#that shouldn’t directly dictate the worth of someone

[caiusmarciuscoriolanus]

Idk if I was blinded a little bit by mads mikkelsen or this is just an unpopular opinion. Hear me out: Tonny in pusher 2 isn’t a complete pile of garbage 🤷🏻‍♂️. Like I get that he spent most of the movie doing progressively bad shit but I don’t think some people are actually taking into account the gravity of his situation or how the circumstances of his environment has affected his life. Like im of the full understanding that most people have full control over their actions and should be held accountable. Like I said, Tonny made bad choices and did bad things. But there’s such an important topic in this film that I don’t see a ton of people talk about. He mentions to the mother of his child in one scene that the events of the first movie with frank left him with a traumatic brain injury and that it affects his memory. But (through mads’s acting choices) we see time and time again as he tries to prove himself to others, he has a difficult time thinking critically about his actions before he does them. This shows itself every time he tries to prove himself to his father. It shows everytime “the cunt” takes advantage of him and manipulates him into helping him. And even towards the end when he takes his son and runs. It even shows in tiny moments, like when he’s having a convo with the mother of his child and she tries to hand him off the baby to smoke a cigarette. He looks at her confused and she says “ take his legs”. For the most part, people know not to grab a baby by the legs. But he does it because he’s so focused on his own awkward nature that his brain tells him to grab the babies legs almost on autopilot. It’s only after she calls him stupid (as almost everyone else in the film has repeatedly called him as well) that he realizes he wasn’t actually suppose to grab the babies legs. There’s more instances where it’s made apparent that the general physical brain trauma and the trauma that has been built up by his father (which we can assume has been a long time thing) has caused issues for him in the long run. You could argue that his father was done with his sons antics,but based on the fact that his father owns what is basically a car theft business and also later asks that tonny be the one to kill his ex wife, it’s made evident that his father isn’t necessarily a good person either. Not to mention the fact that his father had no intention to feel even the slightest bit of compassion after tonny finds out about his own mother and repeatedly expresses how she was crazy and in turn, lumping her in as another reason for him to hate his own son. I see all the time people say “well I was raised in a similar fashion and I know better than to fuck up like that and do bad stuff like that”. And that’s fine. But your story and how you handle it doesn’t dictate how others do. Everyone is dealt a certain hand and has to use whatever skills are given to them to decide how they go about it. If your decision making skills are off and you have no support system, and you think everyone is a against you, how can you possibly heal or make things better for yourself. You can argue “but it’s fiction, it’s not a realistic scenario” and you’d be wrong. I know personally a couple of people in similar boats. Sometimes, the system isn’t set up for people. And sometimes they struggle their whole lives to figure it out. And sometimes they don’t. Most of all it’s genuinely depressing and sad. But that doesn’t mean that tonny didn’t have the ability to be a good person. Or that he was inherently a bad person. He was just a human in a state of making bad decisions and doing bad things. I think you see that in the way he treats the baby despite the hand the of his raising. He could easily decide to be a bad father, to neglect the baby at times. But really it’s the only time we see him genuinely gentle and at ease. He knows how it feels to be small and to have bigger beings in your face. They decide if you’re worthy of their time and affection. So he tries to make it a point to take on being a dad even if he’s not sure how.

[saltminerising]

Real Money Trades Sometimes Passed off as Cross-Site Trades

This is what people mean when they say exchanges described as 'cross-site trades' in public are not trustworthy, and how else RMT dealers try to pass off transactions over the CR.  This advice came directly off of RMT site forums. 

That's why, common sense dictates not to take someone's "I traded FR shit worth thousands of USD for my (alleged) DV, CS, lorwolf, etc items" as gospel unless they provide further proof of said trade.  Without more staff oversight it's unfortunately an easy lie for people to use.  

Not to discredit anyone who's doing legitimate cross-site trades that are well documented and playing by the rules, and I'm sorry for these cheaters who give you a bad reputation.  

[moved the pic to below and added an image description]

(Alt text for image:

“10-19-2020: As long as you’re not stupid, it should be fine. Especially with a lot of DV/offsite trading happening right now, it’s easy to pass off and staff shouldn’t be able to tell. There will always be risk though. I’ve heard staff will ban ALL suspicious users that a discovered black market trader has dealt with (including legit offsite trade users), and there’s always the very small but possible chance that someone will rat you out, which apparently some people in the FR community like to do.

“10-19-2020: I suppose I choose a good time to start buying, it does seem like a lot of offsite trading will cover the tracks of a lot of black market transactions and I’ve made legit offsite trading so there’s probably a good chance I’ll melt into the sea of transactions that don’t mean anything. I guess I’m just having some first timer anxieties cuz I don’t think I’ve been stupid about it.”

“1-3-2021: If it’s in crossroads just put a dummy high value thing in. Like… Oh thank you for the payment for your art commission off site I hope you enjoy” or if you know what mycena cave is put something in the cross roads like “trading for PP��� if it’s a known high market community then even if you get sus’d having that helps. And then there’s the obvious “don’t script on your main account”

[hayleysayshay]

Kuvira fans must understand that "Kuvira is not correct, and her portrayal as a fascist leader isn’t unrealistic or exaggerated, i’m sorry if people can’t imagine a dictator offering good things and bad things at the same time". like people can like Kuvira all they want, she an interesting character but stop using the excuse that she had gOod InTeNtIoNs, fascism is fascism no matter what the reason for becoming one. Kuvira took advantage of the problems of EK to gain power and control EK at will. she committed a massacre with her robot destroying almost the entire city. (Kuvira only gave up and apologized because Korra stopped her and had no other choice, Kuvira told korra her sad story so that Korra would feel sorry for her).

CONTENT WARNING: This does contain a discussion about concentration camps, Nazis and war crimes. I only use this to explain my position and argue against arguments I have seen.

I think to a certain extent people just like Kuvira and want to defend her because they find her interesting. And I do try and not moralise on people’s choices and characters.

What I do find annoying is the dismissal of legit fair comparisons between fascism and Kuvira’s regime. It’s fair to call Kuvira’s regime fascistic.

I find most of the discourse is around Kuvira’s re-education camps, and whether or not it’s fair to label them concentration camps and say this is inherently fascistic.

People really twist themselves into knots to stop people labelling Kuvira’s actions as fascistic, and this is what I’ve had the greatest annoyance with. I have seen the most discourse with regards to Kuvira’s re-education camps and the use of the term concentration camps. I have written a reply once, but I did delete it as engaging in a discussion directly can perhaps be more pain than it’s worth.

I have seen someone say that it’s not right to call Kuvira’s regime as fascistic as concentration camps are linked to the N@zi regime, and I’ve seen someone else say, and this is of course paraphrasing, ‘they’re similar to camps that America has used so Kuvira can’t be bad’ like...., you think this is a defence for Kuvira and not an indictment of the USA? It isn’t really an argument that Kuvira isn’t bad.

The problem with some of the arguments is that it’s bad history. The concentration camp system in N@zi Germany was never only specific to that period of history. Concentration camps are not specific to one regime. They were started by the British in the Boer war, used by the Americans against Japanese Americans, and are used to describe the Uighur camps in China. There is no universally agreed definition of when a prison becomes a concentration camp, and if there is any difference between a concentration/internment/re-education camp, and what exactly these definitions are.

So no, concentration camps are not unique to fascist regimes, but it is fair to call what we hear of in the legend of korra concentration camps, in all definitions of the term. We can discuss whether or not it’s appropriate to throw out that term ‘concentration camp’ a potentially triggering and highly emotive term in a discussion about a fictional character in fandom spaces, but I don’t think that means the person originally using the term is using the term incorrectly. Kuvira uses these camps to punish people who are bandits (not inherently fascistic), threatens to send people who disagree with her to one (Bolin) so she uses them against political opponents, and then is said by a character that she’s putting bending minorities in them. By all definitions, this is mass internment, these are concentration camps. These camps are used in fascistic regimes. If the shoe fits...

(I do dislike people calling Kuvira a N@zi, that is an ideology that is tied to one specific regime that Kuvira does not have, fascist is a broader term and can be used in different contexts other than N@zi Germany).

No, we don’t know Kuvira’s exact ideology. It is vague. This is a kids show with a million other things happening. We don’t know exactly why or how she motivated herself to do the things she did. Maybe Kuvira did really intend to give up power after consolidating the Earth Empire’s rule including the United Republic. She literally says she thinks she’s better than Wu at the coronation but who knows, but maybe she just hated the monarchy. But this fan speculation. This is not canon.

What is canon:

- Kuvira named her regime the Earth Empire. Pretty imperialistic.

- Kuvira’s goals are achieved primarily through the use of an army. Pretty militaristic.

- Kuvira used her army to conquer states, even states that were unwilling (the state she conquers in the first episode) or completely stable and didn’t need any help to begin with (Zaofu).

- Kuvira expresses an interest and then attempts to conquer the United Republic, a nation state that has been independent for decades, because it was formerly of the Earth Kingdom.

- Kuvira uses a wide range of re-education camps to intern and punish prisoners who commit crimes, oppose her policies, or are bending minorities.

- The Earth Empire uses green, clean uniforms that evoke N@zi uniforms. There is a railway gun clearly inspired by a N@zi railway gun. The creators are intentionally using fascistic imagery to evoke certain feelings.

Kuvira may just be a ‘generic military dictator’ and she might not be truly ‘fascist’ but it’s not incorrect for any viewer to look at the canon events above and conclude she is a fascist. But the main argument against these is either some weird twisting of real history (by dragging in the definitions of concentration camps and fascism) or just saying ‘she had good intentions so can’t be a fascist.’ These arguments never prove anything, they usually just use specific events from history and pretend that these events correlate to general uses of these terms.

Now, if someone really likes Kuvira and wants to redeem her, then fine, I understand, I just wish they would acknowledge that the fascistic points of contention are not inaccurate, and a completely fair reading of the legend of Korra, and saying that ‘she had good intentions’ doesn’t change anything for anyone. I don’t care about her intentions in the past, I’m looking at her actions in the show. I do believe that Kuvira probably did have good intentions setting off. She probably doesn’t consider herself as a bad guy. But it’s fine for people to dislike Kuvira and consider her a fascist. They are not wrong.

I think it’s fine for people to want to redeem this fictional character. People can find characters darker motivations interesting and engaging. This isn’t the same as redeeming real life people who commit war crimes. It’s an interesting story. If the person writing this post or fic does not consider Kuvira a fascist than fine, but that is not anymore canon that Kuvira being a fascist and does not invalidate.

But ‘she isn’t a fascist because she had good intentions’ is just shallow and unconvincing and missing the point. And then falling back onto historical arguments does not prove that Kuvira is not a fascist either. Kuvira’s actions do not exist in a vacuum, they are inspired and pulled from history, and history is also not so exact and precise that it means that Kuvira cannot be labelled as a fascist.

I think I’m approaching this at a slightly different angle from you but I broadly agree- I don’t necessarily think people have to think Kuvira is a fascist, but they shouldn’t get into over long discussions of what is and what isn’t fascism to defend themselves. They’re seeking to define terms that have always been used in circumstances other than WWII. Please just own what you like.

[6ad6ro]

there's a lot of posts about piracy going around rn. so here's mine:

anti-piracy arguments are almost always classist. you shouldn't need to be rich to be happy. we were all born into capitalism. it's not voluntary. many of us don't have parents or other support networks keeping us afloat. poor people still deserve to have nice things. i could care less about keeping a system running smoothly that keeps most people poor and only few people rich.

if you work a shitty, low-paying job, then a simple monthly streaming service fee is YES actually too much to ask. no i don't care if your fav big company loses "potential" money from people who couldn't afford to buy them to begin with.

if there wasn't such a thing as "poverty"? if people could generally AFFORD to go out and easily get the things they want and need? obviously piracy wouldn’t be much of an issue at all. it's always frustrating to hear anti-piracy arguments from people who ignore how CRAZY expensive cost of living has become. again, usually the biggest anti-piracy peeps are either naive rich kids (who have things paid for), rich ppl who STAY rich by keeping things broken like they are, and the poor people they’ve brainwashed into being submissive hosts to their parasitic behavior.

in a world like this, where people are overworked and tired? with very few tangible goals available in their future? people NEED entertainment to stay sane. it's literally a mental health issue. yes, in a way, you NEED that funny show to inspire yourself to keep going. that game you can't afford otherwise? will help you relax after a hard day. don't let some disney mouthpiece tell you shouldn't download lion king if it'd help calm you down, especially when the people running that company could probably afford to have a private zoo in their backyard.

there's ALSO the big issue of control. as companies move further and further into streaming and cloud technologies? ownership has become a huge issue. greedy companies are finding more and more ways to nickel and dime people over long periods of time rather than get a one-time fee. it makes them more money, they don't have to actually GIVE customers anything (copies of data are free to them). and customers are left with nothing to show for it after-the-fact. this means that even though entertainment is being produced way more than the past? i’d argue people have LESS access to the entertainment they want for how much they’re paying. because it’s all temporary.

drm and limited use is becoming a norm. meaning? it's harder and harder for people to "own" their favorite things even if they COULD afford it. your favorite movie might simply cease to exist in 20 years. your favorite game might become nothing but a fragmented memory.

"piracy" solves this. backups. ownership. it takes control away from companies who abused that power. and puts it back in your hands. when nintendo stopped making their back catalogue available? and went around shutting down all the emulation sites? i was thankfully in the clear. because i download and archived many of my favorite things. in many cases i own cartridges of my favorite games already? but those can break, or in my case, get caught in a flood. but due to piracy, i can still play "mario 64" to pull myself away from suicidal thoughts. and i'm not limited by nintendo randomly deciding to remove it from the switch store and take the cartridges off of store shelves? in order to drive up their yearly profit via copycatting the methods used for the "disney vault" scam (look it up).

i am someone who tends to enjoy things from other countries. but it can be INCREDIBLY restrictive to try to go through "official" channels attempting to pay for them. if i want that old, relatively unpopular 80s japanese prog rock album? i'm just stuck. i HAVE to hope someone is sharing it online. but this often applies to new things as well. "licensing" is generally INCREDIBLY stupid, especially when it comes to other regions. do you REALLY want simple licensing issues to stand between you and your potential new favorite anime? and in many cases, the distributors just don't care enough to make the thing available globally. and no, i don't think this should mean we all just "miss out".

one of the biggest issues we are experiencing online at the moment? is one of censorship. governmental censorship, religious censorship, and maybe worst of all? corporate censorship. i'm not talking about "bring back racist imagery" etc (but that DOES play a part). i'm more talking... rewriting history. edits. removal. for example, it shouldn't be left to some corporation to decide whether or not a sex scene in a movie is deemed "too racy" for today's audience. if somebody creates an amazing album, but then commits some awful unrelated act later, that shouldn't mean that album should be made unavailable. in many cases, old media can even TEACH us what NOT to do. we gain nothing by erasing history. and corporations are never doing it to be moral. they're only following required guidelines in order to maximize profit. “fake showings of morality” to keep up appearances and keep all potential buyers buying. piracy can give you the OPTION of access to unedited works, or things that have been removed from circulation.

piracy can negate corporate control and artificial-scarcity. create opportunities for absorbing other culture's art without having to deal with availability issues in your country. it circumvents corporate and governmental censorship. and helps you archive the art that makes your life worth living.

finally... the "but it's stealing and stealing is wrong" argument is invalidated by the fact that, by ANY moral compass? these companies are STEALING from US. constantly. by a LOT. look at the way any big company is run. the way it leeches off of it's customer base. the offshore tax havens... does THAT seem okay to YOU?! if someone went around stealing all the food and locking it up, would you REALLY consider "breaking in" to get some so that u didn't starve as "stealing"? don't pretend that you don't NEED escapism and entertainment to get by. you know that you do.

the only people that piracy COULD hurt? is small, independent artists. who, if you actually listen to them, would rather you send them money directly? or buy merch. etc. because companies usually take SUCH an awful cut that it’s better to find alternate ways of supporting them. if you use reasonable context with what you decide to download and share? it’s fine! like i might buy a depeche mode vinyl or two? or a shirt. or go to a concert. but i’ll pirate that $1000 rare box set. because i just can’t AFFORD that kind of excess. and my income doesn’t dictate how big of a fan i am of their music. as long as you chip in when you can to your favorite creators? it’s actually fine. if i didn’t pirate, i wouldn’t be into 95% of the artists i’m currently into. i’ve spent so much on media that it’s almost embarrassing... my argument might not be entirely black and white? but i can safely say that piracy’s positives GREATLY outweigh it’s negatives. most research done has shown time and time again that it doesn’t really hurt creators. if anything, it’s the way greedy companies REACT to the idea of file sharing that hurts those creators. it really is an argument of big corporations trying to make sure they keep ALL the money. and it has almost nothing to do with art or artist’s rights. so please keep sharing everything. download away. for the sake of your own sanity, and generations down the line. because corporations don’t care about you. they don’t care about artists. and they don’t care about maintaining easy access to the art. they just want money, regardless of the cost to everyone else’s happiness. and if you can afford to PAY for it regularly? you should consider yourself very lucky. so maybe stop shitting all over poor people who unfairly have less access to what you already have. everybody deserves to be happy.

