#the horror the tragedy the emotional beats the acting

[mintconditiondean]

So I've been reading spn finale/post-finale fic for a few weeks now without actually ever having seen the last 3.5 seasons, but I'm finally done. And having watched the finale at last, I feel a little soured on a lot of the post-finale fics. I feel like a lot of them portrayed Dean as having died because of a sort of suicidal recklessness that was an injustice to his character development and narrative arc... But the death scene I saw was very much not that?

Like, the death scene read very much as a straightforward tragedy to me. Dean did not want to die. He wasn't taking thoughtless risks anymore than Sam was. He did not expect or want or try to die that day. He was afraid of dying. His last words were trying to reassure both Sam and himself that it was okay not because he wanted Sam to let him die, but because he knew the wound was fatal and there was nothing that could be done.

Do I think that making the ending of Supernatural a tragedy was the best narrative choice? No. Do I think making Dean's entire narrative arc into a tragedy was fair to him? No. Do I wish Dean had gotten to live and grow and choose for himself what happiness in freedom meant for him? Absolutely.

That being said, I guess maybe I'm just trying to say that the general interpretation/reading I've absorbed from fandom in the last three years of Dean's death scene is just so totally different from the scene I actually watched.

[velvet-vox]

The russian worker drones family; murder drone's greatest small scale tragedy.

As long as I can recall there has never been in my mind a story quite as painful and heartbreaking and yet quite as engaging as the tragedy of Doll, Yeva, and her husband, who's lack of a clear name doesn't detract from the impact of this story or the death of the other two.

The last time such an emotional impact was left in my brain was with Noximilliem Coxen the Watchmaker from Wakfu, who I will assuredly make a comparison post with Doll, as they both hit extremely similar themes and ideas while still having such different execution and story beats that it almost makes you question why would you even compare them in the first place.

Tragedy is deceptively hard to write right and make meaningful, as just crippling your characters won't do, because at that point it just becomes drama porn and as boring as a low effort pre-schoolers program. Seemingly unfeasible in a show such as Murder Drones; an horror/comedy/romance where an abused child repaired and made friends with a robot only for said robot to cause the destruction of her planet and... something else.

Buckle up cause these robots emotions might not even be considered real inside the fictional setting but our pain allows what would otherwise be a pretty standard horror scenario to transcend into the bane of my existence as we take a look at the small, inconsequential tale of the russian worker drones family.

Yeva

Starting off with Yeva as the oldest member of our family in terms of chronological relevance, we get our first peek into the way this story plays out due to Yeva being seemingly mute by choice or programming, which retroactively sets up the storytelling method used; Yeva doesn't speak a single word in this scene or the one that precedes it, but we still get a clear rendition of her character by her standoffish behaviour juxtaposed with her caring and nurturing nature, it's debatable whether or not her and Nori are sisters, but you wouldn't be blamed for thinking that judging by the way Yeva tends to Nori after the banishment of the solver, being chained up and experimented upon didn't stop her from staying positive in the midst of adversity and could theoretically be the reason why she was the only correctly patched drone in the facility.

During the V attack she sacrificed her own life in order to protect Doll. An act that, in the long run, ended up being whortless, but that cemented Yeva has an unyielding positive influence in a world stormed by negativity and death.

The father

We know jack s##t about this man but that won't stop us from analysing him. The most interesting things about him are his relationship with Yeva and the fact that the picture of V seen in episode 2 was made by him. He's, admittedly, a white canvas for head cannons, but thematically he keeps a recurring motif that this post will touch upon in his final entry:

Doll

And now, for the crown jewel of this family. The protagonist's dark reflection. Not many people can claim to have been messed up as hard as Doll was. Sure, death is still death, but with it comes a certain sense of finality and rest. Instead, by contrast Doll's death is so brutal and devastating because although it's something that she has been calling upon herself since she started to consume other drones for her goals, it's just so heartbreaking because she managed to achieve absolutely nothing despite being one step forward everyone else in the story; she never got better, never reademned herself, made their parents sacrifice worthless, died almost entirely off camera completely alone and scared, and as her last compensation act she managed to give Uzi a barely useful warning before having her probably still alive consciousness eaten by an eldritch atrocity. At the end of the day, she was deemed worthless by the main antagonist and quickly brushed aside.

And we go back to a certain reoccurring theme regarding this family: Yeva never speaks. Her husband is never given a name. Doll is literally a toy name. Their story plays out in the shadow of the main plot. Every single aspect regarding them paints their existence as worthless and inconsequential (classic eldritch horror), yet are given enough spotlight to leave an impact on us, to have their presence felt, and to give us the impression that, despite their bad luck, if they only took certain decisions in certain key moments, maybe they would have survived and received a much better ending than the one they got.

Want more?

[mariettebonneville]

─𝟎𝟒 【𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡】 𝐀𝐤𝐚𝐳𝐚 𝐱 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐢

It was during the events of the Mugen Train arc that the Love Hashira, Mitsuri Kanroji, joined forces with the Flame Hashira, Kyojuro Rengoku.

Oyakata-sama, the leader of the Demon Slayer Corps, had been stirred from his rest by a prophetic dream—a vision that warned of mourning and despair should things proceed without divine intervention.

Trusting in his foresight, Oyakata-sama dispatched Mitsuri to ensure that the tragedy looming upon the horizon could be averted.

In the thick mist of a dread-filled night, the Mugen Train hissed and roared as it cut through the darkness—an iron serpent bearing a fateful encounter on its back.

She was to be a reinforcement, a bolstering wind to support the fiery Rengoku and those four under his protection. The Mugen Train carried more than innocent lives—it bore the weight of destiny.

Mitsuri arrived like a tempest of support, her vibrant locks fluttering amidst the chaos of battle.

With her sword flashing in heartbeats, her strikes were as tender as they were deadly, encapsulating both the ferocity and compassion of love itself.

She stood shoulder to shoulder with Kyojuro, embodying the very essence of the unity the Corps represented.

Unexpectedly, the death of lower one, enmu, summoned forth Akaza, the Upper Moon 3, whose prowess in combat was matched only by his disdain for the weak.

His gold gaze met Mitsuri's, a violent dance about to unfold. Akaza, with fists that shattered spirit and stone alike, was met with Mitsuri's whipping blade.

As the malevolent rhythms of his bloodthirsty combat style clashed against the graceful but stern forms of Mitsuri's Love Breathing, something within him stirred.

Akaza was akin to a tempest, relentless and untamed. Yet, as his fists whirled towards Mitsuri, he found himself hesitating for the first time in a century.

Each strike Mitsuri evaded or met with her own resonated with a cadence Akaza found unnervingly enchanting.

It was not love as humans know it—it was a fixation, dark and twisted, born from the abyss of his demonic nature.

He saw her not just as an opponent but as a being whose existence caused his own demonic heart to flutter in a way it had not for centuries.

The climax of their clash left fading echoes as Akaza, in a rare act, retreated as the sun was rising.

Rengoku's life was saved, and the prophecy had twisted into a new shape.

Akaza, the demon who coveted strength above all, vanished into the night with Mitsuri's figure seared into his memory. It became an obsession, not of destruction, but an uncertain longing for something more.

Months passed. Encounters between the demon and the demon slayer began to weave a pattern.

Time and again, Akaza would emerge from the shadows, not with malice, but with a twisted sense of longing.

The dance of their battles became a courtship; he showered her with compliments that no human dared utter.

To the world, she was an oddity, her engagements broken thrice over due to her peculiar hair and incomparable power. But to Akaza, she was unmatched, peerless. In his twisted expression of affection, he saw her as she wished to be seen.

Mitsuri’s heart, despite every effort, could not wholly deny the blossoming warmth that these words kindled within her. Her sense of duty warred with the ache of her own loneliness. It was a forbidden emotion, treacherous and unfathomable, yet undeniably real.

Seasons shifted subtly, and so too did the nature of their encounters. His restraint in their battles puzzled her. Her existence was a challenge to all he represented, yet she remained unharmed. In this deadly game, she had become the queen he dared not capture.

Then the implausible happened, extending the realm of forbidden into the beating life within her. With the realization that she carried Akaza’s child, Mitsuri was ensnared within a vortex of emotions.

Horror, confusion, and the faintest trace of a forbidden joy battled within her soul.

The father, a being of destruction, and the mother, a protector of life, had, through some unfathomable series of events, created a life together—an enigma wrapped in innocence.

The Love Hashira stood at the precipice, teetering on the edge of the unthinkable. The world she knew, the one she fought for, was at odds with the world that might be—the potential life of a being part human, part demon.

Akaza, for his part, had not remained untouched by their encounter. His interest in Mitsuri shifted something imperceptible within his demon soul, a shard of his humanity that he thought long lost.

He watched from the shadows, a protector unknown, grimly aware that his very nature was a threat to the woman who had inadvertently stolen the last embers of his humanity.

With the child’s presence lingering between them, so too lingered questions of what it meant to love and be loved, to protect life when one was so accustomed to taking it.

The Love Hashira grappled with the turmoil of emotions that beset her. The Corps was her family, her duty clear, yet the life within her was innocent of the sins of the father—a child of love and strife.

