#set to Doomed by I Prevail

[woundedheartwithin]

When his parents were killed, Yagami Takayuki was getting high and fucking his study partner. He’d left to let the anger fade from his heart, and stayed away so that the stench of weed would fade from his clothes, because he couldn’t endure another shouting match with his father so close to the last one.

And his first clue that something was wrong should have been waking up in someone else’s bed from a nightmare he couldn’t remember. Or the way the air stood still around him as he walked home, leaving the sidewalk covered in dead leaves. Or the way his house had been eerily silent, the door hanging ajar by just an inch and a half, no angry voices bleeding out into the unraked front yard. And maybe he had picked up on those clues and simply ignored them. Or maybe he’d missed them entirely, lost in his excuses for where he’d been the night before and why he hadn’t come home.

He gets on a train to Kamurocho late that same night, trying not to think about how easy it would be to step out onto the tracks instead.

[calder]

Released in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas actively concerns itself with the realities of gay existence, and is widely recognized as a noteworthy work of queer science fiction. New Vegas extensively examines social attitudes towards homosexuality among the game's major factions, and primarily conveys this lore through gay and bisexual characters describing their own experiences. It also allowed the player to mechanically set the Courier's sexual orientation. By taking both available perks, the player character can be bisexual. By choosing neither, the player can opt out of seeing flirtatious dialogue options.

Uniquely, Fallout: New Vegas explores homosexuality in the context of wasteland societies, and touches upon related issues. The core theme of New Vegas is that the desire to recreate the past is driven by irrational nostalgia, and any endeavor to manifest past glory is dangerous and doomed. The social issue of homophobia is used as a demonstrative example. The resurrection of corporate and military power structures presents new avenues for Old World problems such as institutional homophobia to reemerge. One of the many issues that divide the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion is the latter's open persecution of gay people. The NCR is described as tolerant and even accepting of same-sex relationships, though acceptance tends to fall off the further one moves away from the developed, urbanized core of New California. In recent years, the Republic's rapid economic transformation has led to an unforeseen erosion of the humanitarian ideals which it was founded to serve. In practice, to recreate America was to take on its shortcomings and its sins. As subsistence scavenging has dried up, the people of the NCR increasingly turn to wage labor, entrepreneurial venture, or military enlistment to keep their families fed. Meanwhile, their government enacts morally corrosive imperialism (narrative verbiage), their dominion expanding indefinitely as their infrastructure crumbles from within. This has led to a profit-based imperial monoculture which must conquer, consume, and coerce to perpetuate. As personal politics and service labor grow in importance, people find themselves more inclined to present as "normal" in the interest of financial stability and political expedience. A loading screen visualizes this culture of artificial social normalcy: the portrait of President Aradesh on the NCR 5$ bill neglects to depict his unibrow, earring, and facial scarification, overall portraying the once-chieftain so cleanly-cut as to be unrecognizable at first glance. He also appears to be wearing a collared shirt or suit as opposed to the robe he wore in Fallout.

In the Legion, Caesar has mandated that every legionnaire take a wife and produce children, citing high infant mortality rates and the constant need for soldiers, and going as far as instituting child quotas. He treats human beings as a resource to be exploited for war. Ostensibly in this aim homosexuality has been declared a capital offense punishable by death. Historically, routine demonstrations of violence towards women and gay people are a deliberate feature of fascist societies, the only logical cultural conclusion of a government devoted entirely to war and control. In Forlorn Hope letter 9, an NCR soldier wrote wrote the following to his boyfriend:

Dearest Andrew, Writing this seems pretty morbid, but tomorrow we march into the no man's land between our camp and Nelson, which is crawling with Legion. The Major insisted I write this damn "if you get this, I'm dead" letter so here it is. What a crock. I have the luck of the devil and your love on my side, so I'll be home soon. Keep the porch light on for me. We'll party in New Vegas when I get back. I love you. —Devin

Devin believed he would prevail over the Legion because his love would keep him safe. He was found dying or dead on the battlefield, the letter was found on his body. In a post-release patch, the injured soldiers were removed from the battlefield for performance reasons, and never re-implemented. Driven largely in reaction to the Legion's hyper-masculine posturing and misogyny, rumors persist across the Mojave that gay male relationships are not only common within the Legion, but condoned. These rumors are repeated commonly in NCR society. A closeted NCR Major mentions that the Legion is "a little more... forgiving" about close male "friendships," speaking in a hushed tone to avoid suspicion. At the same outpost, the player can encounter Cass, a bisexual civilian woman. She may flirt with a male Courier, who may imply they are gay, prompting her to imply gay men are more common in the Legion. Even as gay men fight and die in the name of love under his command, NCR General Oliver may remark to Courier Six at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam: "If you think after all that's happened, I'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the Legion..."

This writing pertains to institutionalized homophobia which manifests in practice though power structures and social interactions without being written into law. Simply put, in his derogatory remark, the general expresses to his army that military surrender is gay, much like their gay enemy. From the brevity and bluntness of this remark, it's clear that this sentiment is already well understood among his ranks. Logically, to project strength in the eyes of such a leader, one might also project homophobia by scrutinizing and harassing one's peers and subordinates. In this atmosphere, the expression of homophobia is not only normalized, but materially incentivized. For the ambitious, it becomes a tool, and a way of casting shame upon rivals. For the closeted, homophobia becomes a survival tactic, hoping to throw scrutiny off oneself. This is why Major Knight is immediately frightened when a male Courier flirts with him. He is so profoundly alienated that he romanticizes life as a gay man under the Legion. The Legion punish homosexuality with death, and yet Knight characterizes them as more "forgiving" than the NCR. Through these apparently disparate events, the audience can trace how a distorted perception of gay people emerges among insecure men in a military environment, and subsequently becomes ingrained in the corresponding civilian culture. At the 188 Trading Post, a lesbian from the Brotherhood of Steel named Veronica also wryly remarks that she believes legionaries have gay sex about as often as straight sex. She also notes that this only applies to men, as women have no rights whatsoever in Legion society. In this aside, she conveys a pre-existing frustration with lesbophobic social norms. Veronica also mentions that the people of her bunker would rather she remain on the surface. The Mojave Brotherhood of Steel has no official policy prohibiting homosexuality, but an implicit attitude among its dominant members that their limited numbers require everyone to have children to avoid extinction. Numerically, this may seem logical on the surface, given their reluctance to recruit outsiders. However, given their tiny population, this is an ineffective countermeasure, as they do not have nearly enough members to maintain genetic diversity for more than a few generations. This approach is not universally supported by all family units within the Brotherhood, but every individual is ultimately at the mercy of the elder. Veronica was in a lesbian relationship, but they were quietly separated by Elder Elijah, due to the dominant culture of enforcing heterosexual pairing among their population.

Caesar's law has not ended homosexuality within his domain. Despite the obvious risks, some legionaries have continued to pursue relationships behind closed doors, especially given their access to slaves. So long as members complete their societal obligations and fulfill the child quotas, they are able to pursue romance with other men in secret. Homosexual relationships in the faction are noted as being relatively equal compared to the average Legion husband and wife, in a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" sort of open secret policy. Gay legionaries must always make sure to keep their activities hidden. A centurion was once almost caught fraternizing with the teenage boy he had chosen to tend his tent. Despite previous "romantic" intentions, he quickly resolved to dispose of the slave to dispel suspicion. Had they been caught together, the centurion would have been charged with homosexuality and sentenced to death. This story is only known because the enslaved young man, Jimmy, managed to escape execution. Further illustrating the cruelty intrinsic to Legion governance, it's stated that homosexuality was the crime, and not the rape of a young slave; in fact, it seems Jimmy was forced to contribute to the child quota despite being a gay teenager, and the experience left him traumatized. He has resolved to never have sex with another woman, as the very notion triggers memories which fill him with disgust, and (in his own words) makes him feel like a slave all over again. The Strip is indifferent to gay people, viewing them as another opportunity to make caps. Both the Gomorrah and the Atomic Wrangler are interested in maximizing profits, and their prostitution services cater to clients regardless of their orientation. The openly gay Jimmy works at nearby Casa Madrid, but there is some tension among his peers due to his co-worker Maude's blatant homophobia. She supposes he's "okay, for one of those," and if propositioned by a female Courier, Maude will direct them to Sweetie for such "perverted" services. Pretty Sarah must regularly intervene to keep the peace among her staff.

The Followers of the Apocalypse, well-read punks who seek to embody healing through anarchistic values, are not concerned with gender. Most are openly and casually sexually active. Upon meeting Courier Six, Arcade Gannon offhandedly makes his gayness known, unprompted. The audience must face the fact that Arcade's apprehension of the Legion is far from abstract; under Legion law, he would be put to death. One possible ending gives further insight into Caesar's hypocrisy: should the player sell Arcade into slavery and leave Caesar alive, he will keep Arcade as a personal physician and philosophical advisor. They intellectually spar at length, and Caesar grows singularly fond of him. Accordingly, Arcade imitates the historic suicide of Cato the Younger by disemboweling himself. The Legion's remaining medics attempted to save his life, but none were Arcade's equal. Caesar understood his doctor's final gesture of contempt, and mourned him for months.

New Vegas ventures further into themes of healing from the trauma of sexual violence, from the perspective of a lesbian character. Corporal Betsy, an NCR sharpshooter, is a rape survivor, and suffers with PTSD from the incident. Her unprocessed trauma has manifested as a maladaptive tendency to aggressively and explicitly proposition the women she encounters, in an effort to reassert a sense of control. This defensive hypersexual impulse has negatively impacted her ability to connect with other women. A male superior officer notes that her behavior is inappropriate for anyone of her stature, but abstains from disciplining her out of sincere concern for her mental health. The Courier can help her begin to recognize these problems, and convince her to seek treatment from Doctor Usanagi at the New Vegas medical clinic, which proves helpful to her as she processes and heals from her trauma.

In Old World Blues, the Think Tank are five floating brains in jars who express themselves by waving robotic arms bearing screens depicting facial features. Before the War, they were federal scientists who committed crimes against humanity in the name of weapons development. Each is stuck in some sort of neuro-bionic feedback loop which prevents them from moving forward with their projects, mentally binding them to their central laboratory. Walking through their homes at Higgs Village, it's clear each was deeply neurotic before they were transformed into floating brains. Now without bodies, they attempt to maintain the illusion that they are exempt from sexuality as purely mental beings, but each displays obvious interest in the human form. They have codified this shaming with the term "formography." Most of the men are obsessively defensive over their complete disinterest in penises, which they talk about constantly. However, the shameless Dr. Dala shows overwhelming interest in observing and recording any and all human functions. Already androgynous in her pre-War life, Dala has taken to self-identifying as a "gender neutral entity" (though she is not known to use they/them pronouns). Regardless of the Courier's gender, they may coquettishly scratch themselves, clear their throat, and stretch in front of Dala until her biomed gel decoagulates. Dr. 8 also responds positively to graphic masturbation advice from Couriers of either gender. The X-8 research facility is ostensibly a massive immersive shrine to Doctor Borous's hatred of Richie "Ball-Lover" Marcus, a long-dead child who bullied Borous centuries ago. He also clings to his resentment of one Betsy Bright, who refused to attend a dance with him, supposedly so she could "go smoke with RICHIE MARCUS." Clearly arrested in development, Borous has literally built a temple to the fantasy of torturing his adolescent romantic rival and feeding him to dogs. His frozen, static characterization of the jock Richie Marcus as a "pinko-commie" who "likes balls" reflects the shallowness, pettiness, and overall misanthropy underlying his patriotic identity. It remains apparent throughout Old World Blues that the Think Tank are all chronically sexually repressed, which is inseparable from the values of the violent and judgmental pre-War culture which created them. With time and isolation, this ingrained repression has manifested as various intense and deranged psychosexual behaviors, including rage-fueled homophobia, voyeurism, and the obsessive performance of puritanical pretense.