[findapennyloseapenny]

James Ironwood is going to turn up again, and he’s going to be working for Salem. Hear me out.

So this is a possibility I toyed with in one of my first posts on this blog, and as I’ve been thinking about it more and more and rewatching the Atlas arc, it’s something that I’m becoming more and more convinced of. Let’s start with the basics. Ironwood was in Atlas when it fell, and that was, shall we say catastrophic. Enormous crash, followed by flooding. Definitely shouldn’t be survivors, right?

Except that that isn’t really how this show, or most shows, work. People survive a lot of intense injury in RWBY. Cinder got fucking flash-frozen and dropped several stories after her Aura broke. RWBY goes out of its way to signpost when someone is dead. It wants that emotional beat to hit hard. It doesn’t want ambiguity. Take Pyrrha, disintegrated before our eyes. Take Penny, first dismembered, then with that heartbreaking framing of her blood falling of Crocea Mors. Take Clover, gorily impaled. Even with Adam, who fell offscreen before his death, was obviously and bloodily stabbed all the way through his chest (twice) and hit a rock very hard on his way down. The most ambiguous they’ve ever gotten was Watts, but they made a point to show that Cinder had taken extra action to make sure he burned alive before Atlas finished falling. The show took time out of a very packed episode to show us his shadow, lit by flames as he screamed.

Notice that they did not take time to give us a similar shot for Ironwood. It’s the contrast between Ironwood and Watts that makes me most certain that he’s alive. They could’ve spared a few seconds to give us something similar for Ironwood, and they didn’t. So I’ll be astonished if he doesn’t make it out alive.

Watts actually contributes another piece of evidence to this theory. Between his death, Emerald’s defection, Hazel’s death and defection, and Cinder betraying Neo, Salem lost a lot of known, well-developed characters from her inner circle in a very short time. The only people she has going into Volume 9 are Mercury, Tyrian, and Cinder, and they aren’t exactly a well-rounded team. Tyrian and Mercury are bruisers, from a plot-perspective. They take orders and carry them out. They don’t make plans, they don’t have resource networks, they aren’t particularly good infiltrators or ambassadors. Cinder’s only slightly better - she makes plans, sure, but she’s impulsive, self-serving, and bad at seeing the bigger picture. She only brings a slightly wider range of resources to the table. This is not a team that provides a varied enough rogue’s gallery for very long, especially if Mercury or Cinder defect as well (which is extremely possible). This only stays her inner circle if the show is about to wind down or Salem is about to get blown out of the water for a bigger bad guy.

So, is the show about to wind down? Realistically, if they want to wrap up their plot threads and themes in a tidy, satisfying fashion, which I’m confident they do, the minimum number of volumes I think they could do that in is four. Volume 9 deals with Wonderland and sets the stage for RWBY in Vacuo, Volume 10 deals with Vacuo, Volume 11 sees a return to Beacon (and possibly a late game switch big bad switch from Salem to someone else, probably the gods), and Volume 12 sees the defeat of the big bad and the resolution of the show. That’s assuming an absolutely breakneck pace from a show that has consistently been content to take its time - relatively speaking at least, given how short each episode is. They spent a whole Volume dealing with the trauma of the Fall of Beacon, advancing the characters and barely touching the overall plot. I don’t think they’re going to speed run this.

All this to say, at minimum, we’re three-quarters of the way through the show, and I think two-thirds to halfway is more realistic. Salem can’t take point in any plot that involves societal conflicts, and I don’t think they can hang three more volumes of those on Mercury, Tyrian, and Cinder. Salem needs to expand her inner circle. Now, most likely, that will include at least one new character from Vacuo. Maybe people who’ve read the CFVY books already have a likely candidate in mind, I don’t know. But one person isn’t going to be enough to fill all the roles now left empty on Salem’s team, especially one person that we don’t already know, who has to be built up for us and fleshed out and sold to us as someone competent and scary and worth giving a damn about.

So why not sidestep some of those problems and dust off the perfectly good dictator they’ve still got lying around?

Let’s go beyond the fact that Ironwood is alive and without an obvious role in the plot while Salem has a job opening. What does Ironwood get out of teaming up with Salem? What does Salem get out of taking him on? What do we, the audience, get out of seeing this on our screens?

Let’s start with the first one. Ironwood has had a very taxing forty-eight hours. He has seen his precious Atlas destroyed and reduced to rubble. He has seen every one he ever counted on betray him (and with good reason, but I doubt he sees it that way). He has gone from being one of, if not the most powerful mortal man in all of Remnant, to having absolutely nothing. Who does he blame for this? Salem? Maybe, but if he puts the sole blame on her, that means he has to keep fighting her, something he has already decided is impossible. He made a desperate, terrible, appalling plan to avoid that outcome, and it failed utterly. He doesn’t believe she can be beaten. He will certainly blame her some, but there is a much more convenient target for the bulk of it - one that is easy to plaster it on, one that thwarted him directly, and one which he believes he can have revenge on.

He is going to fixate on Team RWBY and their allies. If they’d just listened to him, if they’d just fallen in line and done what he said, then Atlas would be safe and the relics would be well out of Salem’s reach. Their opposition led directly to his plan’s failure. He doesn’t even need to bend the truth for that, only ignore the parts that he has already been content to ignore - that his plan was fundamentally flawed from the start, both in its means and its ends, and that if he had instead listened to RWBY, much of this tragedy could have been avoided. But Ironwood isn’t going to blame himself. It is a very, very hard thing for someone as proud and self-assured as Ironwood to do, to look at himself honestly and acknowledge that he fucked up, really badly, and that the consequences of that fuck up will haunt him until he dies. It is a very hard thing for such a proud man to humble himself and try to make whatever amends are within his means, to apologize to those he wronged and strive to help them, even knowing that they may hate him forever no matter what he does, and be justified in doing so.

He will take the easier choice, the same kind of easier choice he has been taking the whole show, and shift his guilt onto someone else. He will blame RWBY. He was more than willing to sacrifice uncounted multitudes of people under his care to protect Atlas, and maybe the world too, for awhile. Now Atlas is gone, and as far as he is concerned, the world is doomed. What does it matter if he helps Salem hasten that along a bit, as long as he can avenge his city?

Salem, for her part, will find an exceptionally canny tactician, a deeply charismatic leader, and a man of nearly unshakeable determination, all wrapped up in a nice, emotionally unstable, easily manipulated package. Maybe he doesn’t have the tech-savvy that Watts did, but he has everything else, and so much more. She could find all sorts of uses for him.

And we, the audience, will get to see it all unfold. We will get to see the fall of James Ironwood from a principled, well-meaning, staunch defender of Remnant, a bit over confident in himself, a bit flawed, a bit narrow in his focus, but unquestionably heroic, to a dictatorial, desperate tyrant, willing to sacrifice anything and anyone on the altar of his own ego, a man who hits rock bottom through his own arrogance and cruelty and, when offered a shovel, starts digging even deeper. You thought the Tin Man lost his heart this volume? You haven’t seen anything yet. By the end of this show, there will be no one more tragically, brutally, painfully hollow then James Ironwood.

I wonder if, near the end, he’ll think about Lionheart. I wonder if he’ll still have enough of the man he used to be left to shed a single, bitter tear at the irony.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE02, Ep22

I was pleasantly surprised that this was one of the best balanced eps concerning tohru as of yet!! They touched upon her being mom-figure in the first half but proceeded to humanize her afterward, depicting her as normal girl!, frustrated, vulnerable & somewhat silently struggling. I was right in my prediction that the moment yuki lets go of mom-tohru image, the show will too!! I’m happy!! finally, No more angels in the sky. But only real tohru with flaws, ugliness & humanity.

-Yuki’s acceptance of past feelings & change towards new ones:

The show is aware that they’ve been using the fake love-triangle initially but it actually has an explanation within the story. Yuki is attracted to tohru, so much, but it isn’t romantic at all. his attempts in “correcting” how he perceived her didn’t set right with him & he felt weirded out more! The show brilliantly depicted these “flirty scenes” with a hint of uneasiness. Yuki’s lines/ moves felt cringey & artificial “do you like my act, princess”,”I’ll kidnap you”, being encouraged by Aya to compliment tohru as a boy should. The signs are all there except not in your face, & the writer deserves praise!! Yuki, being perceptive, was able to reach such conclusion, not only by looking into himself, but by also at looking how kyo interacted with her, differently from him. Kyo sees tohru as a woman & is attracted to her romantically & altho kyo’s words & interactions with tohru lacks princely smoothness & have a hint of awkwardness, it was natural, genuine & spontaneous. Kyo didn’t put on an act or forced himself to flirt or deliberately chose words to impress tohru. Yuki was able to notice tohru only looked romantically towards kyo. Yuki used all his observations to reach another conclusion abt himself too!!! What he wants in a relationship is sth similar to kyo/tohru!! Mutual & equal relationship. He won’t be satisfied by one-sidedly giving or taking.

-The Author’s brilliance in writing traumatic-based behavior ( Kyo/yuki’s best interaction!! ) :

-an anon cryptically warned me that I’ll be disappointed in kyo this ep cuz of a certain scene with yuki. After watching it, I can tell you without a doubt I’m not disappointed at all!! Rather I’m beyond satisfied that I’ve decided to trust the author. Ms. Takya is genius in depicting traumatic-based behavior! Any other writer, would write the scene less raw, yuki would still shine defeating his inner demos, but kyo would only grunt, or say sth mild. cuz the writer might fear that it might risk showing kyo as the stupid guy behind in his growth compared to the successful yuki ,or annoy the readers/viewers who are so eager for these boys to reach mutual ground. Only a great writer will be brave enough to write kyo as his trauma/ faulty copying mechanism logically dictates!

-We spent an entire season with yuki, saw him yell at kakeru’s insensitive hurtful remarks, cry knowing he was saved cuz a friend risked freeing him, it took a locked dark room, paint fumes, PTSD, tons of monologues before yuki finally let it all out! & you want such brilliant writer to make kyo turn around & be nice to yuki all of a sudden after episodes of fights & no perspective insight? You bet such amazing writer will give kyo’s perspective its time & his development the logical progress he needs. This writer is all abt logical & realistic progression! whether positive or even negative, the characters will come across human, raw, realistic & real during & after their journey.

- Going through kyo/yuki’s dialogue, it will tell you that furuba is NOT abt friendship saving the day, or abt successful growth. It is abt the journey these traumatized children are undergoing now that they are nearly becoming young adults. Yuki’s journey was amazing not cuz he succeeded (as amazingly as this is) but cuz it made sense from his perspective, was realistic, logical, matched his coping mechanism & character traits & it took the needed time. Now for kyo, all his reactions should match his perspective, & make sense giving his coping mechanism. He wasn’t given time yet. so, he won’t grow much yet. “Making a fool of me?” kyo didn’t see yuki’s perspective abt the hat. he thinks yuki did it on purpose to taunt him.That HE saved tohru while kyo fails as always. “Praised by others, needed by them” Kyo like everybody in school, always thought yuki is a prince, loved, & admired. Kyo is not the audience, he didn’t see yuki’s struggle.”surpass me easily while I struggle” kyo may train for years with tears & blood, but the rat will beat him always cuz he is superiors. “an idiot that never gets anything, wants an idiotic impossible thing” “if only I gave birth to the rat, I’d ve been happier” kyo’s mom wished or the impossible. So did kyo. He wished that he’d prove to her that he can be the rat’s equal. She shouldn't have died becuz of him. An impossible wish.

-I personally think that kyo’s journey will take a different path from yuki’s. Unlike yuki, kyo’s been accused & proved to harm others somehow, intentionally or unintentionally. Some not even in this world anymore. So there are things in kyo’s journey that can’t be fixed. Nothing will bring his mom or kyoko back to life. He can’t apologize to them. There is NO forgiveness here as kyoko said!. Hence, the writer will brilliantly make kyo fall so hard & reach rock bottom so bad before he stands up again!! It matches his personality too!! He’s a person who struggles in expressing himself verbally, gets overwhelmed with emotions, stubborn, hard on himself & fiery in nature. Moreover, due to his trauma, he harbors very low self-esteem & due to his guilt, he is drenched in self-loath.

-The addiction of destructive coping mechanism ( Writing Brilliancy):

Kyo has one of the most destructive coping mechanism in the show. Similarly to what his father did by illogically dumping all the blame of the mom’s suicide on 4 year old child, which resulted in hurting kyo, kyo adopted his dad’s ways & dumped it all on yuki. Illogical. wrong. but it works!! it numbs this tingling sense of guilt, it puts the voice that goes “ you’re unforgivable” temporarily to sleep. All the hate is on someone else. not me. I’m not a monster. does it work all the time? NO. cuz NO drug does! All drugs has this temporary effect, that unless you break away from, will end up destroying you. “don’t you want it that way? you wouldn’t want to have anyone to hate?“  I’m still confused if this is kyoko or his mom. It has kyoko’s hair, the words are very harsh. Kyoko from kyo’s perspective shifts between extremely kind & cruelly harsh! but regardless, the truth has been spoken. Kyo’s eyes are opened. He can’t force blind himself anymore. he does NOT hate yuki. he “ acts like hating yuki is sth you needs to do”, as shigure said! hating yuki is his way to escape from his destructive self-loath. He hasn’t been hating or fighting yuki for a long while, he tries now, one more fight, one more dose of the drug, let the pain go away! Nope. Yuki is not participating, yuki is in the light now. You are drenched in the darkness, as unforgivable as you are. Monster eyes & all. Kyo breaks the window to break away from the memory. from this point on, it escalates to rock bottom as the drug is no longer working & hating himself with no escape is all he’s left with.

-Protecting leading to hurting:

yuki brings kyo attention that while he’s been hard on himself & resisting change, he is hurting tohru. Sth kyo chose confinement in oder to NOT do. Kyo being distant from class activities “life” is his choice. Tohru suffering is a consequence to that choice. Kyo, once again, overwhelmed by tohru’s desire to include him in their activities “ life”. Helplessly & painfully looking at her & acknowledging yuki’s words. Kyo in one of his most vulnerable moments, matched only by true form hug scene, is desperate for a hug. Not only cuz he loves her, but cuz he needs her, cuz he’s so tried of himself, cuz she’s so endearingly stupid waiting for him all by herself when she could’ve easily caught him home!! Ugh! tohru! T_T. Except this time, kyo is aware of his surroundings, it’s school, no place for transformation. As kyo decides to change his position from hug to head rest, he stares so intently in her eyes. Embracing her with his presence. For a moment there I felt weird. Like I was intruding on a personal moment between two ppl. XD. This moment was this excellently weird mix of tenderly romantic, bittersweet cuz they cant be together hug, & sexually tensed! one of the most successful kyoru moment that truly depicted emotions visually without needing much dialogue!