Mitsuri, with her inherently boundless love, made a vow to protect her child, no matter the origin, no matter the path that she must now walk alone.

And so, a precarious balance was struck. Mitsuri moved under the vigilant eyes of both friends and hidden foe.

Akaza, whose existence was now a question threaded with the potential for redemption or further ruin, lingered at the edges of her life like a specter waiting to be given form.

Mitsuri and Akaza, bound by their unborn child, stood on the precipice of a new era—an era where love could both damn and save, where the future held whispers of hope amidst the cacophonous echoes of war.

The story concludes not with definitive ends but with the understanding that lives intertwine in the most unexpected of ways.

And sometimes, even in a world shadowed by conflict, the chance for something beautiful and new can emerge from the darkness.

With velvet nights spent under watchful gold eyes, Mitsuri's pregnancy became a journey fraught with questions and fears.

And yet, Akaza, the supposed incarnation of violence, found a fragment of his lost humanity in the presence of Mitsuri. He could not explain the sense of duty that swelled within him.

When the day came, and her cries echoed between moonlight and shadows, it was Akaza who stood sentinel.

His once merciless hands, now trembling, prepared to welcome a life that was his impossible legacy.

For in that very moment, beneath the looming specter of both hope and despair, they understood silently that the tides of fate were neither theirs to command nor question.

Their child, born of an uncanny love and a destiny refused to be unwritten, entered a world brimming with strife.

And Mitsuri Kanroji, the Love Hashira, knew in her heart that what life they could offer their offspring would be one fraught with trials—yet she pledged to face it as she did any demon—with hope, with her sword, and now, with an unexpected yearn for a peace that she, Akaza, and her child might one day know.

[itsthenovelteafactor]

TV Shows Roundup: Jan - June

AKA every show I watched in the first half of 2024. I’ve been wanted to keep better track of my own viewing habits and thought it’d be fun to keep a running list with mini reviews. might do a tier list at the end of the year if I end up having enough. Curious what y’all have been watching/if you have any recommendations!

about 12 shows here which sounds like a lot but in my defense, there are a lot with one one season (currently!! we are manifesting some renewals here)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (season one):

Full transparency: I was not watching this show. 12 year old me who was obsessed with Percy Jackson, knew who her godly parent would be, and acted out sword fights with her siblings, was watching this show. She has no complaints. School Spirits (season one):

As soon as I heard the premise of this show I was on board, but it ended up delivering even more than I expected. The mystery was interesting and I felt like I received information at the exact right pace, the ghosts made a very charming undead-breakfast club and the characters in general were very compelling. Whoever put that Phoebe Bridgers song at the end of episode 1 deserves and Emmy and I’m not kidding. Loki (season 2):

I’ve fallen out with the MCU as a whole, but this show brought me back for season 2. I appreciate how it stands on its own as a series with its own characters, worldbuilding, and story that doesn’t require I watch 15 movies and 2 shows to comprehend. This season leaned into the wacky scifi time trace shenanigans in a way that reminded me of Doctor Who at times. The ending made me unexpectedly emotional. The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself (season 1):

Okay, I liked the first couple episodes of this but once the main trio of Nathan, Annalise, and Gabriel were together it was *electric*. I loved how gorey and dark it wasn’t afraid to get and the characters played off each other so well. I’m devastated we won’t get to see more of these guys because despite the fast pacing of the show, you really grow to love these characters. Lockwood and Co (season one, rewatch):

Just as good the second time! Truly a masterfully done show; the worldbuilding, mysteries, and aesthetic are top notch but what sells it are the characters and their relationships to each other. There really is something incredibly comforting about this show for me, I keep coming back to Portland Row and the people who live there. The fact that we did not get to see later books in the series adapted is a tragedy.

Fleabag (seasons one and two):

This is just smartly done comedy with characters whose dysfunction manages to feel a little too familiar. I loved the shades of the stage play peeking through - there is a theatrical feel to the show overall that I love - and despite its cynicism, this show has a beating heart that occasionally hits you across the face. Basically everything they say about this one is true.

Doom Patrol (seasons three and four):

I will admit, season three (minus the DVDA) episode, felt very slow to me, but season four was an excellent return to form. It’s strange, bordering on absurdist, and flits between comedy and horror at a dizzying speed. This show is an underrated gem and truly one of a kind.

Cracow Monsters (season one):

This show is beautiful; its color scheme, setting, and camera work are immersive and feel like wandering down rainy cobblestoned streets. The story took a while to pick up, but the horror elements were very well done. I wish we’d spent a bit more time with the other students, as they all seemed like interesting characters in their own right. I loved the mythology, and folkloric inspiration.

The Artful Dodger (season one):

It’s a period drama, it’s a medical show, it’s a heist, it’s inspired by Charles Dickens. This show is utterly delightful and thoroughly engrossing. I suspected I would enjoy it from the concept alone, but there is just something completely charming about it start to finish I could not get out of my head.

Dead Boy Detectives (season one):

So…this show took over my brain. The world here is populated by dynamic and fascinating characters and the case of the week format allows for the chance to see them shine in different situations. It somehow balances the absurd, the macabre, and the heartfelt and once it finds its footing does not let up. It’s smart, eccentric, and basically candy for the kind of person who loves over analyzing the actions of fictional characters (me).

Hannibal (season 3):

Had to wait for this to come back on Amazon to finish and it did not disappoint. First half of the season was slower, but I really enjoyed the gothic castle sections. Second half was Red Dragon, which was really cool with these versions of the characters. A wholly satisfying (and appropriately morbid) conclusion to the series.

Andor (season 1)

People have been telling me to watch this and that I’d love it since it came out and they were all correct. There was so much more thought and care put into the depiction of life under an oppressive government and I expected and even if I wasn’t a Star Wars fan, the story is gripping and beautifully shot on its own. Because I *am* a Star Wars fan, it’s even better.

[wordsandrobots]

On reflection, I think quitting 86 EIGHT-SIX because the subtitles wheeled out an actual Nazi slogan is as good a reason as any not to write anything in-depth about it, so I'll simply summarise my thoughts about being recommended this anime as something in the same vein as Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.

It's not.

There are broad aesthetic similarities but where IBO is a tragedy, the plot driven by characters' flawed reactions to bad circumstances, 86 -- at least for much of its first season -- falls more into the region of moral horror. That is, the horror of being stuck within a society entirely at odds with your personal morals. In this mode, it's quite effective, particularly when using small victories to highlight the wider, inescapable nature of the situation.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, 86's second season promptly drops any pretence of having anything other than a standard heroic arc, ditching the implication of a crushingly cyclical conflict and also any sense of real stakes for the protagonists. Given the show is an adaptation, I'm not sure where to place blame for that. Frankly I'm not inclined to delve further to find out. Within a horror context, the juvenile fantasy racism that forms the impetus behind the characters' struggles isn't a particular flaw. The emotional beats land despite the details. But with the horror elements becoming mere obstacles to be overcome, it's just asinine. This is a world where the major act of exterminationist racism is prompted by an AI apocalypse scenario, and the oppressed peoples are afforded no deeper identity than simply not being blue-eyed and silver-haired.

(In case it's not fully clear what I mean by that, the anime spends zero screen-time on non-conscripted District 86 people. There's no sense of a culture being obliterated by the official policy that stripped them of their personhood, nor of what remains to be saved should that policy be overturned.)

Again I can't say if this comes from the adaptation or the original light novels. It's a fairly brief anime that, in fairness, makes the most of the space it gets. But we circle back around to where I started. At best, the sense I get is of a piece of fiction existing within something akin to the 'imperial anti-imperialism' framework of, say, Code:Geass (or War of the Worlds, if you want the classic British example of the type). At worse -- well, suffice to say 86 is now something I won't recommend to anyone, ever.

It's also just not particularly good, in my opinion. Outside the horror elements, the characters feel extremely stock, lacking interesting details or nuance. There's nothing like IBO's thematic tightness and 86 certainly bears no relation to real-life child soldiers. What it does in this regard is not utterly divorced from reality, but it's framed in terms of conscription, not the reasons kids get drawn into fighting in the situations we usually mean when we say 'child soldier'.

The most positive thing I took from thirteen episodes of 86 is a fresh appreciation for how 'mecha anime' functions as an aesthetic genre, often obscuring narrative genre. If you enjoyed what IBO does, I doubt you'll find much to chew on in 86. Even setting aside its comparative shallowness, it's not remotely the same kind of story.

Anyway. Don't like spending words on stuff I didn't enjoy, but PSA for anybody who gets recommended 86 off the back of IBO: its subtitles have Nazi shit in them, and you won't be missing much by not watching it.

If you can, go dig out Fafner in the Azure instead. I know I rave about IBO a lot but Fafner is by far and away the best mecha anime I have ever watched. While also not a tragedy, it's an exceptional, heart-breaking story framed around war with an 'unknowable' alien horde, that unfolds into a deeply sincere exploration of what it means to fight in defence of home and community.

[bigskydreaming]

I didn't want to pile on to that last post but it did spark some thoughts that I wanted to add here, but in a general sense.

