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kurimiaki · 2 years ago

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Primrose + narcissus + honeysuckle for Lilia?

love your writing; your prose has this poem like feel to it, making the dread you tend to build even more potent when it pays off at the end

eheheheheheehehehheeh you’re so sweet, thank you for your kind words!

flower prompt list is courtesy of ddarker-dreams

tw: yandere, forced child rearing + marriage, kidnapping

Primrose - In the yandere’s ideal world, what would their relationship with their darling be like?

He wants to share eternity with you. Lilia quickly comes to learn that he’ll never tire of your company— he never bores of your smile, your every minute expression and reaction. He loves it all. A human’s lifespan is remarkably short, and his time seems to progress uncomfortably fast when he spends it with you. For as much as Lilia pokes and prods and relentlessly teases you, he loves you, and with this realization comes chilling desperation. A feeling he doesn’t immediately mark as fear, but as he watches the months and years flit by, with you only continuing to mature, he wants nothing more than to stop the passage of time.

And you’d be a fool to think he can’t. If Lilia does not already have the means to guarantee your immortality, he’s hell-bent on finding it. At this point, it shouldn’t be surprising how little regard he has for your autonomy, but for a decision this extreme, anyone would hope to be consulted. He might give you a cursory glance, feeling a small urge to mention the spell of eternal youth he’s attempting to cast, but squashes it. You likely won’t even know what he’s done until the people around you start to fade with age, you remaining stuck in the never-ending limbo of youth. It’ll hurt, and you’ll hate him for it, but at the very least, he assures you, Lilia will never leave.

Narcissus - Does this yandere prefer to infiltrate their darling’s life, or do they prefer to take their darling away?

Lilia has no qualms in waiting for you to break, so initially, he’ll just take to pestering after you in your daily routine. If not at Night Raven College, then about your community he’ll linger, appearing unprompted at your residence or place of work. He’ll ignore whatever protests your family or friends might have, selfishly snatching you away and monopolizing your attention. He doesn’t care for the importance of what you were doing prior to his appearance. Lilia’s likely to drag you off to some secluded area, whether it be a small glade or library nook, placing himself in your lap (or vice-verse) and napping/endlessly chatting your ear off. It’s no matter if you don’t reply or reciprocate to his whining attention, Lilia will lovingly consume both your silent loathing and adoration. Anything you could possibly give him is perfection.

But it takes a great deal of effort to visit you, you know? He’s an important figure to Briar Valley, and though Malleus is a grown boy now, he’s not without the occasional lapse of immaturity. A seasoned ruler must first be guided with a firm hand— he needs Lilia’s presence, and so do many others. Ultimately, Lilia will whisk you away from all you know and to his kingdom, not giving you a moment to gather yourself. Unless by some divine intervention, you’re not likely to return. And if you’re ever to escape from him, know that it won’t last longer than he allows it to.

He watches you through some sort of magical channel, probably through the eyes of a familiar that you won’t clock as suspicious. Magic is such a helpful little thing. A crow, maybe, one that brings little trinkets to your windowsill, buttons and spare change and mice bones. A bit of a nuisance, but you’re accustomed to it. This is the only reason he’s initially so lax in leaving you with your freedom- what could you possibly hide from him? You may spend months planning an escape attempt in-between his visits, hoping to flee from your home and to some foreign nation. He’ll never find you there, you’re certain.

But the nearer you get to the day your carriage is meant to arrive, the more dubious and cryptic Lilia’s little snotty asides will become. And perhaps one day, when he’s got his head in your lap and your hands combing through his hair, Lilia will present to you your one-way ticket to Scalding Sands, a childish frown on his lips. You should just tell me if you want to go on vacation, he’ll cheekily tut, biting back a smile at your expression of dread, it’s not safe for you to go all alone.

Honeysuckle - Would this yandere prefer to “tie-down” their darling through marriage or having/adopting kids?

He feels no overwhelming urge to tie you down, so if marriage was to be considered, it would not be out of desperation for your compliance. Your resistance is something he rather adores. Lilia wouldn’t even view marriage it as a particularly effective means to chain you to him, but he’d be lying to say there was no appeal in you taking on the Vanrouge name. He appreciates tradition, and what a grandiose event it would be for him to take you, in sickness and in health. Such a ceremony would surely last for days. And even more than to follow the conventional, he may marry you as a way to shield you from the scrutiny of the public eye. Although Lilia ultimately considers you to be his toy, a sort of pet, he wouldn’t take kindly to others viewing you in the same degrading manner. Such things are reserved for Lilia alone. An official bond would spare you this criticism, so he thinks.

I do believe that he would entertain the thought of giving you a child. Quite often. I want at least five, or so he once teased you, but it didn’t feel like much of a joke. Quite the opposite— in regards to raising some rugrats with you, Lilia is eerily serious. It goes without saying that he considers you a member of Malleus’ family, ragtag as it is, but it’s not as if you helped to raise the young prince and his guard. Below the surface, you’re mere acquaintances, and Lilia would prefer to cultivate a genuine family with you at his side.

While he is an inherently selfish and pleasure-seeking creature, Lilia did not assume the role of Malleus’ father figure as a mere means to entertain himself. There was an expectation of him to groom the young prince into a polished ruler, yes, and while he followed true to that, Lilia cares for him as if they share a blood relation. He does not take the duty of child-rearing lightly. So, if you were truly resistant to the idea of raising a kid with him, biologically or otherwise, Lilia would not force it upon you.

But not necessarily out of respect for your wishes.

It all boils down to a waiting game, really. Lilia is not one to deprive himself of his desires, and he’s quite confident that, in due time, he’ll get what he wants. Especially when it comes to you. (The image of you, domestic and doting over a child, excites him more than he can say.) Eternity is quite a long time, and no grudge lasts forever. Be it five years or a thousand, you’re sure to mature with the passing of time. And when Lilia deems you tame enough to care of children, meaning you reciprocate even an inkling of his love, only then will he force this upon you.

He’s a cradle robber, tried and true. Lilia will come to you with a small bundle in his arms, a beaming, toothy grin stretched on his lips as he provides you a cooing newborn. You’ll find a fully prepared nursery in some castle wing you’d never even heard of, and not with just one bassinet.

#there’s a new amber alert every time he leaves home #my writing #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere tw #x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere drabble #yandere lilia vanrouge x reader #lilia vanrouge x reader #yandere lilia vanrouge #lilia vanrouge #yandere prompts #yandere headcanons #yandere flower prompts

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allthingskakashi · 4 years ago

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As a fellow Kakashi lover, I’m curious if you feel that Kakashi is pretty misunderstood by a lot of fans? I’ve seen people say that he should’ve defected the village, and that he’s messed up for hiding his trauma. (Which he could’ve been more open about, yes, but I’m not sure that he even knew how to go about discussing it at the time) He could’ve easily left the village, but instead he wanted to change things and make society better by teaching teamwork, and to value everyone’s life by putting yourselves before the mission. He never lost hope for the future of shinobi and knew that it could be better. He definitely could’ve been more open about his past, but he’s always been more of a quiet and reserved kid (even before the trauma lol) Idk, I feel like a lot of people overlook his backstory when talking about him!

Istg every time i meet another person who shares this view i just wanna give em the biggest bear hug and im boutta go OFF

Remember back in their childhood when gai was being bullied by these men one time about his dad and kakashi dropped in and whacked them? He always had the conscience to stand up for what was wrong and be there for his comrades but sakumo's death was so traumatic for him, it forced him to change his own beliefs. He became a machine and he believed that carrying out missions as instructed was his only purpose in life, irrespective of what HE felt

because GOD YES he's so so misunderstood by fans half the time and I've seen so many people throw around the term bootlicker for him just cause he didn't throw away everything and leave the village and and join some criminal cult and like no?? The fact that he stayed only shows his strength of character if anything. He could've easily left if he wanted to, he would've made a very sexy villain too but he chose to be hopeful and he chose to remain good and that shows strength of character because it took him a fkn lot to stay in the right path and continue working for the village that took away his father from him.

And it had nothing to do with him being a bootlicker because kakashi is very much his own person and he has his own morals and ideals and he's not a stickler for rules until he believes in them. Yes he did become awfully rule-abiding after Sakumo's death for a while because he saw what listening to your heart instead of adhering to the rules did to his father. He saw the extent to which a previously respected shinobi was villified that he had to resort to taking his own life

And kakashi was angry at sakumo because he was only a small boy who had just lost his father. He couldn't help resent sakumo bc he kept thinking that if only sakumo had just stuck to the rules, he would've still been there with him. that if only he had just done what the village had asked him to, he wouldn't have lost the only family he had. Those were very valid thoughts for a child whose father had just committed suicide but kakashi did know in his heart that his dad was right and that's why he wanted to teach those very principles to the younger generations later on. That's why he told sakumo when they met in the limbo that he was proud of him. But back then when sakumo had just died, kakashi was a grieving child who was angry and dealing with so much pain inside him that he decided he'd never do what cost his father his life. Because he saw right in front of his eyes what happened if you broke the rules and so he did what his 5 year old mind thought he should. But even then, that was never who he was at heart. He never believed in mindlessly abiding by rules and that's what made him consider obito's words and ultimately go back to save rin. Obito's words did not change him, they only helped him see what was already in his heart.

But when obito said those words to him, it resonated with what he truly believed in inside his heart. So yeah, he's no bootlicker, he was just strong willed enough to not give in to the bad things that happened to him. He didn't make an impulse decision. He didn't want to abandon his village. It was his home and despite everything, he loved his home and he valued the people around him. He didn't want to just leave it all. He wanted to stay instead to make the village better, to pass on sakumo's values to the upcoming generations so that they became good shinobi AND humans. To teach his students the power of love and friendship so that they didn't grow up to become the kind of people that had denounced his father. Kakashi didn't want to take revenge for sakumo's death because his actions were never motivated by hatred, but he ensured that his father didn't die in vain.

Leaving would've been much easier for him too,he may have almost even thought of it on nights that were extremely painful, nights when he was completely engulfed with pain and anger at the horrible unfair world but he would've never done it bc that's not him. He CHOSE to listen to the part of his heart that still saw good. Betraying the village that was his home wasn't an option for him

So yeah the fact that he stayed only shows his strength of character. his determination, his judgement, his will to change the village for the better. He refused to pass students unless they knew the value of teamwork. He was the only one who failed team after team and sent them back to academy bc no matter what, he never would've let students who didn't value their comrades become shinobi. Would a bootlicker do that? He broke into root and freed tenzo; when everyone in the village ostracized naruto and iruka had almost made up his mind to ask hiruzen to assign him another student, KAKASHI was the one who told iruka to approach Naruto with love instead. He always had a mind of his own. When team 10 wanted to get their revenge after Asuma's death, kakashi himself offered to accompany them even tho tsunade wasn't initially very enthusiastic about the idea. Would a bootlicker do that? He sneaked naruto off to meet the 4th raikage bc he understood that it was important to Naruto. Would a bootlicker do that? He always did what he thought was right

He realised his mistakes and he changed for the better. He had to raise himself and yet he managed to stay on the right track and make not just a great shinobi but also a great person of himself. He didn't want to leave his home. that was his very identity, that was his world. He wanted to change it, not abandon it. I'm sorry that is not a bootlicker. Danzo had even tried to recruit him or smth once but he'd had the judgement and sense to turn him down

As for hiding his trauma idk what to say to that i mean you can't dictate how someone deals with trauma?? Sure, his ways weren't ideal but what can you expect? He was only a kid. He lost everyone that was important to him before he was even 15 and it's not like he received any help from anybody to heal and get better. The one time he tried to approach jiraiya, he turned kakashi away saying he was putting everyone off by being sad. Ig after that he just decided to stay quiet and keep it all inside himself. The village treated him as a human weapon and he started to see himself that way too because he really didn't care for his life anymore. He suffered from survivor's guilt and he wished he'd die, he hoped one of these missions would kill him. And he was this way for many years but what matters is that he did slowly let himself open up. It took him a long time but he did. He taught his genin team but he learnt from them too. They grew on him, he loved them and cared for them. Sure they were a handful but he they were his handful and he adored them. He could gather up the courage to finally let gai in too and even be verbal about how much he meant to him. It took a long way for him to get there and it was not easy but he got there and that's what matters

SO YEAH PHEW

im sorry that was so long but i get v riled up when people shit on kakashi about these things like you're missing the point and essence of his character and i will throw hands goddamit

The fandom really does misunderstand and misinterpret kakashi v often and there are many instances where i don't agree w the majority so it's so beautiful to me when i see people who think the same way THANK YOU SM I COMPLETELY AGREE W YOU LY <3

#atkspeaks #anon #kakashi

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ultraericthered · 4 years ago

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Anime Update 77

Charlotte - The twists and turns in these two episodes were....pretty bananas. Turns out that Yu and Ayumi really did have a forgotten third sibling, an older brother with the super ability of "Time Jump", meaning he can rewind time back to an earlier point and create a different reality from it, like it came right out of Future Diary, and he's actually the leader of the Syndicate that Tomori and the rest work for. But it turns out that the last time he did it in order to save himself, his friends and his siblings from a terrible fate in a research facility really was the last time he could use it, and he's now gone completely blind. But since Otosaka's Plunder ability goes beyond just possessing others and can actually steal abilities for himself, his brother has him meet with him in the current present day so that he can take the Time Jump and use it to go back to when Ayumi's Collapse ability was about to awaken so that he can keep her from dying this time, which is exactly what he does. Oh, and that one guy with the long brown hair who's always wet and locating ability users is actually the elder Otosaka brother's best friend who he calls "Pooh", specifically citing Winnie the Pooh as why, which I'm not sure what that's about but who cares, we got Ayumi back with us! Yay!

Dragon Ball - Was mostly just the aftermath of King Piccolo's defeat, which was good...until it wasn't. Not only was the filler stuff with Oolong impersonating Goku in order to score with a lady reporter not very fun, but even the main story comes up lacking here - the thing Korin says about Krillin, Roshi, Chiaotzu and the rest being stuck in limbo for eternity unless they're wished back to life with the Dragon Balls made no sense and later canon never shows us anything of the sort happening to dead characters. Does it only happen when a demon like Piccolo kills people? But Piccolo turns out to not be a demon, so OOPS! The reveal that God himself created the Dragon Balls and that Goku needs to go speak with him about creating them anew is dumbed down in the dub to being that Goku needs to go see some guy named Kami. And then Goku sidetracks himself to go get his missing power pole so that he can reach the Heavens from the top of Korin's tower, but when he reaches there he has to face Mr. Popo, who looks like a racist caricature. I don't really like this character. The Abridged Series making him out to be a creepy, horrifying, threatening figure wasn't just a joke reinterpretation - it's exactly what he is like here, and giving Goku such a hard time fighting him kind of diminishes his effort against Piccolo. Speaking of, I don’t remember any of the scenes with Piccolo Jr. in the manga, but they were probably the most interesting parts of this whole viewing.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Got to wrap up the initial story arc with its final episode, where Haruhi got so dispassionate, bitter, frustrated and even jealous that she subconsciously decided she was ready to wipe the slate clean on reality and start over. What transpires from that is a battle of wills between Haruhi and Kyon, but it's not depicted in a straightforward or traditional matter, which I love. The two of them flee from the Shinjin as it wrecks the school building and then starts to multiply itself in order to bring the rest of the universe down too, and as Kyon starts to re-evaluate his outlook on the reality he lives in, that he doesn't want to lose it. Haruhi, however, protests that a bigger, grander existence is worth sacrificing everything in the world for. So Kyon finally figures out the way to sway Haruhi away from that position and escape the enclosed space - he takes her out with a kiss! The resolution is appropriately strange and ambiguous. Was Haruhi’s destructive reconstruction of reality cancelled out by the kiss? Or did it go through and everyone is now living in a new world that’s an exact replication of the old one as per Kyon’s feelings? We’ll never know for sure, but what we do know is that life goes on as usually unusual for the SOS Brigade from here.

