a “grunge” - style game.

#iHunt, by Machine Age Productions.

#iHunt is a story telling game about killing monsters in the gig economy. In it, you play millennials scraping by paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. A gig app called #iHunt offers them more money than they've ever made to hit the streets and kill vampires, werewolves, demons, and anything else that goes bump in the night.

The base game of #iHunt centres around the soul-crushing nature of the gig economy, which in and of itself I think is a great focus for a grunge-style game. The supplemental zines created by the designer have a very chaotic and collage-like look, taking photos or public domain art and re-mixing them to create something new. If you want to get really grunge, you might want to check out The 90’s Sucked Ass Or Whatever, which is focused on the specific events and details that would affect your disillusioned monster hunters during the height of grunge.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #dnd #asks #indie ttrpg #grunge

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beckbombergirl · 1 year ago

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Frozen Flower Redemption

This little comic was once part for the Welcome to Gensokyo (@gensokyozine) zine but got removed after issues regarding Yukkuris and shit lol.

Anyway, it's not my magnum opus or my best artwork but it's a cute comic overall.

#touhouproject #touhou #touhou project #reimu hakurei #marisa kirisame #sakuya izayoi #yuuka kazami #cirno #cirno touhou #daiyousei #youmu konpaku #yukkuri #touhoucomic #gensokyozine

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bicolor-art · 2 years ago

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while I'm at it, have a charthur doodle to celebrate the Ride With Me zine coming out 🎉

#My art #Artists on tumblr #Fanart #rdr2 #Red Dead Redemption 2 #Ride With Me zine #im so happy with how that zine came out its a banger #this isn't my piece for it btw just an extra doodle <3 #Arthur Morgan #Charles Smith #Charthur #look at me retroactively adding tags. im tired

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zarinthel · 2 years ago

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a small look at inevitability

a friend of mine @tshirt3000 did a “small” zine about whatever ‘yaoi’ means, and it turns out that at over 80 pages total, it means a lot of things to a lot of people. but this isn’t about them, this is about me. this is my entry.

I’ve always been fond of people with miserable endings. They tried their best, and it wasn’t enough. They didn’t try their best, and regretted it too late. They only realize the flaws in their plan when it’s staring at them through a mirror, they die still hopelessly confused by what could possibly have gone wrong.

To me, this is ‘romance’.

Romance being about commitment, and these people, above all else, have married themselves to a bad idea, have fallen in love with a concept above a person. Then, that concept eats them alive.

This is the plot of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. It is also the plot of XXXholic, which while less yaoi centric to me also gave me an everlasting disorder. You win some and you lose some.

The main point of TRC is that many wishes cannot be fulfilled because if you pay the price to get them, then you’d become someone who didn’t want them anymore. And then there are some wishes that can never be granted, no matter what. This is Hitzusen.

T/N: ‘Hitsuzen’ means inevitable.

What TCR and XXXholic have in common is a perpetual loop of the Gift of the Magi-- people who sacrifice something for someone else, only for that person to sacrifice in turn, rendering both gifts pointless in giving, and only meaningful in what they had meant when they were sacrificed.

So you have to be thankful for what you’ve been given, or everyone will have paid their prices for nothing.

This is why Fai drinks Kurogane’s blood. Even though it would be easier for him to die, he can’t give up on his own fear: the blood is the proof that he still has more to lose. As long as he lives, people will make sacrifices to save him.

How scary is that?

It’s like Kurogane said. He’s a coward who can neither live nor let go. And now he is dead and still holding on.

An important tenet of the Grail Wars is that you can’t win them, and any wish the Grail would grant is poisoned with blood and hatred. Nothing good can come. There is no ‘greater good’ to hope for.

Nevertheless, people cannot give up hope.

Gilgamesh proclaims immunity from the call of the Grail because he is the greatest of all heroes. There is nothing he does not already have. There is nothing he cannot grasp. He looks down on Artoria for having regrets.