I blame a lot of this on the way 'curate your own experiences online' has been weaponized by people who like to use it to flip the script on anyone they see disturbing their preferred online atmosphere and being like 'well you're doing this to yourself, stop making it everyone else's problem.' And then that's picked up and adopted in good faith by people seeing it as simply advice and it all kinda ripples outward from there, but the endpoint is like....There's this insistence on seeing anyone expressing online feelings other than banal enjoyment as either a) performative or b) a kind of self-harm, not to mention the ever popular third door c) attempting to emotionally manipulate everyone around them for Reasons.

Its like....social media is literally just another form and venue of connection, and its not inherently meant to be ANYTHING in particular beyond just....connective. What you do with it is up to you, true, but at a certain point the people who respond to anyone disturbing their 'good times only' vibes by trying to be like 'why are you bringing this energy here' need to acknowledge that the internet does not exist simply to be your happy fun time space. If you believe in curating your own experience so much then you should be ready to close the door on certain connections and leave the room when YOU are feeling disturbed instead of just telling everyone else in the room that they're doing Feelings wrong by sharing non-optimal ones and using the venue-for-connection that is social media to share even the unpleasant stuff.

ARE there people who are just performative about their feelings of horror or shock or what have you online? Of course, and there always will be. ARE there people who are for whatever reason, and no judgment involved in my mentioning this, but get caught in social media feedback loops that probably aren't healthy for them to be in at certain points? Of course, and there always will be. ARE there people who only share certain things or partake in certain discussions because they get off on attempting to emotionally manipulate people or have some agenda in place? Of course, and there always will be.

And in each and every one of those situations where that might actually be the case with any given individual....the problem there is that specific individual and their personally suspect motivations for what they do online and how they go about it.

The problem is NOT the very existence of people expressing negative emotions on your dash or posting in ways or about things that make Generic Tumblr User JustCameHereToHaveAGoodTime feel less feel good when they witness it 'bringing down their dash' or whatever.

Allow for the possibility that sometimes people can be genuine about how they're feeling or what they're expressing about themselves, and the act of people sharing genuine feelings of 'this sucks and we're all taking a beat to acknowledge that' can be as simple as reminding ourselves that we don't have to be numb to tragedy and that we aren't weird or alone in not knowing how to sit with something awful but still having the urge to do SOMETHING with that energy, those feelings, even if just to put them out there into the world to see them shared and reflected among others and feel a sense of kinship, of being seen in knowing hey yeah, this is horrific and it sucks, we're all on the same page here.

We so often see people arguing that there's nothing noble about suffering or making ourselves miserable and I agree, actually. But I'd also put forth that there's nothing noble or enlightened about cynicism or assuming the worst of people talking about suffering or being miserable, instead of even just allowing for the simple possibility that nobody in that conversation is shooting for nobility or sainthood, they're simply saying: here is a thing I feel. Here is a tragedy that exists. I don't know what to do with it, I don't know that doing any of this actually helps me or anyone else in any way, but surely it can't be any worse to simply....acknowledge it. Put it out there. Point to its existence, the feelings we have about it as something that at least we're not alone in not having a better or more optimal response to or idea of what to do with it.

Is suffering, being miserable and all that noble? No, again, I don't think it is. But its human, and I don't come online trying to be noble. I'm just trying to be human and connect and interact with other people on basic, human levels.

And again...nothing, certainly not online interactions or behavior, exists in a vacuum. Is it possible for all of the above to start from a place of genuine sincerity, even, and to eventually pick up steam and build into something non-genuine and the very kind of performative or emotionally manipulative stuff other people see it as, even if it didn't originally start that way? Sure. All of what we're talking about here exists on a spectrum, moderation is a thing, things growing beyond their initial intentions and turning to extremism is a thing to, etc, etc, etc.

All I'm talking about here, ultimately, is just another perspective to consider. Do with it what you will.

[jellogram]

Five Nights at Freddy's film review and general opinions

Spoiler free.

To preface, I've never played the games at all. I know the main lore but I am mostly coming from a horror film fan perspective and not a franchise fan perspective.

So from that perspective, it's.... fine. It's not great. It's not terrible. It's a bit bland.

There was so much that the filmmakers could have dug their teeth into. You've got the whole arcade nostalgia thing, you've got the straight-up camp of the premise, the tragedy, just a lot to explore thematically and stylistically, and it doesn't dig into any of it.

I liked the first act and I think Josh Hutcherson is well cast, but his character's development is mostly shown and not told. Vanessa really doesn't get any dimension at all.

I can live with flat characters if the campiness of the film is fun enough, but every time they could have gone batshit off-the-wall bonkers, they reigned it in and tried to play serious. And they don't pull off the serious elements at all. The story is simply not well-written enough for the emotional beats to land properly, some of the "twists" are completely pointless, and too many loose ends and plotholes are never explored.

So I think it's kind of caught between two worlds. The serious notes don't work well enough to ground the film, and the batshit parts aren't batshit enough to be fun.

I do think it could potentially be a good middle grade horror for kids. The violence is mostly implied and the contents are explained clearly enough for the age 10-14 group. If they were aiming for kiddie horror in the same vein as stuff like Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, I think they were fairly successful. But existing in that category of horror doesn't mean the film has to be mediocre.

In conclusion, I would have liked to see the film lean way harder into the crazy premise and do something really campy and absurd, but the moment I saw Blumhouse in the opening credits I kind of knew that wouldn't happen.

If you're a big fan of the games, I think you will likely leave satisfied. From what I remember, it hits the major story beats and the animatronics are accurate and sorta neat. Fans so far seem to be loving it, so that's cool.

But if you're a big horror movie fan just looking for some fun thrills, you can probably skip this one.

[dangandj-d4ronpa]

DanganDJ Spoiler Info

In my first post, I gave Talents to the core 6 units, but I always had it in mind that some of the Talents that they started with weren't always the ones they finished with.

Kyoko is the Ult. Vocalist.

Esora is a Reserve Course. She was stripped of her Talent at the end of her first year due to a skirmish with the Togami Corporation to protect Rei and her family's honor, although the Togetsus never knew about it.

Ibuki started off as the Ult. Track and Field Runner, but during her time in Hope's Peak, she also became the Ult. Team Captain. Those parts of her memories were erased by the time she woke up in the D4 Killing Game.

And while Miiko is introduced as the Ult. Linguist, a later part of the story reveals that she is the Ult. Horror Enthusiast.

MORE SPOILERS

Another part of DR is Hope and Despair, so I wove that into D4 with the idea that during the Tragedy, Junko takes one member from every unit to be one of her Despairs.

Maho: Manipulated due to her insecurity of feeling useless compared to her unit mates, especially when looking at Talent. (Based off of plotlines in First Mix, and sort of All Mix).

Esora: Joined Junko to get revenge on Byakuya and reclaim her Talent. She worked with the Towa Conglomerate to build Monokumas and Monochios.

Saki: Traumatized after Junko separated her from her unit and made her think she witnessed Kaito’s death. Junko’s brain operation on Saki also messed with her Synesthesia and made her obsessed with finding new colors. Before Junko, she could use her Synesthesia to see the colors of people’s emotions through their singing. After Junko, any form of vocal noise would trigger her Synesthesia.

Rika: Manipulated due to her savior complex. Because she was the one that inspired this crossover, I consider her Junko’s favorite mastermind. They are both very impulsive after all.

Hiiro: Her Talent showed her that the only way to beat Junko was to join her first, so Hiiro put her love of mysteries to good use and did her best to be the perfect mastermind.

Haruna: Manipulated into thinking Kurumiiko killed Miyu, she went mad with grief and acquired an obsession for rule-following. She ordered the first execution and helped write the Killing Game rules.

Natually, Hope arises.

Rinku: (Does she need any explanation? LOL).

Yuka: Because of her connection to Mahiru, Sato, and Esora, she was also close to the Reserve Course and saw them as equal to Ultimate students.

Ibuki: She helped create the Future Foundation.

Rika: Even though she was a Despair, she acted as a Hope and was basically Rinku 2.0.

Aoi: Because everyone simps for her, in and out of universe.

Miiko: Because she wanted to be friends with everyone, and her true Talent of Horror Enthusiast gave her meta knowledge and made her genre-savvy, which was a huge threat to Junko.

After everyone is forced through the Killing Game, the Hopes change.

Rinku remains as her unit’s honorary Hope.

Shinobu becomes Peaky’s because she’s always trying to move forward, no matter who the Killing Game takes from her.

Towa becomes Photon’s because she remains supportive until the very end and is the only one able to talk Nozomi Kamakura into occasionally stepping down and allowing Noa Fukushima to take control of their shared body.

Saori, Marika, and Dalia are all deemed Ult. Hopes by Rika at the end of the game when she admits to them that she doesn’t want to be a Despair anymore because they showed her how good Hope could be.

Tsubaki becomes RONDO’s Hope as she, like Shinobu, vows to keep moving forward no matter who the Killing Game has already taken from her.

Miyu becomes Lyrilily’s as the embodiment of forgiveness balanced with justice.

OTHER SPOILERS

Rika’s REAL Talent is Arson (inspired by a running joke my friends and I have about Rika = fire) and she only hid behind the Volleyballer Talent to avoid suspicion.