Your Lie In April - Since Haruhi will now be a more casually recurring show, it’s place was taken by the appropriately timed Your Lie In April. Hoooh boy. I can’t say I’d been much looking forward to this one based on the things I’ve heard about it. While I might find those problems myself later down the line, it honestly has a pretty alright start. I like the main character well enough and feel real bad for what his abusive mother put him through in his piano recital career, and I like his friends, particularly Tsubaki. But of course, the character who steals all the attention whenever she’s on screen is Kaori, who is very whimsical, kind-hearted and good with children one minute, a raging nightmare the next. Clearly something special about her and some angle she’s working, but what could it be?

Date A Live - Oh my God, she totally WAS creeping on Origami! Well, good to know that Origami will be Kurumi’s next obsession after she’s done with Shido, I guess? But aside from that, the main action this time was Kotori putting Shido up to a triple-timer date with Tohka, Origami, and Kurumi at around the same vicinity on the same day. Which was amusing up until it took a dark turn with Kurumi dropping her friendly civilian act and outright murdering some guys with her Nightmare powers (though to be fair, they had it coming - they were torturing a poor, defenseless kitty!) and attempting to turn those powers against Shido to torture him and ultimately devour him as a way of expressing her “love” for him. Bitch be all kinds of creepy! Thankfully, Shiro’s bio sis Mana shows up in the nick of time and kills Kurumi. Again. Farewell, Kurumi, we hardly knew ye. I’m sure the death will totally stick this time and I won’t be seeing you next time.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion - So a faction of the Japan Liberation Front goes rogue, takes a hotel building and its Britannian occupants hostage, which includes Lelouch's schoolmates and an incognito Euphemia, and not even Cornelia can take much drastic action or the lives of the hostages will be forfeit, so that makes things convenient for Lelouch, as Zero, to direct his newly appointed “Black Knights” (what Ougi’s rebel faction is now) to go make the save for all of Britannia to see. Lelouch derails any rescue efforts by the army just so he can claim all the credit for himself and broadcast on live TV that he and his Black Knights are the allies of justice who will protect the weak from those with power, including the Britannian Empire!

When They Cry: Umineko - Where...did this...go wrong? This arc was doing a good job at keeping me with it and then suddenly it spirals into utter nonsense that makes it end even worse than Arc 1 did! Early on, things were still fine: in-game Battler actually accepts Beatrice as a witch in a very kind of touching but kind of sad scene shared with Maria. Rosa shifting back and forth between reasonable skepticism and outright paranoia was interesting. Shannon and George getting murdered by Beato in such an amazingly cruel way was just great! And when the Zaheer Butler guy brings Battler to Kinzo’s room where he gets to have a one-on-one with the Golden Witch herself? The tension in the set-up is so thick and palpable. But then comes the final act, where Rosa and Maria get ambushed by the goat furniture, Battler is suddenly stripped naked and chained as needless humiliation from Beato before she has the goats devour both him and Kinzo (which was admittedly pretty sweet and satisfying to watch), Rosa makes a heroic stand to gun down some goats while apologizing profusely to Maria for what a horrible mother she’s been (we never really got to look inside Rosa’s head this whole time, so where the fuck did THIS come from? What was the incentive for this?) only for them to get ripped apart to, leading to an absurdly abrupt transition to the Meta World where we’re treated to a scene that’s trying so hard to be nightmarish and horrific but ends up being downright comical where Beato is tormenting Rosa by forcing her to eat her dead family members, culminating with Maria’s severed head forcing itself into Rosa’s mouth while Beato gloats and goes “IT’SU PERFECTO!” And if it couldn’t get any funnier, Meta Battler then comes and demands that Beato “slice off your cow tits and make me a sandwich!” and makes an innuendo callback to Maria’s Head. My GOD, he is so ridiculously awful, I can’t even. After the game is back on between Beato and Battler, Beato confronts Bernkastel about her interference…but I’m honestly not sure what interference she means and what it even entails since we only saw Bern among the goats earlier and not much was made of it. And then, to top it all off, Lambdadelta, the Witch of Certainty, makes her unceremonious debut by just popping in there to say hi and establish she exists and is Bern’s nemesis, and then it just ends without more discussion between the Witches, which is a thing I would’ve really liked to see!

This adaptation really fails. I don’t know how much more I can take.

Magic Knight Rayearth - Hikaru and Lantis got to go out on patrol together in the decayed outlands of Cephiro and even had something of a bonding experience...which might’ve gone deeper had Lantis not had an aggressively territorial and jealous Tinkerbell Expy following him around all the time and getting into skirmishes with Makona, but a sort of bond has been established all the same. But even aside from the various monsters that they have to slay, trouble finds the two in the form of Eagle Vision appearing in his mech suit, intent on putting the data on the Magic Knights and Rune Gods he gathered last time to good use by challenging Hikaru to a fight. Lantis tries to discourage this but then mostly stays out of the way, with him and Eagle clearly having some shared history from all the time Lantis spent in Autozam. Despite Eagle being put at a disadvantage, he’s able to gain the upper hand and abduct Hikaru, and Lantis can’t rescue her because Alcyone had to go and choose that time to launch another attack! Guess Hikaru’s headed for Autozam now!

AMC: Yuki Yuna Is A Hero - Finally watched the first episode of this. Normally, Seiji Kishi’s style for his work is very recognizable, but here it’s not typical Seiji Kishi that stands out to me - it’s Angel Beats! Seiji Kishi. The animation budget, friend group interaction, and even next episode previews are more like Angel Beats! than Kishi’s other work like Danganronpa or Assassination Classroom. While the exact nature of the magical girl plot and how Fuu knew that all this was coming all that time but kept it secret from her friends and sister until now had me a bit confused, but I liked the otherworldly spectacle and the action sequences, and I very quickly warmed up to the four girls in the Heroes Club - Yuna herself, Fuu, Itsuki, and....uh...the girl in the wheelchair. They’re all great, and I will await more from them.

#Anime Update

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the-stoned-priestess · 4 years ago

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What is it I need to know in terms of future study/work?

Initials are H.A.H

My pendulum points to journalist, writing, and the arts as a possible career, job or study.

In the past the focus was on withdrawal, imprisonment, restriction or oppression, handicaps, accidents, health problems, danger, hardship, deadlock, or Limbo.

You wanted to get out of an oppressive situation or change your present line of work.

You felt limited, restricted, or immobilized by others and as a result, experienced hardship.

In the past we may have taken some sick leave, or blown out of an unpleasant job or work situation; Or, you could have changed your mind about taking a job you really didn’t want anyway but felt you had to because of financial considerations.

You felt trapped in a negative cycle of events and worried that the future holds more of the same.

You were feeling stuck or trapped and wanted to make more money, because even though you’ve got it to spend, the supply is decreasing.

Now the focus will shift on all things you thought you had completed or had a handle on such as old friends, lovers, habits, desires, health, money or business problems resurfacing for the sole purpose, it seems, to test you to your very core.

He will want spiritual assistance in producing the solution to a problem.

If you trust in the right out workings of your affairs, they will work out exceptionally well.

You will feel that if you continue on the path you’re on without really for gratification, you will absolutely explode, in the desire for change will be so intense that it comes, bringing the very thing you want.

Happiness will come through a new toy, like minded people, and improved health or finances after a period of worry or suffering.

You are going to experience a chain reaction in money matters with only a partial response at first, and then one thing will lead to another and a moderate degree of success will be attained.

Your best success will come through your ability to maintain control over volatile conditions and utilized ideas in order to bring forth the kind of results you want.

Things are going to be different and you’ll have a change of consciousness for the better.

Cosmic forces are going to correct the situation, but this is only the first step. There is still a possibility of defeat unless your cooperation is continued. What’s meant by cooperation is your determination to persevere without immediate results, and to allow the power of the infinite to penetrate your consciousness and steer you into that which you desire or to change your karma for you.

What is best for you to do is to accept what is going to be offered. It could change your life.

#ask a psychic #free readings #witchblr #tarot readings #tarot community #tarot cards #psychics of tumblr #psychic #psychics #tarot readers

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mrneighbourlove · 4 years ago

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Evil’s Bane: Ch 5. Belief Scattered

It must have felt like a good hour of walking through the fog together. No sound echoing in the cave or even their foot steps. As they kept traveling, Leere wanted to get to know Black more. “I never knew you were an undead all this time. How’d you get so good at hiding that fact?”

"Well, I'm not alive and I'm not dead, so I suppose you'd call me undead. Technically, I'm trapped in the moment of dying." Black explained to Leere, trying to recall what Bonegrinder told him. "Almost like being stuck in limbo, but I'm on earth still. It is said that I will not cease to be until I resolve my unfinished business. Yet, unlike other Wraiths, so I've been told, I'm not mindless."

“So what, you’re a Hellspawn?”

"No, I'm not a demon, just... a trapped soul, I suppose." Black shrugged once. "I'm not exactly sure how to explain it. Necromancy doesn't effect me, so I might not be completely undead, just... odd."

"Black is no Hellspawn, tiny princess, just a unique individual." Bonegrinder told Leere. "Years and years ago, this old snake found Black wandering in a swamp near Yenaldooshi in Omisha. He was able to help him regain part of his memories."

"I recalled that I was traveling back home from Al-Daida with my family and someone had double crossed me."

Leere gave Black a look. There was a weird tilt of her head, as if she was trying something out, and after a moment, she smiled with a simple hum to herself.

"If you have a better explanation, I'm all ears." Black's glowing lavender eyes curved in good humor from behind his head wrap, his body hidden beneath several layers of flowy clothes.

"There have been very few Wraiths that Bonegrinder has seen in this lifetime." The Anagari then admitted. "Even this snake has not all the answers on some issues, but an idea."

“Your soul and body certainly have unique characteristics. Much different then most undead I’ve encountered. And you certainly have control of your own body.”

"That much is true, though I am still trying to figure out what my unfinished business is." Black admitted to the Shadow Sage. "I thought it was to get revenge for my family. Yet, I didn't cease to be after I found their killer."

“You fulfilled your duty in avenging your family, but your destiny lies elsewhere.” Leere pondered a little more about his situation. Spirits, physical or otherwise, usually had a purpose for lingering on the mortal plane after death. “Perhaps you must bring unity to someone else?”

Suddenly as if they were stepping out of a portal, the fog disappeared. They knew they had been walking at a slow incline down, so the sight before the party of travellers was unexpected. An open area with sky was set upon their eyes. Only this time it was not as much a pretty sight. The sky was dreary with clouds hiding any blue. Replacing grasslands was an eerie forest landscape, with many dead trees amongst puke green pine trees. Finally, there was more earth then grass.

"This is what he recalls from the last time he was in this land." Bonegrinder's features contorted into disgusted frown. "Decay."

“I don’t sense anything too off, but be on guard.” Leere sensed life wasn’t dead, but had simply stopped in time was the best choice of wording. As they kept walking, they eventually found a path to walk along. “Civilization ahead?”

"Yes, there should be... unless that has changed as well." Bonegrinder did not sound too enthused about the prospect of seeing more residents of the land of Malus. "This snake still says its not too late to turn back."

Leere looked up to see a couple fairies fly overhead. They looked more insect like, but paid no attention to the group. “Bonegrinder, you promised me a day. You going to use it complaining?”

"He will use it to wipe his scaled ass, complain as much as he likes, and remind you repeatedly that this is a bad idea." The Anagari's tail twitched. "We should not even be here."

"That means he's irritated." Black murmured to Leere.

Leere observed her surroundings with a sigh. Suddenly, they heard talking from nearby. With a hand single, she issued Black and Bonegrinder to be quiet so they’d investigate. Near a lake, there were two men, gutting fish they caught.

"Fuck." Bonegrinder grumbled under his breath when Leere caught sight of the 'local natives'.

“Kenshi. How much longer must we wait?”

“We’ll be gone soon Lang. The whereabouts of my daughter are unknown, but I’m certain this lake is where the anomalies originate from.”

Leere watched the two men; both had darker hair like her. After much consideration, she decided to slowly approach them.

Before Leere could get too far, Bonegrinder's tail whipped out, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back. "What. Are. You. Doing?!"

“Engaging the locals. We have to form communication or we’ll get nowhere.” Leere gritted her teeth at him in hushed whispers. She didn’t like to be man handled like a child.

"We do not know if they're friendlies or hostiles." Black reminded Leere. "It's best to observe firstly."

"Listen to the assassin, tiny princess, he knows better than you do."

From over ahead, a fairy looked down at them. The little insect seemed to scowl at them. Slowly, it flew over to the two men. They stopped their conversation, and listened to the fairy. Suddenly they tensed, looking over to the hiding spot of the group. They both jolted upwards, grabbing sheathed swords. “Kenshi! Go back to the village! Another monster has somehow broken through the barrier, this time in day light!”

"... I'm assuming that means you, Bonegrinder." Black mused dryly with a tiny smirk. "Cause I do not sense any other monsters around here."

"Fuck Prama and Dhakk sideways..." Bonegrinder cursed under his breath. "... go catch them."

"As you wish."

"But don't kill them yet, we need information."

Leere decided to try and run out toward them. “Stop! I’m a Mortuus! I’m friendly!”

The man Leere identified by observation as Lang took a stance, drawing his sword. This revelation only made him more on guard. “You are not from either village.”

Black earned his nickname for being able to blend into the shadows initially, however, he was quite adept at hiding in any environment. In order to keep Kenshi from escaping, the Wraith simply pinned the Mortuus against a rotting tree, both hands trapped behind the back. "I have the second one, Bonegrinder." "Good. We require information." The Anagari slithered out from his spot, eying Lang. "Drop that sword before this snake removes your hand for threatening the tiny princess."

Lang was memorized by the gigantic beast slivering down from the tree line. “The gods really are abandoning us...” Tightening his grip on his blade when he saw Kenshi be pinned, the man planted his feet. “You must be from the capital. I won’t let you take me without a fight.”

Leere glanced over to Black, standing between both Lang and Bonegrinder. “Will you two stand down?! My name is Leere Dragmire. I am a Sage of Hyrule investigating a dark source of evil coming from Malus. I know that there are innocents trapped here. I’m a friend that wishes to help you. If my companion releases your friend, will you lower your guard?”

Lang, looked to Kenshi. He only slightly lowered his stance. “Release my friend.”

"Put down your sword first." Bonegrinder was incredibly stubborn. "Raising a blade at a lady is no small thing."

"Bonegrinder, I believe Leere can handle herself. After all, that sword is very... rusty." Black used basic logic. "And unkept."

"... very well. Though harm her, and this Anagari will remove your head from your shoulders." Black released Kenshi, almost chucking when the Mortuus scrambled away from him.

Kenshi stood by Lang’s side, the latter paying closer attention to Bonegrinder as he sheathed his sword. “You said you came from the outside? It should be impossible for a monster of your size to enter. The barrier of Destroyah disintegrates monsters and demons bigger than a house cat from entering. Not the mention the guardian Mata keeps an eye out for the demonic.”

"Bonegrinder is neither demonic or a monster..." Black stated, earning a blank glance from the two Mortuus. "Let me rephrase that, Bonegrinder is neither demonic nor a monster of these regions. He hails from Omisha, not of Hellspawn origins."

"Pitiful, magical barriers and ancient Colossi are nothing more than pests." Bonegrinder stated bitterly. "Destroyer's works are sloppy."