Side Notes:

kyo/yuki interaction was their most honest, filter-free & raw moment! each said what he really felt. yuki’s directly telling kyo to complain to him, which kyo did. yuki urging kyo to see that punishing himself hurts tohru.

I appreciate that Yuki won’t tell tohru now, cuz it will ruin their progress towards a better balanced relationship. Tohru’s lid hasn’t even been touched, so she would be cautious interacting with him. But once she opens her lid, her self-worth increase & her desire to focus on herself more is ignited!, she’ll listen to him without taking his burden as hers. just like kakeru did. Equal friends.

I wanted to talk deeper abt machi & yuki, but didn’t want it to be overshadowed by kyo’s analysis. Next time for sure!

I love how the writer included the most spontaneous flirting moment between kyo & tohru right after yuki explained that he saw her non-romantically. The writer wants the comparison to be clear cutting ties to any love-triangle misunderstanding that might linger from previous scenes. Moreover, it showed yuki fully & genuinely accepting kyoru!!

I’ll never be over tohru acting like normal teenager & chasing kyo, trying to catch the script!!!! These small moments while having not much effect on the grand plot, help depict tohru with her own feisty style of stubbornness beyond the one-sided kind image we always see.

This ep has well-written & visually appealing scenes. Visual imagery were well-implemented in kyo/yuki scene & kyo/tohru last scene.

Thank you anime for drawing tohru older, pretty & more mature in the final scene. She looked like a woman in love & silently in pain. My baby is growing!

Why is kyoko holding the hat in KYO’s flashback!!!! she’s wearing the same white dress from yuki’s memory?? What the heck is the hat’s story?!!!

[9worldstales]

MCU Loki: Speculations on the “Loki” series

So, for the fun of it I’m gonna speculate on the whole “Loki” series.

For start Time Variance Authority.

In the comic the TVA seems to represent the lawful alignment. It doesn’t mean it will do the same in the “Loki” series, Marvel sometimes change things but let’s pretend they left this unchanged.

Before you start thinking this is a good thing, let’s remember the lawful alignment doesn’t define the moral axis of something, merely the ethical one. General Thunderbolt Ross and the Krees can be considered as lawful as Captain America and Rhodey, only the first two are lawful evil while the last two are lawful good.

Karl Mordo in “Doctor Strange” instead moves from lawful good to lawful evil.

For the TVA what matters are the rules. They are, of course, sure that respecting the rules is a good thing, and if this requires to wipe out an entire temporal line… well, no problem of theirs.

In short the TVA are your sort of guys who might decide that no, the Avengers shouldn’t have gone back in time and hamper with the timeline and save half of the universe because… it’s against their rules.

Here they seem worried that Loki has changed things. I would argue that it’s the Avengers that went back in the past and change things but let’s explore what it means if Loki didn’t met up the same fate as the one of the ordinary timeline.

Well, for start the Bifrost doesn’t get repaired as Thor used the Tesseract to repair it.

This might mean that, for start the Nine Realms will have to do without Asgard’s protection but, in more MCU terms that Thor won’t be able to go back home. There’s to wonder if he’ll manage to make peace with Jane and reach for her when she will be possessed by the Aether.

If he doesn’t, as a result, the Aether can fall more easily in Malekit’s hands, who will attack Earth directly instead than Asgard.

We might not end up having Thanos because the Dark Elves win and wipe away people themselves, turning the whole series in a variation of “War of realms”.

Okay, no, I don’t think we’ll get “War of realms” but it’s a pity.

What I wonder if the fact that they have Loki and Moebius interact is because one is chaotic and the other is lawful and the theme of the story is going to be this.

Chaotic again, isn’t necessarily evil, it only means you don’t respect the rules.

Scott Lang from “Ant-Man” is chaotic good for example. The Vulture from “Spider Man Homecoming” is chaotic evil.

Same as Karl Mordo Loki tends to change his moral axis at need. Prior to “Thor” he’s chaotic good, in “The Avengers” he’s Chaotic evil, in “Avengers: Infinity War” he’s back on being Chaotic good again.

So the whole show can open the discussion of how respecting or not rules should be tied to moral values. We shouldn’t respect a law aimed at hurting others… but we shouldn’t break law carelessly either as there will be consequences.

For example…. There’s a scene showing Loki in Pompeii.

Should the people in the city be warned mount Somma (yeah, it’s mount Somma which erupted, what will remain of it after the eruption will be named Vesuvius) is about to erupt and therefore saved or should we let them all die because, after all, their death is kind of already happened from Loki and Mobius perspective?

It’s a question that, in a way, was opened and ignored in “Avengers: Endgame”. The Avengers decide to save all the people that were blipped away by Thanos… but what about the ones he killed previously?

The half of Asgardian refugees, Heimdall, Loki, the dwarves on Nidavellir, the people on Xandar he wiped away to get the power stone, the people that die in the battle of New York, that was still caused by Thanos even if he didn’t oversee it personally, Gamora’s family and people?

Thor arrives in Asgard and is forced to face that most of the people there will be dead… would it have been really bad if he warned them against Hela so that more could survive? If he saved his mom and then asked her to find an alternate way to get the same ending with the Dark Elves only this time it doesn’t include her dying?

It’s questions worth making because they touch our moral axis as, if we do nothing, we let those people die/dead.

For a greater good? How can we know the result and for who’s the greater good? For us?

So anyway this has the potential to be cool, because when the lines on the moral axis blur and you don’t know anymore if something is good or evil, the decisions are taken by the ethical axis.

And someone lawful would just say ‘the law says so therefore letting those people die has to be the good choice’ while someone chaotic would say ‘screw the law, it can’t be good, I’m gonna save my mom and worry about consequences later’.

And this is awesome material for a story.

Though, of course, they can also take inspiration from “Agent of Asgard” in which old Loki, despite thinking that nothing would change even if Loki were to try to be good, still changed the past so that Loki could have a better chance at life and could make a more informed decision in the end.

(the scene of Loki’s decision is “Agent of Asgard” is AWESOME and way better than whatever redemption arc the MCU came up with by the way so I’m all to get that if they do the appropriate work)

Going on.

In the comics Mobius is a bureaucrat, cloned for his job and who knows nothing else but it.

Of course Marvel can portray him differently but let’s assume they’ll run with this.

So it can be that for Mobius everything is just ‘data’ and people are merely ‘entities’ and this not because he’s evil but because that’s how he has been taught to live.

He studied all of Loki’s life, but that’s it, for him they probably were data, not someone’s life, just a list of facts with no emotional value attached.

Studying Loki’s life is a job, and he might dedicate to it with the same mind setting of a student studying Caesar’s life.

He might not stop to wonder how painful the stabbing was, how horrible it could have been to see that his son was among the stabbers, how desperately he attempted to protect himself as he tried to flee and how brutal the others were as they continued to stab him even when he fell and lay there defenceless.

All he might care for is he died in 15 March 44 BC, attacked by around 60 men and stabbed 23 times, one of the stabs given by Brutus and that’s it. And then on March 15th put on Tumblr a stabbed Caesar salad and joke on his death because, by now Caesar is no more viewed as a person, just as a historical record.

For Mobius Loki might be just a record and even if Loki sits in front of him, he’s no more than data and someone to use. If Mobius gets an arc in which he develops he might learn to view Loki as a person, which doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll stop being lawful.

He might learn to feel sorry for him but still say ‘but the law says this is it’ or he might shift his ethical axis.

It would still be an interesting plot.

And for Loki too there’s potential for things to be interesting because he might, for once, to feel in control.

Most of Loki’s life is dictated by him not being in control.

He didn’t get to decide to be a Frost Giant, picked up by Odin, raised by an Asgardian and revealed the truth too late. He didn’t get to decide to be the less favoured son and he came to believe nothing he would do would make him worthy in Odin’s eyes. He was sent by Thanos to conquer Earth, manipulated by the sceptre. And now the TVA has captured him and they’re forcing him to cooperate.

If he’s given the power to affect the past he might grow to believe he’s actually not forced to submit to other people’s choices but that he’s in control of his fate.

It’s part of the point of “Agent of Asgard”.

Old Loki came to believe no matter what he did, he couldn’t change things, he would always be the ‘god of lies’, but the Loki of “Agent of Asgard” instead decided he would be something else and became the master of his own fate.

It would be a good development.

Of course, I’ve not the slightest idea if Marvel will go according to this route.

There’s really too little to judge and I’ll admit I won’t like it much if the point is not so much to save Loki but save Lady Loki because, no offence to Lady Loki who might have an even worse past than Loki, but it’s Loki the character I grew to love and I wish would be saved.

Last but not least, as I feared the whole ‘You've literally stabbed people in the back like fifty times’ quote produced a lot of discussing when it shouldn’t have.

Like, we miss most of the content but, from the look of it, it’s not like Loki, on his own, decided to pay a visit to the TVA and to help them. They captured him, he even though they wanted to kill him, they very likely forced him to cooperate.

Now, in this case any guy with an ounce of brain does what Tony did when he was held captive by the Ten Rings and they asked him to build them weapons if they don’t want to end tortured or killed. They say ‘yes’, gain their trust and then build a Iron-Man suit behind their back with whom they can stab them. In the back, yeah, because that’s what people with a modicum intelligence and no magic hammer should do with guys who overpower them and held them captive.

It’s a basic survival skill, not a proof you’re untrustworthy. People don’t own captors to be trustworthy to them and this message must never be allowed to pass.

You has to be trustworthy with people who deserve it, not with people who force you to be subservient.

So yeah, I hope Loki will stab the TVA in the back because no matter how lawful an righteous they feel, they clearly impose to everyone their law and no matter how much they claim they make the world better, they’re clearly sacrificing people.

[mellohi404]

A New Kind of Logic

(based on a prompt by: @djpurple3)

(Also, I can't write anything small. This has over 8500 words. 8501 to be exact.)

(warnings: kinda unsympathetic Roman and Patton? Kinda? But not forever? I don't know.)

(This is Loceit that I'm hoping doesn't sound forced.)

Logan was pacing around his room. After the most recent video, it was evident to him that he wasn't needed. That his opinion wasn't needed, only his facts, and even then, it was only when it helped them. When he just wanted to share information, they ignored him. They skipped him. And Logan...he just didn't understand why. Was it him? That had to be it. That's the only logical conclusion. Who he was wasn't satisfactory anymore. He was more of a nuisance than anything, except when his facts were useful. When they were dealing with Remus, he remained calm and collected. His facts and logic were useful then. But there were other times that he wasn't appreciated. And when Logan reacted negatively, by throwing things or yelling, the others reacted negatively as well. That was it! Being angry, being frustrated, that's what's wrong. That's why the others don't listen. He scares them when he gets loud. He scares them when he gets angry. But when he wasn't angry and helped them, they praised him. So...why not make it so that's all he has? He knew deep down that he was needed, he couldn't just duck out like Virgil did...so he changed instead, physically and mentally. Surely, that would be enough for the others to accept his presence again, and for his input to be praised instead of ignored or seen as a nuisance.

"Wow Logan, you look nice!" "That look is much better than that stuffy polo and tie." Patton and Roman smiled the first time they saw Logan's change in appearance. Instead of his polo and tie, he had on a dark blue sweatshirt and a pair of black slacks. It was...different to say the least. Logan's polo and tie weren't exactly comfortable, but it was part of the aesthetic. It made sense for the logical, mature side to wear mature clothing. But he was different now, right? And he had to change his clothes to encourage that. "Thank you. I thought...it would be a good time for a change. Everyone else is growing and changing, so I thought I should too." It was a lie. Logan knew full well that wasn't the reason. But, his point was valid. Thomas, and in effect the sides, were growing and changing. It made sense that Logan would too. Logan softly smiled at the other sides, and it made Patton squeal. "You should smile more, nerd. It's a nice look on you." Logan just nodded a little and Roman started going on and on about his different ideas. Before, if an idea didn't make sense, Logan would say so. He would cut down Roman idea, and then they would argue. But Logan couldn't do that anymore, he wasn't that person (well, figment of Thomas's imagination) anymore. "Roman? Maybe there could be a balcony instead of a cloud bridge?" Logan spoke softly, calmly. That's how he made himself talk now. Roman's eyes sparkled and he smiled wide. "That's a great idea, Logan!" That was it. No arguments. No yelling. Just an agreement before he continued on with his ideas...and the praise felt so good. Logan could do this, he was sure of it now. He could stay in the background except when he's needed. The praise was more than worth it.

Janus knew something was off. Ever since the last video ended, he could feel it. Something- or someone- just wasn't right. He just had to figure out who. But that didn't take too long. Janus, he makes it his business to know how the others act, how they behave. He knows their habits, their tics, the things that make them who they are. It's so I can impersonate them. Of course, that's all it is. Nothing more, nothing less. And he could just feel Logan's change. He didn't need to see him, he knew. He knew Logan was breaking himself, holding himself back...and that made him worry. The yellow-clad was more accepted now, no one would mind if he was sitting in the living room with everyone else. So that's exactly what he did. He sat on the floor by the window, his back against the wall. He didn't want to get too close yet, just in case. That, and he did enjoy the sunlight coming from the window, even if he would never admit it. And from that spot, he could see Logan perfectly. Instead of a book and a neutral expression, the logical side just had his hands in his lap with a small smile on his face. He just watched the others as they talked, but it was obvious to Janus that he wasn't really listening. Logan figured that he didn't really need to. He only contributed when his input was specifically asked for anyway. Janus stood and walked over to Logan, his hands behind his back. He bent down a bit to quietly speak into Logan's ear. "Logan, can I speak to you in the kitchen for a moment?" Without a word, Logan stood and followed Janus into the kitchen, and stood by the table as Janus sat down. "...you can sit down, Logan." Logan did so, sitting across from Janus. He still had that small smile on his face. Janus knew it was forced. "Logan, this is wrong." Janus was blunt, that's how he is. And he knew that being blunt and honest would be the best way to get through to the logical side. But Logan, he just innocently tilted his head. "What do you mean, Janus?" The snake side frowned and almost glared at the side in front of him. "You know exactly what I mean, Logan. You acting like this, it's wrong. Roman's ideas are ridiculous, and you know it just as well as I do. And you don't need to act like this to get their approval. You don't need their approval." As Janus was talking, he knew he was striking chords inside Logan. He knew exactly why Logan was doing this, and it made him sick to his stomach. And Logan, he knew Janus was right. But...he couldn't be that same logic from before, not now. "Janus, I'm really sorry, but...this is who I am now. And that's okay. I'm perfectly happy like this. And I-" "Logan, can you come here for a second, kiddo?" Patton interrupted him, and he stood. "Sorry Janus. We can talk again later, if you want." He smiled and walked out of the kitchen to see what Patton had wanted.