She is also Masaru Damon’s big sister. Their parents divorced when Masaru was a toddler, one parent taking each child. They never saw one another again, and when Junko found out, she implied that Masaru was dead, and that was one of the things that pushed Rika to Despair (although they reunite after Junko is defeated). The other was thinking she failed Tsubaki when they were kids (storyline taken from D4).

I also made a D4 version of Izuru, which is Noa's alter ego Nozomi/Kiko (which means Hope). Her backstory is that even though Izuru was conceptualized first, Nozomi/Kiko was created first, as it was easier to operate on a student WITH a Talent than one without.

While Izuru became an emotionless, indecisive Despair,  Nozomi becomes a Hope obsessed with protecting the Cute and purging the Ugly. While Izuru’s hair and eyes were black and red respectively, Nozomi’s were white and cyan.

And the reason Haruna thought Kurumiiko killed Miyu was because Haruna was becoming increasingly isolated, trying to use her Chairman Talent to stop the Tragedy. Her unit members were trying to keep her from burnout and eventually went to Kurumi’s big brother, Kokichi Oma (the white bird and the black horse). Miyu, Miiko, and Kurumi were the three female DICE members. Kokichi tricked Miiko into helping him hijack Kurumi’s prank to make it more horrific and realistic, making them all believe that Miyu was dead. Kokichi did this both as a way to get Haruna to see where her actions were leading them, and because he perceived her as a rival for Kurumi’s allegiance.

[aliengoose]

JUMPING ON HERE TO ADD BECAUSE YOU ARE CORRECT AND I NEED TO ALSO SHARE!!

“I’m that perspective you cannot doubt, see how i look”

We saw almost everything that happened through the same filter as Ranboo. When his mask failed is when we were able to see the slime was actually blood, hear people screaming in pain, SEE THE CAMERAS. We literally see how he sees - thus “see how i look”. And for the first episode we did NOT doubt his perspective at all.

“Control the narrative reliably, baby it’s all about me”

maybe not gl!ranboo themself but very much that twisting the story in favour of “the hero”. plus we’re meant to at least at first believe that ranboo IS a reliable narrator (see above)

“Beating my dead high horse off the high road to low ground”

beating a dead horse means to repeat something over and over and over again without any change and without any meaning behind it. fits with the cyclic never-ending loops that showfall traps their “characters” in.

ranboo is being forced by showfall media to act as though they’re on a “high horse”, frequently pushing others towards their gruesome death to save their own life - because they’re the hero, they’re the protagonist, they’re ‘above’ everyone else. plus in this ranboo is pushed off the moral high ground

“So God forbid I’m seen just as an average human being”

ADDING ON FROM OP BC THEIR COMPARISON IS ALSO VERY VERY GOOD.

SO with the carousel the other streamers (most notably niki and austin) are flattened into two dimensional archetypes that represent how they’re seen frequently in their careers. people often don’t actually see niki as her own individual, instead they discuss her relations with others, and it’s always that she’s so ‘nice’. Austin is made into a joke, the little description just says “gay” and he’s forced to constantly talk as if he’s part of a typical family sub-unit. his entire personhood is flattened out into a joke. ALL THIS IS TO SAY the same is done with ranboo. their characters in genloss are heavily influenced by the ways in which they’re perceived by the public.

A considerable number of people put ranboo on a pedestal, (i could link this with the crucifixion imagery at the end of part 3 but i’m tired. you see my vision) even though they are literally just some guy. He got lucky (?) and was pushed into the spotlight very suddenly and when they were literally a child. Very suddenly they had people who look up to him, who defend him even when they themselves admit they fucked up, fans who refuse to believe he can do wrong.

I mean god FORBID they’re just an average human being who makes mistakes and need help occasionally, they’re the HERO for fucks sake /s.

“I mean, imagine if protagonists just died in the first scene”

OP YOU ARE BANG ON. Ranboo kills multiple people and/or is miraculously saved by being in the right spot at the right time by showfall’s management of the situation. he is not allowed to die until their tragic end, at which point that’s it, there’s no more story. what’s a story without a protagonist? After ranboo dies there’s nothing, the music stops abruptly and the credits roll. there’s no story without them.

“I’m the gap between a tragedy and comedy”

AGAIN BIG AGREE WITH OP. because we see what ranboo sees, the first episode is a comedy! it sure as hell wouldn’t be comedic without the filter! ranboo being forced to see through the filter and being the protagonist, he is indirectly the reason that we see through the filter. him breaking free of that is how the show transforms from a goofy comedy into a tragic horror!

“I’m the main character, and you have to like me”

Again, ranboo is the protagonist, literally referred to as the hero, he’s the main character.

and we are meant to like him, that’s an integral part of the story and the emotions tied to it. that’s what makes the ending so jarring and terrifying. if we didn’t like them, choosing to either kill them or keep them alive to suffer eternally would not be as terrible a decision as it was. I mean the main point of The Social Experiments was to see if we would collectively vote to kill someone, especially someone that we LIKED. Ranboo’s role as the protagonist is for us to like him so that the ending is that much more tragic.

“I loot plot armor from NPCs, well they are to me”

1. i agree with OP

2. all the other characters in generation loss are treated as expendable, like NPCs. they exist to help ranboo progress through the story, being sacrificed for the sole purpose of protecting ranboo. not to mention the reason they’re protected is BECAUSE they’re the protagonist, they LITERALLY HAVE PLOT ARMOR. PLOT ARMOR THAT IS TAKEN FROM “EXPENDABLE” CHARACTERS RESULTING IN THEIR DEATHS

3. Another NPC-like thing is the “expendable” characters ability to come back to life as though we’d forgotten their death? Charlie dies in every episode, as does Sneeg. Hetch talks about being able to “reboot” people after their death. Ranboo doesn’t get to have that though, he’s the playable character, they only get so many lives and once ranboo’s gone, the game is over.

“So tie me to the traintracks, laugh and snidely twist your moustache, snidely whiplash, boris badenov”

This to me relates best to the puzzler. he’s a caricature of a villain, he’s very clearly based off of Jigsaw and in general has the vibes of kinda retro horror villains who don’t seem to fully have a motive but come up with “fun” strange ways to hurt and kill people. He’s here to have fun, even if he’s a little incompetent for how long he’s been doing this for.

Both Badenov and Whiplash are your classic silly villains who act all sneaky and villainous (literally just look up images of them and you’ll see what i mean, tho whiplash falls into a couple antisemitic tropes). It lines up with the puzzler being a bit of an incompetent villain who doesn’t seem to have much of a motive other than it’s fun and he’s the villain, that’s what he’s supposed to do!

“judge me by what my cover shows, author becomes beyond reproach, you don’t know the prose, or if the spine is still intact”

similar ideas to what i said earlier about the genloss characters being flattened out versions of the irl streamers.

judge them by their cover, take them at face value. don’t critique the “author” writing their characters (showfall).

the characters are being controlled, they cannot stand up for what they believe in, we can’t know that they believe what they are saying - aka is their “spine still intact”.

“come astroturf my overton”

THIS LINE!!! FUCK THIS LINE FITS SO WELL OH MY FUCKING GOD

This line is a reference to politicians staying within the realm of what is considered acceptable, how they can appeal to their voters and all that. Astroturfing is when they take on a position that is favoured in order to drown out the grassroots movement who genuinely are working towards change. the overton window is the area of politics and policies deemed acceptable to enact.

I do think there’s something in there about Austin insisting that he has a loving wife and children despite literally being told that he’s gay has something to do with that. In media for a long long time (tho it has been changing a bit more recently), queerness could never be explored authentically, it was purely just for jokes, because queerness is only viewed as acceptable if it’s being mocked in some way. Similarly ethan suggests dressing up in disguises, puts on a wig and a dress, and immediately fucking dies. queerness is only viewed as acceptable if we don’t get a happy ending. ranboo is the protagonist, while the others do at least something fancy with their outfit and walk, ranboo just wears a black jacket and walks fairly normally iirc. showfall censors their queerness into what can be seen as acceptable.

finally RANBOO being CENSORED ASGSHSHSH. He is bound by showfall to only act in an “acceptable” manner. can you imagine how differently the show would have been if they were allowed to genuinely react to all the gruesome deaths that they watched?

ALSO THE SWEARING COMES IN HERE. They’re not allowed to swear until they’re released from the mind control, at which point their immediate first words are “what the fuck”. they’re literally being censored to be acceptable for a large media corporation. GOD. I cannot put it into words.

OK I’M DONE ITS 1AM I’M TIRED BUT I THINK THATS EVERYTHING I WANTED TO SAY

would anyone be interested in an animatic of this because when i tell y’all i have so many thoughts and feelings.

"the main character" by will wood is a very gl!ranboo-coded song and here's why

(lyrics of the song are bolded and in quotation marks, analysis is in plain text)

"So, God forbid I'm seen just as an average human being" 

gl!ranboo isn't even seen as a real person with a life in generation loss. they're just a character-puppet-plaything for showfall media and nothing more. 

"I mean, imagine if protagonists just died in the first scene" 

SHOWFALL JUST WOULDN'T LET RANBOO DIE. THEY JUST WOULDN'T LET THEM DIE UNTIL CHAT ACTUALLY CHOSE FOR THEM TO DIE.