“Omisha... the land of the cowards who bask in the sun. That’d explain your appearance. Still, we should have been protected from your kind entering too.”

Leere felt tensions start to rise. “What matters is that none of us wish to bring you harm. I merely wish to learn. Can you bring us to your village?”

Both men looked to each other, then spoke in a language, or perhaps code Leere didn’t understand.

Suddenly, Bonegrinder had Lang up off the ground by his neck, his tail wrapped dangerously tight around the Mortuus' throat. He brought the man closer to his face, fangs exposed and snarling. The Anagari was pissed. To keep Kenshi in place, he wrapped the man in his coils. "You dare call us Echidnans cowards when your kind tried to drown the world in Hellspawn? Tortured the innocent? Slaughtered villages full of children?" Bonegrinder's jaw was unhinged, highly tempted to rip out the man's throat. Black warned Leere that there was a reason why the Anagari detested Malus. This country was the responsible for the demise of his home. "It makes this snake wonder if you were worth saving after you killed so many of us alongside Dhakk for choosing to follow Prama."

“BONEGRINDER!!!” On instinct, a large shadowy hand gripped Bonegrinder by the hair, pulling him away from Lang as another shadow hand caught the man from falling. “Do not escalate tensions! I did not bring you here to frighten innocents! Stop acting like a monster!” Both the men were afraid, both by Bonegrinder and by Leere’s magic. “She’s a sorcerer.”

“Just like the elder and Bi-Hanzo.”

Leere glared Bonegrinder down as her shadows calmed down. Slowly, she turned back to the pair. “I overheard you had a missing daughter. I’m a mother myself. Perhaps I can assist you.”

Kenshi nodded. “Yes... Lang. Go to the village and warn them to not attack the Echidnan on sight. I’ll stay with the group and walk with them as a sign of trust...”

Lang, not wanting to be anywhere near Bonegrinder, agreed. “Gladly.”

"He is a monster, Leere," Bonegrinder was angry with the princess for using her magic on him. He leaned down and growled, "It matters not to him the lives of those who could be responsible for the death of his family. Prama agreed to this folly because he wishes for some good to come to this God-forsaken land." The snake warned her, "You are innocent of the crimes of Malus, Leere. The others are not. Friend or foe is not debatable here."

Black was not one for expressing emotion with his stoic face, but even he grimaced at Bonegrinder's icy words. It was rather clear the hate that the Anagari had for this country. Yet, as the shaman slithered off a distance from the princess to cool his head, the Wraith approached Leere. "I apologize." Black said to the Shadow Sage, "I should have warned you of his ire. It is nothing against you, Leere. There are certain horrors that he does not wish to recall and old wounds that have never healed. Perhaps I should go forward with you and have Bonegrinder wait here. I understand your mission, but he... is having a difficult time."

“If he feels he needs to distance himself, then fine.” Leere gestured for Black to follow her as Kenshi lead the way. “All enemies or all allies view is a narrow one though.”

"How would you feel if you had to traverse into the country responsible for the death of your family?" The Wraith asked Leere, curious of her answer. "From what I remember of my human days, I think I would be afraid... and angry."

The shadow sage was sad that her friend couldn’t keep his emotions in check, worried she comprised her relationship with the village before even meeting them. When they arrived at the village, it was a small town, but held a decent enough community. A town hall, a saloon, multiple houses and a church were present buildings seen. Many Mortuus gathered around, astonished by news of outsiders. With so many red eyes on her, Leere could see how tired many of them were. “Hello. I am Leere. Mortuus of Hyrule.”

She was greeted with silence in return. Some of them went back to their daily routines immediately, but kept an eye on her. One man approached, narrowing his gaze at her. “Lang tells me you travel with an Echidnan. Where is it?”

As Black followed Leere to the village, he kept a keen lookout. His master was not too far, he could still sense the Anagari. Though, something felt... a touch off here. The residents looked like sleep had eluded them for ages. "Bonegrinder felt it was best to hold back, lest he..." Black thought of the appropriate word. "Scare the masses." He then inquired. "Why do you ask?"

“As this villages remaining experienced protector, I demand all parties are accounted for.” The man had an air about him that the others didn’t, that he could back up his demands. “The masses live in constant fear of unknown dangers. If he was here, he wouldn’t be unknown.”

Leere held a hand back to him. “He’ll be here shortly. What is your name, if I might ask?”

“I am Bi-Hanzo. Member of the Order of Balance.”

"Balance?" That caught Black's interest. "As in Kaksa? Mother Goddess?"

It was Bi-Hanzo’s first moment to be intrigued. “Yes. The very same. Though I am a dying breed. Both Destroyah and Proxamus, the names we give for Life and Destruction gods, had a hand in Malus’ creation. Our magic of necromancy was fuelled to please Proxamus. Yet both gods haven’t graced us in thousands of years. In time, the factions of Mortuus fell to darkness, blind in dedication to either. Few know of balance and try to keep these communities alive. There is no escape from Malus. Only survival.”

That was a monumental amount of information Leere absorbed. “Well, that’s good. Because I think the Destroyer is on the rise in Malus, and many of you are in grave peril.”

It seemed his master was correct about one issue; the people of Malus had lost hope. He had heard the tales of creation and destruction from his time when he was alive. Then, he learned more as a Wraith underneath Bonegrinder's tutelage. Yet, he was unsure of who was friend or foe. Perhaps a small test was needed... "We are here to seek answers." Black informed Bi-Hanzo. "For the prophecy."

“Prophecy? Those are many, and have many interpretations. Come, I will take you to the elder.”

Before Leere could follow Bi-Hanzo, Black placed his hand on the Shadow Sage's shoulder, silently asking her not to move just yet. "And how do we know this isn't a ploy?"

“I don’t. But I do this thing called taking a leap of faith? Can you jump yourself Black?”

"Jump, run, hide, take your pick. Though you must understand our caution." Black told the man, "The stories we have heard are most unsettling."

“They are most likely true. However, is every fallen leaf red?”

"Only if it's soaked up blood from the ground."

Black’s view on judging people by one cover was unsettling to the woman, discouraging even. It was when Bi-Hanzo added his thoughts to Leere and Black’s exchange of metaphors. “Ah. You can only see violence. That, is why your vision is flawed.”

Leere liked the man’s thinking, nodding along. Some villagers followed the group to a church near a graveyard looking down on the village. Knocking on the door, Bi-Hanzo waited. Finally, he opened the door to the church and gestured the pair to go inside. Leere did so without fear. Inside were very old bleachers, scratched wooden pillars, and a cross hanging on the wall. At the alter, a woman was sitting down reading a book wrapped in leather.

Bi-Hanzo respectfully bowed to the elder. “Lady Jackalen. There is a Mortuus, an undead, and an Echidnan here. Somehow, they penetrated the protective barriers to our small realm.”

"A Wraith, thank you, not an undead. There's a difference. I think." Black insisted as he looked around the church. It was better kept than the whole village. It also made him feel slightly uneasy. Was it because he was trapped between death and life?

Leere walked forward, bowing her head. When she approached the woman, she noticed how white her eyes were. “I am Leere Dragmire. Shadow Sage of Hyrule. I don’t want to alarm you, but I believe your people are in grave danger.”

“A sage? My... how young you look.” The elder cackled lightly to herself. “And you are correct. My people are indeed in danger. Or countless generations, we’ve been kept safe. Despite how much they might have changed, Destroyah and Proxamus gave us a way to protect our pocket realms from the outside world. Only now, within the last decade, those who isolated themselves from the outside world have been going silent. Communities we once shared a psychic communication with snuffed out. We didn’t know what caused this. Until two weeks ago. Devilish abominations coming out in the night to kill and steal away those who live here. Despite all my magics, I can’t find the source of where they reside.”

"Hellspawns." Black stated at the elder's words. "They're good at hiding and lurking around in the darkness, waiting for the right moment to strike. Difficult to track too if they're being aided by another source of magic. I'm surprised they haven't overrun the village yet." He glanced at the few people in the church. "Perhaps they're looking for someone."

“I’ve fought against several unidentified creatures, killed a few, but there’s always more, and there’s always someone taken.” Bi-Hanzo gripped the sides of his coat uncomfortably.

Leere pried for more information. She needed to know what specific danger lied in the shadows of this country. “Do you know if any evil spirits or gods have risen in Malus?”

The elder shook their head. “We do not. No gods have answered our prayers. And we know little of outside this realm of protection. It is our bubble. Our way of life.”

"... what prophecy do you know of?" Black decided to skip past the doom and gloom and search for answers. "My master requires answers."

“Which one? There are many Wraith. Mostly about their chosen god raising hell upon the earth. Some hope a saviour will liberate Malus from torment. Some think they will be servants while all their enemies will become slaves. Even here, some make sacrifices and offerings to their chosen lord in hopes of having their wishes granted.”

"The prophecy my master has long believed is of a young woman of fire, born of a mother of death, would be the host of Kaksa, the Mother Goddess." Black decided there was no harm in elaborating. There were various versions of the prophecy, but all resulted in the same ending. "Dhakk and Prama would have a choice to make. Either they would fight each other, or fight against Chaos."

“Chaos? Ahhhh.”

Leere looked to Black, unsure by the elder’s reaction. “What about Chaos?”

“Hehehe. Oh... oh! This is rich. I remember you now.” The elder’s white eyes were glossed over on Leere. “You were the one who’s parents fled. There are many in Malus who worship Destroyah or Proxamus. Few worship and know of Balance. But very little dared to be of the Cult of the Devil. The Devil came from Chaos you know. Evil was born of Chaos. That evil has a special connection in Malus. Those who served Proxamus were wise to kill those who worshiped the Devil.”

Leere’s comfort levels went from a 10 to a 1 real fast. “I know very little about my birth parents.”

“But you hold the markings, don’t you? I can sense it. Feel it. Hmmm. You’re marked for sacrifice.” Lady Jackalen walked away towards a book shelf, trying to find a specific text.

Black sensed Leere's abrupt uneasiness. The mentioned of Chaos certainly caught the old woman's attention. There were several names for this horrible god of discord, though he knew just a few; Teufel and Tzitzimime. Leere, she almost looked... slightly panicked. Like she was not expecting the elder to recall her or her despicable parents.

“Yes. Here we are.” The elder returned, placing a book down with a face as the cover. Flipping the page, she showed an illustration of the exact tattoo Leere had on her back. “This is it, isn’t it? Ah, no need for words. Your expression tells me enough. You are slated for sacrifice.” Leere looked much paler than usual. “I was. Past tense.”

“Heh heh heh. Present tense, I’m afraid. I can... I can feel the gate on you has been altered. But you are still a viable gateway if there were those who wished to use you.”

“For what?”

“A summoning of great and vile torment to be resurrected.” Flipping the pages, she went through many horrifying sketches of alien looking monstrosities. “Chaos has many spawns of its own. But it’s also a being, by nature, that is fractured. The body, a heart, mind, soul. Chaos is many. The Devil would like it all back. And you, just like one in every generation of Mortuus, carry a seed of resurrection in you. Congratulations on such a terrible fate.”

Bonegrinder had once told Black some time ago that he wished to save the 'tiny princess' from her fate. He really did not know what the Anagari spoke of then, but now, he understood. The assassin recalled the times that Leere was angry with the giant snake for keeping the details of her past from her. She wanted to know and now she did. Yet, Black could not help but feel sorry for her... and for Bonegrinder. The Anagari tried so hard to keep this knowledge from Leere.

Leere looked away when she saw the creature that oozed from her spine when Bonegrinder removes a sigil so long ago. “How did you deal with these children before?”

“We killed them before they could pose a threat to the world. Proxamus would have understood. Destroyah would agree. And it’s what Balance would have desired. And no, before you ask, I don’t think it wise to order your execution. That said, I don’t know why you’ve come here. There is no escape from Malus.”

“What if I can help you? Everyone who is here find a way out?”

“Dear child. That is gullible thinking. Naive. Even if you save us, there are still other villages. I doubt you can find them all.”

"How dare you think you have the power to speak for Kaksa." Bonegrinder was as sneaky as always, having found his way to the church, following Leere's scent. He managed to slip inside through the back, and was now on his usual lounging spot; the ceiling. He had coiled his massive body around the chandeliers, dust falling from above. It was clear the snake was in a foul mood even more so now. "The Mother Goddess abhors the murder of innocent children, even those who had no say in what happened to them. No, this is your failure. Failing to protect them."

"... and this is my master." Black stated with a stoic face. "Bonegrinder."

Lady Jackalen didn’t look surprised. Bi-Hanzo fists glowed a blue aura, but he kept his ground. The elder looked up, frowning lightly. “A swift end is preferable to torture they’d have gone through. It has been a long, long time since I’ve seen one of your kind. Still arrogant. Still boastful of living in better lands. After all, the Mother is part of the reason we remain trapped here. Besides, the children after death could be resurrected. They just needed their minds, not their souls.”

Leere was a little disgusted by that statement. “How old are you? How many souls have you taken?”

“Old enough. Blood magic is a gateway to soul manipulation. As I know you know.” The elder walked over to a seat, taking a moment to sit down. “Although, there’s something about you too, Echidnan. Something faint.”

"And your kind are nothing but slaughterers of the innocent." Bonegrinder hissed through gritted fangs. "Mother of the Monsters erected the barrier because your people decided to play with Chaos' little pets. We Echidnans will not apologize for protecting ourselves and our homeland." The Anagari scoffed as the Elder tried to analyze him. "You know nothing of this old snake, old woman."

"Bonegrinder is ancient like you, lady." Black had no filter.

“Ha. You think yourself a light to our darkness? Yourself righteous? You know that we desired help, yet you turned us away. All lands did. Or they enslaved us. Such was the design of those who fell to true darkness in Malus.”

"Why would Echidnans want to help the kind responsible for the rampaging of their homes? Friend or foe, the Mortuus are two faced." Bonegrinder snorted. "You are going senile, old woman, if you think we would do such a thing." He slid down the wall of the church, settling beside of Leere and Black. "Do you understand now why this snake did not want to bring you here, tiny princess? There is nothing for you here."

“Bi-Hanzo, what do you think? Do you wish freedom from Malus?”

The man was surprised Leere had the fortitude to address him so quickly. “I’d wish it more than anything.”

Leere turned her attention away from the elder and Bonegrinder. “Then I don’t know how long it will take, but I can take you and your people away from this all.”

“I don’t know if I can trust your friend. Unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you stay the night. Protect my village.”

This could be a way of discovering the evil that plagued her dream. Nodding, Leere held an arm out to shake. “I accept.”

Before Bonegrinder, Black, or Lady Jackalen could disagree, Bi-Hanzo shook her hand. “A woman of her word? I look forward to it.”

"You don't have to like my master, but I would highly advise trusting him." Black told Bi-Hanzo and Lady Jackalen. "He knows more than you think he does."

"Let the people believe what they wish, Black, it is of no consequence to this snake." Bonegrinder dismissed the thought from the assassin's viewpoint. "You know what they think of him and you know what he thinks of them."

"What about the prophecy, Bonegrinder?"

"If they do not wish to speak of their prophecy, it matters not. We know what we need to know."

“Come, I will take you to the saloon. You can rest there until nightfall.”

In the darkness of Malus’ infamous great city, deep within a castle wall, creatures scuttled about in the shadows. A mechanical bug crawled along the walls, reaching a man and hissing into his ear. The man paused, patiently listening. Entering a private chamber, his voice echoed in a loud whisper. The man himself was nearly a silhouette of a man, a terrible tall blackness covered in robes and with crimson eyes. “Your brother has slithered his way into Malus it seems.”