____

“Although I’ve been out for a very long time, I made a conscious effort to be out with relation to this project, as I wanted to be visible as a lesbian in the game industry. New Vegas itself is, I think, one of (if not the) best games out there in how we treat homosexuality – and all of that is very intentional.”

“If my work on FNV, if my being out has helped even one gay person, then I have succeeded.” — Tess “Obsidian’s Gay Cowgirl” Treadwell

____

written (with help from other editors) for fallout.fandom.com/wiki/LGBT_representation_in_the_Fallout_series criticism welcome

[communistkenobi]

Wrt your posting about the jedi taking on children, I disagree thst the argument about force sensitive people 'need' to be trained for everyone else's safety. It's like Dragon Age mages or BNHA quirks, it's not special if someone can fireball me if they're having a bad day, some random person can already beat or strangle me with just their own two hands in the real world, no fireball necessary.

I mean idk I feel like Star Wars does a fairly decent job of establishing how dangerous force sensitivity can be - it’s not just extra strength or throwing things, but also mind control, healing (which i know is rare tbf), communicating with animals, etc. It also establishes how scary it can be to have those sorts of powers without knowing how to deal with them. I think Rebels does a good job of exploring this kind of thing with Kanan and Ezra.

However I also agree with you that it doesn’t “need” to be a problem, like force users are not inherently doomed to darkness/violence unless trained eternally across all space and time. But I think force sensitivity introduces a wholly organic way to accrue power (both physically in the sense that you’re more powerful and socially in that you have a type of organic ‘capital’ that can be used to gain social and political power in society, either because people adore you and want to follow you, and/or because they fear you), and having that type of power isn’t dependent on class position or family history*, it’s essentially random chance if someone is force sensitive or not. Which creates a threat to the types of societies depicted in Star Wars where there are durable ruling classes who want to maintain power.

And I think the Jedi Order offers a solution to this problem by capturing that type of ‘organic capital’ for lack of a better term; you monopolise an institution responsible for moulding force sensitive people into a particular type of subject - one that is not a threat to the prevailing societal order - and in exchange for being forced to be a Jedi you get massive amounts of privilege via access to knowledge, social status, material needs, and so on. While this creates civil unrest and distrust of the Jedi from a lot of laypeople, it’s a pretty sweet deal in the eyes of the Republic if it means not having to deal with rival force sensitive groups using their power to make political demands, especially through violence.

I think looking at it this way explains why the Jedi don’t really accept or allow any other type of force user, especially as they become more enmeshed with the Republic (the coven in the acolyte is a good example, the dathomiri witches, etc), and why a lot of force users who are not Jedi are labelled Sith, either because they adopt that label themselves or because they’re labelled that by the Jedi. And I’m not saying “the sith are just misunderstood victims” or whatever, but that in a scenario where you have a very powerful monastic order that controls how the rest of society understands and interacts with force sensitivity, force users who fall outside of that are going to be treated as a criminal class who are a threat to the republic (because they are - Maul is treated this way, Dooku and Anakin quite literally topple the Republic, etc). So like in the settings Star Wars tends to play in, force sensitivity is narratively understood as a source of incredible potential power, and capturing that power via an institution like the Order makes sure that power potential is not disruptive to prevailing society and power interests. Which is why I think the Jedi do have a fairly good rationale for taking kids and training them, even if that rationale is tied to the maintenance of the status quo - the Order’s power depends upon the maintenance of their own monopoly

*KIND OF. obviously some of the canon loves doing blood lineages with palpatine and shit, the midichlorian thing, etc. which sucks so bad. But general canon consensus as far as I know appears to be that anyone can potentially be force sensitive

[petercaths]

SPOILERS: Helaemond 2x08 Analysis

Helaemond scene was actually so insane, I might pass out from all the layers uncovered and I NEED a place to break it down so LEAKs SPOILERS ahead.

LEAKS LEAKS LEAKS LEAKS

Well, first of all let me rage on what I thought wasn’t well done. There’s definitely a proper set up missing, both for Helaemond and the way we see Helaena interpret her dreams - which have been nothing but riddles , but now there’s coherence ?? I’m very mad at all that was done off screen / out of nowhere. Her arc deserves proper growth, she has so much potential.

Anyways, onto what I liked and a proper analysis of the two Helaemond scenes (LEAKS).

There’s something about the way we were thrown into two completely different ends of their dyanmic. that agressive volatile nature that we have seen build up in Aemond, and then something soft and genuine and vulnerable that he seems to reserve for Helaena now.

Obviously, the scene in which he drags her is one of controversy (and rightfully so). But the desesperación within, it’s very clear he doesn’t want to hurt her, if anything I’d argue he wants to protect her (their family) in the only way he knows how: with more ruin and death. Alicent tells him Helaena is still queen, and his answer is to call Alicent a weak queen. Alicent tells him Helaena is the most deserving of his protection, and his answer is “who will protect her if she cannot protect herself?” I actually think there’s a fear of cycle repetition here, Aemond sees the ways in which Alicent falls short (to him) and how that has endangered their family, and he does not want the same for Helaena or himself. But in the end, he cannot actually force Helaena to fight, Alicent would never stand for it, and I honestly don’t think he could get Helaena to do it unwillingly either. So he leaves.

Which leads to:

!!!!!THE BALCONY SCEEENNNEEE!!!!!

*screams in high valyrian*

The scene was actually a delicious serving of everything I wanted Helaemond to be if they ever shared a true scene together. I remember someone once asked what gothic ship Helaemond would serve, and I said Cathyheathlcliff and boy was I right!

First of all, the scene establishes a visual familiarity with Helaemond , as this is meant to be the same secret passage that Daemyra meet in in s1 which is kinda psychotic of the writers to do with no proper build up, but whatever.

I think it’s so intriguing that Aemond starts the scene by doing the exact opposite as what he did last time. He’s slow and soft, and he appeals to her gentle side, It’s almost manipulative. He says, “we share the same blood…we will answer outrage with outrage,” he wants to tie her to his vengeance and his doom through fire and blood. He reaches out to touch her, but instead his hand ghost over the arm that he hurt earlier. And the fact that he doesn’t touch her, to me that’s his apology. That’s him putting some of his needs aside so she can understand where he is coming from , putting her boundaries first, because he is so desperate for her of all people to stand by him.

All season long he has rejected the help/guidance of his family, but the one person he asks for help is Helaena. He doesn’t just ask for help, he asks her to come to Harrenhall (which was actually insane ?? never thought he’d do that). Alicent mentioned corruption and he fucking ran with it and said “yeah, maybe.” I think what’s so beautiful about Aemond in this scene, however, is that he really does understand her. “I know you do not wish to hurt anyone…” he understands what he’s asking of her, he understands where her morality lies, and even if his does not lie in the same place, I do think he respects it. But in his mind, this is not the time to stand with your values because it really is kill or be killed, and he’s already deemed Alicent a lost cause, but he’s trying to save himself and Helaena from one doom to put them into another where - in his mind - together they can prevail.

And then we have Helaena, and her answer to him in the most lucid vision she’s had (which deserved proper build up). Everyone has an idea of what Aemond did, but Helaena, she knows what he did. She saw it as if she had been there, and she makes sure he knows it too. She throws everything at him, and I think a part of her is pushing to see how far gone he really is.

She tells him“Will you burn me like you burned Aegon?” and it clearly stuns him, and he denies it, and she hesitates but then she keeps going. And then she lands the final blow, “Aegon is yet to see victory… you will be dead.” And it is such a bittersweet reveal , because we know now all that she sees, and that must include her own death as well. It’s bittersweet because Aemond comes into this scene trying to doom and corrupt her, but he does not know that she already carries that doom and corruption with her, and even with all that darkness , she choose to rise above it.

And of course, Aemond can’t have that so he threatens “I could have you killed…” and it’s so half baked because would he? Would he really kill her? Like she said earlier, would he burn her as he did Aegon? But then the most important part of this is said by Helaena, which is that it won’t matter, because she knows her fate is as sealed as his, and whatever he does to her won’t change what will happen to him.

Ultimately, Aemond comes into the scene trying to make his burden hers as well - force them onto her really- and she completely reverse uno’s him. Instead of letting him drag her down to physical ruins, she drags him down a psychological one. She is the one who shares her burden with him, one that she’s had since living memory, that no one in her family listens to. Just like Aemond, Helaena has a chance to place it on someone and make someone else understand, and she takes it, and she chooses Aemond - and by proxy herself. Now she doesn’t go through all of this completely alone.

This intertwines their arcs in such an odd way, she knows they’re doomed to die together, and because of her, he knows his fate is sealed. That’s peak intimacy.

And I guess I’ll end this by saying that we see Aemond show regret about his actions exactly once, and that’s when Helaena rejects him. And also that I really hope that if Helaena never see HH, they find a way to intertwine her arc with Alys more and have them share scenes.

[cherriisodapop]

Fellow Jesterdoll fans. We are now called

The Jesterdoll Court!

And I might make a discord server!!!! If there already isn’t a set discord server for Jesterdoll lol

The power of doomed circus yuri will prevail!!!

[mania-sama]

if you need me, dear, i'm the same as i was

Everywhere, Everything - Noah Kahan

➼ 01 - i wanna love you 'til we're food for the worms to eat ❧ Information (Summary, Tags, Chapters) ❧ Next Chapter ❧ Word Count: 7,742 ❧ Cross-posted from Archive of Our Own

Iwaizumi Hajime stumbles into the shower at three-thirty in the morning, attempting to yank the vivid memory of his dream out of his brain by pulling vainly at his hair. He succeeds only in inducing a pounding headache. Perfect. This is exactly what he needs on arguably one of the most important days of his career. Dread pools in the pit of his stomach, and he steps out feeling worse than when he got in.

Unable to fall back asleep, he spends the next two hours doom-scrolling on Tiktok. He mostly gets stupid clips and gym videos, but that doesn’t come without its pitfalls. Every time he sees a girl and guy lifting weights together or playing around on the machines, Iwaizumi has the urge to throw up his dinner and sling his phone across the room.

The video where two best friends created a montage of their time spent traveling South America does make him curse out loud, sending him into a ten-minute spiral that he sincerely regrets.

The second the time hits six o’clock, he clicks his phone off with more force than necessary and dresses with equal parts aggression and perturbation. His fingers tremble, and his vision blur at the edges. 

He can still smell the airport, can still feel the throng of people moving around him with their suitcases rolling loudly on the ground. They all had a destination in mind: a place to be or a person to meet, setting out on a new adventure or returning home to their old comforts.

But not Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi was losing everything.

He shakes his hands vigorously as if he’s somehow shedding away his dream. His job demands the utmost attention and patience from him. He can’t risk fraying his nerves on the shit going on in his own head. His team needs him at his functional best, all prevailing circumstances considered.

He meets the Men’s National Volleyball Team in their main dining hall, determined to keep them on a proper eating schedule to help with both their diets and his own. Nobody commented on his admittedly picky eating and slightly shorter temper, for a bundle of anxiety is circulating through the players themselves. After two days’ rest from participating in competitive games, they have the most important match to play against one of the strongest teams in this year’s Olympics:

Argentina.

The Japanese National Team is good. The whole world recognizes their player powerhouses, and their ability to strategize and adapt has helped them immensely in the games they’d already played. But they aren’t going against the weaker teams anymore. This is the Olympic gold game. Everything is on the line.¹

And somehow, they hadn’t been seeded against Argentina yet.²

It’s been by pure luck and happenstance. It’s not the first time it’s happened, and it likely won’t be the last. But still. It would’ve been nice to have played against them at least once before they had to fight for a shiny piece of metal. Their strategy is formed based solely on the games they’ve watched both in-person and on television instead of the lived experience of coming toe-to-toe with the unrelenting Argentinian players.