"I'm the gap between a tragedy and comedy"

rewatch The Spirit of the Cabin. now rewatch The Choice. THAT IS THE BIGGEST SWITCH FROM COMEDY TO TRAGEDY I'VE SEEN OCCUR IN A SHOW WITH ONE EPISODE ON BETWEEN. GL!RANBOO IS. THAT. GAP.

"I'm the main character, and you have to like me"

they are literally the main character of generation loss, and we have to like them if we want them to continue to be that main character, because if we don't like them, guess what! we can kill them! and no more ranboo main character funtimes! 

"I loot plot armor from NPCs. Well, they are to me." 

every single side character in the show, namely those in The Mastermind of the Warehouse, was a real person. however, because we don't control their choices, they aren't important to us. we see them as NPCs. they die as NPCs. 

"Villains are everywhere, that's how I know that I'm a hero." 

do i need to explain? gl!ranboo is referred to as The Hero multiple times, and for all three generation loss episodes, they are surrounded by villains, whether it's demon charlie, the puzzler, hetch, or even just the showfall media employees.

[mintconditiondean]

So I've been reading spn finale/post-finale fic for a few weeks now without actually ever having seen the last 3.5 seasons, but I'm finally done. And having watched the finale at last, I feel a little soured on a lot of the post-finale fics. I feel like a lot of them portrayed Dean as having died because of a sort of suicidal recklessness that was an injustice to his character development and narrative arc... But the death scene I saw was very much not that?

Like, the death scene read very much as a straightforward tragedy to me. Dean did not want to die. He wasn't taking thoughtless risks anymore than Sam was. He did not expect or want or try to die that day. He was afraid of dying. His last words were trying to reassure both Sam and himself that it was okay not because he wanted Sam to let him die, but because he knew the wound was fatal and there was nothing that could be done.

Do I think that making the ending of Supernatural a tragedy was the best narrative choice? No. Do I think making Dean's entire narrative arc into a tragedy was fair to him? No. Do I wish Dean had gotten to live and grow and choose for himself what happiness in freedom meant for him? Absolutely.

That being said, I guess maybe I'm just trying to say that the general interpretation/reading I've absorbed from fandom in the last three years of Dean's death scene is just so totally different from the scene I actually watched.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Creation”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Oh man, oh man, oh man. I think I'll need to steer clear of the general RWBY tags this week, simply because I know the sort of responses I'll see to this episode. From smug celebration at Ironwood's downfall, to bad takes about what makes us human, this episode is a petri dish of sensitive material handled insensitively.

Let’s unpack it, shall we? 

We open on an action that feels like a summery of the last three volumes: a grimm attacks an airship from the front, no doubt killing its pilot, while the other grimm conveniently ignore our heroes, no masking in sight. The group looks a little sad at the destruction around them, but ultimately ignore it because they have bigger, heroic things to do. I could write a whole, additional essay on how the huntsmen code — to protect the people — has been warped and abandoned by our protagonists in their effort to do what they think is right. It's a tale that might have been compelling if only RT knew they were writing it.

We get a shot of Atlas drones unloading the bomb before one is taken out, presumably by Qrow and Robyn. Segueing to Ironwood and the Ace Ops, they're waiting for Penny to arrive, the former carrying a massive gun presumably capable of capturing her. Despite the horror we saw on their faces last episode at the realization that Ironwood would kill Marrow for speaking up, it seems that now the Ace Ops are entirely in agreement with these measures. A week ago the implication was that they fell back in line out of fear, but now Harriet talks passionately about "putting down" the group if they were stupid enough to accompany Penny. "The General gave his terms." Vine sighs at this, but doesn't actively disagree. He's just "retracing the steps that led us here."

So, congratulations on introducing four new characters, not bothering to develop any of them, killing one off while ignoring Qrow's hand in that, and having the other three become all, "Yeah! Mass murder is a perfect solution!" off screen. Marrow is the only one with something resembling development and, as covered in these recaps, that's been pretty badly executed too.

Ironwood sends them to deal with Robyn and Qrow after Winter reappears to "assist" him. That gets quotation marks because most viewers at this point have realized that she's who our two birbs spotted in the elevator. Winter isn't on Ironwood's side anymore, she's just skillfully clearing the field for the final attack. Indeed, we get a moment where she hesitantly brings up the bomb and Ironwood responds that he hopes she's not going to try and talk him out of it. No. Winter doesn't think that's possible. This was her final attempt at peace.

One of the reasons why I think I'll stick to my own blog for a while is because the fandom has a tendency to paint broad personality traits as evil when applied to some characters, yet simultaneously heroic when applied to others, when really it's about how that those traits are used. What I mean is, I've seen a lot of Ironwood critical posts that emphasize how stubborn he is. He thinks he's right and he won't back down. He wont listen to others. He's going through with this plan and if anyone tries to stop him? That's their mistake. Totally evil, right? Except, this is the exact same behavior Ruby displays, particularly in Volumes 6 and 7. She was stubborn about stealing from Argus and continuing the fight to the point where it endangered her and her teammates, to say nothing of the rest of the city. She refused to listen to Qrow, or Ironwood, or the Ace Ops, loudly announcing that she was right about, well, everything. If they didn't agree with her, the options were to leave the group entirely, or fight her. The actual difference here is that the writers have taken Ironwood to an extreme, one that's incredibly easy to understand as bad because it is bad: bombing Mantle has no defense. Ruby pulls the exact same nonsense, it's just not to that same extreme and her actions are followed by scenes that are meant to make us forgive her: a sad look because she didn't mean to get a city attacked by a leviathan grimm, a cry on the staircase because she didn't mean to risk the lives of an entire kingdom... even though she did. Ironwood is the bad guy because he's been written to take specific, OOC actions like shooting unarmed kids. He's not the bad guy because when other characters go, "Don't do this" his response is, "I have to." Because that's been Ruby's motto ever since she "had" to use the Lamp to rip Ozpin’s life story away. RWBY introduced those extreme actions of shooting the youngest in the group (for no reason) and threatening to bomb a city (for no reason) or shooting a councilman (for no reason) because when you remove those you've got a man who looks exactly like our hero. Ironwood's arc has been peppered with these confusing, unpersuasive actions because if you just keep the story as him stubbornly keeping to a plan he thinks will save the world, you're left with the reminder that all Ruby has done lately is stubbornly keep to plans she thinks will save the world. This moment with Winter just highlights how ill thought out Ironwood's descent has been because he does everything Ruby does... with a few, tacked on, “and randomly shoots people!” moments to ensure we understand that he’s definitely evil. No comparison to our heroes here, folks! 

Ironwood is a bad guy now. That’s certain, but he was made that way so the story never had to grapple with the question of what that means for Ruby if we really start condemning things like lying, secrets, stubbornness, or endangering others for the greater good. Well then damn, if we strip away the hypocrisy then she might not be a good person after all. Or the people she’s simplistically labeled as bad might not be the devils Ruby claims they are. 

But that’s a level of nuance RWBY would rather pretend doesn’t exist. 

All of which is highlighted by Ironwood’s reaction to "Penny." He sighs and sags over the gun, immediately putting it aside. With his hand on her shoulder, Ironwood tells her she's "done the right thing." Precisely the same way Ruby would lower Crescent Rose and give someone a smile when they decided to fall in line with her.

Which, of course, is the moment when Emerald reveals herself, dispelling the Penny illusion and revealing Team JNPR The Second behind her. She gives a quip about it feeling "weird" to do the right thing before disappearing.

From there the action picks up fast. I really enjoyed this battle simply from a choreography and energy standpoint. It gets the blood pumping, Ironwood's hand-to-hand is spectacular — especially that moment against Ren — and the group actually displays teamwork for the first time in what feels like forever, all of them needed to land a hit on Ironwood. As always, out of the context of the rest of the show it feels and looks great. My primary issue is that we get this fantastic fight against Ironwood. Not Salem, not Cinder, not Watts (like last volume when Ironwood was still a hero), not even Emerald as a means of transitioning from murderous villain to the group's best bud. No, what's arguably the best action sequence in the volume thus far goes to beating up the guy they betrayed from the start. There's no catharsis for me here, only frustration as we watch Ironwood stand in shock as Winter powers up Nora — who's fine now, I guess — and she slams her hammer into his face. 

It never should have come to this and when a good character is done so dirty, their downfall doesn't evoke the emotions the writers are looking for. Watching Ironwood fall doesn't generate feelings of victory, or even tragedy at a course of events others were powerless to stop. It's just frustration at watching years worth of bad writing, sprinkled with fantastic ideas that never go anywhere.

Oscar gets a few hits in, Ironwood snatches his cane, and just as he's about to throw a punch, Winter arrives with the most dramatic sword slash I've ever seen.

Ironwood's aura breaks and he falls, unconscious. We cut to an image of a droid's head separated from its body, one of Robyn's arrows through its skull. That doesn't have meaning or anything.

I suppose I should be grateful they didn't rip Ironwood's arm away during the fight, or outright kill him, though I'm still expecting him to die before the end of the volume.

Hmm. Wouldn't that be something? If after Salem's arrival, freezing cold, a Hound attack, grimm soup, a giant whale, a massive army, and a hack ending in self-destruction, the one character who actually dies is Ironwood. 

It's looking more and more likely.