"I was wondering when Prama would make the mistake of following that vessel into this realm." Dhakk was as studious as always, surrounded by books. He was looking for a way to rid himself of this earthly host and return to the heavens beside of his beloved Kaksa. Even after all this time, he still longed to be by her side, even if she did prefer his brother. She would never give Prama a second thought after he wiped his brother's existence from history.

Even in candle light, the shadow man was still pure blackness as he walked closer. He more of a shape, he had two horns that helped with a frightful appearance. “The Shadow Sage has also finally come to Malus.”

"Ah... now that is an interesting revelation." Dhakk actually looked up from his book, those glowing turquoise eyes seemingly amused. "The vessel was chosen as the Shadow Sage. Maybe the spirits took pity on her plight."

“There are many of us who wish to use her. Our master wants to make you a deal, Destroyah.” The whisper was like a lullaby to the gods ears.

"I usually do not deal with messengers." Dhakk returned his gaze to his books. "If your master wants a deal, then he can ask me in person."

A pause, for a moment, and the air turned to a chill. “I am asking you.” The candle lights went out, with only the glow of each others eyes in the room giving away the terror both could give. “You deal with an avatar of my will. It’s taxing to make one. You have my respect Dhakk that I let you communicate with one. I know you can be respectful yourself.”

"... a fragment, that you are. But part of Chaos nonetheless." Dhakk still did not look too interested. "What business do you want with me? If you are looking for a way to get to Kaksa, then you're out of luck. I'm sure you heard about her little fit when she tossed my brother and I from the heavens."

“She helped Hylia sever me from my power as well. A power I’m well on my way from achieving once more.” The shadow wisped around the room, holding Dhakk’s shoulders lightly. “What if I helped you gain revenge on your brother in exchange for helping me in return?” His whisper was alluring to listen to. “You keep the snake, and I get what I want from the woman.”

"Tempting. Dare I ask how you plan to achieve this?" Dhakk wanted more details. "Bound to his host or not, my brother Prama is still a very powerful being. How do you plan to enact this 'revenge'? I care not of the woman."

“The woman holds a powerful piece of my essence locked within her. If you complete a ritual to bring this being out of her, you will summon forth a demon to surpass Demise. Alone, it would rip apart the physical fabric of your brother. With you, there’d be no struggle from your brother to be had. From there, he is a soul, and a soul can be scattered, trapped, or lost to time and space. And I know something else that would entice you.”

"As I said before, tempting, but what could be better than gloating as Prama is ripped into a thousand pieces?"

“Hurting those he cares about.” The red eyes glew as the whisper grew insidious. “How he hurt you in taking away your love from you. You can take away the friendships he has. You can make him a failure before you rip him to pieces. Make his friends suffer; make him powerless to stop it.”

"That sounds like a glorious bit of destruction that is making me twitch in anticipation." Dhakk chucked with a sinister grin. "I don't suppose you had a few of these friends in mind?"

“The woman Leere needs to suffer for the ritual to be completed. I know Bonegrinder cares for her the most. Do anything you desire to her, so long as she feels every pain. There is also a subordinate of his known as Black in Malus with them. A Wraith, but he can be made to experience pain. I will lead them to the capital, from there your followers and mine will separate them. With enough time, the woman will unleash the Demon, and I will give it strength to kill your brother, but not before he wallows in the agonizing torment of having lost his friends.”

"Hrm... suffering can be physical or mental. Perhaps a mixture of both would work." Dhakk then was surprised to learn of a Wraith. He always thought of Black as an undead puppet. This was certainly interesting news. "Prama's demise will lead Kaksa right back into my arms. Though, I must say, I am rather curious as to why you'd want to help me. After all, Prama and I helped Kaksa lock you away all those years ago. Do you just want to claim this world as your own? Something that is yours, perhaps?"

“I want the bodies of the mortals that Hylia loved to pile up. That’ll be a start. And I live in the moment. I’m adaptable Dhakk.” The shadow danced around to face the god directly. “We have a deal?”

"Very well. We have a deal." Dhakk agreed with the avatar of Chaos. "So... when do I start?"

Teufel’s shadow man shook his hand, his eyes flickering in and out. The Devil had made his contract. “Now.”

________________________________________________________________

Previous Ch. https://mrneighbourlove.tumblr.com/post/625816676434313216/evils-bane-ch-4-dangerous-uncharted-territory

Next Ch. https://mrneighbourlove.tumblr.com/post/626094342071828480/evils-bane-ch-6-yield-to-damnation

#Love to hear comments.#Crossover #Leere #Leere Dragmire #Bonegrinder #Teufel #Dhakk #Black the Wraith #Malus #Mortuus #ridersoftheapocalypse

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aileruaa · 5 years ago

Note

Zetaflash: Ed and Bart undercover and Ed getting jealous please? (like when m'gann and conner pretended to be the terror twins and conner was pouty about icicle jr hitting on her)

me, galaxy braining: what if Ed was jealous of solstice, bart’s canon gf in the comics

Bart was a popular guy, and it showed.

It may have been a combination of his good genetics and hyperactive personality, but Bart seemed to attract people wherever he went. That friendliness was the very reason he was selected, along with Eduardo and Traci, to go undercover at a high school that Oracle had reason to believe had dormant meta-humans in. The mission was to get to the meta-humans before the Light could, and to guide them to safety before the Light tried kidnapping them. The only problem was, they couldn’t tell who was a meta and who wasn’t in a school that enrolled over 3,000 students.

Bart was chosen to get closer to the students in an attempt to uncover any recent meta-human discoveries. Traci was chosen as the designated magic user so she could upkeep Ed’s glamour charm, and Ed was chosen to teleport them out of the school as an emergency exit should anything drastic happen. The three were instructed to keep up the act as transfer students until they found the source of Oracle’s suspicion. It was easy enough; the mission wasn’t supposed to last more than two weeks and the students were all very friendly and welcoming.

Maybe a little too friendly and welcoming for Ed’s taste.

The bell rang, indicating that the school day was over. Students hurriedly packed up their stuff and grouped up into their friend circles to head home. Ed was no exception. The past week, Bart had gotten exceptionally close to a girl named Kiran Singh, a friendly classmate Bart had recently become close with due to her mentioning instances of manifesting meta-like abilities in the past. It was great- she was sweet to everyone, including Ed and Traci, and hopefully she was who they were looking for. But every minute Bart spent with Kiran, was a minute lost with Ed; and he was, admittedly, feeling a little left behind.

“Hey, you wanna stop by O’Shaughnessy’s on the way back home?” Ed approached Bart casually, putting a hand on his shoulder. He’d spent all of eighth period working up the courage to take the initiative to spend more time with Bart. “I think Traci mentioned wanting to, as well.”

Bart shoved his papers and books haphazardly into his backpack, looking up at Ed apologetically for a brief moment.

“Ah, sorry dude, no can do. I’ve gotta help Kiran at the school library. And, you know, gather some intel while I’m at it. Maybe tomorrow, though?” Bart zipped up his bag and bounced away to meet Kiran at the doorway.

“Oh, uh, okay.“ Ed lowered his hand and watched as Bart put his arm around Kiran in a greeting, chattering away like the extrovert he was. He didn’t know what to call the emotion welling up in his chest, but it sure as Hell wasn’t pleasant.

“I sense a little jealousy,” Traci sing-songed into Ed’s ear. Ed yelped, not expecting Traci to have snuck up on him like that. She squeezed his elbow playfully. “Haha, got you good.”

“Jealousy? What?” Ed scoffed, crossing his arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, that’s what they all say.” Traci smirked, pulling up a chair to sit next to Ed. “But my magical senses are tingling.”

“What do you want, Traci?” Ed slumped in his seat, fidgeting with his lead pencil.

“Woah, woah, what’s with the hostility? Just wanted to update you on the situation.” Traci looked at her nails and grimaced at her cuticles. “Also, I will never get used to your glamour charm appearance. It’s so not you.”

“I don’t think I look all that different. It’s just the hair and darker skin, really.” Ed shrugged.

“Yeah, well, the hair was iconic.” Traci trailed off when she noticed Ed staring at Bart, and she grinned mischievously.

“Kiran’s cute, isn’t she?”

“Well, yeah. I guess.”

Traci looked around to make sure no one was listening in, and leaned in towards Ed. “So Bart says she’s had experiences with glow-y energy beams coming out of her hands at random moments and destroying things around her. Says she’s unable to control it. But the nature of her powers is still pretty ambiguous, we don’t know where it comes from. It could be meta, or it could be magic, we’re not sure yet.”

“Sounds pretty meta-human to me. Now, can we report this and go?” Ed sighed.

“No, there’s definitely more kids with abnormal meta-tendencies than just Kiran. That’s what Oracle said, anyway. We’ve gotta find all of them before the Light does, you know that.” Traci chastised. “Don’t let your personal feelings get in the way of the mission.”

“I’m not!” Ed protested, lowering his voice immediately when his outburst attracted the attention of a few classmates. “Really. It’s just…”

“Aw, Ed. You think you’re so subtle with your feelings, but you’re really not.”

“What?”

“The whole Team knows you and Bart have a thing for each other. It’s, like, the biggest elephant in the room.”

Ed’s ears turned red. “That’s…”

“…Completely true?” Traci finished. “But the thing is, neither of you have the confidence to act on it, so both of you are stuck in this constant limbo of wondering whether or not the other really likes them.”

“Bart likes me?” Ed looked up, genuinely surprised. Traci rolled her eyes.

“God, why are boys so dense? I really don’t get it.” She shook her head. “You, Bart, Tim, even Jaime. It took six months for me to get a confession out of that kid, and even then it was like pulling teeth.”

“Well, it’s too late. He’s clearly interested in Kiran.” Ed sighed.

“What makes you say that? I don’t think it’s too late at all.” Traci perked up.

“Really? Not even after seeing him with her like that?”

“You and I both know Bart’s a super touchy guy. That’s just the way he is. He does that with everyone, you included.”

“Yeah, but-“

“Ed, look, are you gonna listen to me, who clearly knows more about this kinda stuff than you? Or are you gonna keep being all mopey about it?”

Ed pursed his lips. “I’m not being mopey. But fine.”

“That’s what I thought.” Traci smirked, getting up from the seat and stretching.

“Well, I’m gonna head back.” she said, yawning. “Space Trek’s on at 7 and I don’t wanna miss the season premiere.”

“Already? Shouldn’t we investigate a little more?”

“I mean, what can we do? Everyone’s going home. Not much to investigate when your subjects aren’t there.”

“Good point.”

Traci put on her pink cap, slinging her bag over her shoulder. Ed zipped up his backpack as well, packed and ready to leave.

“But hey, let me tell you something good to help you out. Bart always helps Kiran clean the library after school, ‘cause she’s the student librarian. And he usually stays later than her to read some sci-fi series before he leaves. I bet you can get him by himself then, if you catch my drift.”

Nudging Ed knowingly, Traci strolled out of the classroom.

5:10 was when Bart would usually pack up his things to leave the library. The school had a surprisingly great, diverse selection of sci-fi novels that he had grown attached to recently, and he was determined to read every single one of them before the mission ended. He couldn’t read at super-speed when Kiran was around as he was still technically undercover.

Kiran had already left thirty minutes earlier due to a family emergency, but Bart lingered behind to finish up a book. It turned out, reading a book slowly was really different from speed-reading it through for the plot; he got a lot more out of the story. He also took the time to text Oracle about what he had discovered about Kiran. She had better control of her powers in the sun, and almost no control of her energy at night. He theorized that her powers came from the sun itself, but there was no way of confirming that unless Kiran expressed interest in researching that herself.

Bart closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and let out a deep sigh. Being undercover was exhausting, and he barely got to spend time with Traci and Ed due to all the sneaky business. His new friends were great, but he’d have to cut off ties with them after the undercover mission ended. He felt exceptionally bad when he was forced to reject Ed’s invitation to his favorite fast-food restaurant, especially since it had been a while since the two even talked outside of the mission.

It was hard to balance his time, and at first he was extremely stoked to be on a mission with Ed- especially because he felt something between them in the past two years. If slow-pining was a sport, they’d be the gold medalists. But he didn’t know if Ed really felt the same way as he did, or if Ed was just that friendly to everyone around him. He thought this mission would be a great way to get closer to Ed, maybe even break the million dollar question himself. If he had known they wouldn’t interact much, if at all, he would have been less enthused.

The door to the library opened, and Bart snapped out of his thoughts, almost falling back on his chair. No one was supposed to be in the library after hours.

“Kiran?” Bart called cautiously. He had to be careful; the Light could have sent a goon to lurk around.

“It’s just me.” Ed came into view, and Bart visibly relaxed.

“Phew. I thought I’d have to fight someone.”

“Well, let’s hope not. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Who said I was disappointed? Hey, take that charm off. No one’ll be the wiser.” Bart suggested. “It’s weird.”

Ed did as he was told, reverting back to his normal appearance. He placed the charm on the table. “That’s the second time I was told that today.”

“What can I say? People like the way you look normally.” Bart smiled. “What’s up? You’re not much of a reader.”

“Just wanted to check up on you. Traci said you’d be here.” Ed replied, sitting down across from Bart.

“Yeah. I already reported to Oracle, but Kiran seems to be having trouble controlling her powers when the sun’s not out. She’s the only one we’ve really found that openly admits that she has something weird going on with her, though.”

“That’s interesting. Traci and I have come up cold so far, so here’s to hoping we find more.”

“For sure. Hey, come to think of it, this is the first time we’ve really talked to each other since the mission started, huh? Besides the occasional hi in the hallway.”

“Tell me about it.” Ed looked down at his hands. “I mean, you’ve been busy with Kiran since day one, so I can’t blame you.”

Bart tilted his head slightly, noticing a dip in Ed’s tone. “You okay?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“You sure? ‘Cause you don’t sound okay.”

“I’m fine. Anyway, how is she?” Ed changed the subject. “Kiran, I mean.”

“Oh, she’s crash. Super open about her powers. Really smart, too, especially when it comes to physics. She’s the only other person in class who understands the concept of photons.”

“Well, it is a hard concept.” Ed’s voice dropped. Each time Bart dropped a compliment about Kiran, Ed’s heart sank a little more.

“There it is again!” Bart leaned forward, examining Ed’s facial expression. “You don’t sound happy about it.

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you…jealous?” Bart couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

Ed frowned.

“Ha, I see what’s happening here. I mean, I know I’ve been spending a lot of time with her, but she’s just a friend! You know you and me are closer than that. You don’t have to be jealous, you know we’re way better buddies than that.”

“Not as a friend,” Ed muttered, embarrassed as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Huh?”

“I’m not jealous as a friend.” Ed slumped back in his chair, avoiding Bart’s gaze. His face was beginning to warm up; it was too late to backtrack now. “If you…catch my drift.”

Bart’s eyes widened, and he felt his ears start to get red. He sat back down- he did catch his drift.

“O-oh.”

Ed groaned, burying his hands in his face. “This isn’t how I wanted this to go at all. I don’t wanna confess in a school library of all places, just ‘cause I’m jealous of a girl who’s been nothing but nice to us.”

Bart was full-on blushing at that point, and the speedster was, for once, at a loss for words. The confession was as clear as day, even if it wasn’t the way Ed intended it to be, and he had put all his cards on the table. The sun was filtering nicely through the big windows behind Bart, casting a golden ray on Ed’s figure. Just great- he saw Ed as even more attractive guy than he usually did.

Ed got up and put his glamour charm back on, turning on his heel. He couldn’t stay one more second in the excruciating silence, not when his heart was threatening to beat straight out of his chest cavity.

“I-I’ll see you at the Tower tonight then,” he said as he walked out of the library, not bothering to wait for any confirmation. The blush on Bart’s face said it all.