Janus went to his room with a disgusting taste in his mouth. He knew that every word coming out of Logan's mouth was a lie and he hated it. He flopped onto his bed, his face in his pillow, and he talked into it in frustration. "...I can't blame him. I really can't. I've watched him. I know full well that he's ignored at every chance unless he's needed. I know that the other sides hate when his logic is used against them. But it's just not fair! He doesn't deserve this! He's so...he's so good. He knows so much, he worked endlessly. He did everything he could to make Thomas the best person he can be...but that wasn't enough for the others, was it? Noooo, they had to go and turn him into this shell of who he used to be! Now he's like an AI, only speaking when spoken to, only giving information when he's asked to share it. It's not fair!" "Then just tell him." A voice above his head should have made him jump, but he knew Remus well enough that it wasn't any surprise. "Remus, get off of my ceiling." How he even got on the ceiling, Janus didn't know for sure, but that was how Remus always came into his room. With a sound like a suction cup, Remus hopped down to the floor before sitting beside Janus. "It's not that simple, Remus. Logan actually thinks this is good for him. He actually thinks that this is what's best. That the others feelings should dictate how he acts, and that's just not true!" Janus moved his hands for emphasis as he spoke, a sign that he was getting frustrated. "Hmmmmm...what if we used the other sides as doormats so they'd know how he feels?! I'd just love to step all over Roman's face~." Remus giggled a little at the image in his head. "I don't think that's the best idea, Remus...but just yelling at them won't work either..." Janus spent hours thinking. He needed to figure out how to fix this. How to fix Logan.

It was around ten o'clock at night. Most of the sides were in their rooms, the only exception being Logan. He was just...staring out the window of the Mindscape. He had so many thoughts in his head, but he muffled them. He just focused on the stars in the sky and trying his damnedest to not think about the constellations themselves. As Janus went down the stairs and saw Logan, he couldn't help but feel a pang in his chest. In part, it was from seeing Logan like this. Logan looked so...dull. He knew Logan should've had a fascinated look in his eyes as he looked at the stars and constellations, but he didn't. And it made Janus physically hurt. "Logan. I need to speak with you." Logan jumped a little and looked over at Janus. "Oh, Janus. What do you need?" He smiled, and it made Janus hurt even more. "Logan, just stop." "I-I don't-" Janus couldn't help himself, and he raised his voice ever so slightly. "Yes you do. Logan, they've turned you into a doormat. A dull, lifeless doormat. Logan, that's not you!" He got closer and looked directly into Logan's eyes, the passion that was once in them completely dulled down. "Logan, you have so much passion about everything. Every fact, every single bit of knowledge, you have so much passion about them. Your knowledge shouldn't be held back. It shouldn't be censored. Logan, all you've done is hurt yourself!" "Janus, no!" The yellow-clad man took a step back in surprise. Logan, feeling that frustration he pushed so far down coming back up, he took a deep breath to calm himself, his eyes closed. When he opened them again, they were somehow more lifeless than before, at least from Janus's perspective. "Janus, if that's what I'm there for, then that's what I'm there for. If this is what makes them keep me...then this is what I'll do." Logan smiled his soft smile, but Janus knew that this was even more forced than before. "Logan..." Janus was at a loss for words. He just didn't know what to do. "...you should probably go to sleep soon." "That was my plan. Thank you for worrying though, Janus." The snake side went back to his room and he repeated what he did before. He flopped onto his bed, and spoke into his pillow, this time until he fell asleep. But just before he fell asleep, he said one thing. "...he was perfect before..."

Janus woke up with a gasp, and he rolled out of his bed. "That wasn't very cool looking." Remus said bluntly. "Remus, I don't care. I have an idea." Janus frantically grabbed his hat off of the floor and put it back on his head. He quickly walked out of the room and to Patton's room. With a knock of the door, Patton opened it. "Oh. Good morning Janus." Patton yawned as he rubbed his eye. "Patton, can you come to my room with me for a second?" The father figment was confused, but he nodded. "Why?" "I just have something to show you." Janus quickly walked back to his room, Patton following at his own pace. Janus watched as Patton walked into the room and closed the door behind him. The yellow carpet contrasted against Patton's blue cat slippers. "Sooo...what did you want to show me?" With a wave of his hand, two version of Logan appeared in front of Patton like holograms. One was the original Logan, with his tie and polo and his neutral expression. The other was the new Logan. The one that's changed, with his small smile. "Which Logan do you prefer?" Patton was confused at the question. "Prefer? Well, I mean, this one." He pointed at the new Logan. "He's growing like everyone else is, and everyone's relationships with him are so much better. I haven't seen him argue with Roman since he changed, and he's smiling now! That's good!" Janus frowned and pushed Patton out of his room. "That's all I need, thank you blind man." "Blind man? What-" Janus closed the door before Patton could finish. "Believe it or not Patton, not all change is good."

Janus figured that an interaction with Roman would be similar to what Patton did, so he went to Virgil instead. They weren't exactly on the best terms yet, but for Logan, it was worth it. "Virgil? Virgil, can I talk to you? It's about Logan." Virgil was ignoring the snake side when he first heard him outside the door. He didn't want to talk with Janus unless he had to, but hearing him say Logan's name, he opened the door. "What about him?" The shadows under his eyes only seemed bigger now, and it was clear to Janus that Virgil didn't sleep well. "I wanted to know how you feel about him. Can I come inside?" Virgil glared at the side in front of him. "No. But what do you mean, how I feel?" "Do you like the change?" Virgil looked away and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Everyone else likes it." "That's not what I asked, Virgil." "...I don't trust it." Janus felt relieved to know that someone else could tell Logan wasn't right. Patton and Roman were too happy about the positives of Logan being different to see how much he was hurting, and just thinking about it made a sour taste form in Janus's mouth. "I'm going to convince him to change back." Virgil rolled his eyes. "Easier said than done. They like the new Logan." "Believe me, Virgil. I know full well." "Then what do you plan on doing?" Virgil snapped at the other side. "...I'll make them feel the same way he does." He waved a finger as he thought, the plan forming together. "We ridicule Patton every time he cries during a movie. We tell Roman to shut up unless his thoughts are about videos or something important to Thomas. We make them feel like they aren't needed." "What about Logan? He said he's happy this way." Janus froze for a second. "...I'm hoping that once the others know how he feels, they'll convince him to change back." "And if they don't? Or if he doesn't want to change back?" Janus was quiet for a moment, looking at his gloved hands. "...I'm not sure."

"I thought you were Thomas's happy feelings Patton." It was a simple comment. Patton always cried at the part where Bing-Bong sacrificed himself during Inside Out. All Janus had to do was make sure Patton knew that he "shouldn't feel that way." And every chance he could get, he did exactly that. "Patton, don't cry." "Patton, you definitely shouldn't smile more." Comments like that were slowly chipping away at Patton, and both him and Janus knew it. 

The same could be said of Roman, but his reactions were different. Patton, he would nod a little and force his tears away. But Roman, he was more defensive. He fought more. But eventually, his insecurities ate away at him, and he, too, started acting how Janus wanted him to. 

The air in the living room was unbelievably tense. Patton tried to make it go away by playing one of Thomas's favorite movies, but it didn't exactly help. "..." Logan was quiet. He knew that was Janus said to the others affected them, but he didn't want to intervene. He didn't think he should... "Janus, can I have a chat with you, please?" Janus smirked, and he nodded as he followed Logan into the kitchen. "Why are you doing this?" Just for a second, Janus saw the passionate spark in Logan's eyes that he was missing. "I'm doing this for you, Logan. If they know how you feel-" "You don't know how I feel!" Logan took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Janus, thank you for what you're trying to do. Really, thank you. But don't hurt the others because you think I'm unhappy with this. I am. The others finally see me for who I am, not as a waste of space only to be used when I'm needed. Why are you trying to change that? Why are you ruining this for me, Janus? I-I just don't understand. Do you really dislike me that much?" Hearing that, Janus's eyes went wide. He was speechless. He couldn't believe that Logan really thought that he hated him. "Logan, I...I don't hate you. Far from it. I'm 'ruining this for you' because this isn't you. Logan, you're the smartest person I know. You're passionate and beautiful when you get that way. You lose your temper, and you push down your feelings until you think they're gone. You ignore every feeling you have when they hurt you because you know that if you react, they won't take you seriously. And Logan, they might not like it when you fight with them or when you give them more information than they wanted, but that's who you are! They shouldn't change that! No one should change that! And the Logan I fell in love with wouldn't let the other sides's feelings make him act so illogically!" Logan was frozen and his cheeks were tinted pink. "I...what?" He blinked his eyes a few times as his brain processed what Janus said. "I said I-oh. I can see why you're blushing now." The yellow-clad man himself had a pink tint to the not-snake side of his face. "You...love me?" "I love the real you, Logan. And I am begging you, please change back. You're hurting yourself so much...the passion in your eyes is gone, and now it's just so lifeless. It doesn't fit you, darling." He said the nickname with a small smirk. Logan first looked at the other sides in the kitchen, then to Janus, then to his own hands. "...okay. I'll try." With a snap of his fingers, he was back in his polo and tie, and Janus could see the light in Logan's eyes slowly coming back. It made him smile. "That definitely isn't better." Logan smiled, genuinely smiled, and went back into the living room. 

"Oh, Logan, you changed back?" Patton tilted his head in confusion when he saw Logan and Janus walk back into the room. "Why did you do that?! You were so much better!" Logan's hands clenched into fists as he held his tongue, regardless of how much he wanted to yell and scream at the others. "Because peace doesn't always mean things are better." Janus practically hissed out. His blood was boiling at how the other two were responding. "You were so happy about how helpful Logan was and how he didn't argue or yell anymore that you couldn't see why he was that way. All he wanted was your approval, but he was never enough. All he wanted was to be seen as another one of you, instead of a nuisance who was only wanted when he was useful. And, believe it or not, he was hurting so badly. He has been hurting for a very long time, and you two were too blind to see it!" Patton's eyes widened as he remembered what Janus called him before. "Oh..." "Oh. Yeah, oh. That's totally enough of an apology. I-" Logan put his hand on Janus's shoulder to reel him back, and Janus blushed ever so slightly, embarrassed at his outburst. "Thank you Janus. But I believe that they understand now." He gently took Janus's hand and led him up the stairs to his room to relax.

After that, Roman and Patton didn't try to make Logan shut up anymore. They listened to him when he spoke, and they found out that he knows so much about everything. Patton and Roman both enjoy listening to him go on and on about certain subjects now. Virgil, he never minded to begin with, but seeing Logan go back to normal made the anxiety in his chest go away. As for Remus and Janus, well, they started seeing Logan a lot more. Logan enjoys going to Janus's room, and Remus likes to interrupt them and see their embarrassed faces. But one night, late at night,  Logan and Janus were together, just laying beside each other on the floor (which was surprisingly warm). Both of them were quite tired, but neither of them wanted to sleep. "...thank you Janus." "Whatever for?" Janus said in a sleepy smooth tone as he looked at the glasses-wearing side, who was staring at the simulation of stars on the ceiling. "...for helping me change back. I...I am much happier now than I was like that." "I know darling." Janus said with a small, playful smirk. "I did it for no reason at all." Logan smiled a little, knowing Janus was lying. "...I love you too." It was a shame that Janus didn't hear it. He had fallen asleep with his hand laying on Logan's. When the nerdy side realized it, he smiled and closed his own eyes to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~

I can't make a short story, can I?

I hope you enjoyed it!

@amazonprimebox

[jawsofhakkontranscript]

A Father's Name

Side quest: A Father's Name

Characters involved: Finn Caldansen, Gyda Myrdotten, Master of the Hunt

A woman prepares bodies for sky burial at Stone-Bear Hold. Caldan Enversen's body should receive special rites; however, his son failed to complete them. As guests of the hold, the Inquisition may present the required offering as a gift.

(This quest can be initiated either by speaking with Gyda Myrdotten or Finn Caldansen. Speaking to Finn is optional, as the quest can be completed by handing the offering directly to the Master of the Hunt.)

(Talk to Finn.)

(If you approach Finn before speaking with Svarah.)

Finn: You're the Inquisitor, aren't you? I shouldn't keep you from meeting the thane.

(If you approach Finn after speaking with Svarah.)

Finn: Inquisitor, I'm honored by your visit. I'm Finn Cal... um, Finn Caldansen. Forgive me if I don't stand to greet you properly.

[1] Dialogue options:

Investigate: You're injured? [2]

General: You seem troubled. [3] (If you haven’t spoken to Gyda Myrdotten and didn’t learn that she is prepering Caldan Enversen’s body for a funeral. Otherwise, this option disappears.)

General: You can't complete the rites. [4] (Becomes available after speaking with Gyda Myrdotten.)

General: Goodbye. [5]

[2] Investigate: You're injured?

PC: How were you injured?

Finn: A storm blew up a few months back. The worst we've seen in a while. I was helping to secure the fishing boats. Einar nearly fell in. I caught him, but the current caught me. My leg got crushed against the rocks. It hasn't set properly. [Back to 1]

(Side note: Einar is one of the Avvar fishers who can be found near the boathouse by the lake.)

[3] General: You seem troubled.

PC: You seem troubled. Is it your injury?

Finn: In part. Gyda Myrdotten prepares my father's body for sky burial.

Party comments:

Cassandra: I’m sorry.

Varric: Well, shit.

Vivienne: You have my condolences.

Cole: Hurt and harrowed. Knotted and nameless. Can't be him, could never be him. But who am I?

Finn (in response to Cole): How did—yes.

(Continued.) Finn: (Sighs.) I knew it would be soon. I just... I miss him. [Back to 1]

[4] General: You can't complete the rites.

PC: I know about your father's burial—and the offering.

Finn: I tried. I dragged myself out of this cursed bed, but the pain… I collapsed. The huntmaster found me and dragged me back. Said we didn't need another dead man. [5]

[5] Subsequent dialogue options:

General: I'll find the offering. [6]

General: Is this worth dying for? [7]

General: You're lucky he found you. [8]

[6] General: I'll find the offering.

PC: I'm told I can make the offering as a gift for the hold. I'll try to do so for your father.

Finn: He won't be my father much longer. [Go to 9 or 10, depending on whether you’ve learned what losing one’s name means to the Avvar.]

[9] PC: What do you mean? [Go to 11]

[10] PC: The loss of your name…

Finn: It doesn't matter. [Go to 13]

[7] General: Is this worth dying for?

PC: If your father were still here, would he not agree?

Finn: He won't be my father much longer but... yes. [Go to 9 or 10, depending on whether you’ve learned what losing one’s name means to the Avvar.]

[9] PC: What do you mean? [Go to 11]

[10] PC: The loss of your name…

Finn: It doesn't matter. [Go to 13]

[8] General: You're lucky he found you.

PC: You're lucky he found you before that was the case. [Go to 11 or 12, depending on whether you’ve learned what losing one’s name means to the Avvar.]

[11] Finn: I can't make the offering. When the sky burial's complete, I'll lose the right to bear my father's name.

Party comments:

Sera: Wait, so he does this or he's the wrong kind of elf?

PC (in response to Sera): What?

Sera: Never mind. You help.

(Side note: this reaction from Sera can occur either when speaking with Finn or the Master of the Hunt about the loss of a name, whichever conversation happens first.)

[Go to 13]

[12] PC: I know it means the loss of your name, but… [13]

[13] Finn: Whether or not he's my father, I still love him. I would not see his soul severed from the earth, if it's meant to return. If you can make a gift of the offering... there's no way I could repay you. [Back to 1]

[5] General: Goodbye.

PC: I’ll let you rest.

Finn: Lady keep you. [Exits the conversation]

(Speak with Gyda Myrdotten and the Master of the Hunt if you haven’t already.)

(Talk to Gyda about Caldan’s funeral.)

Gyda: Be welcome, Inquisitor, though I fear I've time for little more than a greeting. I must prepare these souls for their greater journey—particularly those who depart without the reverence due. Their way is often hardest. [14]

[14] Dialogue options:

Investigate: What are the proper rites? [15]

General: Is there a problem? [16]

General: Caldan’s son is injured. [17] (Becomes available after following the dialogue branch [16] “Is there a problem?”, provided that you already spoke to Finn.)