Honestly, beyond all the obvious, what's so frustrating about this fight is that characters are only now using their impressive abilities to their fullest. Emerald creates an entire fantasy of what's happening and then straight up disappears, but she only does a half-assed version of that when fighting against Penny. (And really, she put more effort into helping the heroes she just joined over Cinder, the woman she's been obsessed with since the start?) Marrow refuses to use "Stay" against a group they wanted to peacefully arrest because that's just too horrible an act, I guess, but he'll do it on his own teammates the second Qrow and Robyn don’t want to fight.  

This is what I mean when I say the rules of the world bend to assist the protagonists in absurd ways. It's not nearly as egregious as Amity suddenly being up and running, but the fact that characters become substantially more powerful while fighting for the protagonists than they do against them is still a significant problem.

So Ironwood is down and out. As much as I hated watching that and didn't necessarily want more, am I the only one who felt like it was... a bit lackluster? I mean, the action was great, yes, but relatively short. There was no dialogue, such as another delve into the moral questions that led to this fight in the first place. There certainly wasn’t any hesitance against fighting a former ally. (Again, we’re meant to believe that the Ace Ops won because they just couldn’t bear to fight the group seriously, but every former ally here is capable of wailing on Ironwood without a single pause or pained look?) Ironwood just skillfully blocks for a while, is blindsided by Winter's betrayal, and then falls unconscious. Given that we learn he and Jacques will be evacuated after the rest of the kingdom, it's possible he'll escape somehow and we'll get a fight 2.0, but if not that feels like a rather tame end to the guy forced into the antagonist seat. Plus, what was the point of having Qrow frothing at the mouth to kill him this whole volume? I never wanted that to happen, I'm glad it hasn't, but I'm nevertheless left to ask why we bothered with that eleven episode side plot if we were going to erase it with one sentence from Robyn about Qrow being better than this. If that's all it took, let them work through Qrow's irrational anger while sitting around in a cell.

Winter tells the group to move onto "phase two" which is when we're treated to a flashback. We return to the ending of the last episode, with Ruby realizing that opening the vault is an option. Jaune, all smiles, goes, "We never considered using what's inside!"

This is what I mean about no consequences! This is what I mean about it all being a meaningless circle that ends with undeserved praise for the group! We started this horror show with Ironwood going, "We don't have a plan to protect the people, so I'm going to take what people we do have to safety" and the group going, "We don't have a plan either, but we're going to stop you implementing your plan because it's not perfect, risking a kingdom's worth of lives in the process." Now, the group has used two plans, one of which two characters knew about at the start and another they could have devised with the information they had. Oscar and Ozpin's, "We have an all powerful magical blast in our cane" and the group's "What if we used the Staff for something other than raising Atlas?" are both things that could have come up in the office debate. These were both always on the table! Instead, Ruby grew furious over the mere thought of cutting their losses, betrayed Ironwood again, attacked his people, denounced him to the world, and then two days later goes, "Oh wait! We could do something now that we could have easily done before if we hadn't made a needless enemy!" 

Everyone realizes how much worse they made things, right? Turning against Ironwood, bringing everyone left in Mantle directly under Atlas, sitting around while an army was devoured, drawing it out until Penny was hacked... all of it would have been avoided if the group had thought and discussed things for a few minutes, not jumping straight to violently resisting what Ironwood came up with first. "We never considered..." Ruby says. Yeah, you didn't, except that's not something to smile about. The group made the situation a thousand times worse with their reaction when they could have just magically evacuated the kingdom from the start. “Maybe we could use it to save Penny and get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety." Nothing has changed! They had this ability the whole time! Nothing about the last twelve episodes led them here, they just randomly thought of it after RT had padded the volume with needless drama. Considering that they're heading to Vacuo now, we could have just made this the finale of Volume 7 instead: big fight with Ironwood, revelation, get everyone  evacuated while Salem attacks, leave her behind, then Volume 8 begins in Vacuo with the group knowing Salem is out there looking for them. This entire volume has been pointless. What did they accomplish?

Oscar got kidnapped and beat up, Nora was scarred, Ruby and Yang realized horrible things about Summer, and the whole world is panicking about a witch. Good things are... Ren and Ruby unlocked some semblance stuff? Weiss loves her brother again after he proved himself useful to her? Great work, team.

So this one moment makes everything they've done up to this point useless and, of course, once thought up the plan goes off without a hitch. Note that the summary of this episode says, "It's risky, dangerous, and nearly impossible — but it's the only plan they've got." Nearly impossible? That's a whole lot of talk for a plan that was implemented perfectly.

There is, admittedly, one snag, but one that is likewise made meaningless just seconds later. We'll get to that.

We see Winter call Weiss who also smiles at hearing from her sister. Obviously interactions like the group's with Emerald are the bigger concern, but it's still an issue that no one reacts as they should to people reappearing in their lives. Rather, RWBY continually confuses audience knowledge with character knowledge. We know Winter is on their side now, but Weiss hasn't a clue. Last she saw, she and Winter were agreeing to head down different paths. She has no reason to think her sister isn't loyal to Ironwood, so why isn't the group treating this call with suspicion? What if it's Ironwood trying to mess with them through a presumably safe party? I swear to god, with any consistency in the story this group would be dead ten times over because their decisions are so stupid. Oscar decides to believe in the guy currently beating him to a pulp, the group decides to trust a villain over a flawed ally, and now they see Ironwood’s second calling and are like, “Great, big sister Winter is checking in!” There’s a difference between a hopeful story filled with second chances and characters whose reliance on the narrative bending to assist them makes them come across as insanely naive. 

None of which even touches on characters forgetting that other characters are presumably dead. Ironwood shot Oscar off the edge of Atlas, but doesn't react to learning he was kidnapped, or when he shows up to the fight. Thanks to Marrow's comment, Winter thinks YJOR have perished in the whale, but also has no reaction to them appearing to help with this plan. Absolutely nothing is followed up on.

We then get a flashback within the flashback (fun) of Winter — shock — not arresting Marrow. It's precisely as I assumed, with Marrow angrily asking why she hit him and Winter responding with, “Because you were about to get killed if I didn’t do something!” As I said last recap, I feel like I should let the marginalized groups lead this discussion, but I do want to add that no matter how well intentioned — or strategic, as I mentioned last time — the imagery itself is still harmful. No matter the context, we were still left with white woman Winter putting her knee on black man Marrow's back to arrest him, and it’s an image that everyone in the U.S. should be familiar with the horror of. Far more of a problem than the (presumed) ignorance of this scene is, I think, the choice to make Winter entirely unrepentant. I think some of this discomfort could have been alleviated if RT had written Winter as apologetic, contrite that it came to that and asking Marrow to understand that she only did it as a means of assisting him. Asking his forgiveness. Instead, we get this

So what, the only emotion we have room for is gratitude that Winter beat him up? Yikes.

As a lighter side note, I find the animation here unintentionally hilarious. Winter's assistive device makes her shoulders look too high, making this gesture more, "Woman exaggeratedly pouts about not getting ice cream for dinner" and less, "Woman sternly closes off during a disagreement about saving lives and betraying their general." Gotta find our humor where we can, right?

What's intentional, but far less funny, is the needless animation to show us that, yes, Marrow is peering at Winter calling Weiss. Oh, the shenanigans. 

The elevator opens where Qrow and Robyn spot them. "Speaking of help," Winter says, as if she has any reason to believe Qrow didn't kill Clover. He and Robyn lower their weapons a bit, as if they have any reason to believe Winter and Marrow aren't still loyal to Ironwood. Would it really be so hard to have Winter immediately throw up her hands in the face of their almost-attack, blurting that she's not their enemy and needs their help, please listen? Again, RWBY can't remember which characters know what, let alone what their motivations and reactions should be.

We then enter the third part of the flashback where everyone piles into the Schnee dining room and discusses doing the things they could have done from the start. I'm metaphorically banging my head against that table. In RWBY's favor though, we also get a long shot of Jaune continuing to boost Penny’s aura.

Though it's only one of many issues, just the other day I asked, "Hey, why has Jaune always needed to hold onto the person he's assisting, but now suddenly he can touch Penny once and the boost remains?" It still doesn't explain why he was letting go before/why him needing to boost her continuously didn't put a hard time limit on their plan — not that Mantle's hour limit meant a thing — but at least they're showing more of that here.

Oscar notes that Atlas has enough gravity dust that it won't fall immediately when they use the Relic, but they will have to move fast to ensure no one is underneath. Yeah, like all the civilians you put there. He also cautions that the Staff isn't a "magic wand" that they can just wave to make all their problems go away... even though that's precisely what they're going to do. Ozpin gets some lines that aren't apologies or followed by attacks — hallelujah! — about how the Staff's spirit is a "character" and requires that you be able to precisely explain anything you want him to make. Blueprints, examples, a firm knowledge of how this will be accomplished — all of it is required to actually get what you're after. That's a cool limitation. It's just too bad we didn't know about it episodes ago, forcing our heroes to find ways to meet those requirements. Instead, they already have everything ready to go the moment they learn about it: Penny has her own schematics and Whitley apparently has knowledge of the entire kingdom after sending some ships out. Normally I'd go, "Really?" but I'm still just struck by how much good he's done compared to everyone else in this room. Your show is seriously broken when the side character the writers didn't even want the audience to like until a few episodes ago is more active, mature, and sensible than the heroes.