“Yeah.”

As Ed left briskly, it was Bart’s turn to bury his face in his hands. He was happy, sure, ecstatic even, that his feelings were returned- but he had no idea how he was supposed to even look at Ed after he dropped such a huge bomb on him out of the blue.

#young justice #young justice outsiders #young justice fic #bartuardo #zetaflash #bart allen #eduardo dorado jr #traci 13 #solstice

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thanksjro · 5 years ago

Text

Polyhex Wars, Book 1 Part 2: The Timeline for the Robots Being Gay Goes Back Further Than I Thought

Ratchet wakes up from that whole, “mystical passing out” thing to find himself strapped to a table with his head all poked into with wires. Optimus and Prowl are also being subjected to this treatment, but they’re not awake yet.

I guess we all have that one character we just latch onto, don’t we?

Chromedome was there when all three of these guys collapsed, and went to go get help. Ratchet explains that there was black fire and breaking glass and it was all like some god-awful acid trip.

No kidding, doc.

Ratchet seems to think that all that actually happened, but it turns out that it was all in their heads, much like everything else that they’d seen. Chromedome just saw them drop with a flash of light.

Optimus wakes up, and First Aid explains that their mental trips into Limbo are coming closer and closer together, and becoming more violent as a result. There’s a good chance that the next time they have an attack, they’ll be sharing a dreamscape.

Prowl hasn’t woken up. Optimus is worried that he’s stuck in Limbo, and demands that they be put back under to guide him back to the land of the living. First Aid has his reservations, but what is he gonna do, argue with the space pope? Optimus and Ratchet are sent back in with the power of mind-transfer.

Let’s take a quick look at some Chromedome canon before we move on to the next chunk of story, because I want to try and get a feel for why Roberts seems to like him so much.

In the Marvel comics, Chromedome was kind of a reclusive computer nerd, who very much disliked the fact that all his programming skills were only being applied to the war effort as opposed to literally anything else. When Fortress Maximus decided to up and leave, he went along gladly. He ended up getting paired with a very outgoing, vain Nebulan partner named Stylor when the whole Headmaster thing happened. They had their differences, but ultimately were brought together by the common goal of kicking Decepticon ass for the greater good. Comic Chromedome is a relatively nice guy, if a bit cowardly- his final entry in the series was heading for the hills when Unicron showed up, but honestly I can’t really fault him for that.

And then there’s the Headmasters anime. Yeah, Chromedome was an anime protagonist back in the 90’s. Anime Chromedome is a completely different entity than his comic counterpart. His whole thing is that he wants revenge for the murder of his friends at the hands of Sixshot. He’s also a Headmaster- no shit- but it works a little differently, in that he’s the only one involved with the process. Chromedome himself IS the head, and the big body he plugs into is just this sort of inert mecha that he pilots when he wants to be able to reach the higher shelves at the supermarket.

Anime Chromedome is the second-in-command to Fortress Maximus, and he’s a bit of a jackass at times, but he seems to have his heart in the right place. You know, when he isn’t busy beating Decepticons to death. Anime Chromedome goes hard.

Getting back to the story, we return to the scene we left at the end of Part One, with the 40 Autobots having been caught in a trap in Darkmount.

Well that lasted all of five minutes. Poor Grandpa.

This starts a chain reaction, and it isn’t long before all the Autobots are throwing punches. Blaster goes full cowl, taking four guys on at once, and potentially kneeing someone in the nuts so hard they flies up into the air and are promptly exploded by gunfire. Blaster throws a gun to Sights, who is a sniper, and then is right back in the center of the fracas.

Sights is a sniper here, but it looks like the only Sights in Transformers canon is a bird who can turn into a fusion cannon. They probably aren’t the same character, unless there’s something I don’t know about birds.

Sights hauls himself up to a ledge using a grappling hook, and starts picking off Decepticons. Things seem to be turning around for the Autobots at this point, because Sights is the best.

Sights is what some might call a Mary Sue- he’s the best at sniping, rivaling Optimus Prime himself with his accuracy, everyone seems to know him, and he singlehandedly has turned the tide of this fight. As the Autobots escape, he manages to explode a key piece of Decepticon equipment, killing over a dozen enemy troops.

This is an earlier work, if you couldn’t already tell.

We do see some neat transitions in the writing, though.

Ratchet and Optimus have entered Limbo, and are feeling a little manic about the whole thing, especially since the space is just filled with corpses from the Time Wars. Like, it’s a carpet of dead bodies.

Roberts was all about that edge from the get-go, huh?

The two robots start walking, looking for Prowl.

Over with Red Alert on the Celestial, he’s not really feeling the vibe on this spacecraft. Neither is Hot Shot, but neither of them can really pinpoint why exactly that is. Sideswipe points out that Getaway doesn’t have his Nebulan partner with him- for this particular story, we’re going with the take on Getaway as a Powermaster, which means he has a smaller person who plugs into his body to act as a battery, kind of like a reverse parasite.

Comic books are weird.

Toy gimmicks are also weird.

This cues in the Autobots that things might not be on the up and up here. You know, that and the whole “Witterquick” thing. The boys load their weapons, but keep them concealed as they approach not-Blaster, who’s beginning to worry that he’s been caught after all this time. He must have sort flavor of social anxiety, because he’s kept his cool over the video chat for the last few weeks, but the moment Red Alert enters the room, he blows his cover and orders the Decepticons to attack.

Back at Darkmount, it seems we’ve lost a few people, as the count has gone from 40 to 29. The boys are running through the halls, completely clueless as to where to go in order to escape.

Don’t be shocked by the language, this is G1 Silverbolt, not the one who fucks is a complete gentleman to a spider.

I’m still convinced that this Courier guy is evil. You should be tossing him out the window, not looking to him for help.

The Decepticons are gaining. Hound, exasperated, asks as nicely as he can for Silverbolt to try and wake Courier up as they attempt to keep the distance between factions as wide as they can. Laser fire quickly becomes involved, and Swerve and Bumblebee go from the back of the pack to the front. Little fellas can move when they want to.

While Sights does another cool thing with some guns he stole, Courier wakes up and says- with some trouble, since he’s just woken up and still bleeding from that leg wound- that they should jump into the sewers to escape.

That’s all well and good, but if they intend on doing such a thing, they’ll need to put a bit more distance between themselves and their assailants. Everyone starts shooting at the ceiling, attempting to bring it crashing down. Everyone except Sights. No, instead Sights goes on picking off any Decepticon who gets too close for comfort, until they manage to bring the house down.

The strong, silent type, Sights is. Tall, dark, and handsome, too, most likely.

Back in Limbo, Ratchet’s starting to crack.

As if on cue, the ground starts to crack, revealing lava of all things, and the whole scene turns into Dante’s Inferno-flavored Hell. Yeah, proper noun Hell. Optimus and Ratchet are exploded by contact with a downpour of acid rain, then their bodies reconstituted, only to be burned to crispies by the lava. When they wake up from that, they find themselves stuck on a spinning silver plate in the sky, where they have an excellent view of where Prowl’s gotten to- he’s stranded on an asteroid with a big, scary Decepticon, who’s about to complete wreck his shit.

You know, the snark has always been there in Roberts’ writing, but it didn’t really hit its stride until after this piece of work.

Meanwhile, in the sewers, our Autobots aren’t doing so hot. Courier’s probably going to die if they don’t get him medical attention soon. I guess they just didn’t have any sort of medic on the Celestial when it was overtaken, which seems like a massive oversight. Or maybe they’re dead.

We don’t have time to worry about the hiring practices of the Autobots right now though, because a few Decepticons just arrived on the scene.

Well, there goes the token girl character.

Seems like nobody told these ‘Cons to not hit their deep cover operative. There goes several thousand years of Autobot secrets, dumbasses. Soundwave’s going to be so pissed.

The Autobots quickly fall into formation and start defending themselves. Turns out Rev-Tone’s on the scene.

Hi Rev-Tone!

Someone gets shot and proceeds to explode, which causes enough chaos for a Decepticon to load up a missile launcher without being noticed and fire it into the crowd.

Things are looking hopeless, so that means it’s time for Sights to make his Heroic Sacrifice™. Hound begs him to stay, because he can’t bear to lose anyone else.

Unfortunately, the Hound/Sights coffeeshop AU slowburn fit written by Rewind will have to have a fix-it fic tag, because Sights is almost immediately and literally ripped apart by a smattering of Decepticons. Knowing his time is running out, he busts out the big guns.

Oh my god he’s got fucking laser vision.

That isn’t quite enough though, so he initiates self-destruct, thereby saving his fellow Autobots and dying a hero.

You know, if you stack Sights on top of what was left of Quark after the interrogation scene, you make a whole robot. Worst. Duobot. Ever.

Not to worry though, because Wheeljack’s taken the opportunity to be all weird and cryptic, and insinuates that they potentially COULD bring Sights back from the dead. Because of course he can.

We don’t get to find out how that magic’s going to happen though, because it’s time to check in on Optimus and Ratchet.

Things aren’t going great. They crashed the disk, and it turns out that the giant Decepticon threatening Prowl and throwing body parts at him is Galvatron. Optimus leaps into action, attempting to use his magnetic repellence on the enemy.

I guess that’s a thing he has.

It works, but it’s taking a lot out of Optimus, so they need to figure something else out fast. Optimus, ever light on his mental feet, surges the power so that Galvatron explodes. Ratchet goes over to Prowl to see what his deal is, and it’s looking like he’s going to need brain surgery.

“Now back the hell up, Optimus, you’re breathing contaminates all over Prowl’s exposed brain.”

Back on Cybertron, it turns out that things might just be okay after all, as Hound and company have stumbled across the lost city of Subterrainia. Subterrainia did not exist in Transformers canon at the time of this writing, but it would in 2012, when Roberts used his immense power as a hired writer for the franchise to make it so.

Now that they’re in a place that has medical equipment, they can heal their wounded and indulge in a little lore. Trasher provides us with the backstory of this lost city.

Long before the War, Transformers lived on the surface of Cybertron. Then, one day, someone said, what if we didn’t do that? Then they built Subterrainia and lived there instead. Then the War happened and people sort of just forgot that it was there. The end.

That’s literally it.

After that riveting explanation, we check back in with Optimus, who I suppose forgot to put on his patience hat this morning, as he asks Ratchet to hurry up with the life-saving field surgery he’s currently in the middle of. Ratchet calls him out on it, as he should, and Optimus apologizes, going back to worrying about his troops outside of Limbo.

Over on the Celestial, Red Alert’s just had his arm shot off, and there’s a continuity error running amok.

You are supposed to be back at base, mister!

The Autobots are getting their asses kicked, and it’s not hard to see why- a lot of the Decepticons on this spacecraft are heavy hitters. Starscream’s here, the entire Combaticon team, it’s wild.

Then Starscream calls for escape plan 3 to take place, and they just… leave. It’s strange, and it’s sudden, and the Autobots can’t help but agree. Red Alert decides to see what’s on the computer to try and figure out what they’re planning, and ends up setting off the countdown for a bomb. Slapdash yells at him for being an idiot.

Back down in the City of the Mole People, Getaway’s come back from checking out the place, and informs Hound that it’s completely abandoned. He theorizes that the Decepticons killed everyone who lived here, an will probably come looking for them sooner rather than later. That’s all fine though, because Courier’s back and better than ever.

I still don’t trust him.

He says he knows how to get out of Subterrainia- which only chalks up more points against him being a true Autobot- but hold on! What about Sights?

Sights just got Goldbugged. It’s Ammo now.

Roberts will never let a pair of robot titties go unnoticed. I can’t believe that Wheeljack, with the limited time they had, would go and make Ammo this attractive, and then have the audacity to show him off with a dramatic reveal. It was completely unnecessary, but here we are, staring at Ammo’s strong arms and thighs, wishing to be held by Hotbot 9000 over here.

Hound is all about this overhaul. Look at him, getting all flustered.

Ammo as character is present in the IDW run of the comics, but in name only. They are very different creatures, much like the different iterations of Quark. Roberts is very into recycling, and here is no exception.

After Ammo’s debut, the narrative checks in on Autobot City, where things aren’t nearly as sexy; Starscream made a beeline for the place the moment they left the Celestial, and they’re wrecking shop. He’s doing this without orders to do so, by the way. This is just how Starscream wants his Monday to go, I guess. It’s looking pretty grim for the Autobots, and Optimus is still stuck in Limbo. Hopefully he gets back soon.

#transformers #jro #polyhex wars #book one #part two #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #prose writing

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letstalksymphogear · 6 years ago

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Symphogear, EP. 5 (Cont.)

Tsubasa ruminates about her current situation in her Symphogear Brand Safety Capsule of Absolute Dunces.

“aight ive done seen the light lemme at that sweet, sweet taco bell”

Meanwhile, some old ass politicians rumble about Relics.

“im old.”

But they immediately get fucked up in a nasty car accident.

As it turns out, the Americans were waiting to intercept these old crones to steal The Goods.

And holy fuck are they are American. Personally, I feel the writers of Symphogear watched Die Hard and immediately went “these people are fucking animals”. That’s just me, though.

“ooh ouch oh mmm ouchie ouch oooo ouch”

They tear into these people with an almost machine like efficiency.

These people don’t fuck around. There’s a strange surreality around it given that this is honestly pretty accurate to how brutal special operatives can be, but the Japanese accent they have in their English voices is... a bit jarring.

“IM BACK FROM THE MALL, YA’LL”

“oh god she’s back”

“ah, ryoko. as per your lingo, quote, ‘i like your new gucci boots... bitch’ was that good? im not fond at cursing at women unless its a mutual training session”

Genjuro alerts that the Minister of Defense for Japan has just been assassinated.

“shits bad”

Conveniently... Ryoko’s phone was broken. In her defense, it’s 2012. Battery life didn’t have the bragging rights it had now for phone.

“i personally use a razer flip phone. those will never go out of style!”

Ryoko manages to show them the box the Americans were trying to get. Suspiciously...

There’s a bloodstain on it.

So the main struggle right now is that the Bad Guys(tm) want to get their hands on Durandal, which is a completed relic that is hidden away miles underneath the school in the 2nd Division Labs.

This musty, old, shitty sword has immense power. Almost Godlike.

“hey why dont we just use the sword to beat up the bad guys”

The sword was handed from the EU to Japan for Japan to safekeep, and in exchange to forgive some of the loans the EU owed Japan should the EU economy collapse.

How topical.

“i read a lot of beserk and honestly im pretty sure someone beats up the bad guys with that dumb sword”

“listen nerd, we’re not doing that dumb weeb anime shit. we’re taking this sword to a vault to the bottom of parliament.”

“thats right. who needs anime when you’ve got nicholas cage.”

And so, they plotted to deliver this dumb sword tomorrow.

Ryoko logs into Runescape.

Fun fact: Fulcanelli is a reference to this dude, who was a French alchemist whose identity nobody really knows. Alchemy is a concept that will come up during GX that has no relevance whatsoever during these first 2 seasons except in some passerby jargon. This as just a cute thing I wanted to point out.

You know, that’s a pretty sexy sword upon closer examination.

“thats the dark souls of swords”

“ah! a fellow gamer! im glad that you too partake of the souls of darkening. would you like to play a two player match somtime, fellow Gamer?”

“I would genuinely rather eat shit for the rest of my life!”

The scene ends. Alright, where are n-

Oh God we’re back to this bullshit. Okay then.

Miku, reasonably, is upset that her wife is gone for several hours for increasingly sketchy reasons. Much like an estranged wife going to see her “tennis instructor” for “private tennis lessons” in the “safety of their house, which has a tennis court”, Miku is worried that Hibiki is a liar liar, pants on fire.