Fate as a series is completely dependent on the regrets of its heroes. They can be forced to fight only rarely: mostly they must act as they will. They must long for the grail. They must desire to serve. They must be haunted by the mistakes that made them legends. They must die to the same flaws that followed them into the War.

Diarmuid is also immune to a desire for the Grail. What he wants cannot come from the chalice. What he wants is redemption, to serve a master and not be forced away by his inhuman charm that taints his own honor.

A simple wish, but it is beyond his grasp as surely as Enkidu’s soul lies beyond Gilgamesh’s sight. He can no more receive honor in a Grail war than a madened Lancelot can convey his sorrow to his only king. Each and every one of them can only be further tarnished.

Because Diarmuid’s master’s lover desires him, a command seal changes hands. A duel between warriors becomes a cold farce as Diarmuid is forced to turn his lance on himself. He curses the world as he dies. He curses Artoria. He curses her master. He curses his own master. He weeps tears of blood.

Have you no shame?

And Artoria only commits harder. You have to accept stains for the Grail. Otherwise, what will you have given up your principles for?

You will have cut your hair and sold it for a guitar pic for nothing.

In Yugioh GX, one of the protagonist’s rival’s kills himself.

Zane Trusedale, e.g, Ryo Marufuji, goes through a lot of things that aren't very important. All you need to know is that he went from a gifted kid to someone who’s notorious post graduation characteristic is that his heart has been weakened from the fact that he duels with shock collars in order to get a darker more ‘real’ edge to his duels, and he thinks being stuck in a life or death duel dimension isn’t, on its own, hardcore enough.

Aware that he’s pushing it, Zane challenges our main character to duel at possibly the lowest, more depressed point of his entire life. He wants to die in battle and he wants to communicate to Jaden that people can die in battle and have it not really be your fault-- that, to a certain extent, people make their own choices. That responsibility lands on them, and not all on our main character’s shaking shoulders.

His little brother watches this duel, by the way. And Begs him not to do it. But Zane and Jaden understand each other, so they go for it.

Jaden also wins against the boss of this season by committing to a mutual loss meaning death. He lives, of course, and so does Zane after the season ends. but he never really recovers from this. Zane is wheelchair bound. Jaden is possessed. And both of them are softer. Quiet. And tired.

The power of friendship wasn’t enough. Jaden beat season three through the power of incredible violence.

Childhood innocence sacrificed to keep his friends alive. And now he is more distant from them, in an unbridgeable gap.

I think it’s kind of gay to kill yourself. Or, in Han Suyeong’s case, I think it’s kind of gay to write a story about a man who kills himself for the sake of another man who kills himself. You see?

I know I’ve literally written Kim Dokja and Yoo Jonghyuk having sex. But I think they're in an ace relationship, personally. Them and Han Suyeong. A throuple of indeterminate intimacy.

What’s important is that Kim Dokja has theorized his way into creating a happy ending-- a utopia even greater than what Kiritsugu Emiya dared to dream of. He’s even got the price worked out-- the only sacrifice required is himself. The world cannot exist if he is not outside of it.

The opposite crime of sacrifice is longing. Inability to accept an imperfect world.

Another way of looking at it is that Han Suyeong, despite her nature, is the type of person who would have walked away from Omelas. She wouldn’t have accepted the pain of a single child as a necessary grease on the wheels of her ferrari.

Or she’s the type of person who was willing to make everyone in the world suffer endless torments because it’s the type of world that would save one person. Isn’t she so kind?

Even though Yoo Jongyuk doesn’t know it, he chose to do this. He wanted to meet someone he could only meet if he suffered and splintered and lost everything.

How brave of him.

He’s standing over the corpses of every one else who cringed away from the price of their desires. Even if he loses everything, there’s one person who will never look away from him, and one person who will always know him, her ink bleeding down his cheek.

That’s ‘romance’. To me.

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