From there we see the group implementing the plan. They fly up through the hole Oscar left, straight to the vault. Penny opens it without any trouble and Ruby uses her speed to grab the Relic and stop time, halting her self-termination. I do like that combination of skill and their knowledge of how this magic works. That felt like a smart move. What's interesting though is that the Relic appears to stop time in the entire kingdom. We see people in Mantle and Atlas slowing to a halt too. I assume no one remembers that happening after time restarts, otherwise people would be freaked out by suddenly being frozen in place.

Wouldn't that have been cool though? The group often takes a while to use the Relics, either deciding what they need, or watching Jinn's information, so what if you had a population that blinks and suddenly, from their perspective, half an hour has passed? How long might Ozpin have sat on his knees after Jinn told him he wasn't able to defeat Salem? How long was that space frozen? We could have had a world built around rumors and fairy tales. Not the random stories Ozpin brings up to make a point and that we never hear about again, but tiny details that foreshadow these revelations. A Beacon where the kids tell each other spooky stories of people suddenly losing time, once a whole day. The wives, sisters, daughters, and nieces who disappear, or wake up one day with horrifying, unnatural powers. We see magic influence the world around it, but we've seen very little of the world reacting to that influence. The one time I can think of is Blake reading a book about "a man with two souls," the fiction clearly inspired by knowledge of Ozpin. And indeed, it felt great to recognize that as a significant detail and then be proven right years later as the lore was revealed. We could have gotten so much more of that if RWBY was better planned out.

I'm getting off track though. As time stops we see a series of images: Ironwood being led to a cell with Jacques, Penny succumbing to her hack, Team JNPR The Second preparing to contact the kingdom about what's going on. Then everyone is distracted by the giant, blue, buff Ambrosius who comes out of the Staff.

...there's a lot of innuendo in that last statement lol. At least RWBY is committed to the crazy design they chose? I was never particularly comfortable with the image of characters gaping up at a giant, naked woman in chains, so it's nice to balance that a bit with an equally giant, naked dude in chains.

From here things get confusing. In all honesty, I'm not sure if this is another moment where RWBY is trying to pass off a retcon as the group being brilliant, or if I, as an individual, simply didn't follow the logic. I won't bother to rehash the slow, meandering way that Ruby reveals their plan — that certainly didn't help with the clarity. Not in an episode where we didn’t even know these rules ahead of time — but it boils down to this:

The moment they have Ambrosius create something new Atlas will start to fall. Two of his creations can't exist at the same time.

He needs clear instructions about what he's making in order to create it.

The group has brought him Penny's schematics so that he understands how she's built.

They want, specifically, "a new version of her... using her exact robot parts."  

They can't just create an exact duplicate of Penny because that would carry the virus with it.

They can't create an exact duplicate without the virus because that Penny would cease to exist as soon as they used Ambrosius to make an evacuation plan instead.

So they essentially want Ambrosius to create a new Penny by removing all the robot parts from the Penny that currently exists, carrying the virus with them, and leaving only the human parts of Penny behind: her aura/soul. Then, the purely robot version is destroyed when Ambrosius creates something new.

Except... this new Penny, this human Penny, still needed a human body. That's what Ambrosius created and that's the snag I don't understand. They want a version of Penny that's just her aura, just her soul, but that soul still needs something to be housed in. Ambrosius himself notes that. At first I thought the group would just have some wisp-like version of Penny they'd have to find a new body for — perhaps leading to a new one for Ozpin too — but she's just... given a human body when he takes the technology away, something she absolutely didn't have before. That is Ambrosius' creation. That is what should have disappeared along with the removed parts of Penny, leaving only her soul — what Ambrosius didn't touch — behind. Instead, the plot oh so conveniently has Penny get a new body for free and it's untouched as they move onto the next task.

Ruby drops a casual line about Ambrosius not being able to kill, or destroy, or something, which I think is meant to be the justification here. The rule (which, again, we JUST learned) about not killing anyone supersedes the rule of two creations not allowed to exist, allowing Penny to stick around. But even if that’s true, it’s a load of bull. What, does the magic think no one in an entire city might die if the floating mechanism is removed and it plummets to the ground? Ambrosius didn’t say, “Sorry, can’t stop floating Atlas because thousands of people are still here and they’ll die if I create something new,” but we’re supposed to believe the group skated by on, “Sorry, can’t destroy the last creation like everything else because there’s a single person still using that body and she’ll die if I create something new”? 

Seriously, did I miss something? Or is this another, "Amity is ready because the group needs it" situation? The rule of creations ceasing to exist is bent because the group needs to have their friend around. Ambrosius is certainly enthusiastically complimentary, saying how "smart" the group is and that they've "done their homework," but I'm not so sure. It feels like a moment where the show is (once again) insistent that the group is far more talented and brilliant than their actions actually imply. It's only the rules of the world twisting and turning that allows for their success. To say nothing of how the episode dropped all these rules on the viewer in a ten minute info dump, ensuring we didn’t have any time to think about them before the deed was done. 

It doesn't add up for me and honestly, even putting that aside? I hate this. I absolutely despise it. Look, if it turns out this really does make sense then props to the group for coming up with that plan. Our snag aside, the rest is a legitimately well thought out wish. I don't have a problem with the execution so much as the message. I've been saying since Volume 7 that RWBY has done Penny a disservice in terms of her "real girl" narrative. Whereas before we had a firm message that you don't need "squishy guts" to be human, to be real, Volume 8 continued to carry us further and further into the idea that it is necessary. That Penny's body is entirely inhuman, something to hate, but at least her soul is human and good. That's what the virus arc taught us: your terrible, technological body might be betraying you, but hold onto the parts of you that are really human. I hated that too, but I never thought RWBY would go this far. They made Penny fully human and went, “THIS is the version that always should have existed.”

And this isn't just me reading into the implications. It's right there in the text. Blake says that they're looking for “Penny, the girl who’s always been there underneath." Meaning, underneath the metal. The girl exists trapped in the robot body. Yang holds up her arm and says that the metal is only "extra," it's not really who you are. 

That gets into two perspectives on disability that RWBY just doesn't have the nuance for: what's an integral and celebratory part of one person's existence can be seen as something separate and discomforting to another. Though there are many people with disabilities who would happily cure themselves with a magic Staff if given the chance, there are just as many who say no, this is a part of my identity. I don't want to change, I just want the world to accommodate my existence. However, RWBY takes a hard stance here, saying that any metal in your body is intrinsically bad. We didn’t use to have this take, but now the show has embraced it. Blake says the real Penny is trapped in there. Yang's words implies that she'd get rid of this "extra" bit of her if possible. Mercury with his metal legs is the enemy. Ironwood with half his metal body is the enemy. Whereas once difference was truly accepted, now it's shunned and fixed whenever possible. Those who can't be fixed, like Yang, must simply deal with the lot they've been dealt, reassuring themselves that the metal isn't really them. But Penny? Penny they can fix.

So they do and the very first thing Penny does is hug Ruby, exclaiming, “Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside? Wow. More!” and proceeds to hug all the others. 

What's the underlying message there? Penny didn't understand hugs before this moment. She never experienced the "warmth" of them while an android, despite the fact that here warmth is entirely metaphorical and has nothing to do with a literally cold body. RWBY really went and said that the "real girl” android was never actually real at all — not as real as she could be — because it's only when she's given "squishy guts" that she understands the true happiness of a hug.

Wow.

I mean seriously, wow. 

Never-mind that, you know, we've seen that happiness and warmth since she was first introduced.

RWBY is really rewriting all the core themes introduced in Volumes 1-3 and it sucks. The show is absolutely the worse for it.

To say nothing of all the other disservices to Penny's character here. There's all this buildup about whether she'll still be the same Penny once the wish is complete, but of course she is. We wouldn't want to have Penny struggle when she becomes something other than what she's always been, would we? After all, it took Yang an entire volume to work through the shock of a metal arm, but taking away a metal body for a human one is in no way traumatic. Having a normal, human body is intrinsically a good thing! Of course Penny accepts it with nothing but smiles. Becoming human is celebratory, but becoming more machine is a horror.

She gets to watch her body self-destruct, glitching out and collapsing in front of her. But again, nothing to unpack there that can't be covered with a hand over her mouth.

There's no discussion of whether Penny still has the Maiden powers, or whether a wish like that would mess with the transfer in any way. How did the group know this action wouldn't register as a clear-cut death, forcing the power out of her and into someone new? Obviously they couldn’t know, but no one even thought to bring it up? 

And the entire time they're formulating their evacuation plan, there's no talk of whether these portals will appear before everyone currently alive in the kingdom. I mean, if they do then Ironwood and Jacques can just waltz through and escape into Vacuo. If they don’t, then Maria and Pietro don't necessarily have a way out. We still don't know if they're stuck floating in Amity, or if Amity crashed, or if they made their way back to Mantle or Atlas. More importantly, the characters don't know. I have no problem with RWBY keeping that a surprise until the finale, but I absolutely take issue with Pietro's daughter walking through a portal, seemingly not to care whether her father is going to make it out too.