Nose the size of a wire.

Hibiki, feeling the fear of God, quickly bails this increasingly tense situation.

Miku is suffering, and so am I with this hamfisted writing.

“you didnt even try the cookies i made out of frustration for you. i designed them all after me with increasingly angrier faces”

“im too young for a divorce. fuck, those cookies smelled good”

Hibiki decides to not sweat it anymore, opening a magazine and WHOA WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS I DONT REMEMBER THIS WHEN DID HIBIKI GET HER HANDS ON THIS OH MY GOD

“HELL NO IM MARRIED THE DEVIL CANNOT TEMPT ME”

Hibiki closes it up to reveal the relevant part of this magazine.

This is subtle, but it’s basically a vehicle to explain how things are covered up for Symphogears. Ogawa walks in, talking about how this headline was his doing.

“i wasn’t joking when i said we were literally the NSA”

Hibiki is happy that Tsubasa has been freed from Metaphor Limbo, having escaped the Water Metaphor Dimension back into real life.

“she literally wont stop talking about taco bell and honestly its killing me inside”

“shit ill get her some”

Ogawa does some schpiel about teamwork and asks Hibiki for an idea on what to do with Tsubasas image even though he’s supposed to be the manager and it’s just general prattle.

Everyone gets briefed about the delivery. Ryoko’s soccer mom van sticks out like a sore thumb. Nobody on the Lydian campus asks why there are 5 cars outside the building with men in suits and fucking Hibiki standing there with them why are these children so fucking incurious.

“this feels like the world’s most important weed delivery, but im going to deliver the SHIT out of that weed”

“hibiki please its not weed”

“ALRIGHT FAM LETS DELIVER THE SHIT OUT OF THIS WEED”

Big thick black cars surround Ryoko’s tiny vehicle as they all drive in unison to the drop point.

No fucking around here. The weed must be delivered.

The weed? Secured as shit.

“its not fucking weed it’s a goddamned french sword okay god”

“ROAD’S LOOKIN�� A-OKAY FOR OUR WEEEED DRIIIIIIVE”

PSYCHE, NO IT AINT. ROAD’S CRACKING UP HARD. COMES APART, CAR FUCKING EXPLODES!

“oh my god we seriously arent fucking around here those guys are fucking dead”

“bruh you never delivered weed before? that shit happens all the time”

“anyway grab on to something ‘cause we’re gonna initial d this shit”

youtube

“i thought we were delivering WEED not SUSHI”

“WEED... SUSHI... IT’S ALL FUCKING METAPHORS, HIBIKI. AND WE’RE GONNA DELIVER EM!”

“now ORDER UP, MOTHERFUCKER”

Every car is destroyed.

Ryoko flips the car like nobody’s business.

“ryoko! the kansai drift was too strong!”

“your delivery’s late, pal. that’s gonna have to come out of your tip.”

“jokes on you! you already paid the tip beforehand online!”

“oh, we’re going with pizza jokes now? is that what we’re doing? yeah, sure, whatever”

Unfortunately, Chris ordered her pizza with meat, extra crispy.

“FUCK, i cant see anything. now i don’t know if they have the weed- i mean, the sushi- er, the pizza- god i hate all these JOKES”

RYOKO SUMMONS A FUCKING SHIELD OUTTA NOWHERE WHILE HIBIKI’S KNOCKED OUT COLD

“yo hol’ up a moment did this pervert manage to summon a shield”

“are- are you able to fight the noise? are you fucking kidding me? this entire time when literal children were fighting these battles, you literally could have fought back effectively? are we but mere playthings to you? is this really the bullshit im seeing?”

“uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i can only make shields. piss shields, out of piss”

“that is absolute fucking bullshit”

“but i believe it.”

Hibiki has primed her fists and is about to show how much she’s improved combat wise, which is actually a lot.

Nevermind, she tripped again. Turns out, Symphogears fight in heels constantly, which is absolutely fucking horrifying. Hibiki realizes this, and then

FUCKING BREAKS THE HEELS LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS.

AND THEN SHE WRECKS SHOP WITHOUT BREAKING A GODDAMN SWEAT

“oh shit how the fuck did she improve this quickly”

The suitcase where the sword is stored opens up. That means it’s activating.

Immediate fear.

“alright bruce lee you mightve mastered a thousand kicks but you better change your gameplan because im about to realign that pretty little face of yours”

“thank god you kicked me. needed you to get closer so i could kick your ass, after all”

The fucking suitcase, I shit you not, pops open immediately with the sword flipping to the sky like a bad Gmod toy as it suddenly stays floating, perfectly still.

“ive officially lost track on what the hell is happening”

The sword just floats there, as a sword does.

“you know how many fried turkeys i can cut open with that bad boy? that shits mine now.”

Chris goes to get it.

“fuck you! im going to slice HONEYBAKED HAMS with that sword!”

Hibiki intercepts it and takes the sword.

Now Hibiki becomes a proud Stand owner, having acquired the power of The World and stopping time at will.

“oooooh holy shit”

Hibiki, now channeling the power of Durandal, feels the raw strength of a completed relic all through her body.

Real spicy stuff running through her veins.

The power unleashing itself into a raw stream of piss skyrocketing into the stratosphere.

“the pizza has been delivered... all according to plan...”

“...she was right. honeybaked ham was the superior meat to slice...”

Hibiki is channeling a power source so ancient, so powerful, that through using her as a conduit, the sword actually finishes itself into its full, completed form.

Holy shit, Hibiki.

Goddamn. That’s a really sexy sword, actually! Pretty nice...

...oh.

You’re not looking so hot, pal...

“why is it that every opponent of mine can literally asspull all this garbage and im stuck here looking like a bad kamen rider villian getting my ass kicked every time. its not fair.”

Ryoko looks extremely hyped for this event. Maybe a little too much so.

“MAN FUCK THIS NONSENSE IM PUTTING AN END TO THE SUPER SENTAI POWERUP”

“O-OH FUCK- uh, i didnt say that. totally swear. you uh, keep doing that. yeah. aha.”

“SLICED...”

“...HONEYBAKED...”

“oh god. oh god. im sorry. im sorry. im so sorry. oh fuck im so sorry. honeybaked ham is better. fuck turkeys. fuck drumlegs. fuck any sort of fried meat. honeybaked ham is better please im begging you dont vore me or slice me in half IM BEGGING YOU OH GOD”

“...HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!”

“ham..... mmmmm... honeybaked ham....”

“WHO YELLED ABOUT HAM? god, im hungry now.”

Hibiki wakes up from it all after passing out, expressing a power of magnitudes unheard of, as if it were all a bad dream.

“YEAH THATS RIGHT WE HAD TO DELIVER THE WEED PIZZA AND I WANTED HAM AND- THE SWORD, YEAH! THE SWORD!”

To her disappointment, amongst this wanton destruction, no ham was found. Ryoko clues her in that Hibiki just single handedly completed a relic, and though the entire place is a mess, the mission wasn’t a complete failure. They’ll just have to return the relic back to base, now the entire location is, conveniently, destroyed.

“yeah yeah. the weed made it. the sushi made it. the pizza made it. what didnt we deliver today?”

“...”

“singing really does make you hungry, huh?”

#symphogear #symphogear season 1 #anime #comedy #recap

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flarebossmalva · 5 years ago

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the catghost post, pt. 1 [intro saga]

i said i was gonna talk about catghost, and then it turned into attempting to explain catghost by summarizing it, and then it turned into multiple posts because there’s a lot of material to cover and i want to do a thorough job. watch the intro saga first because this is a good series and you should check it out for yourself before listening to me ramble about it!

CWs for part 1: murder, images of dead bodies / skeletal remains, other disturbing imagery (including a couple jumpscares), one image depicting animal death (it’s near the very end of the post)

Alright, I’m posting with decent grammar so you know it’s serious. If you’re just here looking for a brief overview of the series, here’s my crack at it: CatGhost is a multimedia ARG comprised primarily of YouTube videos and accompanying minigames. It’s ongoing, and I plan to update this post as the series itself updates. On the surface, the videos resemble other YouTube cartoons, following the tried-and-true formula of two characters comically tormenting a third; however, something else is clearly going on below the surface, and it quickly becomes clear that these three are tied together by very dark circumstances. Much of what’s really going on is still unclear, but enough has been revealed that I can talk about it without constantly resorting to pure guesswork.

This is part one, covering the Intro Saga (first three videos and their associated games). Like I said, I wanted to be thorough and if I didn’t split it up into separate posts this would get way too long. It’s already too long.

CatGhost 1, “Birthday,” opens with flames filling the screen, then a ripple effect playing over the title card, which I mention because that’s gonna make a whole lot more sense in a minute. We then see our main cast, Elon (cat), Naarah (ghost), and Gideon (hedgehog). Gideon is asleep and the girls are making fun of him. From their dynamic, it seems Naarah’s pretty young and Elon is sort of a big sister figure to her, which means they’re probably close in age. Gideon is 48; today is allegedly his birthday, though he seems unaware until the girls tell him so. Gideon seems generally confused about whatever’s going on and just wants to go back to sleep, but the girls want to take him out to someplace called “Party Country,” and eventually they end up threatening to curse him if he doesn’t comply. The threat seems pretty real as the girls’ voices turn demonic and their eyes glow. Gideon gives in, though it’s unclear if he even realized he was in any danger.

Next scene, Gideon is presented with his birthday cake, which is... pretty wonky-looking, to put it gently. Pecking order for the trio gets further established when Naarah intimidates Gideon into saying the cake she made looks fine and seconds later Elon comments that the cake isn’t very good. Naarah defends herself and says that it’s hard to bake a cake without hands, to which Elon sympathizes and says that her paws aren’t much good either. Naarah says “I miss having a body.” The girls were human once, and seem to remember it clearly. Gideon, on the other hand, interjects saying he has no idea what they’re talking about. Whatever circumstances have bound these three together, Gideon seems to be the only one with no awareness of what’s going on.

Party Country turns out to be an arcade cabinet. Gideon is encouraged to play, but he seems completely apathetic about the game (Gideon seems completely apathetic about most things) and dialogue implies he may not even know what a video game is. Naarah calls Gideon “Dad” at one point while she and Elon bully him into playing, a detail which could lead one to guess a major twist way in advance but which I actually never noticed until just now. Gideon gives in and starts playing, declaring that the game (which we can’t see yet) is actually pretty fun, but the girls continue to tell him to play as if they can’t see that he’s already complying. We then cut to the game, which I’ll talk about more below, but suffice it to say that unless your definition of “fun” is all about talking to fucked-up skeleton ladies in some haunted woods, this is not a fun game:

Afterwards, Gideon wakes and assumes he dreamed the whole thing until he sees the ugly birthday cake Naarah baked. He waves goodbye to the viewer, breaking the fourth wall; an odd thing for a character who shows so little awareness of his surroundings to do.

The game associated with this episode is the same game shown in the episode itself. It’s pretty simple; you play as Gideon and can move left or right through a gloomy-looking pixelated forest. There are two NPCs and a small number of objects to be interacted with, all of which can appear randomly. For now, we’ll focus on the two NPCs. Both are skeletons, and both wear simple dresses of the type peasant girls might wear; one is tinted red, the other tinted blue, with the blue skeleton being notably smaller. When interacted with, the red skeleton will say “It burns! I can’t feel my skin,” or “Trapped like a fly in a jar,” or “I have taken on my new form.” The blue skeleton will say “It’s cold here, I can’t breathe,” or “I have to save him, he waited for me,” or “She lured me into this place.” Is the fire/water motif from the episode’s opening starting to seem relevant? Oh, and there’s more. One game object is a sort of upright stone with a hole cut into it near the top; I’ll be calling this object “Key” as that’s how it identifies itself. Key can be interacted with by typing questions, to which it will give an appropriate answer based on words/phrases it recognizes (like Tool in Petscop, incidentally). If we ask Key certain questions about our main cast, we can learn a lot about the story.

Ask “Who is Elon,” and Key tells you, “Temptress.” Asking the same question about Naarah returns “Proselyte,” while Gideon is “Judge.” If you ask what happened to any of the main cast, you’re told “Vanished.” However, asking for death dates yields results; Elon and Naarah both died in 1650, while Gideon died in 1672. Ask where each of the main three are, and you learn Elon is “In a jar,” Naarah is “Immersed,” and Gideon is “In a dark place.” Given all that, I think we can put the basic setting together:

Elon, Naarah, and Gideon were all human once. They lived during the seventeenth century in what is now the northeastern United States. Naarah must have been a preteen or young teen at the time of her death; Elon was likely a young adult in her late teens when she died, and the pair met their respective fates at or around the same time. Gideon lived into his late forties before dying, which speaks to a life of relative comfort for the time and place, befitting a judge. The animosity between the girls and Gideon seems pretty clear: Gideon sentenced both of them to death for witchcraft. Elon, represented in-game by the red skeleton, was burned at the stake, and her ashes were subsequently stored in a jar. Naarah was drowned by being tied to a chair and immersed in a large body of water (this was a common execution method for suspected witches, and the presence of a chair hanging from a rope in the game supports this); her remains are still underwater. Gideon was most likely given a traditional burial after he passed away of, most likely, natural causes. The wrinkle is that Gideon seems to have been right — Elon and Naarah are witches. Elon (the Temptress) taught Naarah (the Proselyte) the craft. Now all three appear to be stuck in the world of the show, which I guess is some sort of weird limbo, and only Elon and Naarah know what’s going on or who they used to be, probably because they are witches.

We can also take some more guesses at what might be going on based off the interactions the main cast have with each other. For instance, Elon’s the leader of the group and generally takes charge, but it’s clear that at least some of that confidence is an act and she doesn’t really seem to be pulling the strings here. The two have plenty of reasons to hate Gideon and could easily use their magic to put him through hell, but instead they don’t go beyond pushing him around and making fun of him — Naarah even bakes him a cake, which she complains about the difficulty of doing. This could imply the three have been trapped in the afterlife with each other ever since dying and the girls have finally gotten tired of exacting less petty revenge. It could also mean that deep down they’re fond of Gideon and don’t really want him to come to harm, which is a strange relationship to have with the man who ordered your torture and execution. Later videos will shed further light on the dynamics between the three, but for now we’ll leave it at that.

One more thing before I move on — asking Key any question containing the word “murder” will trigger a jumpscare. Initially, this was of what appears to be Naarah’s corpse, but it’s since been changed (we’ll talk about that change later). Here’s the original jumpscare showing Naarah:

CatGhost 2, “Knock,” is more straightforward and thus will take me less time to summarize, thank god. Elon and Naarah are telling knock knock jokes. Gideon completely fails to understand the joke, and possibly completely fails to understand the concept of jokes, and the girls get so pissed they put some sort of curse on him and he winds up locked in a dungeon-like room. The door bears a large ornamental mail slot that looks like some sort of gargoyle’s face, with the slot as its mouth. Gideon is instructed to write a knock knock joke that’s actually funny and slide it through the door if he wants to be released. His first attempt is rejected (it doesn’t even have a punchline) and so Gideon tries to think of another. Cut to the words “2 years later” and Gideon’s still trying to write a funny knock knock joke — this series isn’t above the typical cartoon tropes and I love it. He finally comes up with one (Knock knock / Who’s there / Anita / Anita who / Anita get through this door!) and triumphantly slides it into the mail slot, which then grows larger until it takes up nearly the entire door, the “mouth” gaping wide. Gideon stares at it and is seemingly hypnotized. Disturbing images tinted blue and red flash across the screen, before the camera pulls back and Gideon is shown still in a trancelike state as the girls look at him, confused. Naarah says he’s been staring at that door a while, and she and Elon seem mildly concerned, but decide poking him with a stick would be more fun than helping him. Credits roll.