These facts are what the players are worried about, anyway. 

Iwaizumi Hajime is not a player.

No one on the team has mentioned it to him yet, and he prefers to keep it that way. They likely don’t remember that he and Oikawa Tooru, #13 of the Argentinian Men’s National Volleyball Team, played on the same team in high school. And even if they do, they certainly wouldn’t know that they were closer than just the ace and his setter.

Except for Kageyama and Hinata, maybe. But Kageyama is still far too awkward and anti-social to say something like that, nor does Iwaizumi believe he cares enough to antagonize him. As for Hinata, he’d mentioned playing beach volleyball with Oikawa a couple of times with a few unsubtle side glances at Iwaizumi. However, Hinata had never talked to him about it, and Iwaizumi had never pushed for him to do so. Iwaizumi thinks that if the opposite hitter wants to say something, he would’ve done it by now.

If God truly loves him, his team will stay both ignorant and away from him.

When Miya Atsumu sits down next to him, propping his chin on the heel of his head and staring at him with an unnervingly knowledgeable gaze, Iwaizumi knows that God has forsaken him.

“You ate fast. You’re going to give yourself a stomach ache,” Iwaizumi comments before Miya can say anything. Letting him take control of the conversation from the get-go is a quick way for Iwaizumi to lose his goddamn mind.

“No, you’re eating slow,” Miya points out. Iwaizumi pointedly takes a large bite from his banana, trying very hard not to bare his teeth crudely. “Got a headache?”

Iwaizumi spares him a mean side-eye. “I’m getting there. Is there something you need?”

“Yeah,” Miya says, smiling, and fuck, Iwaizumi just let him take the reins so easily, didn’t he? His attempts at politeness always seem to blow up in his face. “Any advice you can give me about Argentina’s number thirteen? Setter versus setter beef, you know. I need all the help I can get.”

Iwaizumi considers his answer carefully. “You spend enough time alone analyzing their games, plus however long the team spends reviewing together. There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know.”

And he believes this. They probably know Oikawa Tooru better than Iwaizumi does at this point. They see him from an angle that Iwaizumi never could and never will. He doesn’t have anything to add to their observations.

“Uh-huh,” Miya muses. Iwaizumi would punch him in the jaw if he thought that was something he could get away with. “No weaknesses? Nothing? I mean, you knew the guy for what, eleven years? You’re saying there’s nothing you can add?”

Iwaizumi’s food tastes like ash on his tongue. “Fifteen years,” he corrects despite himself. “He’s probably changed a lot since high school. I don’t know anything special about him.”

His bitterness is impossible to mask. He wants to wrap his hands around Miya’s throat and strangle the daylights out of him, but that would be unprofessional.

“Damn,” Miya says. Damn indeed, Iwaizumi thinks, stabbing his egg yolk. “Are you excited to be on the same court as him again? I know you don’t exactly keep in contact, so it’s been a while.”

“Have you been prying into my personal life?”

“I didn’t!” He exclaims, waving his hands lightly. “I know a guy who knows a guy who knew you two in high school. The rest is everything you’ve already told us, I swear!”

Iwaizumi doesn’t mention that in order to get that information, Miya had to have personally asked for it in detail. He’s far too wired to get into a debate about logistics with Miya Atsumu of all people.

“Sure,” he dismisses, stuffing the rest of his now-bland food down his throat. He gets up to put away his tray, nodding to the rest of the team as he passes with Miya trailing behind him. “I don’t feel any particular way. We haven’t talked in, like, eight years. He’s just like any other player on the Argentina team.”

“Wow,” Miya breathes, wide-eyed and very clearly holding back a laugh. Iwaizumi escapes into the throng of athletes and staff before he does something that will get him both fired and arrested.

He meets with them again in the Japanese-designated exercise room after he’s splashed water on his face and cooled down. Iwaizumi knows that Miya was riling him up because he was on edge himself. Miya thrived off of provocation, so when they were all fraying from anxiety, he automatically latched onto the first thing that he thought would make him feel better. It doesn’t make what he did right or okay, but Iwaizumi understands the reasonings behind his actions.

Luckily, Iwaizumi has fifteen years of experience in dealing dickheads like Miya. 

Fifteen years he can never get back. Might as well make good use of them.

His veins pulse with excitement and unease, watching the players carefully to make sure they don’t accidentally injure themselves. Bokuto Koutarou tries his very best to kill himself on the elliptical every time he’s on it, so he keeps a special eye on him.

He spends most of his time with Sakusa Kiyoomi, though, and not the trouble-makers who give him a migraine. Sakusa knows the routine by now: careful calf stretches with resistance bands and weights, then ten minutes on the Stairmaster. They talk through the exercises, and the outside hitter, thankfully, does not mention any significant pain or weakness. Iwaizumi doesn’t question the silence; he would’ve been able to spot if his muscles started convulsing on their own or if Sakusa started to favor a leg.

At the end of their session, Sakusa wipes off his sweat with his towel and turns to Iwaizumi. “Sorry for what Miya said. He can be a bitch.”

Iwaizumi squints at him. “Don’t apologize on his behalf.”

“I know,” he shrugs, “but he’s always trying to start something, and he’s not going to apologize himself. Truth is, he’s kind of excited to see Oikawa-san. He’s admired him for pretty much his whole life, and now that they’re facing off for the first time since high school, he doesn’t know what to do with all his… feelings.”

Sakusa’s face scrunches up at that last word, and it almost makes Iwaizumi laugh. Then he remembers that he’s going through the same thing tenfold with no one to console but himself. He still talks with Hanamaki and Matsukawa, but it’s not the same when they aren’t there with him. Since Iwaizumi took this job for the national team, it’s been much harder to get together for drinks or simply be in their presence. Thus, all this excitement and “feelings”, as Sakusa puts it, have been left to be deciphered by his lonesome.

And he is certainly not going to Miya about his problems. Distant admiration and a close bond are two very, very different beasts. Most days, he’s not even sure Hanamaki and Matsukawa understand the depth of his old, broken unrequited love. He’s not sure anyone can.

“I get it,” is all Iwaizumi says.

The outside hitter eyes him up and down for a moment, his gaze burning and scrutinizing. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then aborts it abruptly by turning away to join the rest of the team heading out of the gym. Iwaizumi hears them say something about reviewing matches, but he doesn’t join them. Instead, he spends his time meditating, watching an old episode of Kitchen Nightmares³, and trying — failing — not to think about airports, blocked numbers, or unsaid confessions.

Then he meets up with the team again, and the thirty-minute warm-up session is over quicker than he hoped it would be. They file into Team Japan’s entrance to the Olympic court.

Iwaizumi thinks he’s holding himself together well, all things considered. He doesn’t have a mental breakdown. His heart is beating at a normal rate. He doesn’t pace around the tight corridor. His thoughts are clearer than the jumbled, anxious mutters of the players.

A horn blows, the gates open, and a stream of light hits his fattened pupils. His world goes white and blurry as he walks behind the players with the coaches and staff. When his vision clears, all he can see is the white and dark blue jerseys of the opposing team.

He doesn't know how he manages it, but he finds Oikawa’s brown hair and stupidly long limbs and jersey number immediately. Oikawa isn’t looking his way. His head whips around to view the crowd cheering in their seats, finds the drones in the air and the volleyball net in the middle of the court, and Iwaizumi thinks that in the last eight years of radio silence, nothing has changed.

Oikawa is right in his element, with the world watching him stand in the middle of their flashing lights. He looks confident in the way he never could’ve been in Japan.

Some things have changed.

“I couldn’t be prouder to have you as a partner, and you’re the absolute best setter. Even if we end up on different teams, those facts will never change.”

Iwaizumi joins the rest of the staff on the sidelines, clasps his hands behind his back, and waits patiently for the national anthems to start playing.

His feelings aside, this is the Olympic gold medal game. He is happy to be here. And by God, they will come away with their necks decorated in gold. They’ve trained hard enough. He’s trained hard enough, with so many years of schooling, interning, and working tirelessly to improve his reputation and status in the world of sports medicine. He deserves this as much as the players on the court.

“But I’ll still give my all to defeat you.”

Except the one person who has given up everything — his family, his friends, his nationality — to chase his dreams. Maybe he deserves it a little more than everyone else.

Iwaizumi tears up at his country’s national anthem, swaying slightly back and forth as if he hasn’t gone through this ritual half a dozen times before in these past two weeks. He watches from his peripheral for Oikawa, who stands stock-still during both the Japanese and Argentinian songs. Not once does he catch Oikawa looking back for him.

It shouldn’t hurt after eight fucking years, but bile crawls up his throat anyway and his legs try to give out from under him.

Nobody mentions it. Miya and Sakusa give him a discerning look, but he ignores them hard enough for his silent message to get across. He will not talk about it, and he will not let it affect the game.

Oikawa serves first.

“Bring it on.”

His form is perfect, the same as when Iwaizumi has admired it time and time again from his phone, laptop, and apartment television. He’s seen Oikawa Tooru on the large projector screens during strategy debriefs, both learning from Oikawa’s strengths and breaking down his weaknesses. It was torture to see him everywhere at all times. Close enough to idolize, but never to breathe the same air, share a cup of coffee, or feel the sweat dripping off his body.

Their suns set at different times. Their days were out of alignment. Their lives moved on separate planes. They survived eight years without a single word confirming if they were dead or alive; if they were doing alright or suffering from addiction; if they were married or still searching for a place to call home; if Oikawa missed Iwaizumi as much as Iwaizumi missed him.

Now, here they are, on the same court so many years after graduating high school, and his heart still races with that old, painful adrenaline of watching Oikawa’s power rattle the morale of the opposing team.

Hinata Shouyou receives the bowl with some difficulty, and they are unable to get a spike off before the ball has to go over the net. Oikawa flicks his tongue over his lips. Iwaizumi’s heart sputters.

He shouldn’t be so satisfied to see his own team struggle to set a tempo against Oikawa.

At twenty-seven to twenty-five, Team Japan takes the first set of five.

The brief intermission between sets allows the respective teams to cool off and regroup in preparation for the second set. Iwaizumi hovers over the players as they drink from their water bottles and catch their breaths. He doesn’t need any of them dropping from exhaustion or dehydration, nor does he need impromptu cramps or asthma attacks.

Before he has a chance to ask, Sakusa tells him that he feels fine. Iwaizumi accepts the answer without argument — no muscle twitching, no favoring, and honestly, Sakusa appears less worn out than the other on-court players.

His mind warns him against it, but his head moves on its own accord. He spots Oikawa on the Argentinian bench, wiping sweat from his forehead and drinking from his bottle while talking to his teammate. He seems fine, too. Healthy. Happy. Not giving a damn about the person he knew for fifteen years across the net.

Oikawa rubs his chest, right over his heart, in a contained circular motion. Iwaizuimi twitches and the edges of his mouth involuntarily fall into a frown.

“Head in the game,” Miya says loudly, slapping him on the back with far more force than strictly necessary. Iwaizumi glares at him, and Miya returns it in kind with a cruel grin. “Got anything for us now?”

“Nothing you haven’t seen,” Iwaizumi says. People press their hands to their chests all the time. He knows Oikawa is fine. Iwaizumi needs to keep his eyes focused on his own team. “Feeling okay?”

“Better than ever,” the setter responds. “Let’s win this bitch.”

The team laughs and repeats similar phrases before setting out on the court for the start of the second set. Oikawa enters with a confident, fierce stride on the Argentinian side of the net. Miya rolls his eyes and sticks out his tongue rather childishly.

Argentina takes the second set, twenty-five to eighteen.

“Wow,” Iwaizumi echoes, not intending to be mean but succeeding in gaining a few glares nonetheless. “How’s everyone doing?”