General: Goodbye. [18]

[15] Investigate: What are the proper rites?

PC: I'm not familiar with Avvar funerals. May I ask what proper rites entail?

Gyda: When the time comes, we are given sky burials. For most, the body is laid out, and prayers given. When the birds come, they carry the soul to the Lady of the Skies. The body, unneeded, is gone. [Go to 19 or back to 14]

[19] Special: You said “for most.”

PC: For most?

Gyda: Some souls—such as Caldan's—are chosen to return. The augur reads the signs at birth. It is a rare honor. In order to return, an offering is made to Korth the Mountain-Father and buried beneath the body. A piece of the soul thus remains, allowing the rest to return to this world and be reborn. [Back to 14]

[16] General: Is there a problem?

PC: Will someone not be given proper rites?

Gyda: Caldan Enversen is one of the few whose soul may return. Blood-kin must make an offering to the huntmaster, who prepares it. Or so it should be. Caldan's son, Finn, has failed in this duty. But then... there's you.

PC: Me?

Gyda: You're a guest of our hold. A gift from you cannot be refused—even an offering for Caldan. I cannot dictate the nature of a gift, but if my suggestion appeals to you, speak to the huntmaster. [Back to 14]

[17] General: Caldan’s son is injured.

PC: Caldan's son is injured. It's not his fault he can't make the offering.

Gyda: As disappointing as that may be, it is not my place to ignore the gods' laws on a whim. I honor them—in word and spirit, Inquisitor. [Go to 20 or back to 14]

[20] Special: You offered an alternative.

PC: You suggested a way around tradition by letting me make the offering?

Gyda: The spirits have seen Finn fail. To undo it may be to undo their will. A gift from another does not bear this weight. Caldan's soul could travel easily. [Back to 14]

[18] General: Goodbye.

PC: I should be off.

Gyda: Lady keep you. [Exits the conversation]

(Talk to the Master of the Hunt about Caldan’s funeral.)

Dialogue options:

General: About Caldan’s offering… [21]

[21] General: About Caldan’s offering…

PC: I spoke to the woman preparing bodies for funeral. She said I might make an offering. For Caldan.

Master of the Hunt: How would... as a gift! Sly woman. In that case, I'll accept an offering from the hand that gives it. Tradition says the offering's made to Korth. Only creatures who touch the gods' realm will do. I'll mark where some were last spotted. It'd be an unmatched gift, lowlander. I still pity Caldan's son though... losing his father's name. [Go to 22]

[22] Special: His name?

PC: What do you mean?

Master of the Hunt: Finn failed to complete the rites. That'll see him disowned when the burial's complete.

Party comments:

Sera: Wait, so he does this or he's the wrong kind of elf?

PC (in response to Sera): What?

Sera: Never mind. You help.

Master of the Hunt: He's fatherless whether you do this or not, Inquisitor. Seeing it done will give him some peace, I imagine.

(Search for the Fade-touched creatures in the Basin.)

(After killing one of the Fade-touched beasts.)

PC: One of the animals the huntmaster described.

Party comments:

Dorian: Strange creature—not like others we've seen. Apart from wanting to eat us. Fascinating. I suspect it came into contact with the Fade.

Cole: It's not like the others. It touched something larger, left itself pale.

Solas: A unique animal. Certainly unlike others in the Basin. It often traveled where the Veil is thin. Many creatures avoid such places.

Vivienne: A unique animal. Unlike others we've encountered. Many creatures avoid places where the Veil is thin. I suspect this was an exception.

(If no companion makes a comment.)

PC: This creature... it's different from others in the Basin.

(After killing the three Fade-touched beasts needed for the offering.)

PC: This should be enough for the offering.

Party comments:

First comment:

Sera: So give it to the hold and make Finn's life shit, or give it to Finn. We help him. Not asking. Do it.

Blackwall: Caldan's son has lost enough. We shouldn't allow him to lose his name. Give it to Finn.

Varric: The huntmaster said he'd accept a gift from the hand that gave it—let Finn do it.

Iron Bull: No one said a gift to the hold had to include everyone. Could be a gift for someone's son.

Cole: The hold is a place, but also the people in it. Like Finn. If he gave the offering, he will hurt, but less.

Second comment:

Vivienne: We've been permitted to bend tradition. It may be best to tread carefully.

Dorian: Bending the rules further than what's already allowed? Not to sound unkind, but we don't want to upset the hold.

Cassandra: Kind though that may be, it bends the laws of their tradition. It's... something to consider.

Solas: A generous thought that bends the laws of their tradition. Whether the Avvar—or their spirits—would see that as an act of kindness or disrespect is hard to say.

(Return to the Hold when you killed three Fade-touched beasts. You can hand the offering to Finn or to the Master of the Hunt.)

(If you decide to hand the offering to the Master of the Hunt.)

Dialogue options:

General: I have the offering.

General: I have the offering.

PC: I have the offering for Caldan Enversen.

Master of the Hunt: I'll see it properly prepared and sent to Gyda. She'll be making the final preparations soon, I imagine.

Party comments:

Vivienne: In times of crisis, too many die without proper rites or prayers. This was kindly done, my dear.

Blackwall: Won't be easy on the son. He's lost more than he should.

Master of the Hun: Finn Caldansen's a good lad. His father was always proud of him. Still would be.

(If you decide to hand the offering to Finn.)

Dialogue options:

General: Here. Take the offering.

General: Here. Take the offering.

PC: Here—an offering for your father. From you.

Finn: Inquisitor, I can't.

PC: Consider my gift to the hold a gift to you. Though perhaps don't spread that around.

Finn: But the huntmaster—

PC: Said he'd accept an offering from the hand that gave it.

Finn: I... I don't know what to say.

Party comments:

Cole: Say the words he would want: "Fly to the Lady in peace, and come back soon."

Varric: Just take care of yourself.

Sera: Say what they want, and you can belong. But maybe when you figure that threatening you was shit, come look for a Jenny.

Finn: Thank you.

(Return to Gyda.)

(If the offering was given to Finn.)

Gyda: I'm told our huntmaster prepares an offering from Finn Caldansen. Nothing more's been said. I will only thank you for paying hospitality to an invalid. I must complete the preparations. A strange turn of events may not make Caldan's journey any easier. The gods measure both outcome and the actions—or deceptions—behind it.

(If the offering was given directly to the Master of the Hunt.)

Gyda: I understand our huntmaster prepares Caldan Enversen's offering as we speak. This gift is beyond worth. You have my thanks, Inquisitor. I must complete the preparations.

[The quest ends.]

(If you reapproach Finn after handing the offering directly to the Master of the Hunt.)

Finn: The offering will be prepared for burial. My father... no, I'm only Finn. Still, I rest easy knowing Caldan's soul will journey well. Thank you, Inquisitor.

(If you reapproach Finn after handing the offering to him.)

Finn: Inquisitor, you're always welcome in my home.

(If you reapproach Finn after freeing Hakkon.)

Finn: You killed Hakkon Wintersbreath? The hold breathes easier now.

(If you reapproach Finn after receiving the legend-mark.)

Finn: "First-Thaw." You'll be remembered in our legends now. Not many lowlanders are.

[naturallyweirdedout]

Okay here I go

The Steven Universe Future Finale Was Not That Great

Just a note this is my own opinion.

Honestly I feel like the finale for SUF was decent at best and lack luster at worst. I’ll break these up into my views on each episode.

Homeworld Bound

Honestly this is one of the two episodes that disappointed me the most in this finale. Intially I went, yay Homeworld! We’ll get to see the Diamonds and Spinel and hopefully they’ll be helpful to Steven. And in all honesty it seemed like, they weren’t even trying. Firstly Spinel. I feel like Rebecca did Spinel really dirty in this episode simply because she was reduced to, comidic relief. And I feel as if that’s such a waste of her character potential. Imagine if every character that had a completed arc was just turned into “oh that goofball who doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about”. That’s literally Spinel now. All she does is annoy Steven and well, act like a bafoon. She could’ve offered him some insight, her struggles to change and adjust to her new life and be satisfied with herself. But nope, she simply was there just to annoy the main character and provide nothing useful. Then onto the Diamonds. Another wasted potential in all honesty. Yellow, Blue, and White didn’t even really TRY to help Steven at all. They basically shrugged it off and went ah shit well I can’t do anything for you bud even though we only talked for like 2 minutes and all I did was try to force the only way I know to improve onto you. It feels as if, they were only there just to show Steven “wow look at how these former murders and dictators improved! You sure are shit when compared to them now”. And White. White was the biggest waste compared to Yellow and Blue considering what potential she had. The one who caused all of Steven’s problems and issues. But nope, she was just like “ah Steven just project into me and this is surely to go fine even though you just basically acknowledged you don’t like your Diamond powers and this will most likely not help you”. I feel like this episode would have gone a lot better if the Diamonds and Steven had time to have proper interactions, or even just Steven, Spinel, and White due to the impact those two had on him directly. Just a lot of wasted potential in this episode that could’ve made the episode a lot better in my honest opinion.

Everything’s Fine

Now this episode was the better of the finale episodes, but still had its fair share of flaws. Steven comes back, and he has a good ol fashion mental breakdown essentially and tries to talk himself out of it and reassure himself. Good shit. However my problem was when the Gems showed up. It’s VERY VERY painfully obvious that Steven is not okay. I mean, all they commented on was that he looks weird. The dude literally had DIAMOND EYES. The fact that the FUCKING DIAMOND EYES went the ENTIRE EPISODE ignored just doesn’t make any sense. The Cyrstal Gems and the gems on Little Homeworld should have all been shocked at this but they all act like it’s nothing?? Anyways going to Little Homeworld and trying to act like everything was fine and dandy was really well done. I’m a bit annoyed though at just showing us Pink Pearl but not showing us her eye because that’s just a fucking tease at this point. Anyways, no other complaints really. Steven breaking down at the end was really intense to watch and my heart rate was actually speeding up. But then, that lead to the thing I did not want to happen.

I Am My Monster

To be fucking honest, I should’ve known. I really should have known but I just REALLY didn’t want it to be true. Steven turning into a monster literally is just. Oof. For starters, I do not support the corruption theory and I STILL do not, because what we saw wasn’t corruption. Steven shapeshifted. Corruption was shown to have only two causes. Either an attack on a Gem by Yellow, Blue, and White Diamond OR because of fusing with a corrupted Gem. There was no other hint or sign that a Gem could corrupt for any other reason. And there still is not. Yes Gem’s can poof because of extreme emotional stress and yes Volleyball was so damaged that the trauma manifested physically, but those were not examples that could support the corruption theory. Anyways, for starters I hate the design of Monster Steven. I really wish the color scheme could have been darker because that just would’ve been more aesthetically pleasing but I digress. There were so many ways I wished that the monster in the intro could’ve played a role in the series that didn’t involve Steven being corrupted. Perhaps a sort of mindscape battle between Steven and this monster, perhaps Pink Steven makes a return and turns into this monster and it’s a race against time to return the two Steven’s together, perhaps Pink Steven even took over normal Steven! But nope, it just HAD to be this way. Anyways enough of Monster Steven talk. My other issue was with well, everybody else. For starters, the Diamonds showing up? Convinient as fucking hell considering how a whole episode passed before they showed up again. Secondly, I hate the dismissal of Blue asking if Steven was corrupted or not because gosh shouldn’t we as an audience know what the hell is happening to our protagonist?? Also how did Garnet know that Yellow could make her big? As far as we know, perfecting physical forms is a new ability that Yellow discovered. I really liked Greg finally taking a stand in this episode to save his son, it kinda redeems how he was acting in Mr. Universe. But gosh I just hate how, everything broke into a crying fest? I’m gonna be honest and say that tears are a cheap way to invoke feeling in your audience and it can be overdone when EVERYONE ON SCREEN IS CRYING. And I hate the Diamonds blabbering about how “oh this is all my fault. No, no it’s all MY fault” because just, are you all just now acknowledging that you fucked Steven over. You mean in the entire time you’ve been buddy buddy with Steven you haven’t addressed this to him ONCE?! Bullshit. And Spinel, I was taking her a bit seriously until the fucking cartoonish nose blow then I just gave up with her. Way to degrade one of the best characters this show has provided. And the Cluster was just, deus ex machina. That was REALLY fucking convenient for the Cluster to just show up and help restrain Monster Steven. Anyways that’s all my complaints for that episode, now onto the final one.

The Future

The final episode of the series. Several years worth of progression have led to this point. And it was extremely lack luster. Honestly this episode felt like a fizzling end to the series. I’m glad that Steven decided to move out because honestly fuck that entire town it was harmful to the boy. I’m glad he finally got a therapist too. But this episode was essentially just, a good bye episode? And I feel like that alone cannot drive an episode along. Also Jasper’s character arc was ABSOLUTELY WASTED. Basically her entire arc is just being abused and putting that on repeat up until the end where they just disregard her as “hmph I’m angy now”. The only part of the episode I really liked, or can even properly remember for that sake, was Steven leaving at the very end and hugging the Gems. But tbh, Steven doesn’t have a high school diploma, legal papers, he’s not going to college, and he doesn’t have a job. So can someone tell me. How. Is. He. Gonna. SURVIVE.

Anyways that’s all I have left to say about the finale. Overall I feel pretty dissatisfied with it and this picture describes exactly how I feel.

If you wanna complain to me shout at my main @thespiffyspiffiestspif $5 a complaint

Also @salty-sapphire I got inspired to write a critique by you :) thanks for enlightening me to how legitimately bad this show is.

[xaksu]

{ Munday Meme } ☯️☀️☁️

the salty af munday meme -- @13xwishes 

☯ Have you ever tried to bring peace to a situation?

I have in the past but I’ve learned to stay out of people’s business. Unless it’s something that influences me or someone I love directly, I try to stay out of it. 

☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

I really dislike tag policing. It’s one thing to ask for triggers to be tagged (which is TOTALLY fair) but entirely ridiculous to come to someone’s blog and DICTATE THEM WHAT TO TAG THINGS AS. Like, relax Karen. The unfollow button is not hard to find. Neither is the block button. 

☁ Have you ever forgiven a partner when you shouldn't have?

Yes. Absolutely. I’d forgive them again too. I’m thinking of one specific person currently. Losing a friend over any kind of drama is never worth it. I believe that whether the person deserves it or not, if the situation can be bettered by forgiveness, than that’s the way to go. Forgetting, however, is a whole ‘nother story. Forgiving and forgetting don’t always go hand in hand. 

[uncloseted]

How does someone find their passion in life ? i'm going to uni next year and i have no idea what i want to study, or what i'm passionate about, as horrible as it is, i've never found anything i've liked more than just laying around all day, i could live forever doing nothing but i also don't want to have a work i job i completely hate but i know i have to work or study something eventually

So first things first, I think it’s important to say that your field of study/career doesn’t necessarily have to be your passion (and for that matter, what you study at uni doesn’t necessarily dictate your future career- a lot of people have degrees they never use).  I know that many of us have been sold this idea that a career can only be satisfying if it’s our “passion”. I think that’s a convenient narrative for aggressively capitalistic countries (the US being the biggest offender) because it sets a standard that we should be willing to do anything for our passion-career (unpaid internships, working for less than our labor is worth, doing unpaid work, putting up with toxic work environments, unreasonably long commutes...), since we’re not doing it for the money, we’re doing it because we genuinely love our jobs.  Maybe your passion is making dolls from corn husks or golfing or people watching or something else that’s not easy to monetize, and that’s totally okay.  It’s okay to have a job that you don’t love and aren’t super dedicated to because it allows you to do the things you do really love.  Your work shouldn’t have to be your life- work should allow you to live your life. 