For this episode, much of the worldbuilding is in the form of freeze-frame bonuses and background details, meaning you have to pay close attention to catch everything. When Gideon is teleported to the cell, images flash onscreen showing an inverted cross and the word “EXCRUCIATE,” all tinted red (the color generally associated with Elon), as well as what appear to be human bones and a girl’s face, tinted blue (the color associated with Naarah). In the cell with Gideon is a skeleton, though he seems not to take notice. One wall reads “Wild Partes of the World,” which is a complex reference I won’t attempt to explain in full (the phrase has been quoted and quoted again across multiple books) but in context within the rest of the story refers to early seventeenth-century Virginia, which must be where our main trio lived as humans. Text is shown written in the Theban alphabet, a substitution cipher based on the Latin alphabet and generally associated with witches and occultists. When Gideon is hypnotized by the door, he sees a judge’s podium, a jar (presumably the one containing Elon’s ashes), and a hanging chair (as was used to execute Naarah). Images of graves are shown, inverted and flipped upside down, along with a similarly distorted picture of a row of houses. During the end credits, the background appears to be lava with yellow flashes moving across it; putting all these yellow flashes together results in this image:

Audio during the intro, when reversed, is of a voice saying “I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s at. I think they’ve been looking for it for a long time, but… sometimes it seems like we’re just never going to find it.”

The accompanying minigame features the door from Gideon’s cell, complete with its ornamental mail slot (browsing the wiki, because of course there’s a wiki and of course that’s how I’m getting images for this post as well as checking for stuff I missed, it seems fans call this the “Horrible Beast door”). The door can be interacted with by knocking on it using tap code; if the right words are input, the game will display a corresponding image.

“Megalith” produces an image of Key, the stone you can question in the previous minigame:

“Libation” shows Gideon’s unfortunate-looking birthday cake:

“Trinity” shows the shadows of three people, what appears to be a man and two girls, most likely our main trio:

“Excruciate” shows what is presumably the stake used during Elon’s execution:

“Proselyte” shows what must be Naarah’s skeleton, along with the chair she was bound to, laying at the bottom of a body of water:

CatGhost 3, “Window,” opens by showing that same body of water, although there is no sign of the chair or of Naarah’s remains. We then cut to an outhouse in the show’s typical animated style. Elon is inside, preening, when a noise outside startles her. She checks and discovers a small hand mirror, with Theban writing on it reading “For Elon,” though the text is mirrored and upside down. Elon seems confused and flips the mirror open, whereupon she sees a black-and-white image of a mysterious woman, her face completely in shadow save for her glowing white eyes. When the woman raises her head and makes eye contact with Elon, the cat gets so spooked she drops the mirror and flees. Elon runs back inside, entering via the Horrible Beast door, and is greeted by Naarah, who’s acting suspiciously and asks if Elon saw anything interesting outside. When she’s asked point blank if she’s the one who left the mirror there, Naarah denies it and blames Gideon, and even though it seems obvious that she’s lying, Elon doesn’t question her further. She confronts Gideon, who is chopping wood and seems enthusiastic for once, and tells him — I’m only paraphrasing slightly here — not to use witchcraft to fuck with a witch, or else [colorful threat omitted for brevity’s sake]. At the end of this rant, she briefly shapeshifts into some sort of demonic chimera, with a snakelike body, horns, and quite a lot of teeth. Gideon, who as usual has no idea what she’s on about, is suitably terrified.

Elon, back to her regular form, goes back inside and picks up what appears to be a crayon drawing of a blue girl hugging a taller red girl, accompanied by Theban that reads “From: Naarah, To: bestest best friend.” We can presume Naarah is the blue girl and Elon is the red girl, of course, but of interest is the small form next to the house in the background. It looks like it could be a dog, and, given later events, it almost certainly is a dog.

The drawing had been resting on a large object covered with a cloth, and Elon, curious, pulls the cloth free. Underneath are three mirrors, angled so they all face towards her, and the strange woman from earlier (some fans call her “the Watcher,” which I’ll go with for now) is reflected in each one. Elon is frozen in place as the three Watchers advance towards her, and she begins to cry. The Watcher points a finger (from here on there seems to be only one of her, not three) and Elon begins levitating as the background glitches out. She’s tugged towards the Watcher, and when the outstretched finger touches her forehead, the screen goes white.

Then we’re back to the pixel graphics from the first minigame, in the same dark woods as before, but Elon and Naarah aren’t skeletons — they’re living girls. Elon is pale, with long red hair and blue eyes; Naarah is quite a bit smaller, with brown skin and dark blue-tinged hair in pigtails. Interestingly, Elon wears a blue dress and Naarah’s dress is red, despite their typical color associations. Elon stands over a crying Naarah, her expression sullen. After a few seconds, the credits roll.

This time, the “minigame” just shows a static image of a mirror. Well, almost static — the clock resting on the dresser below the mirror moves in real time, matching the time set on the player’s computer. At exactly three AM system time, the Watcher appears in the mirror, which is then overtaken by static, and the scene changes to Elon and Naarah as we saw them during the end of the last video. Initially, it seems to be the same as before, with Elon standing over Naarah as she cries, but this time there’s dialogue. Here, have a transcript I stole from the wiki because it was easier than typing it up again myself:

After this, the mirror becomes static once more; if you wait three minutes, this image displays for a single frame before the game closes:

So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that’s a dog in Naarah’s drawing. This also seems to explain why she’s crying in the scene we just saw. Why the dog was killed (sacrificed on an alter, looks like) is a mystery I’ll tackle when we cover the later sagas.

Also, in the interest of equality, this time it’s Elon who jumpscares you if you type “murder.” Typing doesn’t do anything else in this game, though.

That concludes the Intro Saga! This post is already really long and I’m not going to bother giving closing thoughts at this point especially considering the series is still ongoing. Stay tuned for the next installment, coming whenever I get around to it!

#holo casting #catghost tag

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isa-ghost · 6 years ago

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Yay, marvin and or anti headcanons! I am ready for death by angst!

Alright I’m home from school and ready to fuck you up some more, lets g o.

Gonna do 6 for each this time because trying to think up 10 is hard.

MARVIN–

Marvin refuses to take off his mask unless he’s alone. Why? Anonymity? Scars he tries to hide? A third frickin eye or something?! We might never know. But he will never not wear his mask if he’s around other people. The thought of anyone seeing his uncovered face actually gives him a panic attack.

The only person more self-critical than Jackie is Marvin. Performances, social outings, personal work, self-care. You name it, it’s never good enough for himself. It’s why he has little confidence in his magic.

Marvin hates bothering people with his personal problems. He isn’t like Jackie where he refuses to do so; he will, but he hates having to. To lessen the number of times people get involved with his problems, he just laughs everything off casually (i.e: when he laughed at the end of his power hour and said “my life is a joke” or something along those lines).

Marvin is completely lost as to where he “aligns.” He doesn’t feel completely good, but he’s almost certain he isn’t evil. He’s stuck in a limbo between the two ends and often gets lost in thought wondering where he belongs. Assigning him to “good” or “evil” can sometimes make him feel pressured to act a certain way, which messes with his awful confidence and drags up his thing with hating needing help. In other words, thinking about what his alignment should be gives him existential crisis. He’s also afraid of disappointing people if he chooses an alignment that they don’t view him to be.

Marvin cannot handle pressure from others whatsoever. He needs to do things on his time at his own pace or else making mistakes or failing will be inevitable. He has a deep fear of not reaching people’s expectations, and that’s why he’s “his own boss” when it comes to getting magic gigs, etc.

Sometimes Marvin distances himself from Jackie out of fear that he’s going to end up evil. If dark thoughts and urges surface in his mind too frequently in a given time, he’ll avoid Jackie or simply isolate himself completely. The last thing he wants to do is turn on his best friend and partner. He knows how much it’d break Jackie’s heart but pretends to be oblivious for the sake of not making Jackie feel uncomfortable.

ANTI–

Anti despises not having control of a situation. It’s why he makes puppets. Those strings not only turn the poor person attached to them into his slave, but also guarantee him that he has control of what he’s doing. He has a borderline obsessive compulsive need for control. Hence his constant references to it in his appearances. (”I am in control!”)

Anti cannot stand the thought of “mercy.” Finish the job. Don’t start things and then choose not to go through with it. He hates quitting and anything short of adamant persistence is unacceptable. If you relent on someone, it better be to prolong the torment and then end them later. There is no “going easy,” its all about how you execute something. Anti is very methodical in how he does thing and how he goes about harming others. (That being said, I think Chase has a looong road ahead of him)

Anti has little to no fears (by the words of Jack himself at one point). That being said, if one of his victims were to “come back,” it wouldn’t necessarily terrify him, but it’d definitely unsettle him. It’d most likely anger him too. He’s in for a little surprise the next time he tangles with Henrik.

Anti goes out of his way to be irredeemable, and he wants everyone to know it. He isn’t some misunderstood edgelord who suffered an injustice and resorted to chaos and destruction. No, he wants to be a tyrant. Nobody talks about you when you’re good, there’s too many standards to reach if you want to be remembered as a good guy because there’s already been so many “good guys.” Bringing Hell to anyone who gets too close to you is a far easier way to make a name for yourself.

Anti is one of the most manipulative son of a bitches out there. At this point, he has everyone so full of paranoia that he hardly has to do anything for them to think he’s already gotten what he wants. Is Marvin wrapped around his finger? Is Jameson? Did he kill Jackie already and that’s why we haven’t canonically seen him in over two years? We don’t know for sure, but we’re terrified that it might be. Anti LOVES watching us reel over theories and fears, its an added terror that he doesn’t have to initiate.

Anti can change his glitches to fit better into what scares a specific person the most. We can see how he can alter his glitching if we compare Say Goodbye to Silent Film. (Pretty sure Jack has actually confirmed this to a degree as well!)

#jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #marvin the magnificent #septicegos #headcanons

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creative-type · 7 years ago

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Worth A Thousand Words III: Oda and Stealth Character Development

So...what’s the point of the Skypiea arc? It’s a question One Piece fans and detractors alike ask. I don’t know the answer, but it was probably because Oda thought it would be cool. By its very nature One Piece is not a tightly woven story. Rather, it’s a sprawling adventure epic, and it does sprawl epically.

Skypiea is, however, an excellent arc when it comes to Straw Hat development, and today I want to focus on one scene in particular with regards to my favorite Nico Robin.

No, not that one.

While there is a certain significance to the fact that a survivalist like Robin would choose to side with the Straw Hats over the hugely powerful Enel, the moment Zoro catches Robin is more important to Zoro than Robin. He was the most openly against her, the one who trusted her the least for the longest amount of time. Here Oda is showing us in big flashing lights that, yeah, Zoro has accepted Robin as part of the crew.

But I don’t want to talk about big, flashy character moments. I want to talk about this

Robin actually gets a pretty decent chunk of screen time during the Sky Island Saga as a whole. It was easier back then because Oda was juggling six main characters instead of nine, but it’s pretty easy to tell he was giving Robin special focus.

This makes sense. Firstly, Robin was a former enemy, so there’s a need to separate Nico Robin from her Miss All Sunday persona. Secondly, as important as Robin’s dreams are to the narrative as a whole, her position on the ship is the only one that isn’t strictly necessary. Any pirate crew requires fighters, cooks, navigators and the like, but very few would deem “archaeologist” as a position needing to be filled. So immediately after adding her to the crew Oda makes up a situation where Robin’s skills are helpful and necessary

In this scene Robin also establishes she’s the only one in the crew who’s even heard of the sky islands, while giving some much-needed wisdom to Nami. This, along with what we’ve seen in chapter 218 and the end of 217 gives us what we need to know about Robin’s personality and position in the Straw Hat’s crew. Then shortly after stealing Jaya’s eternal pose from Masira (showing off yet another skill usually relegated to Nami) Robin almost disappears from the narrative entirely and is largely absent from the Jaya sub-arc.

To be fair, up until this point she had been wearing Nami’s clothes, and Robin is, like, almost a foot taller than she is. Some shopping is justifiable here, but it brings me to one of the most important things to keep in mind when analyzing Robin as a character:

Isolation and Distance

One of the best ways to visually convey that a character is emotionally distant is to physically separate them from other people. When Robin first showed up as Miss All Sunday she was sailing the ocean alone. During her confrontation with the Straw Hats about their route she sat far above them where she couldn’t be touched. She left that argument with only her rad turtle ship for company, and spent a surprisingly large amount of the Baroque Works Saga apart from Crocodile despite ostensibly being his partner in crime.

Robin continues to be less than engaged after joining the crew. Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp fool off with one another constantly. Sanji and Zoro fight. Even Nami is known to smack the rest upside the head when they’re being stupid. Robin alone sits above all their antics, not showing her first face fault in a series lousy with them until well after the timeskip.

It’s pretty easy to pick up in the dialogue that Robin never calls any of the Straw Hats by their actual names, preferring to refer to them by their occupation (or their nose, in Usopp’s case). But the use of impersonal nicknames can’t be the reader’s only clue to Robin’s personality. Both Vivi and Robin have a habit of calling Zoro “Mr. Bushido”, but while the desert princess is kind, personable, and if anything cares a little too much, Robin is distant, standoffish, and at times even cold towards others around her.

You can even glean some insight from her fighting style. Robin doesn’t have to be in the same room with someone to kill them. She attacks from a distance, relying on stealth and surprise to snap necks and dislocate limbs. It’s brutally efficient and deeply impersonal, perfect for an assassin - or, perhaps, a young girl who was forced to learn on the fly how to fight against much larger opponents who showed no restraint or mercy.

This is something that was emphasized more in the anime where they had the benefit of knowing Robin’s backstory ahead of time and working little clues into the post-Alabasta filler. They’re a little on the nose at times, but episode 131 is a good example of what I’m talking about here, especially when emphasizing the fact that during the early chapters after joining the crew Robin often doesn’t speak unless directly addressed. To quote Oda in the Volume 71 SBS:

Reader: Robin always talks about creepy things in front of the crew. But her own thoughts, she often thinks of fun stuff like “cats” or “Dress Rosa”. Why doesn’t Robin talk about these things with the crew to make them laugh?

Oda: Even though Robin likes cute things, she’s a bit dark/creepy herself, so if she tries to put these cut thoughts into words there is a chance it may come out as scary/ominous. That’s the kind of woman Robin is.

Robin censers herself to avoid sounding weird. There’s enough evidence of her macabre sense of humor (spoke aloud) to assume that she has embraced her morbid self...most of the time. But Robin has been an outcast her entire life. Even before the Buster Call the citizens of Ohara were calling her demon/monster/creep/insert appropriate insult here.

(For those who don’t remember, the bruise on her cheek is from the other kids who were throwing rocks at her )

Robin spends large stretches of the Skypiea arc by herself, which further emphasizes the importance of what group interaction we do see. Robin has been hiding behind a well-crafted facade for nigh on twenty years because she needed to be a demon in order to survive the cutthroat world in which she lived.

Which takes us to point number two

Survival

Robin is all about living to see another day. Or she was until Crocodile shanked her (more on this below) Because of her past, she views the world through the lens of a survivor. It shapes how she thinks and how she acts, and Robin at this point doesn’t know any other way to live.

Robin has been miserably lonely for a long, long time, but believes if she allows herself to get close to others they’ll betray her. She learned the hard way not to trust anyone and that to let your guard down is to die. We see in Alabasta that Robin isn’t afraid to use deadly force against those who get in her way.

She’s got a bit of a mean streak, too. Though Robin didn’t kill Tagashi, she almost crippled her. That leg injury could have ended Tashigi’s career as a swordsman, which is almost crueler than killing her outright.