Kageyama, who’d subbed in for Miya halfway through the set, answers first. “Like I need the gold medal in between my teeth.”

Iwaizumi stares at him, remembering the kid he was so long ago and the vitriol Oikawa harbored for him for being born with innate talent. They have both come so far to compete on the world stage, facing each other once again in a battle of control and mind games, serves and sets.

He can’t tell what either of them are thinking. Does Kageyama feel the need to prove himself as Oikawa had for the years that Iwaizumi had known him? What does Oikawa feel, now, on his bench with people Iwaizumi has never met?

Instinctively, he glances over at Oikawa, trying to gauge his reactions like he hadn’t been keeping one eye on him the entire match. His hand is gliding from the middle of his chest to his collarbone, then back again. He’s halfway draped onto the teammate closest to him, #6.

He doesn’t seem perturbed, but Iwaizumi reads Oikawa like they were still kids. Oikawa never settles for anything less than perfection. Iwaizumi sees it in the way his jaw tightens when he shakes the receive or his serve doesn’t land the pinpoint he wants it to. He sees it in the subtle side-eyes and glances at Japan’s #9 and #1 when he thinks no one is paying much attention.

And he knows that in fifteen years of being by his side, and in observing several years’ worth of recorded San Juan matches, Oikawa Tooru does not have a nervous habit of rubbing his chest. It’s always been below the hips where he slides his fingers back-and-forth, back-and-forth, creating a sandpaper-like sound that is honestly louder than it should be. It had annoyed Iwaizumi to death in their classes, since he usually sat behind Oikawa and therefore heard everything better than his peers. He had gained a habit of pinching Oikawa’s fingers together when he was physically able.

#13 of the Argentinian National Team sets down his water bottle and drops his hand to the side. The pads of his fingers start sliding, and Iwaizumi barely restrains himself from walking under the net and pinching him.

His other hand keeps working on his chest and collarbone, and one of his legs starts idly moving side-to-side.

“Hinata,” he calls, forcing himself to turn around and talk to his actual team. Oikawa Tooru should not, is not, his priority. That much is clear, for Iwaizumi has a wonderful career, players he cares about, and a match he really wants to win. “Let me see your arm.”

As his reply, Hinata coughs haggardly. He hasn’t been subbed once in the entire game yet. Iwaizumi figures he needs a little more time than the rest to catch his breath. Sticking his forearms out, Iwaizumi examines the spot where Hinata had received a strong spike at a backward angle; it elicited a pained reaction out of him, and Iwaizumi has to be sure it was nothing serious.

He pats Hinata’s elbow in approval. “You’re fine. Try receiving the ball like a normal person next time.”

The short man flashes him a grin and a thumbs-up before eagerly trodding off to consume what has to be a gallon of water. An objectively terrible idea to follow through with, but Iwaizumi fears he is far too late to correct that behavior.

Finding their #15 player, Iwaziumi gives Sakusa a hard once-over. Outwardly, he appears perfectly fine. They’d worked through all of the precautionary measures to prevent pain or injuries, but his cramps could strike at any moment regardless of how much effort was put in to stop them.

Sakusa catches his gaze and nods to him reassuringly. Iwaizumi warns the head coach, Hibarida Fuki, that Sakusa needs to be subbed out the moment Iwaizumi asks for him. The coach looks like he wants to argue, but Iwaizumi was born with a face that makes people listen to him if he glares at them hard enough. Hibarida acquiesces his demand without further complaint.

Sakusa works hard in the first few points of the match set, as if he knows, deep down, that this is the last he’ll play of the game. When Oikawa jumps for a set, his body piked in the air and muscles taut, Iwaizumi feels his gut twist with simple, innate intuition.

It catches the team off-guard when the setter dumps it instead of setting it off to either the outside or opposite hitter that had lined up to spike. Sakusa dives for the ball, missing it by the smallest centimeter from his pointer finger, and Iwaizumi calls for him to come in with only the smallest twinge of guilt.

The dump was amazing. The way Sakusa’s leg twitched on the ground for the smallest fraction of a second was decidedly not amazing, and neither was the way Oikawa stumbled when his feet hit the floor.

Sakusa sits close to Iwaizumi on the bench, his face contorted into something remarkable like a pout. “I feel fine,” he grumbles.

“You come from a family of doctors. I’ve worked with you for months. You know to trust me on this,” Iwaizumi says. “When your leg cramps, it’s better it happens here than sacrifice a play out there.”

The outside hitter rolls his eyes but says nothing. Iwaizumi is well aware of how frustrating it is for him to be forced from a game like this. He’d had his own bad days in high school volleyball, and he has no shortage of memories of dealing with Oikawa’s rages and breakdowns over his old knee injury.

Surgery does wonders, he reminisces. Due to the careful and precise timing that they had agonized over for quite some time, Oikawa didn’t even have to miss any of his high school matches from recovery and rehabilitation.

“I’m not playing collegiate. I can’t. I want to study sports medicine.”

“Why? Why is that so important to you when… If I promise to stay, will you play?”

“Nothing you do will get me to play again.”

He shakes his head and trains his eyes on the volleyball leaving Kageyama’s fingertips, only for it to be slammed to the ground by Bokuto. Impressively, the spike is received low by Argentina’s libero, and the game continues.

Iwaizumi is checking on Oikawa more often than he isn’t, he realizes about halfway through the set. Oikawa isn’t in the game at the moment, having been subbed out by another setter who is doing remarkably well. He doesn’t sit near his athletic trainer, so he obviously wasn’t pulled for a health concern.

Perhaps their trainer isn’t concerned, but Iwaizumi is done lying to himself. He is concerned, and it’s going to drive him to insanity before the game is over. There are all these little habits that Oikawa has never presented before. They couldn’t have developed overnight from his last match to this one. And then there is his breathing. The Argentina setter’s breathing is off-set — weirdly irregular in the rises and falls of his chest. Unless he’s having a panic attack, which Iwaizumi is quite certain he isn’t because Oikawa is showing none of his other overstimulated symptoms aside from his sliding fingers, then there is something physically wrong with Oikawa.

Or maybe Iwaizumi’s mind is simply looking for something to worry over. He’s never grown out of it. Of the twenty-seven years of his lived life, he has spent twenty-four of them concerned for Oikawa. He didn’t stop when they were deep in arguments about the future. He didn’t stop when they were thousands of miles apart, separated by an ocean and a twelve-hour time difference (and for two years, a four-hour difference and one long car ride away if need be). He certainly isn’t stopping now when Team Japan needs his watchful eye more than ever.

Besides, he thinks a little desperately. I’m too far away to see him clearly. It’s all a trick of the eye.

Argentina takes the third set at twenty-six to twenty-four. Oikawa set and served the last point, and Iwaizumi was well aware he had stared long enough for people to notice.

“Omi-kun,” Miya calls, making his way over to the benched player. “Here, water.”

Sakusa stands to meet him halfway, only to promptly collapse into Miya’s arms in an honestly skilled save. His fingers scrap at Miya’s elbows, and the panicked setter drags him back to the bench. Immediately, Iwaizumi gets to work stretching out Sakusa’s leg and rolling his calf muscles.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck .” Sakusa gasps intermittently. With Miya at his side and the crowd falling into a hushed silence at the display, the whole scene kind of looks like he’s giving birth, and Iwaizumi is the poor midwife. “I didn’t— I didn’t even feel it coming. Shit. ”

Iwaizumi glances up at Miya. God, he even looks like the worried father who’s wondering what more he can do to support his laboring wife. 

Sakusa shrugs Miya’s hand off his shoulder, hissing: “Quit touching me.”

The rest of the team piles onto Sakusa to give him their strength and condolences. Sakusa, for his part, seethes from their pity and the overstimulation they’re causing. Iwaizumi barks for them to leave. Someone must have flashed an okay sign to the audience because soon the dome is overtaken by a sudden, thundering applause.

From the other side of the court, the Argentinian team gets up from their kneeling position and claps politely. Sakusa gives them little acknowledgment, so Iwaizumi half-bows for him.

Oikawa pointedly stares at the floor, one hand pressing against his chest while the other rests limply at his side after he finishes clapping. His back is now turned, away from Iwaizumi, and he can see the hunched shoulders and the uneven pacing of his breathing. It’s not exhaustion. He knows exhaustion like the back of his eyelids and can compare his players’ fatigued panting to Oikawa’s struggle for air.

It’s not the same. It’s not the same.

If Oikawa has a problem, Iwaizumi reminds himself, he has his own athletic trainer to attend to him. He hasn’t needed Iwaziumi’s support for eight years; he certainly isn’t going to randomly start now.

Sakusa is the one who needs him, because Sakusa is his player, and his player is gripping the bench with white knuckles and an expression of pain and frustration. This is something Iwaizumi can help with. This is the job he has spent his entire adult life training for.

As with all things in life, sometimes what someone needs isn’t physical. Sometimes what they need is a distraction.

“Help me with something,” Iwaizumi says, succeeding in capturing Sakusa’s attention. “Akaashi’s in the stands somewhere. We need to find him before Bokuto loses his head.”

Even though some of the team members have never met Akaashi Keiji in person (which Iwaizumi has, since they attended the same university and remained friends after), they all know what he looks like based on the astonishing amount of pictures of him Bokuto shows them every week. Iwaizumi has been watching the players closely, as per his job description, and has taken note of the wild swiveling of Bokuto’s head whenever there is even the slightest attention break from the game. While seated, his near-erratic behavior worsens tenfold. Instead of supporting his team from the sidelines, his wide eyes roam the crowd fervently.

If he doesn’t spot Akaashi soon, Iwaizumi is one hundred percent sure they are going to have a very dramatic meltdown. Which would be both embarrassing for their home country and an extreme hindrance to the team’s functionality.

Sakusa grimaces, looking rather oddly at him before turning his head to the audience.

“You’re attentive,” he says after a brief hesitation. “I hate it.”

“You hate a lot of things,” Iwaizumi responds neutrally.

The distraction does work, though. The outside hitter settles down into his normal state of being: slightly disgusted and irritated with everyone around him, as opposed to being extremely disgusted and irritated with everyone around him. While they are going through a round of dynamic stretches in the middle of the fourth set, Sakusa stops dead in his tracks and stares intently at one spot in the stands. “Found him.”

Iwaizumi sighs in relief. “Finally.” From where he is on the sideline, Bokuto looks about five minutes away from a predicted, total meltdown. “When we’re done with this, tell him the good news. I need to get Komori off the court before he passes out.”

The libero in question runs a hand through his hair, no doubt coming away with an exorbitant amount of grime and sweat. “Too attentive,” Sakusa says again, this time with more forced agitation to mask the layer of distress in his tone.

Iwaizumi is pretty sure he knows what that’s about, too, but doesn’t say anything to spare Sakusa the embarrassment and probable heart attack. They don’t really need a player dropping like that, even if said player is already sidelined.

He manages to get Komori off the court without incident, and the ruckus Bokuto makes after Sakusa points out Akaashi to him is far better than the other outcome should they have failed in their mission to locate Bokuto’s favorite human being.

His gaze slides back onto the court, finding Oikawa’s body immediately. He hates his heart. It twists in his chest with longing and unsubstantiated concern. The near-decade they’ve spent apart means nothing to his pulsing organ, as though it thinks he’s a child again and walking to Oikawa’s house to beat his ass at Mortal Kombat.

Although, the clogging in his throat reminds him more of when he rode the subway back from the hospital after his best friend’s knee gave out, or when he started prodding Oikawa to eat every day because teenage athletes are the most prone to eating disorders and Iwaizumi hadn’t seen him eat lunch once in the past week.

Twenty-five to twenty-three. Japan wins the fourth set.