Anyway, I do have some thoughts about how to find a career that works for you, whatever that might mean.  I’ve written about this before (of course, the internet cannot find it), but I would look into the Japanese concept of ikigai- your “reason for being”.

When searching for your ikigai, I would suggest making a list (no matter how short), of the things you love, the things you’re good at, the things the world needs, and the things you can be paid for.  Look for overlaps in each category, and try your best to think creatively about how you can combine the different categories.  For example, maybe you love movies, you think the world needs to know about global warming, and you’re good at organization.  Your ikigai in that case might be to be a coordinator on documentaries that focus on global warming.  It’s a job that pays pretty well, and also incorporates the other sections on your list, so it’s likely to feel fulfilling.

Moving away from ikigai, there’s this story that I think about a lot.  A great uncle told it to me, and I always assumed it was a story from his life until one day I discovered it was actually a chain email called The Parable of the Mexican Fisherman and the Banker.  I still think about it a lot, though, and it’s shaped the way I view work, so maybe it will be useful to you as well.  It goes like this:

An American investment banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small coastal Mexican village (in my uncle’s story, the fisherman is from Kalymnos and he dives for sponges) when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. The boat had several large, fresh fish in it.

The investment banker was impressed by the quality of the fish and asked the Mexican how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican fisherman replied he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman replied, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos: I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The investment banker scoffed, “I am an Ivy League MBA (in my family the school is always Harvard), and I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats until eventually, you would have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to the middleman you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You could control the product, processing and distribution.”

Then he added, “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City where you would run your growing enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15–20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?”

To which the investment banker replied, “Then you would retire. You could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

The question that this story prompts for me is, if you had unlimited time and resources, what kind of life would you lead?  Where would you live?  What would you spend your time doing?  Who would you be with?  Would you have pets?  Kids?  What would your daily routine look like?  Maybe the answer for you isn’t a university degree or an office job.  Maybe it’s not millions.  Maybe it’s diving for sponges on a Greek island or being a fisherman in Mexico.  I think it can be helpful to put together an image of that perfect life and then try to reverse engineer the best way of getting there instead of putting the onus on the job you have to shape what kind of life you want to lead.  Maybe you really want to have kids, so you need a job that will have a good parental leave policy or that has flexible hours or that will pay enough to support the family you want to have.  To me, those considerations are just as important as whether or not you feel interested in the job you do every day.

I would also think about the opposite- what kind of life could you absolutely not stand living?  What kind of workplace would drive you crazy?  Knowing what your “hard nos” can help you to narrow down the potential field of options. For example, my hard nos include anything to do with venipuncture, jobs that require me to be organized on behalf of other people, anything that’s heavy on performing/public speaking, jobs where people have high expectations of me (incidentally, this is the reason I’m not a therapist), and any environment that wants me to work more than 40 hours a week.  For some people, all of those are totally doable, but for me they’re not, and that’s okay.  There’s no reason to spend your life doing things that make you miserable. 

The last thing I’m going to suggest is the CareerExplorer quiz.  I like this quiz in particular for a few reasons.  First, it’s a really comprehensive test, and so I think it can help you find the language to describe what you’re going through, what your hard yesses and hard nos are, and what you need in a work setting. Even if the answers the test gives aren’t perfect, I think it provides a framework to think about career options because of the questions it asks.  The other reason I really like this test is because so far it’s been 100% correct for everyone I know, even those with more obscure careers, so it seems to be more exact than other career aptitude tests out there.  And the user interface is really nice as well, which is a bonus.

Hopefully some of that is helpful in your decision making process.  And if you ever want someone to bounce ideas off of or help coming up with careers that might be a good fit for you, I’m happy to help.

[viostormcaller]

I've been doing some thinking about some shit lately.

It's December, and we're closing in on an entirely new decade. And in that same year, I'm going to be 20. I'm like. An adult now. Not a teenager anymore. And I'm thinking I should really start growing up a bit more now and start... I dunno, coming into my own, I guess. Course, not gonna try to be or turn into someone I'm not, but in that same vein I wanna destroy the expectations people have of me and do things that they'd never expect of me, and at the same time not doing what they think I should be doing. Because I know what I WANT to do, and I can tell my mom and my sister have preconcieved notions of who I am and, in my mom's case, what I should be doing and she has expectations of what I should do at certain points in my life. But I wanna carve my own path and get there how I wanna get there, not how she thinks I should get there, if I even reach the points in my life that she thinks I should reach (a lot for her sake, like having children to give her grandchildren, for example), which I may not.

Another thing... there's something else I wanna work on, which is trying to be less of a people-pleaser. I tend to keep the peace by not posting or saying or doing things that others may not like, even if I like them, and I wanna stop doing that. And I think a good place to start is here, because I've said before, there's a lot of writing specifically that I'm proud of that I don't post because the topic (the whole "egoshipping" thing) makes others uncomfortable. And I've been thinking about that lately and realizing how fucked up that is, to suppress the things that makes me happy for the sake of others. And I've been thinking that, if there's a topic I post that others don't like, they can choose to not interact (like I'll tag shit of course so they can blacklist, not gonna be an ass about it XD) or unfollow, and if they want nothing to do with me at all (if it comes to that), then maybe it wasn't a friendship worth having in the first place. I wanna start posting more of the things I like, especially because it's MY blog at the end of the day and I shouldn't let anyone else dictate (directly or otherwise) what I should be posting.

I'm going to be 20, and it's time to do some growing up, to start letting shit go and stop relying so heavily on others for my own happiness. I have to be my own person. And I wanna get my shit together within these next ten years. I wanna get shit done, I wanna get a job, I wanna move out, I wanna stop being so afraid of stepping outside of my comfort zone and stop making so many excuses (without trying to ignore my own limits, of course), and I wanna start projects. I wanna DO things and I'm never gonna get anywhere if I'm sitting at home for forever doing nothing but playing video games and watching youtube all day long. I mean for right now those things are fine, but I gotta grow up sometime and start getting things moving.

These last few years fucking sucked and I'm still dealing with the after effects, mostly mentally, of that. But I wanna start these next ten years of my life strong, and I wanna make 2020 the start of a new era in my life and make myself anew, while being true to who I've always been.

[elmidol]

Yours and Yours Alone

Three Blind Tooke Part Two Precarious Harmony

Read on AO3

Warnings: none

Three Blind Tooke

Part Two: Precarious Harmony

Chapter Thirty-Four : Yours and Yours Alone

 It was the Naboo of your childhood that you dreamed of and longed for on those rare occasions you had time to dwell on your desires. That was the Naboo that flashed before your mind’s eye in the seconds succeeding Kylo Ren ordering the course to be set. Your father was alive on that Naboo, and you momentarily allowed yourself to imagine what your wedding would have been like in more ideal circumstances. Your father walking you down the aisle. The groom someone you cared for, someone who had never harmed you. The fantasy was not something that could last. Kylo Ren nibbled on your finger again prior to him pulling away and rising to his feet. You stared directly ahead at his shins.

 The screen that had depicted the Resistance fleet caught your attention. You lifted your eyes to it, observing the destruction of the cruiser that had started to face the  Supremacy . Perhaps it had been readying itself for a last minute attack. It was futile to dwell on it. You had other concerns, such as how long Kylo Ren planned to leave the Resistance alone. He would need time to draw Rey closer to himself and the Knights of Ren. Now that he was Supreme Leader, he had far too many resources at his disposal. Far too much power.

 You were not like that. This was one aspect where you were far different than your captor. You had never fallen in love with the idea of power, and thus you were not seduced by the title Kylo now held.

 Panting from the exertion of the fight and the heat in the throne room, you pushed yourself onto your feet and rejected the hand that Kylo offered. His eyes narrowed when you stepped around him with the intention of re-joining Rey. It was not your name you heard called. From the ginger haired man that had given the order resulting in your mother’s demise, it was  tooka  . From the man that had captured you and, cruelly, kept you alive, it was  tooke . You had had numerous names since you had left home and joined the Resistance. It was but a simple task for you to shed them as you moved on to a different chapter.

 Your hands fit together well, fingers entwined with the names tattooed onto your flesh available for your viewing pleasure. That was all a marriage to Kylo Ren would be, you thought. A new name, nothing more.

 You recalled the night you had felt wetness on your cheek, which you had believed were tears from your enemy. You remembered the times he had accused you of feeling nothing for him.  This means nothing. That did sum up how you were beginning to feel. This numbness would not last you forever. Naboo would jar you back to the reality of your situation as well as that of the galaxy.

 The heat of the throne room faded away as you traveled down the hallway. Two sets of footsteps followed behind you. General Hux and Kylo Ren spoke to one another regarding upcoming plans for the First Order, namely how they would strengthen the army that would face Skywalker alongside the Knights of Ren. The Resistance would aim to recuperate enough to face the First Order anew. These men were in no way idiots. While the late-Supreme Leader had in fact been pulling the strings, it was becoming increasingly clear to you that Kylo Ren and General Armitage Hux had been solely responsible for numerous decisions they had made. They were less puppet-like than you had believed.

 The new Supreme Leader lengthened his strides to allow himself the ability to take the lead. Your pace fell, slowing until both men were in front of you. Your gaze flicked from one to the other and back. In the long stretches of hallways and corridors that the three of you took to rejoin Rey and Captain Phasma, you found yourself wondering if this was all nothing more than a dream. Or perhaps it was hell. If being by your father had been real, if it had been the quick stage of purgatory before you were judged for your monstrous deeds committed for the sake of killing monsters, this could very well be your prison. It would last forever if that were the case.

 The rims of Rey’s eyes were red, as though the young woman had shed tears when saying her farewell to the unconscious Finn. There were a multitude of other reasons for her to have cried.

 Kylo looked to the female Force user while gesturing to you. “Care for her. She will take you to my quarters. I will not use them until better accommodations have been made for you.”

 It went without saying that Kylo Ren refused to entrust your life to either Captain Phasma or General Hux. He knew that Rey would keep you safe. In a beautifully, twisted way the man who had condemned you to this life was attempting to protect you. Marriage ensured that those who served him would no longer view you as a prisoner, as a Resistance member. Their lingering resentment would forever remain in the same manner that you would never be capable of erasing the past. The difference would be that their obligation to treat you, namely when it came to medical issues, would intensify. Any insult served to you would be directed towards the Supreme Leader. If either Hux or Phasma attempted to harm you, they would be committing treason. Given that they were equally responsible for the death of Snoke and his guards, they did not have any sort of leverage over the Force user.

 A pair of cold, blue-green eyes landed on your body. General Hux was now aware that Kylo Ren knew of his intentions to either use or kill you. Anything to weaken the new Supreme Leader. It was why the redhead was being forced to remain so close to the other man’s side, at least until the Knights of Ren arrived.

 You were merely grateful for the fact that you would have time away from the two men that had been dictating how your life would go. Without waiting to see if Rey would follow you, you headed in the direction that you remembered Ren’s quarters were located. You did not have the  Supremacy  mapped out in your mind in the same manner that you had been able to commit the  Finalizer  to memory. The blank spaces in your mental map caused you to pause in your steps, to hesitate in making decisions when it came to picking a direction. Rey’s footsteps echoed yours.

 “You should have gone with them, with your friends,” you murmured when the two of you were on the lift that would take you to the hallway leading to Ren’s quarters. “You think there’s good in Ren—and, I guess, in a way there is… I’ve seen it. But it’s not… You shouldn’t have stayed for him. I know you think you were close to changing him, but—”

 “I didn’t stay for Ben,” Rey said, her voice firm yet gentle as she interrupted you. “I stayed for  you .”

 You collapsed to your knees at her words. Fingers were in your hair, and those were yours. Hands were on your shoulders, and those were hers. Your jaw was aslack, your lungs taking in shaky breaths. Inhaling then exhaling in hopes to expel the sudden pressure in your chest.

 The bottom line was that you did not feel as though you were worth saving. Not only due to your broken body, which could fail at any given moment because you had treated it poorly following your injuries; you had aided Kylo Ren in bringing this woman across the galaxy to him. She would have left with her friends if not for you. Perhaps she would have been able to join Luke Skywalker in facing the First Order. Or she would have fallen with the last of the Resistance. Either way, you had no place in her destiny. You did not deserve that after all you had done.

 Once upon a time, Kylo Ren had said that you were not afraid of dying. You had contradicted this with the truth, that you were afraid. But what terrified you beyond anything else was leading others to their deaths. This could very well be what you had done for Rey. All because she believed that you were worth protecting.

 “I helped prepare him for hearing his birth name come from your lips.” You felt like the lowest lifeform in all the universe. Rey genuflected beside you, her hand on your back. You flinched at the contact. Your vision swam, the various shades of grey melding together then drifting apart. With the danger posed by Snoke and the guards fading away into a thing of the past, with the Resistance temporarily safe from the First Order, the adrenaline that had been coursing through you lessened. This coupled with your emotionally vulnerable state to render you exhausted. You feared that you would lose consciousness on the lift. Rey murmured something to you. It took longer for your brain to register it.  It doesn’t matter. I know why you did it.  The sob that left you this time was one of sheer relief.

 You laughed next as the tears spilled down your cheeks. You believed her. Had the words come from anyone else, such as Rose or another Resistance member, you would not have trusted them. With Rey, you knew that she could understand your motivations better than most. Ironically, it was due to the Force that she was able to wield. The Force, which you continued to  hate  because of how it had been used against you.

 The lift came to a stop, however neither you nor Rey stepped off. You pinched the bridge of your nose between two fingers in the hopes of relieving some of the pressure that was building from the storm of emotions assaulting you. Rey’s hand moved from your back. She cupped your upper arm, tugged you to your feet, and slid her other arm behind your back to cradle you. You allowed her to drag you along. All the while you offered clipped statements to aid in directing her to Kylo Ren’s quarters.

 You stumbled through the door, and broke away from the young woman who had been the embodiment of hope for you. Your hands were moving of their own accord, or perhaps from some subconscious need to rid yourself of the First Order insignias that existed on the borrowed clothing you had been given. You stripped down to nothing more than your undergarments. It did not occur to you that Rey might be uncomfortable with the display. You had momentarily forgotten all social etiquette your parents had drilled into you from a young age. There was a loose shirt, one of Ren’s, that you grabbed out instead.

 Only once you were clothed did you remember that she was present. You regarded the brunette, who had sat on the edge of the bed. Her palms were on the mattress, and her eyes were on you. Cautiously, you ducked your head and walked over to the piece of furniture. She had been in this room with you and Kylo before via their bond. Not that the two of you had been able to see one another. Regardless, it allowed for a sense of calm to easily envelope the room. You climbed onto the mattress and rested your head on the pillow you had previously used. Rey stretched out next to you.

 “You’re to be his Knight...and me… He wants to marry me. After all he’s done, I’m supposed to be his wife.” There was a tremor in your voice, and you despised it with all your being.

 You laid there in bed with Rey, your flesh covered by nothing more than the loose shirt and your undergarments. She was on her stomach. Her head turned towards you so that she was able to see your face. “You’re afraid.” A statement from her, one you had heard come from Ren’s lips. It was different now. Worry in her voice mingled with confusion. Despite the bond that existed between the two of you, she did not know you as well as he did.

 “It shouldn’t matter what anyone else thinks, not really,” you said in a whisper that was loud enough for her to hear without straining. “It’s  my  choice. He wronged  me . Whether I forgive him or not… Whether I choose to put that—all of it—into the past or not…

 “But that isn’t how I think of things. Not with this. I think as though I’m on the outside looking in. I think of it as though I had been watching who I’ve been forced to become. And who I might have been.  How could she be with him like that?  But any choice I make is wrong. Any choice I make is right. It’s my choice.  Mine . I just… I don’t know how to make it. It’s so easy to judge when you’re on the outside looking in. It’s easy to make the decision.”