When Robin’s backstory is revealed in full the audience is always shown as Robin being the one betrayed, and never the betrayer. I think this helps garner sympathy, but her interaction with Crocodile shows that she’s not above a little backstabbing herself. Aokiji says that every organization she’s ever been a part of no longer exists, and I think that’s only possible if her reputation is at least somewhat deserved. When it comes to finding out the truth of the Void Century, Robin has literally the worst tunnel vision ever.

Which brings me to my last point

Openness to Change

Throughout the Sky Island Saga Robin is a woman who has lost her reason to live. Her only lead to the Rio Poneglyph was a dead end, and she doesn’t find Roger’s message until the end of the arc. That leaves a big chunk of time where she’s staying with the Straw Hats just because she can.

I think if she were as truly as fiercely pragmatic as she (and others) claim then she has no business on the Going Merry. Half of what the Straw Hats do is idiotic and should get them killed, and it’s amazing that they’ve survived this long as it is. Since Robin had resigned herself to death during the tail end of the Alabasta arc, we can assume that the idea of dying doesn’t bother her. Yes, Luffy made her go on, but she’s still stuck in this directionless limbo.

This is important because it gives Robin something other to focus on than the Void Century. Her desire to find the True History consumed her to the point where she was willing to work with Crocodile for four years and bring a “good” country to the brink of ruin. Without this obsession driving every decision Robin makes, she can take a step back and see the Straw Hat Pirates for what they really are.

The Stealth Character Development

Robin is not the focus of chapter 253. It’s a transition chapter situated between the first and second halves of the Skypea arc. The Straw Hats have reunited had their obligatory split the party moment that happen with frighteningly regularity. The crew are setting up camp as night approaches, comparing notes of what they’ve discovered so far.

Until this point, Robin has been with Zoro and Nami. These two make up 2/3 of the Straw Hats who showed initial distrust to Robin, and at this point Zoro stil hasn’t accepted her as one of their own. Yet they treat her with respect, and Nami especially seems to look up to her as an older sister figure.

Then Nami finds the other half of Cricket’s house, and without hesitation Zoro follows the comparatively weaker crew mate through the incredibly dangerous forest, which displays a trust for one another that would be very appealing to someone like Robin.

When the Straw Hats finally reunite, everyone is on good terms with one another. Remember, at this they’ve have stumbled into the middle of a civil war, made enemies with an unknown entity with a god complex, branded themselves as criminals, and almost gotten their ship destroyed. Some of their misfortune is just that - misfortune. But bad decision making plays at least a part of their current circumstance. It would be easy to turn on one another, and I think most pirates would. Just see how Usopp reacts when he sees what’s happened to the Merry

Anyone who has read the Water 7 arc knows how much Usopp loves this ship, but his first concern is Chopper. Compare to how any one of the Baroque Works agents reacted when someone failed a mission. Instead of falling apart during a time of crisis, the Straw Hats come closer together.

Chapter 253 begins with the crew setting up camp. Once again Robin goes off and does her own thing, this time finding a hunk of rock salt to use for cooking. Sanji predictably praises her, but he also reveals that he’s got a brain in his head by saying how important salt is to survival. Tick another box in the Straw Hat’s favor.

Every one of the Straw Hats helps set up camp, even the captain (useless as he may be). More than that, they each reveal a little of their talents. It’s sort of a reverse of what happens earlier in the arc when Robin showed off for the rest of the Straw Hat’s benefit. Through this Robin sees that the Straw Hats aren’t just good fighters, but smart and skilled as well.

After establishing the location of the gold and making plans for the next day, Robin makes a practical suggestion

This sequence marks the beginning of Robin’s stealth character development. She’s speaking here as a pragmatist and a survivor. Her point is valid, and any sensible person would have agreed with her.

The Straw Hat Pirates are many things, but sensible isn’t one of them. Luffy turns to Usopp in complete disbelief, while Usopp basically says “Go easy on her, Cap, there’s no way she could have known.”

Until this point, Robin has not been questioned by the Straw Hats. She’s not seen this sort of reaction directed at her, especially by Luffy. Her face says it all

Robin’s expression is pretty neutral here, but you can’t hide that sweat drop XD. She’s genuinely concerned that she’s made some sort of mistake. Remember, in Robin’s dog-eat-dog world a making a mistake is tantamount to death. She’s spent twenty years allying with people who at the very least distrust her, and more often than not try to kill her. And now, stuck up in in such a precarious position 10.000 meters above ground she has to be especially careful.

It’s okay, Robin, you’ve not done anything wrong. Luffy is just a dork

Note that Nami - the other survivalist in the crew - immediately jumps to her defense. They’re outnumbered by Zoro and Sanji, who have already made a giant bonfire.

Before we know it, the Straw Hats are partying with a bunch of wild wolves (Oda, plz...). They’re stuck deep in enemy territory on the night before a planned raid on the city of gold...and the Straw Hat Pirates are having a blast. Usopp’s playing the drums, Nami’s getting plastered, the rest are dancing their little hearts away, and Robin...Robin is smiling. This has got to be one of the most surreal, bizarre situations she’s ever seen.

Which brings us back to the image I started with

This says a lot about where Robin is at this point in the story. We can’t see her face clearly, but it’s established on the other half of the spread that she’s enjoying herself. Yet she remains distant, both physically and emotionally. The only thing that’s keeping Robin from joining in is Robin herself.

The Skypiea arc is important to Robin’s development because it rekindles her dream, but more than that it gives us moments like this where Robin is exposed to something she’s desired for twenty years, something we see later she’s always wanted but never believed that she would have.

The Straw Hat Pirates accept Robin unconditionally and show her a side of life that she’s never seen before. Even without knowing her entire backstory, by the time the Water 7 arc rolls around the audience genuinely believes that Robin would sacrifice her life, and the lives of every one else in the world, just to save the Straw Hat Pirates, and that wouldn’t be possible if Oda hadn’t given us this scene and others like it.

To put it another way, I fully believe that Robin would still make the same decisions during Water 7/Enies Lobby regardless of whether she found Roger’s message or not. The Skypiean Poneglyph furthers Robin’s part of the plot, but chapter 253 furthers her character arc.

What makes this all the more impressive is that Oda trusts his readers enough to figure it out for themselves. Unlike the anime, he never calls attention to Robin’s isolation and her gradual warming to the crew. Gan Fall wakes up on the very next page, and the focus shifts to more exposition, ending with the big reveal of what vearth is and why in the it’s so important. The development is stealthy.

Oda never makes a big deal of when Robin starts calling the crew by their real names during Thriller Bark. He doesn’t shove it in our face when she feels comfortable enough to tell Franky off for being stupid in Chopper’s body during Punk Hazard. He’s constantly using small moments all throughout the series to show how the crew has changed and grown, which is partially why people don’t think the characters have much depth.

It’s there, but without reading carefully it can be lost with everything else that’s going on. Just compare the Skypiean party to the end of Enies Lobby and tell me that Robin hasn’t changed. I dare you.

#One Piece #Nico Robin #Writing #Manga #Analysis #Character Development #Skypiea #Eiichiro Oda #creative-type analyzes

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heroesandvillainsofmbti · 7 years ago

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INFP: Benjamin Sisko, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”

INFP – the Healer, the Dreamer, the Clarifier

The revelation that Sisko is an INFP hit me one day like a ton of latinum bricks. I was trying to explain his moody attitude in the first episode compared to his later boldness. Cycling through a half-dozen or more different types and cognitive functions, I suddenly recognized the Fi-Si loop. I’ve been in one many a time, and now that I know we share the same type, I wish I had more of the positive aspects of Sisko’s personality in common with him. But Star Trek is about nothing so much as aspiration, so I hope all the shy INFPs out there can look to this commanding example of the INFP as a figure of power and passion.

Dominant Function: (Fi) Introverted Feeling, “The Deep Well”

Once Sisko believes in something, his intensity can be scary, even to the family and crew who know him well. Witness his fury for fighting the Dominion, hunting down Eddington, or saving Bajor.

When he first takes the DS9 assignment, this intensity is in danger of trickling away. Sisko is stuck deep in an Fi-Si loop in the wake of his wife Jennifer’s death at the hands of the Borg, and he’s become withdrawn, directionless, and moody. Meeting the wormhole aliens grants him the emotional catharsis he needs to properly grieve Jennifer’s loss, and he returns to his mission with renewed energy.

Over the years, the assignment takes on greater personal meaning for Ben—he is “of Bajor,” and he calls DS9 the place where he belongs.

For all his passion, Ben usually keeps a reserved, somewhat brooding composure. His bond with his son Jake appears through warmth, physical affection, and shared meals. He and his eventual new wife Kasidy strike sparks together instantly, but he has trouble voicing his feelings at certain awkward points in their relationship. For a long time, he won’t join the DS9 crew at Vic’s, until Kasidy drags out of him that he morally objects to joining a re-creation of a time and place where brown people like themselves weren’t allowed.

Even when healthy, Sisko’s Fi smolders—he rarely reacts in the moment unless called for. Given time, he erupts, embarking on a bold course of action, or delivering a stirring moral rant. All Star Trek captains excel at speechifying, but Sisko’s brand of righteous fury is particularly invigorating to behold. He dresses down recalcitrant officers, calls out stubborn Starfleet leadership, and takes devious villains to task.

Ben trusts his own judgment, in spite of entreaties or orders to the contrary. He leads a mission to rescue Odo and Garak from the massacre at the Omarion Nebula, despite Starfleet’s orders and the risks involved. He never believes that smooth-talking villains like Dukat, Winn, or Weyoun are up to anything other than no good. He shows faith in Kira and Odo from the beginning despite their prickliness and initial conflict. He takes it really hard, and really personally, when Eddington betrays him, because he didn’t see it coming while the man served right beside him.

Sisko’s Fi works through his decisions carefully, and in the morally gray environment of DS9, it has to work overtime. He constantly has to settle disputes and arguments in a politically tricky environment. He preaches about how it’s easy for Starfleet Command to overlook the plight of the Maquis because Earth is a Paradise. He believes bringing the Romulans into the war is the right thing to do, but in the aftermath, he needs to privately process the shady things he did to make it happen. He comes to a place where he’s okay with what he’s done, makes his peace with himself, and then deletes the log entry.

Auxiliary Function: (Ne) Extraverted Intuition, “The Hiking Trails”

Sisko explains to the Prophets in their first encounter that life is like baseball. With each new pitch, each new swing, a thousand potential outcomes arise which cannot be predicted. This, he preaches, is the joy of linear existence—while the Wormhole Aliens see all of time all at once, humans have to experience time moment by moment, never quite knowing what will happen next.

By explaining it out loud to the Prophets, Sisko realizes he has not been living this way. He’s been stuck in an Fi-Si loop since the death of his wife, unable to move forward. Sisko engages his auxiliary function and looks to the future—in his vision, he leaves his wife’s body and turns to his young son.

Ben is bright and accomplished, with expertise in engineering and military strategy—and baseball. He excelled and achieved at the Academy, and had a diverse career before taking the DS9 assignment. He’s possessed of an obsessive curiosity, and once he gets started on a project or pursuit, he can’t stop. Building the Bajoran lightship, exploring the ruins of B’Hala, beating the Vulcans at baseball, even tricking the Romulans into the war, are all paths he took from which he couldn’t retreat.

He even performs the part of the villain when chasing down Eddington, playing into the man’s martyrdom complex and going to shocking lengths to make him surrender.

Sisko is extremely patient with his angry, diverse, misfit crew as they learn to work together. He’s able to understand and appreciate the ideas and perspectives of other cultures, whether it’s the religion of the Bajorans or the greed of the Ferengi (though Quark has to school him a couple times). Although he’s uncomfortable with the implications at first, Sisko can hold on to the apparently contradictory concepts that the creators of the wormhole are both Wormhole Aliens (a scientific description) and the Prophets to the Bajoran people (a faith-based proposition). He eventually accepts that he is both a Starfleet officer with a job, and the Emissary of the Prophets with a calling.

This does not make either Starfleet Command or the Bajoran religious establishment entirely happy, but Sisko thrives in the paradox between these two ideas.

As Benny, his persona in his vision of the 1950s, Sisko is even more obviously an INFP. Benny writes short stories at a science fiction magazine, imagining a better future where anything is possible—like a black man commanding a space station. Later, when Benjamin returns to his life on DS9, he wonders if his whole existence here, and the life of everyone on board, might not be entirely in Benny’s head. And again, just like the dichotomy of the Aliens and the Prophets, Sisko is okay with this ambiguity.

Tertiary Function: (Si) Introverted Sensing, “The Study”

Sisko describes to the Prophets how each moment that a human experiences prepares them for the next—but no past experience prepared him for the day Jennifer died. He sees her “every time I close my eyes.” In the time-warp limbo of the Wormhole Aliens’ space, Sisko literally lives in that moment, continuously.

Sisko loops again, though not as severely, after the death of Jadzia, heading back home to Earth to peel potatoes at his father’s restaurant while he clears his head.

In fact, home is a familiar retreat for Ben. In his first few weeks at the Academy, he spent all his transporter credits beaming home for dinner every night. Years later, Sisko and Jake have lived on DS9 for over two years before he finally unpacks their stuff from Earth. Ben confesses to Jake that he’s finally begun “to think of this Cardassian monstrosity as home.”

Ben enjoys having the crew over to his quarters for dinner, which he cooks himself with real ingredients, carrying on the culinary legacy of the Sisko family. He also treasures the near-extinct Earth sport of baseball, keeping the tradition alive with his son Jake, and teaching the crew to play. At the end of the series, Ben decides that Bajor will be his home when he retires, and nabs a parcel of land to start building a house.

Jadzia tells him he’s a builder, the kind of man who needs to stay in a place and get the job done, rather than administrate from a distance (which is proven true the couple of times he’s given desk jobs). This healthy Si keeps Sisko grounded and focused while tackling the daily surprises that the job on DS9 brings.

Inferior Function: (Te) Extraverted Thinking, “The Workshop”

Sisko’s comfortable enough with his Te that he makes an effective and even intimidating commander. He rarely has trouble telling his crew what he wants or confronting them on their mistakes, though it’s typically low-key or one-on-one. When faced with orders or situations he dislikes or disapproves of, he’ll speak out or even yell out one of his epic moral rants, but often this is only after he’s kept his temper bottled up for a while.

Normally patient in his leadership style, Ben can become controlling and heavy-handed under extreme stress. He pushes the Federation President to declare martial law on Earth when he suspects Changeling infiltrators are afoot. Starfleet security officers march the streets, and ordinary citizens are ordered to give blood tests. It takes a lecture from his father to cool him off and set him back on the right track.

Ben gets aggressive as the coach of the DS9 baseball team, determined not to let the team of smug Vulcans beat them. He takes the competition too personally—the Vulcan team captain has been taunting Ben about human inferiority since their Academy days—and bullies the crew to be better. He embarrasses Rom and kicks him off the team, and then gets kicked out of the game himself for laying hands on the umpire (ISTJ Odo, sticking to the rules).

The team loses, but not before Sisko reinstates Rom, who scores a run. The Niners celebrate afterward, because scoring against Vulcans at all after only a few days of practice is a victory of its own. It is not logical, as the Vulcan points out, but Sisko has stopped caring what his rational adversary thinks of him. He revels in the happiness of the moment, because more than being a Starfleet Captain, more than being an Emissary, Ben Sisko is a human.

#MBTI #Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #Ben Sisko #Avery Brooks #INFP #cognitive functions #Fi-dom #Fi #Introverted Feeling #Ne-aux #Ne #Extraverted Intuition #Si #Introverted Sensing #Te #Extraverted Thinking

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