The fifth set will determine it all, and it won’t be easy. His players look ready to drop. They’ve pushed themselves harder than they have this entire Olympic tournament. However, their morale and adrenaline are through the roof. If they can keep their spirits up through the next fifteen required points, they can win.

The last set starts, and despite everything — the trepidation making it hard to breathe, his whirling thoughts, the desperation to convince himself that he is hallucinating symptoms — Oikawa Tooru is still the best goddamn setter he’s ever seen.

Now that Sakusa has nothing better to do with the anxiety and pressure of the last set that will determine the winner, he speaks to Iwaizumi. “What is it?”

“What is what?” Iwaizumi asks somewhat absently, intently focused on the game in front of him. He never stopped loving volleyball despite the change in the profession. A part of him still wants to run out and hit the ball with every last bit of his strength.

Argentina calls a time-out to stifle the flow of the game. Oikawa sways, but they don’t take him off the court. They need him.

Sakusa grunts. “Don’t play dumb. You’ve been staring at Oikawa-san this entire game. What’s wrong?”

Iwaizumi has half a mind to bite back with “ Why do you care?”, but doesn’t because that would be unprofessional. He knows Sakusa is restless, agitated, and worst of all, starting to perceive Iwaizumi as a threat to his personal security. According to him, Iwaizumi is too attentive, which means that he can reveal the secrets Sakusa wants to keep buried.

He isn’t that type of person. He hasn’t gone out of his way to find out anything about his players that doesn’t specifically pertain to their medical records, and even if he does find out the things Sakusa doesn’t want him to know, Iwaizumi wouldn’t spill it to the world. It isn’t his story to tell.

So, he answers with a little honesty no matter the insensitivity of the question, because that is the only way to make Sakusa cool down — to make him think that he’s gotten Iwaizumi to crack. “I keep thinking there’s something wrong with him. Medically, I mean. I’m sure it’s nothing. His trainer would’ve spoken to him by now if there was a problem.”

I’m sure it’s the eight years where I never got to check up on him coming back to haunt me, he doesn’t say. That’s a little more honesty than Sakusa deserves.

The game continues. Fourteen to fourteen. They are down to the last wire.

“Bullshit,” Sakusa says, surprising Iwaizumi. “How long did you say you knew him?”

He’s certain that Miya has already told him, but he responds anyway.⁴ “Fifteen years.”

“Iwaizumi-sensei⁵, you’ve been with this team for a couple of months and you already know each of us like the back of your hand. I’ve never met someone as hypervigilant as you. You know I’m going to cramp before I know I’m going to cramp,” he says. “You’re really doubting yourself about someone you’ve spent half your life with?”

Iwaizumi looks at the player, who’s giving him an open expression that conveys, plainly, you’re being an idiot.

Fifteen to fourteen.

Sakusa rolls his eyes at Iwaizumi’s dumbfounded face. “Trust your instincts, because from what I’ve seen, they’ve never led you astray. Hell, I’d let you perform open heart surgery on me, and you’re not even a surgeon.”

He’s pretty sure that’s the nicest thing Sakusa has said in his life. Ever.

Iwaizumi swivels back to Oikawa. He’s jumping in the air to set the ball for a spike, or a dump, or something that will bring his team to victory. Looking down, Iwaizumi finds his ankles swollen beyond normal. 

Open heart surgery.

“Holy shit,” Iwaizumi whispers, all of the air leaving his lungs.

Sixteen to fourteen. Team Argentina wins Olympic gold.

He’s on the court before Sakusa is. He’s across the net before Argentina can celebrate their victory. He’s grabbing Oikawa’s shoulders tightly before anybody else can get to him. Iwaizumi stares into his estranged best friend’s glassy, confused, uncomprehending eyes. 

He’s shaking Tooru’s shoulders, desperate as he yells: “You are having a heart attack!”

Tooru’s voice is strangled and hoarse between his gasping breaths in mangled Spanish Iwaizumi doesn’t understand. Not a second later his dilated pupils, distorted from his eye contacts, roll back to expose solid white sclera and red veins. He keels over, limp, and Iwaizumi starts screaming for a stretcher and an ambulance. Laying him on the ground, he puts his palms over Tooru’s chest to start compressions.

And suddenly, Hajime is fifteen again, hovering over Tooru as he sobs on the boards of the gym they use to practice volleyball during the off-season. “It hurts,” he’s crying, clutching his knee. “It hurts!” Hajime doesn’t know what to do aside from calling one-one-nine. He tells the operator their location and the details of their situation while he lets Tooru claw his forearm into welts, knowing that whatever pain Iwaizumi feels is being felt a thousandfold by his best friend.

And Hajime is fifteen and three-quarters, learning emergency CPR for his new part-time job as a lifeguard. He thinks that it could come in useful. He thinks that saving people isn’t a job he would mind.

And Hajime is sixteen, watching Tooru recover from his surgery, and he realizes he will never play professional volleyball. He wants to help people like Tooru forever — people who want to dedicate their whole life to a sport but have a body that strives to prevent their goal every step of the way. He can’t do that as a player on the court.

And Hajime is seventeen, trying to convince Tooru to eat a sandwich even though he is adamantly insisting he isn’t hungry. He discovers sports medicine isn’t just about the physical ills and pains. To be a good athletic trainer, he has to see every aspect of a player’s well-being, and that includes their mental health.

And Hajime is eighteen, standing alone in the airport and experiencing loss for the first time. In order for Oikawa to grow as an athlete, he has to cut away the weed strangling his roots. Hajime lets him without complaint. This is part of his new career, after all; if he helps athletes succeed, they would all, one day, leave his medical care.

And Hajime is twenty-seven, losing his best friend for a second time at the end of the first set of chest compressions. At least three ribs have cracked under his pace and pressure. He pinches Tooru’s nose, pries his jaw open, and breathes air into his lungs twice. His ring and pinky finger automatically find his pulse point.

Nothing.

Seeing that no medical equipment has arrived, he starts the second set of chest compressions. Oikawa’s bones creak and give way under his desperation. He knows CPR like the back of his hand; if the ribs are breaking, that means it’s working. It doesn’t get rid of the panic and pain at the thought of how much damage he’s doing to Oikawa’s body.

The paramedics are a second too late with their LUCAS device at the end of the last compression. He dives down for another round of mouth-to-mouth, recognizing, faintly yet viscerally at the same time, that Oikawa’s soft skin is pale and rapidly cooling.

At the junction between his neck and jaw, Iwaizumi searches for a heartbeat.

Breathe. Nothing.

Breathe. Nothing.

Then, the faint brush of life against Iwaizumi’s fingertips.

He helps the paramedics load Oikawa onto the stretcher. They roll him away from the court, leaving behind Iwaizumi in a daze. That wasn’t how he wanted to meet Oikawa again. That wasn’t how he wanted to talk to him, feel him, or see him; wasn’t how he’d wanted to have Oikawa’s lips on his like he’d dreamt about so many times in his teenage years and again, occasionally, in his adult life when he’s had too much to drink. 

The head coach of the Argentina team, Jose Blanco, Oikawa’s long-term idol, steps in front of him. “English?” He asks in said language, and Iwaizumi nods automatically. Blanco etches a small smile onto his face. “Thank you for your help. You saved his life.”

Iwaizumi stares at Blanco, all of the English he’s ever learned and spoken suddenly fleeing from his memory. How does he say that they aren’t out of the woods yet, that Oikawa’s heart could still fail at any moment and refuse to start beating again? How does he say that this may be the problem that finally kills the life Oikawa has sacrificed everything for? How does he say that he honestly fears the day that Oikawa can’t play volleyball anymore because he’s an absolute fucking maniac and would rather take his own life than let the universe sweep the rug out from under him?

How does he say that he’s currently living in a reality that is dancing too close to his worst nightmare?

“It was no problem,” he settles for.

“You are Iwa-chan, yes?”

Iwaizumi freezes. He hasn’t heard that nickname in nearly a decade. His high school friends never called him that unless they were teasing him, which faded a week or so after Oikawa left because while he was never the first to bring Oikawa up, he was always the first to cut the topic short. Takeru grew out of it in a couple of months. Nobody else in the right, sane mind would ever call the stoic, mean-looking, and too-attentive Iwaziumi Hajime Iwa-chan.

Except, of course, Oikawa Tooru, who always had a deep and utter hatred for giving his peers a modicum of respect.

It’s somewhat funny hearing the name come from a large Argentinian who lacks both the lightness in which Oikawa would say it and a Japanese accent to make the honorific sound natural. He almost laughs. He thinks that it must make Oikawa laugh, too.

Having rehearsed it in the mirror a thousand times and put it to real use a dozen more, his English introduction rolls off his tongue easily. “Iwaizumi Hajime, athletic trainer for the Japan National Team.” He sticks out his hand, which the head coach uses to bring him into a tight hug. And he doesn’t want to ask when they pull apart, because Blanco is chuckling lightly and he no doubt wants to celebrate his victory, but the words are tumbling out of his mouth anyway. “He… calls me that?”

“Oh, kid—” Iwaizumi is twenty-seven years old “—he never stops talking about you. Last night was horrible. He went on and on. I thought you were, uh, a woman. Guess not.”

Oh. Oh, God.

He doesn’t have time to process… everything since Blanco starts waving over his team. Iwaizumi tries to escape, but they all grab onto his hands or his shoulders or pat him on the back. He’s hearing a lot of Spanish and English, with the occasional horrifically pronounced Japanese word passing through their mouths. He gets the jist of it, though, as the captain of the team presses an object into his right palm.

Tómas Gallo pulls him in and presses a kiss into both of his cheeks. “Thank you, Iwa-chan. He would be honored if you took the gold medal in his place.”

Overwhelmed, he pushes away and returns to his team, who are huddled on the other side of the net. The world starts coming back to him in fractured pieces. He eyes the audience, who seem to all have their gazes trained on him.

It doesn’t really occur to him that he’s just saved the world’s best setter (not just by Iwaizumi’s standards. Not anymore. The whole world recognizes now what he’s sensed since they were seven years old on the city’s little league team). In the heat of the moment, and even still, with the lingering feeling of Oikawa’s bones creaking and snapping under his palms, of his still heartbeat and rolled-back eyes repeating in his after-vision, it’d only been him saving his best friend, just like he always has.

He looks down at his hand, finally registering that he’s holding something. Slowly unraveling his fingers, he stares down at the small keychain. It’s a miniature Japanese flag with Iwaizumi’s faded signature scribbled over it in black Sharpie ink. He’d slipped it unknowingly into Oikawa’s backpack just before he’d disappeared to the security checkpoint, leaving his entire childhood behind.

After several attempts to message him a day later asking about the flight, he had found out his phone number was blocked. He couldn’t view any of Oikawa’s social accounts when he had checked. When he had gone to Hanamaki and Matsukawa, they had shrugged and said they didn’t know anything, either.

Iwaizumi lets himself drop the keychain into his pocket. Setting his shoulders and calming his expression, he rejoins the team with an apologetic wave.

He thinks that he’s holding himself together well, all things considered. His heart isn’t failing. He doesn’t pace around the large gymnasium. His face is emotionless when everyone else seems to be looking at him with worry. His knees are pressing against the court boards. His fingernails are digging into his skin. Someone is wrapping their arms around his shoulders.

He breaks down on live television.

—

Tómas Gallo hands him Oikawa Tooru’s gold medal in a quiet hallway after the adornment ceremony.

On a count of three, Iwaizumi bites the gold medal with the captain of the Argentinian Men’s National Volleyball Team. His tongue accidentally scrapes the edge of the medallion. The cold metal tastes indistinguishable from blood.

It checks out, really. Iwaizumi has always believed that Oikawa's veins pulse with ichor. 

Gallo’s hand comes to squeeze Iwaizumi’s shoulder. He says: “Tooru says he could not have made it without you. We thank you for letting us have him.”