 You rolled over to where your back was to her, quite similar to the way you laid that first night in bed with Kylo. Back when you had referred to him only as  creature . This part of what you had to say, you could not look her in the eye. You had spoken of the incident with General Hux before you had had sex with him. There had been a lack of details offered on your part. For this, you were grateful given how things had turned out with the officer.

 “I don’t… There are many things that I do not remember. He used the Force to control me many times.” You swallowed thickly, squeezed closed your eyes, and forced yourself to take a trip down a dark portion of memory lane. “Snoke said that Kylo hated me because of a memory I had from my childhood. It was a memory that he saw when he was in my head that first time. I didn’t know that at the time though. The thing that terrified me, that hurts more than anything… I… I remember him hesitating that first time, right before he had me use his lightsaber to…” You shook your head again, unable to say the words aloud despite having said them before. “He knew what he was doing was wrong, that it was… He didn’t rape me with his body that time.”

 Rey had shifted on the bed behind you. The mattress rocked, and there was a sound of flesh sealing over lips. Her hand. She muffled any noise she may have made, which drove further the horror of what had happened to you. You had forgotten that she could not have known how Kylo Ren had treated you, not to the extent he had. She had known you were his prisoner as well as his guest. You could sense from your bond that she knew he cared for you on some strange level, that it confused you and shook you to your core. He had hurt you. She had to have been able to sense that. She clearly had not been prepared for the news that Kylo Ren had raped you.

 The dam, however, had been broken. Words tumbled from your lips faster than your mind could process them. You felt safe with her. It was the first time you found that you could say these things aloud. The first time you were speaking with someone who had never been your enemy about the horrors you had faced, all you had endured.

 “He did it in stages. Looking back, it’s almost like he had to build up to the actual rape. And even with that, I had no control of my body. He couldn’t pin me down that first time. He almost did. In the forest, he almost raped me, but he stopped when I finally broke down and begged him to not. I wonder what was going through his mind then. If he remembered that he was human, that what he was doing was wrong. If that’s true, though, he used my mouth like it didn’t matter. Then his hand.”

 Adrenaline coursed through your veins as you spoke. You were trembling, your teeth chattering together as though you were again on the cold surface of Starkiller Base. Behind you erupted a sob. You mentally swore prior to releasing an audible curse. Hearing someone cry on your behalf stung. You were not searching for sympathy. Knowing that you were receiving it did not still your tongue.

 “At the end of it, the first time he raped me… When I truly lost my virginity to him, I… I don’t remember most of it. Just bits and pieces. The end of it, though, I had control again. He said: ‘You seemed to enjoy yourself, little tooke.’ And then he told me, while he was, uh, putting… While he was re-adjusting himself, he told me that I was ‘such a pretty sight’. I thought it was to insult me, but the horrible thing is that I think he meant it. I don’t think he meant to say it. He did... He would do things every now and again that in retrospect I believe is proof that on some disgusting level he did care for me. How do I forgive and forget that? That isn’t… That is not the kind of love I was raised to know.”

 You fell quiet, and the room was filled only by the sounds of your breathing and the muffled crying of the young woman in bed with you. There was a part of you that wished to tell Rey she need not cry for you. Those horrors were in the past. Besides, you were unable to accept any sympathy; this you learned as the sensation of being struck through the heart caused your chest to ache. This occurred, too, beyond the fact that someone was pitying you and delving into the realm of your realization that your volatile feelings for Kylo Ren did include the hints of affection. That tiny glimmer of light within him, you loved it. It was this same glimmer that had assisted in persuading Rey to board the  Supremacy .

 Taking pity on Rey for the level of empathy she had, you moved your body to allow your eyes to meet. Those tears nearly broke your heart. Her entire form trembled with another sob. Given that she had grown up as a scavenger from Jakku, you well knew that she had seen sights of such horror in the past. Mangled bodies, losses of limb, carnage you learned only after joining the Resistance. Had she ever allowed herself to grow close to any of those individuals? Or was the intimacy of friendship—and of Force bonds—new to her? For you, it had been months since you had done this, cared for someone and not regarded them as an enemy, as someone who would betray you.

 Trembling, that was the behavior of the hand you used to reach towards her face. You touched her cheek just above where her own hand rested as she kept her mouth covered. This time when you spoke, your voice was as quiet as it had been before yet far more gentle. Soothing words spilled from your lips. Some of them were lies. Others were half-truths. Rey listened to it all. Her hand shifted away from her mouth and met your hand. She cupped it to her face, increasing the pressure you used. Your heart stuttered, your words momentarily failed you.

 An impression through the bond, the sense of self-loathing over how Rey had allowed herself to become entangled in the connection she had with Kylo Ren, the one that had been created—or at least nursed—by Snoke. She had traversed that dark mind while in the heat of battle. It had spurred her onwards, allowed her to defeat the Praetorian Guards. She had  welcomed  it. Now that she was aware of the what its source had been capable of doing, Rey was appalled.

 “You are not responsible for his actions,” you whispered, stroking her hair. “Neither is Snoke.” Her mouth closed, and the sob this time was silent as well as much weaker than its predecessors. “Snoke… I know that he influenced Kylo’s choices. He helped to corrupt him, to drag him further into the darkness. Ultimately, though, it was Kylo who did that to me. Not Snoke.”

 “When… When he was younger, Luke sensed darkness in him. Ben woke up to his uncle standing over him with a lightsaber drawn. He believed—”

 “I tried to kill Kylo. Many times,” you said, cutting her off. “And he’s nearly killed me more than once. Luke Skywalker is  not  responsible for my being raped. There is never any excuse for it.”

 This was something that she already believed as well, though she childishly attempted to rationalize such violent behavior. She was bracing herself for whichever decision you made. Conjuring arguments to support a decision to forgive him; giving room for you to demand she understand why you could not. More than that, she wanted to comfort you. It was as though she could sense just how confused  you  were.

 “I didn’t stay for Ben. But I don’t want to give up hope that he can return.”

 You did not have the heart to argue with her. At one point—at multiple points—you had harbored similar hopes. The female Force user placed one hand on your upper arm. She voiced that she would not allow you to be lost; you were not a sacrifice to return Ben Solo to the Light. Your eyes wandered her face. Was this how Kylo Ren had felt when he had called you foolish for clinging onto the Resistance after your capture? You were not as cruel as he was. You squeezed your hands into fists between your body and hers, ensuring that the tattoos were not within sight.

 “I hate the Force.” Rey shook her head. Her tears had dried up, and now her brow furrowed. She began speaking of the Force’s beauty. The balance. Light. Dark. Life. Death. You mouthed a single word.  No.

 Rey lifted her torso then cupped your face in both of her hands. “I felt you through the Force.” It felt as though she had delivered a blow to your stomach. “Some of the goodness I sensed from Ben… It came from  you . I felt you, how you have complicated him. I know the darkness in him is more than I want to believe. That is not the Force. The Force is in all living things. It connects us, and I… I refuse to believe that it is evil. I’ve touched that darkness. Not only in the throne room with Snoke. On Starkiller as well. I almost gave in, but that wasn’t the Force, not really. That was my anger.

 “The things he did, the way he robbed you of your freewill, that  is  evil. That was  him  . That was not the Force.” It was strange how quickly things had changed; you were now the one sobbing, and she was the speaker. You did want to believe her. More than anything, you wanted to be the person you had been in the past. The one who knew that there existed monsters in the galaxy, while also appreciating all the beauty that life had to offer. “He tortured me on Starkiller, and it is nothing I can ever forget. I chose to forgive him—and you’re right. It is  your  choice. It doesn’t matter what I chose. My hurts are my own. Please don’t let him take this away from you though. Whether you’re able to forgive him or not, don’t let him take away  your  light. Because I saw it. I saw you through the Force. Not your face. It wasn’t anything physical. It was  you . The Force is in you, and you are not evil. You’re not something to hate.”

 You clutched the front of her clothing, balling the material into your fists and brushing your nose along hers. You wanted, desperately, to believe what she was saying. On some level, you did. Yet your mind argued with you. It waged a war.  You had sex with your mother’s killer.  The voice within was cruel and merciless.  You failed to save your comrades. You’ve developed feelings for their murderer.  A smaller voice, an echo of Rey’s, whispered:  Some of the goodness I sensed from Ben… It came from you.

 She had told you that you had complicated him, and you had previously informed him that was what he had done to you. Was  that  the Force? A paradox that could cause great awe and terrible fear? It was what you wished to believe. You allowed yourself to clasp onto this view. Thought of that moment with your father, the one that may or may not have been real. If the Force had allowed that—oh, but it was cruel yet merciful. Seeing your father, only to have him release you.

 Before exhaustion at long last claimed its victory, you whispered Rey’s name just to hear her say yours.

 ~

 The hammering of your heart was relentless as you rounded the corner, shuffling quickly enough that he could miss seeing you, though you did not run as such actions would summon his gaze. You had thus far been able to avoid Kylo Ren. Seeing him there in the doorway, his eyes surveying every individual who passed him by, had evoked a strong sense of fear. Fear as well as anticipation. You squeezed your eyes closed, pressed up against the wall, and took the risk of glancing past the corner. Air was sucked from your lungs. Empty. It reminded you far too much of the day he had nearly killed you, the day you had become his prisoner. You desperately searched further, craning your neck to no avail.

 Your lips formed a mute swear. Pushing off the wall, you flung yourself down the hallway at a brisk pace. Remaining out in the open would get you caught. You needed more time away from him. Time to finish clearing your head. The visit you had had with Rey replayed in your mind. There had been such clarity offered. Life beyond Kylo Ren. She had not used a nickname with you. It was  you  she spoke to. Not anyone she thought you should be or were. No sense that she was claiming you despite the bond you shared.

 A dim glow had you halting long enough to open the door and head down the stairs. You cursed the metal that they were made from. The sounds of your footsteps echoed off the walls, forcing you to slow your pace. At the bottom of the stairs, you searched the room. Supplies. Hearing the door open, you wasted no time in diving to the shadowy corner underneath the stairs. You held a hand over your mouth to muffle your own breathing. One step. Another. Pausing. The footsteps moved in the opposite direction.

 It was as you were lowering your hand from your mouth that you saw movement in your peripheral. Not enough time to react. The hand on your breast belonged to the arm blocking you from moving forward. His other hand dragging aside the collar of your shirt. A wet kiss on your collarbone then teeth. He nibbled at you, pressed his body into yours, and gently groped your chest. The hand that had been tugging at your shirt moved around you. A loose embrace. The hand now cupping you, rubbing you through the layers of your clothes.

 Tilting back his head, Kylo Ren whispered, “You knew I’d find you.” You did. “I always do.” He did. “Tooke.” It sounded so filthy, the husky way he said your pet name. Your jaw slackened. Already you were panting, and confusion began to cloud your mind. It excited you that he was holding you this way. Physically it felt good, his lips skimming your flesh before his tongue flattened over the bite marks he was leaving. Not enough to hurt. A quick pressure. Sucking at the skin he captured. “You can’t hide from me.”

 That was the dream that had plagued you as you slept in Rey’s arms. It was the catalyst for your leaving the bed to escape into a shower. The spray of the water hit to the left of your leg. You were huddled in the corner, your knees brought up to your chest and your arms wrapped around them. Droplets of water splashed from the floor onto your feet and legs. A light mist wet other portions of your body. You had locked the door to the refresher. Originally you had not intended to take so long, however the tears had started. The confusion mounting anew. You would soon be on Naboo, albeit a different one than from your fantasies.

 Susurrations filtered through the vents that connected the refresher to the remainder of the quarters. The bond between Kylo Ren and Rey had not been eliminated despite Snoke’s demise. You had not expected it would, considering yours remained as well. And you were no Force user.

 What was she saying to him? You failed to comprehend the snippets and syllables that did meet your ears.

 Steam crawled along the walls of the shower stall. Condensation clung to the tiles, and you swiped a lone finger down a straight line. The water was more heated than the dialogue exchanged by the two Force users. Rey was not discussing what you had shared with her. It was something else. Something… Your eyes widened as you heard the door to Kylo Ren’s quarters open. Concern did not warrant a visit from the new Supreme Leader. Even though you had locked her out. How  was  she to react to that? Kylo Ren knew you better than she did, you reminded yourself.

 There were no inhibitions that may have prevented Kylo Ren from unlocking the refresher door. He did not call upon the Force to do so. Rey would have been plenty capable of accomplishing that much. She did not want to use the Force against you as Ren had countless times.

 Your head collided gently with the showerwall. Staring up at the ceiling, you did not react when the curtain was drawn aside. That wretched dream replayed. He always found you. Presently he lowered himself into a crouch. One shoulder met the very edge of the wall. The spray formed a mist of droplets on the side of his face. The familiarity of his presence was a sinful comfort for you. You dropped one hand away from your legs to pat the floor directly beside yourself. You had done this before as well. Asking him to sit next to you. Only then the both of you had been dressed and outdoors.

 That had been the first time he had kissed you.

 This was no repetition. Unlike on the previous occasion, Kylo Ren did not oblige. The muscles in your legs contracted, as though you would leap up and run somewhere—away from the rejection. “The tooke will break.” He said such cruel things to you. So hurtful. It was like nails dragging down the length of your heart, shredding it to pieces. “You’re funny.” You shot him a glare.

 Faltered the next second. Kylo Ren had drawn aside his cape and lifted the hem of his tunic. Attached to a belt loop on his pants was the electronic pet he had once given you. This. These were the actions he made that baffled you. The tangible objects you had been gifted. He always brought them back to you. The tooke hairclip withdrawn from somewhere on his belt.

 “I vowed to you that I would keep you by my side—the best position for you to find openings to end my life. Marriage is a tool for you to gain the supplies and techniques you need.” What was the marriage to him? You were too afraid to ask. “For you to kill your past with me, if that is what you decide… You were fighting for him.”

 “My father,” you said, your voice pitched. It was as though the water had frozen to ice. It stung your flesh wherever the mist touched. You no longer thought of the Naboo from your childhood; instead, you imagined the place your father’s headstone would be. Had he been cremated? Had he been buried? It was the first time Kylo Ren had offered you any true sense of closure.

 That was not the love that your parents had ensured you grew to know either. It was not the toxicity that had once been your relationship with the man.

 You broke eye contact first. His gaze lingered on your face even as you stood from the floor to twist the knobs and shut off the water. You rested your forehead on the wall. The absence of a threat to the electronic pet left an opening for Kylo Ren to enter the shower. He did not hesitate in taking it. The material of his clothing pressed up against your naked skin.

 “‘The First Order will devour the Resistance’.” His lips were on the back of your neck. His breath when he exhaled at the sound of your words. “You did. You consumed my life before I met you, and it changed who I had been. Then you ate away my future with your blade. Dined on the final bits of what I used to be, who I used to be. You made me hate the Force for a while there. Worse, you caused me to hate myself. You said you wanted that. I wanted you to be unlovable, and you wanted me to be  nothing .”

 “You were never nothing. Not to me.”

 “I exist beyond you.” It felt like a weak half-truth. So caught up had you been in hunting him, now you were posing to yourself the question General Hux had once asked. If Kylo Ren died: what then? What would you do then? Now, if he did not die, if you chose to join him… “I could never join the First Order, nor what it stands for.”

 That mouth was at your ear. “Your skills will assist both the Resistance and the First Order. Rey is similar. The two of you will learn. I will bring peace and order to the galaxy. Snoke was wise, yet still foolish. It took me a while to understand that, but I did. You… You and Rey, you helped me to see.”

 The cost of this revelation had simply been so much of you.