Iwaizumi doesn’t tell him that before he became Iwaizumi Hajime, twenty-seven years old and well-known among the most important people in the world of sports medicine, he was first and foremost Iwaizumi Hajime, three years old and playing in the sandbox when a boy wearing an alien-themed shirt dumped squirming worms all over him. He doesn’t remember it, exactly, since he was three and hadn’t developed that part of his brain yet, but his mother told him that he had tried his best to beat Oikawa to death with a plastic shovel.

He doesn’t tell Gallo that he could never have made it, either, if it hadn’t been for that little asshole and his handful of dirt-covered earthworms. Oikawa had stolen a piece of soul and shaped his future that day with his grubby hands, insufferable personality, and heart of pure gold.

Gallo doesn’t say anything more when the athletic trainer chokes down a sob.

—

“Oikawa-san is recovering from emergency surgery, Iwaizumi-sensei. He’s in good hands,” someone tells him. Their voice disintegrates like sand falling between his fingertips.

Iwaizumi breathes.

¹ In the real 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Argentina won bronze and Japan came in seventh. However, the real Argentina did not have THE Oikawa Tooru, and the real Japan didn’t have… everyone. Clearly, this is not the real Olympics. I will take my creative liberties where I can get them.

² Here, you can start to see my complete and utter lack of knowledge about volleyball. And the Olympics.

³ His roommate at UC-Irvine put him on Kitchen Nightmares and he hasn’t been the same since.

⁴ They will never admit it, partly because they think they are subtle, but everyone knows that Atsumu and Sakusa gossip with each other like the main characters of Mean Girls.

⁵ —Sensei, because that seemed like the most accurate honorific to use in relation to his job as a medical professional but not a medical doctor. If you believe this to be horrifically inaccurate, let me know and I’ll change it. I am obviously not Japanese. Usually I don’t even use honorifics in fics, but I decided to this time so I could empasize Iwa-chan.

[ilreleonewikiart]

The Doom in our Blood comes Back: The three daughters of Queen's Rhaenyra

Notwithstanding, I posit that it is appropriate to formally present the remaining trio of the progeny of Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Daemon, who despite their gender and age, emerged as prime protagonists in the political landscape of Westeros, garnering comparable, if not greater, significance than their elder brothers.

[...]

The last of the Queen's three daughters, and the elder by a few minutes, is the one we know the most about.

 Numerous stories and ballads have been crafted about Princess Baela Targaryen, both during and after her life, and a plethora of rumours—some true, others false—have circulated regarding her personality and demeanour. Despite the embellishments of poets, numerous portraits confirm the tales of her striking beauty.

Unlike her twin sister Rhaena, who predominantly inherited their mother's delicate features, Princess Baela possessed more defined and slightly angular features, reminiscent of her formidable father, Prince Daemon. While the two twins were initially indistinguishable as children, in adulthood, their features diverged.

 Although both were uncommonly beautiful, the charm they radiated was distinctly different.

If Princess Rhaena's features were harmonious and sweet, resembling a flower, Princess Baela's were notably sharper and more defined—keen as knives, mirroring the magnetic and intense gaze that revealed her every intention, even the most violent. Another striking resemblance to her father Daemon—and occasionally her uncle Aemond—was the profile of her nose, subtly more prominent and sinuous than her sisters', resembling the profile of a dragon. This feature became even more pronounced after Uncle Aemond, during a tournament in 137 A.D., struck her with the hilt of his sword, breaking her nasal bridge, and leading to an uneven and irreparable alteration of its shape.

[...]

Princess Rhaena Targaryen, a figure of prominence on the political scene of Westeros, had previously been introduced, having wed her mother's half-brother at the tender age of sixteen, elevating her to the esteemed position of Lady of Oldtown.

Despite the near-identical appearance she shared with her twin sister Baela during their youth, Rhaena's features evolved into a distinct manifestation of delicate feminine beauty, gifts of her mother. Her rounded and soft cheekbones, complemented by large, round eyes with lighter pupils, defined a countenance captured in numerous paintings adorning the Hightower. A small, upward nose and a tiny, pulpy mouth completed her exquisite profile, a testament to her captivating allure.

Intelligent and shrewd like her brother Viserys, Rhaena concealed her thoughtful nature with affability, recognizing societal biases against thoughtful women. Differing from her twin, she exhibited patience and conciliation, relying on charm rather than coercion. This adeptness in politics and scheming, combined with natural talents in diplomacy, surpassed even her brother's, who ascended to the role of Hand at twenty.

[...]

As per her father Daemon's account, Princess Visenya stood out as the one who, among all his progeny alongside Aegon, most closely resembled his wife, Queen Rhaenyra. This remarkable similarity became increasingly apparent as the young princess blossomed into womanhood, earning her the moniker of Rhaenyra's long-lost twin among courtiers.

During that era, the prevailing belief among the Seven Kingdoms' nobility held that the young Visenya, with her sweet and flawless features, beautifully golden locks, soft rosy cheeks, and petite, fleshy allure, was indeed the most captivating maiden in all of Westeros. This sentiment persisted even in comparison to her two elder sisters, who also possessed a charm uncommon to everyone.

A distinctive feature setting the youngest of Queen Rhaenyra’s children apart was her eyes, showcasing two different colors; the right one a darker violet than the left. This rare characteristic, while not as uncommon as one might think, especially among the Royal family, had also been present in her late grandmother, Princess Alyssa, and her young cousin Baelor of Harrenhal.

During infancy, Visenya was described as a plump and robust child, but with the onset of puberty, her figure transformed into one more slender and graceful. Nevertheless, she remained notably petite compared to Baela and Rhaena, with a prosperous bosom, though not on par with her mother's.

The young princess gained notoriety for her unusual fondness for crows and ravens, treating them with the care and attention typically reserved for more conventional pets, in stark contrast to her courtly companions who favoured smaller dogs or stoats. Throughout her life, she kept only three crows – Maemarr, Virys, and Garaerys – housed in an elaborate gold cage within her chambers, each named after characters from her beloved Valyrian poem.

Described as a vivacious and amiable girl, Visenya possessed an easy manner of speech and a gentle, sweet voice. However, some accounts noted occasional displays of immature and childish behaviour, potentially linked to her privileged upbringing. Nevertheless, on crucial occasions, she demonstrated the ability to adopt a serious and resolute demeanour.

-from TDIOBCB on AO3

[memorystormsanctuary]

KHOC Week 2024

Day 7~ Future

The final day of @khoc-week and its time to look towards the future. Annora has always had a curiosity towards the future. But with all that's happened her optimism has changed. As the next stage of the story unfolds, Annora finds herself back in the center of it all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Annora had never believed you could predict the future. It was one of the reasons she had scoffed at the notion of the book of prophecies. At the time it had just seemed ridiculous even with all their magic. The future wasn’t something that could be set in stone. It was ever changing and fluid. Each choice someone made changed what was to come. She had thought her choices had to mean something.

It was only after she had watched so many things fall into line with the books prophecies she started to believe maybe life wasn’t something so novel.

She had watched as the foretellers fell right into the traps laid out before them, one by one. And no matter her screaming, no matter how many wielders cried against it, they walked right into the war. All their efforts had been useless. Though there was so much that could have been done, they wouldn’t do any of it.

And when it mattered most, Annora gave up. Because they knew what would happen.

And she had seen it again in Scala. In the societies that claimed to have the best interest of the people at heart. She had exchanged many snide remarks and sidelong looks with Brain, who had seemed to reach the same conclusions as her. They were slowly walking towards their doom in just the same way. And when Brain had his plan, the idea for the chosen one, Annora had hoped he’d be right. She had taken that child and raised him with the belief he would change it all. Not seeing that she herself fell into the same trap.

When it mattered most she did what was expected. What she was told, because they knew what would happen.

She hadn’t bothered trying to fight after that. Not in the next war. It wasn’t her job to act then. All she could do was guide the pieces to their place. Watch as what had once been her child turn into something else. To play his role so well a new war had come to pass. And just as the story had been told the Darkness prevailed and the Light expired. And the chosen one had changed it all at the cost of himself. Just as they said.

“Lost in thought?”

Annora turned her head, finding her master stood beside her with a black box she had almost forgotten about. Bitter nostalgia rose up in her chest. It was the same as after the last war. Though now he didn’t look the same. With long hair streaked with grey tied behind his head and a scarred eye covered by an eye patch. A new face in the countless new faces he had worn. It matched her own new face she supposed.

“You could say that, I guess,” Annora agreed. She glanced around them, at the barren wasteland filled with keys. Tombstones X had called them. X. Takiko. He would know best. He always did. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Oh?” Luxu asked, taking a step forward, away from the box. He held his keyblade. One that hadn’t been his for some time. It had passed from him to Brain and from there on and on until it became her childs. And now it was his again. Back to where it all started.

“This is where we started,” Annora said, eyes not leaving the key. “And it’s going to end here.”

“Well, that’s yet to be seen,” Luxu said, a grand gesture.

“I don’t think so,” Annora said. She put her hands behind her back as she walked. The hot air of the graveyard created a haze. Almost enough she could convince herself she saw visions of the past, though she knew it was just her own mind. “It always ends here.”

“Oh, you think you can tell the future now?” Luxu asked. His voice was playful, a hint of the teasing she had always known from him. She smiled over her shoulder at him.

“No,” she said. “But, that’s how its happened every time before.”

There was a slight pause. A moment to listen to wind through the keyblade charms. The clanking of metal on metal filling the air. An echo of the war that came before. Annora pretended she couldn’t feel Luxu’s gaze on her. The same gaze that had written the book of prophecies all those years ago. That was maybe still writing it. She didn’t think it was necessary anymore though. It never really had been. Not when it was so easy to see what was coming.

“You know,” Annor said. “I don’t think that book is all that special.”

“You never have,” Luxu said. “If I recall correctly, You always thought it was pointless waste of time.”

“Still do,” Annora agreed. “We don’t need it to know what’s going to happen.”

“Really sounding like you think you can see the future,” Luxu said, walking beside Annora now. They had always stood as equals. Side by side, instead of the blind way others followed their master. Perhaps that was why she had joined him in the first place. The need for someone who wouldn’t stand in front of her. Who wouldn’t look down on her the way Ira had.

“I can’t see the future,” Annora said simply. “But I can guess. You can too.”

“And your guess?” Luxu asked. Annora smiled bitterly.

It was always the same. People never changed. It would all play out just how they expected it to. All according to plan. They would be the villains. The traitors. The darkness. Whatever they wanted to call it. And there would be the heroes. The just and righteous. The light. And they would clash. And the heroes would win and they the darkness would be defeated. If only for a short time before rising again.

“The best indicator of future results is past behavior,” Annora said softly. “It will end the same way it always has. I don’t need a book to tell me that.” Luxu laughed, the bitter laugh she had grown so used to.

“Well, why don’t we put that to the test,” Luxu said, with a grin. “We have a job to do.”

“That we do,” Annora agreed. “Let’s play our roles.”

[gothimgem]

one, manah, and the hero complex trope

Let's take a look into my favorite Drakengard 2 character and my fourth fav Intoner. Be aware that there will be some slight spoilers for both Drakengard 2 + 3.

Manah, after 18 years since she nearly ended the world, is left alive to carry the weight of her sins. After losing her memories, she has witnessed the oppression the Knights of the Seal have placed on the people of Midgard. Thus beginning Manah's plan to become a rebellion leader by destroying the key districts (aka the seals just like she did in the first game). It's obvious to previous players that Manah's still in some possession by the Watchers to destroy humanity again, yet she is blinded by her goal to help save people mixed in with her need to be loved. She came from an abusive neglectful family, with her mother verbally and physically abusive for not having magical powers as well as an omen of doom. Obviously, this stems from Seere feeling guilty that he was a bystander to Manah's torment, with her being deprived of any love of some sort. She desparately seeks love to assure herself that she isn't a burden, whether that love comes from the Watchers, the people she wants to liberate, or Nowe who comes into her life later on.

Now, onto One. I personally think she's supposed to be a self-aware or a Yoko Taro take of the typical JRPG protagonist. She sets herself up with wanting to save the world, which she does by defeating the lords of midgard to bring the peaceful reign of the Intoners. She lives to save the lives of others much like Manah. Even if she has to kill those who stand in her way as well as all of humanity if she lets the Flower take over her. One is a very compassionate person too, she cares for her sisters despite the awful things they do, her dragon partner Gabriella/Gabriel, and her brother. Yet despite the just and caring front she puts on for others through her leadership, she is also doubtful of her plans, especially when Zero has to kill her in the end. Her pride also gets in the way as well, such as not revealing to her sisters what their true purpose is or why Zero has to kill them.

Overall, both Manah and One have their similarities within their goals, even with their own aspects of love that prevails, albeit in different ways.

[biblioflyer]

Rediscovering Discovery: just what was that show?

Once upon a time I set myself a task. A task that was actually kind of the original inspiration of this blog. Namely to rewatch and analyze Star Trek Picard in pursuit of an answer to the question: Did Picard turn the Federation into a Dystopia? A series of essays I intend to revisit now with the benefit of season three pointing the way to where the show was headed.

I didn't fully succeed at the rewatch. Its still a "bucket list" item but I got 6/10ths of the way through the first season and I felt comfortable saying "no." Its a darker show and one that emphasizes character arcs, character experiences, and the performance of emotion over the stoic, proceduralist, "competency porn" that marked the TNG era. There has definitely been a pulling back from some of the conceits of TNG: that 24th century humanity was radically altered in some core way, almost genetically from us (at the time) 20th century brutes, and that the Federation was almost supernaturally wise and virtuous.

Empirically speaking, both of these concepts were always memes. Oh to be sure, we were seeing a civilization that avowed a particular set of values that resonated very strongly with a particular sort of 1990s secular humanist and generally behaves relatively virtuously if your preferences are wired towards amiability over conflict. Yet it wasn't without its blindspots. My Roman Empire is that the Federation's superpower is not that it is perfectly just and wise at all times and places, its that it is a society whose acculturation process creates people who are somewhat less egotistical, more curious, and less impulsive under stress with the end result being that as a civilization, its superpower is responding to new information with openness and alacrity.

Thus, while there are judicious complaints about Picard: I am not a fan of using the Federation abdicating responsibility for a fellow sentient species, even one it has been hostile with for centuries, as a metaphor for disowning the victims of far flung conflicts and cataclysms in the real world. I'm okay with a flawed Federation that needs to confront its own failings, but this was pretty extreme. Well mostly extreme. There are at least two times Picard had to be talked into saving a prewarp civilization from certain doom because something something Prime Directive even though the Enterprise could do it with trivial effort and with minimal chance of overtly disrupting the society in question. Data's penpal and Worf's brother's preindustrial people.

Overall, I land that Picard doesn't alter the setting beyond recognition, beyond being a setting where justice ultimately prevails, or beyond being fairly labeled "Star Trek."

So what about Discovery?

Now that its over, its as good a time as any for a retrospective. My intent is to watch the first season over again, because its been a loooong time. I've always tried to watch the show in a charitable spirit, much as I have Picard. I try to be radically self aware in that I know my opinions are subjective, that my preferences are rooted in my own values and experiences, and that other people could read the same situation in different ways.

In addition, there are always at least two ways to analyze Star Trek. There's the literal way: which is what is happening and what that tells us about the people and the universe (sometimes called Watsonian) and the Doylist: the "meta" aspects. What is the show actually trying to do from a storytelling standpoint? What symbols is it invoking? What storytelling shorthands is it using? What messages or themes is it trying to convey and, if these really are the correct messages, how well is it actually selling those themes?

To be frank, I've often not been the biggest fan of Discovery from a technical standpoint. I've often felt that its internal logic is sloppy and that, like Picard, it frequently undercuts the messaging I believe it is trying to convey with that very same poor internal logic or by relying heavily on "telling" rather than "showing" us what to think.

Star Trek as a franchise loves to look straight at the camera and lecture us primitive 20th/21st century apes on our failures. Maybe its the nostalgia, but Discovery and Picard have generally both felt like they are less trusting of their audience to interpret the correct moral of the story. Of course I could be parroting a popular complaint about modern fiction that emphasizes "progressive" themes that is itself very likely a perpetual complaint about fiction that emphasizes "progressive" themes, and of course grandpa TOS was the victim of "OG cancel culture" in the form of various networks in various localities threatening to or even outright refusing to air the episode with the Kirk/Uhura kiss.

So in no particular order what I want to investigate is:

Is Discovery "pedantic"? Pedantic being highly subjective. One quirk about me is that it makes me irritable to feel like I'm being lectured on appropriate conduct and beliefs by someone who I share beliefs with, but is articulating those beliefs in a way that makes me feel pandered to (as in I'm not sure the source is as committed as I am) or feels superficial, flattening, or essentializing.

Is Discovery a deconstruction of Star Trek? As in it subverts core ideas in a way that would irk people who are committed to those themes. If so, which themes and is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Are the augmentations, contradictions, and retcons from "established canon" interesting and worthwhile story devices? I'm not anti-retcon and I'm not a canon purist, Star Trek by virtue of having many, many, many contributors is better interpreted as a mythology than a wholly coherent setting; but retcons can and should be judged on their merits.

Is Burnham a "Mary Sue?" This is an almost useless question because of its subjectivity. Its extra useless because in Star Trek, almost every Starfleet character is a polymath capable of inventing entire new fields of science on the spot out of rocks and vibes. There's also a layer of sexism and colorism to it. To the fullest extent possible, I want to frame this question in terms of what are the consequences to the story and worldbuilding from having a main character and less on whether or not that main character has merit.

To some extent this will also address whether Burnham's narrative arcs have robust narrative logic or if there are "too many cooks in the kitchen" resulting in a character who presents as incoherent from episode to episode and successful by fiat. This is definitely something that I think was smoothed over in seasons 4 and 5, starting with what I think was an intentional shift in her characterization as early as season 3.

Its possible my own preference for the more measured tone of network TV era Trek may lead me into the same minefields as the trolls in comment sections across the internet, but I'm hoping to keep my self awareness vivid.

My intent is to go for the full first season. I'm looking forward to it because my memories are extremely fuzzy and I authentically would be delighted to find delights that I had forgotten about.

[stupidloafofbread]

Ooohh are we now sending song lyric asks?

If so here's this!

This little cup had given up

All out of luck, his heart struck

Now the Devil plays his little game

Such a tragedy!

And the world we knew was painted black

Now take it back, you attack

Just prepare your boots for an adventure

It's in the bag!

They made the gravest of mistakes

Doomed by the eyes of a snake

You must rejoice with your old chum

As you run and gun

Up in the clouds and on the ground

Inward bound, so profound

Make 'em pay the price for taking over

With the luck of a four leaf clover

Through the hill of apocalypse

You'll saturate this whole place with your magic fingertips

Like an eternal eclipse you shine

So make it rain!

Brothers in arms, they will run

They color up the rainbow that bangs on the drums

The fable will prevail as our heroes travel far

In this cartoon universe you're a pest

Now put me to the test!

Our paths foretell of many heights on the ground or take flight

There's a problem dwelling over there

For those who even dare

For you see this cryptic renegade

With your friend, there's no shade

Will they face the big battle royale?

(You've got it pal!)

With fingers like projectiles

Make the boss infantile

These monsters hail from the dread

They've come to take your head

May God enlighten your road

May your journey behold

Try not to slip throught the riverside

The weather brings hell to the tides

As the Devil would lick his lips

You overcome this homicide with your magic fingertips

Like an eternal eclipse you shine

So make it rain!

Brothers in arms, they will run

They color up the rainbow that bangs on the drums

The fable will prevail as our heroes travel far

In this cartoon universe you're a pest

Now put me to the test!

"Ah, see the roulette spins,

You're seriously out of luck"

"You sold your soul, and took the toll,

This is my hell you schmucks!"

"But the price you'll pay to end this day,

Sets challenges far and wide"

"For the time will come, your journey is done,

You found out I lied!"

What will we do?

Let's form our crew!

Let's bring this back to life!

Brothers in arms, they will run

They color up the rainbow that bangs on the drums

The fable will prevail as our heroes travel far

In this cartoon universe you're a pest

And when they both save the day

The tyranny will die

So they all swing and sway

Until the roll of film comes to a sudden end

The story descends into our history

Like an eternal eclipse you shine

FUCK YEAH, CUPHEAD SONGGG!!!

Whoo-

[alexjcrowley]

Whatever you're doing, drop it right now and go watch BlackBerry. I can give a million reasons to watch it and I will.

This movie has everything.

You loved The Social Network and you never really found something quite like it? Go watch Blackberry, then. You got the love triangle, you got the genius who displays neurodivergent traits overtly, the Best Friend, the other woman a.k.a. the real businessman.

BUT, big wonderful but, it's ugly. It's painfully uncool, staged and at the same time terribly realistic. They all look like shit and you can't help but love it. None of that Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg that make you want to jump into a foursome, here the business cool guy (Glenn Howerton from IASIP) is balding and wearing a suit he clearly stole from Micheal Douglas from Wall Street and he looks unfuckable. The Best Friend has a ninja turtles wallet. They're all ugly, but let me be clear with what I mean: I am fucking sick of seeing fashion models on screen, I am talking about ugliness not as insult but as a punch of reality straight in the face. None of that tiktok black cat gamer boyfriends, these 40 year old men should all burn their entire wardrobe and sue their barbers, I love it.

And yes, at the very beginning (just there) the movie is set in the 80s, and thank God it's not Stranger Things/It chapter one aesthetic, it's disputable shirts and the most pathetic athletic hair band you'll ever see.

You said found family? These tech guys are all Best Friends and party together and dance and have movie nights in the middle of the day in which they watch Indiana Jones and They Live.

The first third of the movie is basically The House Bunny for business companies, with Glenn Howerton sweeping in, giving a makeover to the company, toss those glasses away and make it the belle of the ball, so much that quaterback is asking her to dance.

And it's directed with the camera movement of a mockumentary, hand-held camera baby. And I am telling you this as someone who is getting pretty sick of the overabudance of mockumentaries, I hear you if you're complaining, but this is so good you get over it.

How is the story of the Blackberry phone handled, you ask? Well I am no expert, but I think they did a brilliant job. The Social Network is about Facebook but also about connections and human relationships changing, here you see how the phone industry was changed by Blackberry. In TSN you never actually saw how The Facebook was impacting the world, just the main characters' lives. Here you got the other face of the medal.

The soundtrack? It fucking slaps. I don't know the titles of all the songs in the soundtrack, but sure as hell I am going to look for them. And every movie that has Joy Division in it has my respect.

Oh, if you're a cinephile, I must advise you to be real careful watching this movie, because the amount of movie quotes contained in it could make YOUR BRAIN EXPLODE. Same goes for nerd culture quotes, there are just tooo many and you could risk loving them too much.

Afraid this movie it starting to sound too wholesome and happy? Oh, don't worry, there's enough corruption and angst to fill a Scrooge McDuck money deposit. You got corruption arcs, you got a big deal of actual corruption, calls from the SEC, you got fucking espionage, you got straight up lying, committing crimes, betraying your best friend, one of the few man who looks worse as a villain than as a hero, you got bastardization arc, you got Onceler-ization arc, you got Mark Zuckerberg equivalent of "We're not putting ads", you got "Stop, this isn't you".