 “The guards were not the last of Snoke’s allies, nor have they been the only factor driving this war into what it has become. The New Republic allowed for this as much as those funding the creation of the weapons we use. The Resistance is not ignorant, not its leaders. They knew. How could they not?”

 You better understood what Rey had attempted to convey to you the previous night. How one’s humanity—any species, their morality—could alter what the Force stood for. What the war stood for. Kylo Ren had once used the Force against you, perverting its very nature and robbing you of yours. It was not the Force you had hated. These others, these seemingly neutral parties, they  did  love war. It was not peace that they hoped for. It was money. If ever the galaxy was to find peace, eventually the First Order and the Resistance, what was left of each, had to achieve the same goal. They had to find a common cause. It had worked to defeat Snoke.

 “I’m terrified to trust you.” His hands eclipsed yours. You stared at the leather, which hid those two names from your eye. “Who are we becoming?”

 He did not attempt to offer a response. It could be that he did not have one, or that he feared it would upset you. Whichever the case, the silence hung in the air. Kylo walked with you out of the shower, and wrapped a towel around your body. Rey’s reflection caught your eye in the mirror. You looked from the reflective surface to the young woman herself. She stood in the doorway, awkwardly shifting from one leg to the other. Your near nakedness had a limited impact on her. Her gaze wandered about your body, generally remaining on your shoulders and higher. Ren broke physical contact only once he had positioned you closer to the door and the female Force user.

 The words Hux cannot be left alone for long slipped from him as he nodded at Rey and exited the refresher. Your bare feet slapped against the ground. Rushing forward, you barely managed to catch his wrist. There was no need for you to articulate the reasoning for your actions. He rolled the arm that you had latched onto, securing the tooke clip that was within the hand into your hair. His hand then patted directly over where the electronic pet was located. Rather than return this item to you as well, the man whispered that he would give it to you after you spoke with your father on Naboo.

 There was no room to argue with him. Not because you did not desire the familiarity of the pet; Kylo Ren had spoken the truth in regards to General Hux. Without Kylo, Rey or the Knights of Ren present, the First Order officer would seek out any means to overthrow the new Supreme Leader. And he would be far more ruthless in his methods of destroying the Resistance.

 When again it was only the two of you inside of Kylo Ren’s quarters aboard the  Supremacy , Rey said your name. You looked to the right in order to meet her inquiring gaze. She, averting her eyes, asked how you had been captured by the First Order. Throughout your entire tale the previous night, you had never elaborated on that part of the tale. You set a lone hand over your abdomen, touching your scar through the towel. There were no more splinter cells. Speaking of them endangered none of your allies. You did not worry if Kylo Ren had any cameras hidden in this room—you doubted that they existed here. The young woman listened to your story. How you had come to obtain the position of LDS tasked with the duty of hunting down Kylo Ren. You spoke of your capture. Waiting there to be burned along with your allies. You ended the story there. No need to revisit the other horrors.

 “When you were ill, he told me that your body was in a weakened state because of a lightsaber wound.” You nodded, offered up the medical terms that had been given to you.  Secondary endometriosis.  The way your organs had been fused together and damaged. A weakened immune system. “You’re struggling with the idea of marrying him.” This was true. You accepted it on many levels, namely the reasoning Kylo Ren had brought up in the refresher. Yet this was not how you had envisioned things would be if ever you wed. Rey pushed off the door frame and walked towards the center of the room. “I’m to lead the Knights of Ren. I want peace for the galaxy. I know to let the Force guide me—Master Skywalker… He may not have been the greatest teacher, but I did learn things from him. It is easy to give into the darkness. I told him that I would not fail him as Kylo had.”

 You better understood her, and why she had cried the previous night. Not only at what you had been dealt, but with whom she had aligned herself. She felt as though she was betraying her allies, though you understood her true reasoning for remaining behind. At this time, the best way to defeat the First Order was from within. She could not return to Luke’s side as she wanted to. Rey had to rely on herself, to know and accept herself in the same manner you had been forced to. In doing so, she would learn to work with the Knights of Ren. She would break down the poison being fed to the minds within the First Order. Kylo Ren was wavering; why should his Knights— her  Knights—be any different?

 It was ironic to you that Kylo Ren’s jealousy had caused him to attempt to pervert your connection with Rey. Now he was pushing you towards one another. Did he realize what he had done? Neither of you had to work alone. You both would toe that darkness without allowing the other to be submerged.

 The sense of loneliness that had lingered regardless of whether Hux or Ren were in your presence was eliminated. You had a true ally here. The Resistance had sent the both of you on this mission, albeit at different times. Bring down Kylo Ren. Defeat the First Order.

 “For now, Kylo will get precisely what he wants.” You paused, allowing time for the information to be digested. You were struggling with the it yourself. It went against so much of what you had been trained for, what you had been aiming to do. “You as the new Master of the Knights of Ren. He is the Supreme Leader of the First Order. And I’ll… I can marry him. Marriage can mean nothing.” Rey’s lips twitched. As though something was dancing on the tip of her tongue; something that she did not allow herself to say. You already knew what it was, for it was on the tip of your tongue as well. At the forefront of your thoughts.

 The marriage did mean something. It was more than nothing. It was only after marrying him that you would know if you would focus on killing him, or allow yourself to set aside the past. You swiped your thumbs on the undersides of your ring fingers.

  His.

 What you had struggled against, denied countless times. Only by allowing yourself to become his wife, by agreeing to the marriage, would you know the extent of the broken love you had for one another.

 “I’m terrified, Rey.”

 “Any choice you make is yours.” It was different, you mused, than when you had gone to General Hux’s bed under the false pretense of having a choice. Forgiveness. That  was  your choice, and one that no one could force from you. “Any choice you make is  right .”

 It is wrong to want someone to die. It is wrong to forgive someone for committing unspeakable crimes. It is wrong to kill in cold blood. It is wrong to love your enemy. It is wrong to hate.

 You lifted the names to your lips and kissed them.

  Dad, what is the right choice for me?

[derekscorner]

When relevancy goes too far

Relevancy is a bit of a complex topic the more you think about it. How far do you push it? Which parts of a story are needed to know the other? How should something define the follow up? These questions have widely different answers depending on the person and especially depending on format.

Hell, if you wish to nit pick it further, even the series in question is a factor. Some series’ thrive on whats done while others drown in their own scripts. I believe Kingdom Hearts is one of the latter.

That said, I am not someone who hates KH’s expanded stories simply for existing. The “side games” in of themselves aren’t bad nor is the idea of using such things to expand a world. The same could be said for game novels or comics in my opinon.

However, these things can be a slippery slope or a lazy exist. For example, Assassin’s Creed threw out it’s whole Juno arc into a comic just to get it out of the way which completely shattered my investment.

In turn, Nomura himself isn’t at fault for as much as we bash him for. Something he’s admitted himself as seen here;

So, the new Days is one of the three titles announced in the Autumn of 2007 as new projects in the KH series.

Nomura: Those three titles were all announced at the same time, but in reality the opportunities for the projects were raised in a disjointed way. Birth by Sleep is a project that was raised within our company, but Days is from Nintendo, and coded is from Disney, so we started by talking to each of them.

-source <--Link btw

And anyone that’s read interviews out of curiosity will know that there’s also factors like how ‘Birth By Sleep’ was shifted from PS2 to PSP or that ‘Chain of Memories’ wasn’t a planned title either. (seen here)

So if these things aren’t inherently bad or planned that begs the question of why it’s a problem here? At least in my opinion of the series.

The answer is simple and it lies solely on Nomura’s shoulders for it as a fault, relevancy. The man goes out of his way to make each and every game, concert, or otherwise is attached to the series in some meaningful way going forward.

Naturally, any expanded media is tied to the main narrative in some way. I know this, I am not that foolish. The problem is that Nomura makes them plot relevant going forward.

These titles can’t be true “side games” because they dictate the story going forward in some way. It’s for this reason the more radical fans hate to hear the terminology “side game” to begin with.

This problem was especially bad for years because of how spread out the series became among other gaming systems. And while some like to say it’s fine now due to the collection discs I dont think this will last long given the “phase 2″ images released for KH’s near future.

Hell, I’d even argue this problem isn’t even fixed in truth because the current KH story involving Foretellers, Luxu, and so on is all things spun from a mobile game. Yes, you have to sit through scenes on YT or play a mobile game to fully grasp that cat creature (Chirithy) you saw in KH3.

Naturally, it’s much easier to watch the scenes on YT these days but that also feeds into the loop of not paying for the game itself. I personally see no issue with it but companies are much worse in recent years for shutting down Youtube channels over loose definition of “piracy”.

No game series is worth several consoles. Of course, I’m just speaking from experience, with KH now on the Xbox this may be a moot point in a few years.

I am rambling, off track, lets focus. “Why is this an issue?” is what you’ve read this far for me to explain. The biggest issue with this poor decision making is how it harms the main narrative you’re telling.

For comparison, look at Sora in KH3. He’s often confused by people he doesn’t remember meeting or events he doesn’t remember nor took part in. This is roughly close to what it would be like for someone that’s only played KH1, 2, and 3.

Sora has that same level of insight including what he was told about others like Roxas or Aqua but other characters in-game. This feeds into KH’s misconceived air of complexity.

Kingdom Hearts, as a story, isn’t that complex. It has deeper themes it throws to the wayside but it is easy to follow if you play most games in some form. This ties back into how the series was handled up until the PS4/KH3.

Ever want to know who Roxas was in KH2? Well you had to play Days or you can sit through that horribly boring 3 hour movie on the Remix disc. Even then, the Roxas you see in Days wont be like the one in KH2.

Wish to know who Xehanort was? Play Birth by Sleep! All three campaigns with little variance. Then once you’re done get ready to sit on YT or download a phone app and play Kingdom Hearts Dark Road.

The Foretellers, Luxu, or the Master of Masters? That’s another set of hours, if not days, with the KH Union X Cross, KH Dark Road, and should you choose you can even watch the Back Cover movie which answers nothing at all but shows you the Foretellers in Kh3 graphical glory.

You wish to know how Namine knew who The Lingering Will was? Well dig up a fan translation of a script the Japanese voice cast read for a music concert event. (yes that happened)

You can see where this is going I assume and this is just scratching the surface by the way. You wish to know the finer details like Keyblade types, the inconsistent time traveling, “recompletion”, and so on then be prepared to read word of god interviews, in-game dictionaries/journals and always be ready for a few to change.

Whether it’s a true retcon or just an ambiguous statement, the series is ongoing, Nomura heads the ship, and he is by no means obligated to stick to previous statements if he can make a new one to alter those events.

Then again, holding too much weight in words said outside the game itself is a faulty way of doing things that most fans (like me) have fallen victim too at least once.

At the same time, all of these things are relevant by Nomura’s decision. Sure, the remixes have fixed this to a degree but it’s anyone’s guess for how long. Better yet, at what cost did the remixes fix anything?

The best example of what I mean is Coded. It was originally a game for phones. At the time, only Japan had a phone capable of playing it. Feeling that a shame the game later found it’s way to the DS for all fans to play.

At this point in time Coded was the only true example of a “side story”. It was by no means necessary. The whole datascape plot was more convoluted than it needed to be despite data!Sora being far better than the original at this point, and easy to miss.

But...well that was good. The DS version of Coded was fun as hell to play. The only version of the “command deck system” I’d consider worth any semblance of praise. It did it’s job of getting some level of fans invested such as my friend @blackosprey​ and it’s story was missable.

You did not need to play Coded to understand Dream Drop Distance or further. This was perfect. This is what games like Days, KH Chi/UX, 0.2, and DDD should’ve been.

Games that reached out to grab new people, games that played around, and games that expanded on the main narrative without dictating it’s direction. A side game is something that exists alongside or outside your main story.

However this isn’t what we got. 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage was a short sequel to BBS but also a pretty tech demo for KH3. Dream Drop Distance was there to show the real Sora that people needed help and to show us that Xehanort was back.

KH Chi was a browser game meant to show the Keyblade War and how it shaped Sora’s era. Now it’s an ongoing curse on the series with time traveling plot that affected KH3 directly.

Coded was made into a movie you needed to sit through thanks to one small newly added scene. Days lost many small interactions it’s fans loved in the transition to a movie that is hard to sit through.

I’ve also heard KHDDD and 0.2 were “shaved off” KH3 in a sense to be their own titles...this...this makes so little sense.

Nomura calls KH “Sora’s story” but this is a lie. If it truly was Sora’s story then your main narrative would be BBS, KH1, CoM, 2, and the original combined form of KH3. That’s the titles he’s relevant, those are the titles he stops Xehanort’s plans.

These other titles could’ve been so fun but none of them were truly allowed to breath and be themselves. They were weakened and limited by Nomura deciding to prop the ongoing story upon them like they’re stilts.

Then as a result you can’t close out KH3 without resolving all of these other events and characters which drags it’s own story down. KH3 feels all over the place because it is. It’s trying to tie as many knots as it can from threads created in titles that were way more relevant then they needed to be.

Kh3 can be seen as a clean break for many but I see it as a matter of time. KHUX and now KHDR are still there casting a shadow, dictating what comes next. Melody of Memory is one of several games planned for an unknown but hopefully more thought out direction.

I worry I haven’t explained what I meant well enough but moral of my story is that making things too relevant hurts not only your main story but these new stories you wish to explore.

You can’t have a story and it’s cast breath if you’re tying a knot of mythos too tightly around their necks and this is a tragedy to me. KH began life with such potential but it constantly holds itself back because so few entries into it’s story are truly just an entry.

And I am not saying games can’t follow up one another nor that they shouldn’t. What’s needed is a clear idea and some breathing room. A good example would be to save people in Days with the game DDD. DDD could’ve wiped away some clutter to focus on the final Xehanort battle in a sense.

Nomura has a huge problem with wanting connectivity without letting games be connected by the name alone. It’s like he wants to do the opposite of what Final Fantasy has done but to detrimental results.

This harms so much but worst of them it hurts development. Because Days was made so important, we had a movie made. Because Coded was elevated, a movie was made. Because the keyblade war was so popular, Union Cross was made.

The Remixes would’ve been better to consolidate lore not waste time trying to appease every whim. KH’s relevancy is a huge problem and I doubt it’ll stop any time soon.

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

As someone who owns all three volumes of Mega Man Gigamix, is it worth the money to get the reprint versions from Japan with the art changes and extra scenes? If so, what are the best sites to get them at a reasonable price?

So, I have had a few related asks about this in the past, but in general, I’d just say it depends on how interested you are in Ariga’s art evolving over time, more than anything. I really don’t think the additional tweaks or few page additions do anything to really change much to how one would view or read the original version. It’s not like the entire volume has been redone.

As with all artists, it can be fun to see how Ariga’s style becomes more refined and detailed in spots, even if it can sometimes be hardly noticeable. If you look at it from first edition Megamix to first edition Gigamix as time has passed, it is by leaps and bounds. But between the different Gigamix editions, probably not as much to most readers. 

As I would tell anyone, it’s your money, and my opinion shouldn’t dictate you spending it. If you are an Ariga fan, it’s at least a way to support the artist, even if it doesn’t all go directly to him. If you are spending over $40 a book (which is close to most average eBay prices), and you have the first editions, probably not worth it, unless you just have to collect them all. 

While I haven’t bought from the site in a while now, Yesasia was my go-to for decently-priced import manga and cds. Looks like they are still in stock at the same price I got them for, $23.99. And shipping is free as long as you spend $40, so that always makes it worth it to me, when importing. If you buy all 3 for like $72 total, I don’t think that’s terribly overspending, if you are a fan. But it’s still going to be like double what you would pay for the Udon first editions, off of Amazon. 

Hope that helps with your decision.