But I understand, it's not enough for you. How about the FUCKING Apple-Blackbarry War, uh? How about that? Might interest you? With a flavour of tragedy because you already know who prevailed, but you're living the story from the side of the losers. Doomed by the narrative, ladies and gentlemen.

You got resentment building up, you got workers' discontent growing, you got sales dropping, in TSN you stopped very little after the explosion, now you get to see the whole thing collapse. It's the Western Roman Empire and it's 476 AD. It's "we could have it all". It's epic and terrible and destructive and it's the story of fundamental changes in the phone market and what phones came to be. It has an ending that it's bitter and happy and delightfully ironic and leaves you wondering what if.

I had one, one complain about this movie: it all starts in Waterloo and you don't put Waterloo by Abba? But I take back my complain, and if you, like me, are into 60s music you're going to love it. They're one of my favourite bands, if you know who I am talking about, so I was elated.

Go watch BlackBerry. Go. Right now. This is how I spent my one night off, this is how I ended a very shitty day and I was not disappointed. Watching this movie has been the best thing to happen to me today.

[mintywolf]

In relation to the ask game, monk?

Also btw your art is great it’s been so fun following it for so long :3

Thank you so much! <3

Monk: what is your favorite canon relationship?

Hahaha. :) In case this was somehow not obvious, it’s Laudna and Imogen. They had me by the throat within seconds of their introduction.

And okay here’s the thing I’ve only ever had one (1) character relationship dynamic that I really care about. Like, this isn’t my criteria for shipping or anything it’s just that ships I get hyperfixation-level attached to happen to fall in this one weirdly specific category and it is this: romantic friendship between two magical and/or monster ladies, one pastel and one goth. One of them is doomed or carrying around some kind of Destiny and the other one is Very Concerned about it.

Whether or not they’re actually kissing doesn’t matter*, it’s the strength of the bond between them that makes my heart try to escape my ribs. Bonded like shelter cats who can’t be adopted separately. No one else more important to them than each other. A love that can (and does) save or end worlds.

It’s had a few iterations over the years but it’s never been canon before. I’ve always had to do a lot of AU heavy lifting because there’s some canon heteronormative boyfriend in the way or the setting was mostly original content and characters because the source material didn’t have many so the ship was half fanon to begin with or something. So to have the exact thing I’ve been longing for for probably close to 20 years fully realized and canonical handed to me right at the start of the campaign permanently altered my psyche. I have not cared this much about fictional characters in ever.

And what’s really special about it is that they are BOTH the magical and monster ladies!! And they are both doomed by their destiny while being very concerned about the other’s and trying to undoom each other! They understand each other on a soul-deep level – Laudna is the only person whose thoughts don’t cause Imogen psychic pain and Imogen was the first person in her whole undeath to regard her with compassion rather than fear. They were each the unique antidote for the other’s loneliness. And it’s beautiful!!!!

And they absolutely check all of the romantic friendship boxes so it was everything I wanted right from the start. While everyone was (understandably) crowing “Imodna canon!!” after episode 65 because they kissed I was kind of like Oh! Okay! This is new. :) :) but it didn’t change me as a person because that had already happened. They were canon from the beginning. The bond was always there. Imogen would have gone into hell and dragged Laudna out of it regardless of whether she had romantic feelings for her. They can’t be adopted separately!!

(CR asks)

*(I actually kind of prefer it without the conventional-romantic “dating” aspect because fandom in general tends to value the romance over the friendship but it’s not as compelling to me because I'm ace and though romantic and sexual attraction are two different things, the prevailing cultural understanding of "romance" tends to presume both and I'm just not interested. Intense friendship used to be much more of a social norm but it fell out of favor with the rise of the Standard Nuclear Family in the 20th century. But whether or not they could have remained a Strong Platonic Female Friendship has already been examined. ;) )

[agentrouka-blog]

Hi I love your content! And sorry in advance for my rant.

I have been a hardcore jonsa shipper for years. But after season 8 nothing makes sense. I can’t believe this is George’s ending. There is nothing bittersweet about it, it’s just bitter. What was the point of a Stark restoration if they all split up by the end? Jonsa is the only endgame that makes sense. The Starks are the heart of the story and they must prevail by the end. Sansa is at the center of that. Her arc is all about family, marriage, love and motherhood. Yet in the show she is the only main character that has never been in a consensual and true relationship. She ends the story alone, and D&D imply she will never find love after all the abuse she has suffered. After season 8 I have given up on the entire story. What if we are wrong? What if Jon will fall for a monster (dany) and ruin his life because of it. Maybe we think to highly of him. Maybe he’s just as big of an idiot as Robb by falling for the wrong woman and losing his kingship and family over it. Maybe Jonsa will just be the greatest love story that never was. I just don’t know anymore…

Jonsa is the best endgame possible it ties up the entire story and is the only satisfactory conclusion, both for the story as a whole but also for Jon and Sansa’s arcs. A true Stark restoration. Without it the story is just a flop.

Not that it matters. George will never finish the books. And we will never get canon Jonsa from the shows (neither GOT nor Snow). HBO are the biggest Dany fanboys.

Whoa anon, someone was having a nihilistic day in late June!

Step away from the doom and gloom and try to think logically.

It makes no sense for GRRM to hide the jonsa clues if they lead nowhere. It also makes no sense to hide them if they are an unimportant red herring that only distracts from the endgame.

Know why? It's a lot of effort setting up those clues - and for those who see them you can't unsee them, but they do require paying attention first. GRRM didn't take that effort for nothing. Hiding them only makes sense if he deliberately wants to reveal what they lead to. It's important, but time sensitive.

It's happening.

And do you really really think that GRRM has created Jon Snow and his entire story so far as a set-up for a fatal attraction to his aunt, who, by the time they meet, will have a body count to dwarf Tywin? Do you think Jon Snow will look at a Targaryen with three dragons, demanding to rule Westeros, and feel a twitch in his nethers from excitement? Do you think that's the extend to which GRRM is willing to take his character development?

Did Ned Stark look at Cersei Lannister and feel remotely aroused?

What's the more subversive storyline: male character slave to erectile preoccupation, or maybe just maybe, Hector and Achilles?

[livlepretre]

In a chapter of FE when Klaus and Tyler are in New Orleans and Elena and Stefan are in the piano room and they kissed and he was compelled by Rebekah to tear at Elena’s mouth. Why did Stefan cry about that if his humanity was off? I mean I know he wasn’t compelled to forget his relationship with Elena at that time but why didn’t he just brush it off? And Rebekah must have know that Stefan would kiss Elena again since she compelled him. Oh and what was Klaus’ punishment for Rebekah or Stefan and did he know he was compelled?

One of my theses in this fic is that having their humanity turned off doesn't mean vampires don't have emotions; it means they don't have human emotions. Instead they have vampiric emotions which are often analogous but still somewhat alien to human emotions. My evidence for this lies in the show itself, and Elena cites this very thing in one of the earliest chapters of FE: how could Damon love Katherine across centuries, with his humanity turned off all the while, if vampires did not feel emotions? They clearly do. We see humanity-off vampires feel rage, despair, jealousy, and yes, love. They just don't feel them on the spectrum that we humans do, which is fascinating. The allure of having their humanity on is that vampires intrinsically miss their humanity. The catch is that in that state they are repulsed by their own appetites and by the monsters they are doomed to twist themselves into.

So Stefan can love Elena with his humanity off, but it's not the way he loved her when he had his humanity in seasons 1 & 2. It's darker, and more ruthless, and less forgiving. It's not a kind of love I would recommend. As Rebekah said in one of the recent chapters, "Love is a kind of possession. Possession is a kind of love." That's a vampire's idea about love, not a human's. Elena herself notes this right away.

But he's not crying there because of love of Elena. It's tears of horror. He sees that Elena's face is irrevocably scarred, by him, and he knows that Klaus is going to flip his lid when he inevitably sees it. He has been betrayed here by his lover in the deepest way, because she set him up for an execution with this. He's absolutely horrified that she would compel him like this, and that she is just not getting the gravity of the situation. A bit horrified at what he did to Elena, but that is less of the issue. And Klaus actually did almost tear Stefan's heart out in the immediate aftermath. Elena intervened, Klaus paused just in time, and cooler heads prevailed. Also, he is so, so, so stressed. He's juggling two homicidal lovers whom he is ever so aware could kill him so randomly while also juggling his love for Elena, which has never gone away, and their emotional affair leaves them both so terribly vulnerable. The thing is, Stefan is on this road. He knows that the road only leads down, down, down, and that he will never be able to reclaim the good life he had before this. But he also can't help but keep going down the road, and the further he goes, the more he can't get off of it. That's what his relationship with Klaus is like. So maybe there is an element of relief that an end could be in sight causing those tears.

Also, Klaus did not punish them for this event. There was the initial confrontation, and then a very heated exchange, but there was no punishment. Ultimately, he understood that it was Rebekah who orchestrated the whole thing and he should have known better than to leave Elena alone with her.

[orphanheirs]

Wip excerpt

Thanks @drchenquill for tagging!!

I'll share an old excerpt, definitely a first draft, where I was trying to figure out how to introduce Tristan/his backstory. This might be too much exposition, and/or I might figure out a more interesting and efficient way of communicating all this.

Tristan Learmont had never tasted outside air since the day he first drew breath. Being born in winter during a great freeze, an infant would surely not be taken out of doors until spring in those days, and Tristan was no exception. However, he being so frail and ill of health, this period was extended. As time wore on and young Tristan’s sickliness failed to dissipate, most doctors brought in to see him recommended that the child be shielded from the elements, for he was so frail there was great danger to his life if he were thus exposed. Adjoining this assessment almost always was another grave warning: the boy should never strain himself physically, and activity should be greatly limited, lest he exhaust a weak heart. These recommendations continued until there was no need to repeat them. As Tristan never got well, the restrictions were never lifted. Even with them in place it was expected he would only live a few years. But the Learmonts, being the wealthiest landowners in the region, had no need to spare expense in following the doctors’ orders full and beyond recommendations so that their youngest child might be pinned to this world as long as possible.  To this end a large suite in a separate wing of the house was cleared for his habitation while he was still an infant. This wing was separate from the children’s wing, which housed the rooms of all his twelve brothers and sisters. In this section of the palatial house, all the great windows were kept locked. Even the curtains were commonly kept drawn. In this perpetual gloom Tristan grew.  At first, visitors to the Learmont household would ask after their youngest child's health with great interest, but over time these things were no longer said. Tristan became the invisible ghost residing in the closed-off wing of the house upstairs, which everyone was dimly aware of, yet rarely spoke of, and endeavored altogether to not think of too often. Tristan’s chambers became a forbidden, dreary realm where only servants, governesses, and doctors were doomed to tread. Though the Learmont’s neglect of Tristan may seem shocking, one must remember that at this time many great families held each other at arms length as a matter of course, and many parents were eager to send their children off to boarding school as soon as they were of age. All the other Learmont children were shipped off to various faraway academies starting at age seven or eight, so it stands to reason that, as Tristan was far too frail to be sent out into the world, his parents were obliged to be satisfied with his being sequestered out of sight in the same house. However, as much as Tristan was ignored, he was indulged to the same measure. If a child is deemed spoilt by an excess of earthly pleasures and very little discipline, we may firmly pronounce Tristan rotten. It seemed some strong feeling of pity for the poor mite languishing in gloom at the other end of the mansion awaiting an early grave aroused in Mr. and Mrs. Learmont, if not a warm attentive affection, a sense of plain detached injustice. They compensated for this by acquiescing to his every whim (usually reported to them by proxy through a servant or governess) and refusing to punish him for misdeeds (the same). In addition, within the parameters set by the prevailing medical advice (that is, no strenuous activity and no venturing out-of-doors) he was permitted to do whatever he pleased. From an early age he was even allowed to set the course of his own education.

Tagging: @buffythevampirelover, @risingshards, and @luchadorbard!