It's been the same with Qrow and his nieces' relationships. The show is good at insisting that these families love each other because they hug and smile while on screen together, but when shit is actually going down, none of them care about pesky things like disappearances, arrests, or “The last time I saw you, you were with an old woman on a damaged station after a villain attack, potentially stranded in deadly cold if life support failed.” 

So yeah, this entire arc with Penny has been a disaster. From throwing away her framing subplot, to giving her a virus that did absolutely nothing, to giving her the Maiden powers which she's also done nothing with, to erasing her android status for a “She's really human now” message, Penny has been done dirty by the show these last two volumes. Not nearly to the extent Ironwood has, but still. At this point I wish they'd just kept her dead dead. Why do I want her back when that resurrection produces no reaction, her conflicts lead nowhere, and one of the core things that made Penny Penny has now been magically erased?

I've been saying for weeks that killing Penny off and keeping Penny around each had serious downsides attached, yet I never expected RWBY to do BOTH.

Also, I'm warding off any, "But Pinocchio was made into a real boy too" defenses. RWBY is not Pinocchio. Penny is not Pinocchio. I thought the allusion was going to be the Pinocchio inspired girl heading into the whale, not the show forcing the exact plotline  —  down to a blue, magical creature — onto a character whose entire journey has been about accepting herself as an android. Congratulations, RT. You just obliterated years of work.

Again, if you'd like an example of how to do this far better:

As Penny's character falls apart, Atlas shakes, alerting Jaune and the other that a new wish has been granted. Jaune pecks at the screen and realizes "That did, uh, something…?” but doesn’t realize that there's a giant, red "LIVE" up in the corner.

Jaune tries to warn the entire kingdom about their plan, but what he actually says is

“Atlas is falling, but — !”

And then the communications cut out. 

Watts, perhaps?

Our heroes are really good at saying things that make large populaces panic, huh? This is the one (1) snag in their "impossible" plan, but as said above, it doesn't amount to anything. We get a shot of Nora, horrified at the thought of kingdom-wide communications being down, but literally seconds later Team RWBY has made portals appear that everyone can walk through. So... why do we care about communications? More importantly, why does the show try to make us care? So much time is spent getting the viewer invested in problems that never come to mean anything. 

Including the problem of Salem herself.

Because the group successfully creates that evacuation plan. This is it. Everyone is leaving while Salem still reforms. 

Yang asks if they can use the vaults themselves as a single point for everyone to go to and Ambrosius agrees. So everyone is going to pile into the Vacuo vault that can only be opened by an unknown Maiden? They're going to put an entire kingdom's worth of people, including their enemies, into the vault where the Relic of Destruction is? Yeah, that's great. Prior to this — like if this had been the plan at the end of Volume 7 — I would have 100% agreed that these risks are better than death by Salem/grimm/cold. Now though, Oscar as axed Salem for an unknown length of time, the cold is having no impact on the civilians outside, and the grimm only attack background military personnel that supposedly no one cares about. They couldn't have spent another few minutes (especially with time stopped!) to figure out a means of getting to Vacuo that doesn't involve revealing and providing access to the location of a super secret vault? To say nothing of what they're going to do if Salem wakes up and snags one of those portals for herself. Two kingdoms for the price of one!

But that's what they're going with. Weiss gives Ambrosius a schematic of the kingdom, I guess, and he makes branching pathways appear with numerous portals for everyone to step through. They'll enter through one and, when they exit another, will be in Vacuo. Easy peasy, right? Especially since Ambrosius doesn't seem to have any limitations about how often his power is used. Is it three creations every 100 years like Jinn? We're not told, at least not to my recollection. However, I was expecting there to be a waiting period, that they'd fix Penny, go to evacuate the kingdom, and learn that sorry, I can't make another creation just yet. It feels like the sort of shit move these beings would pull — "Don't cry to me when it's not what you wanted" —  it would have been another commentary on the group's insistence on putting friends over the people's safety (like demanding the Ace Ops not bomb the whale because of Oscar), and crucially, would have kept the action in Atlas. Isn't that what this volume is? The battle for and potential destruction of the Kingdom of Atlas? We have two episodes left and, unless something unexpected happens, we're moving that action to Vacuo. Why? 

Meanwhile, Penny's corpse is just chilling in the background 😬

While all this is going on, Winter reassures Jacques that he and Ironwood will be evacuated too, though she makes it clear saving him was Weiss' idea. It checks out, considering Weiss is the one who turned her father's arrest into a joke last volume. Winter still takes his abuse seriously.

The group prepares to leave with a celebratory, "We did it!" from Weiss. I'm still banging my head against that dining room table. Before they can pass through the portal though, Ambrosius leaves them with one, dire warning: "Do not fall." 

In any other story a line like that is a neon sign announcing to the audience that someone will absolutely fall, and maybe they will, but RWBY has dodged consequences so often I wouldn't be surprised if this was merely another way to string us along. Remember all the hype surrounding Salem? The cold combined with her army and magic? How she was going to decimate Atlas and leave our group broken in a Fall 2.0?

I mean, we still have two episodes left. Forty minutes of content. Salem might still decimate them, especially since something has to happen in the finale. But god, it's a problem that we've come this far without a payoff. Salem randomly decided not to attack anyone, was stopped by a weapon added in solely for this purpose, and now the whole kingdom is being evacuated with a plan the group could have used at the start. This volume really is meaningless. 

“We go to vacuo and hope we’ve thought of everything” they say as the camera zooms in on Cinder's smiling face. For the second week in a row.

Bingo time!

Winter betrayed Ironwood, the group used the Staff of Creation, and I'm axing Maria on behalf of Pietro. You can't have the guy's daughter become human — after he was killing himself to give her his aura?? — and magically walk to Vacuo, not knowing if he's even survived since she last saw him, and expect me to think he hasn't been forgotten. Same with Maria. Has the group mentioned her since Amity cut out, notably for reasons they couldn’t explain? Of course not. Did they care to find out what happened? Of course not. I have no doubt they'll both re-appear in the next two episodes, Pietro crying over how perfect his girl is now and Maria congratulating the group on their actions, but we're still marking it.

This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever created, I hope you all are enjoying it :D

Another week, another couple feet added to the hole we’re digging. I know I keep saying I have no idea what's going to happen next... but I have no idea what's going to happen next. A Vacuo ending was not in the cards, not outside of them miraculously showing up in ships. Maybe they have been on their way to Atlas (somehow...) and will arrive precisely when everyone has left! Anything is possible at this point.

See you next Saturday, everyone. Hold on until then lol. 💜

[littlefreya]

The Way to Hell - Part 13

Summary: Post Mi6, Alternate Canon. August escaped Ethan Hunt with his face intact and just won himself the title of being the most dangerous man on earth. Brooding as he is, August is unwilling to back down on his murderous agenda he plots to continue where he was stopped.

Series Completed: Previous Chapter | | Chapters Masterlist | Next Chapter

Pairing: August Walker x OFC (Ingvild) 🖤

Word count: 5k

Warnings: Mentions of sexual encounters, child neglect, betrayal, hinted physical abuse,  foul language and lots of angst.   

A/N: I thought chapter 13 will be the last one, but I didn’t want to rush the ending or have a chapter too long. So for those of you still waiting, hang in tight! Many thanks to @agniavateira​ who’s my muse and my editor, to @raspberrydreamclouds​ for this amazing cover and to those who’s been asking me about the chapter, means a lot to me. I am going into my usual Way to Hell posting panic attack. So bye for now.

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it or parts of the source material and claiming it as your own*

Please comment, review and reblog.  💖

Title: Paradise lost

There cannot be peace before first a great suffering.  There cannot be love without first a great tragedy.

~*~

Opaline droplets of sweat form on his forehead. In his ears, a constant buzzing rings wretchedly as if an angry hornet is caged inside his skull. What was long buried abruptly awakens, stabbing at the back of his head. Red flashes sear through his eyes while images of Ingvild dissolving to ashes play in his mind, her bloodsoaked feathers crumbling to the ground.

“Why did you go?” August mutters under his breath, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He crumples the little yellow note with sheer frustration before throwing it on the bed. 

‘I told her not to go, I commanded her!’

The air in the room grows thick like the pit of a stygian forest. Tentacle-like branches appear behind his eyes creeping closer, clutching his limbs. Even though lost and abandoned in the thicket of his mind, her angelic scent still lingers on his skin, impossible to wash off. Sniffing at his biceps, he inhales the mixture of their union on his flesh;  what begins as euphoric mirth quickly meets the sharp edge of rage and hatred.

She’s gone and it gnaws at the dark matter of his brain. 

He hates it. 

Hates her for being absent.

Frowning deeply, August reaches a rigid hand for his clothes, forcing himself to get dressed. The very first memory of her hinges on his mind: An icy woman with silver-moon eyes who refused his pursuit. 

‘Did you think the two of you are going to ride toward the sunset together? That’s not you.’

Letting out heavy gasps, he shakes his head. “She’ll be fine,” he whispers dismissively, pulling on his trousers and hastily buckling his belt. 

The new world order awaits, so close he can feel the fresh sun sitting on his open palm. It is his vision, his legacy: bigger than whatever it is Ingvild and him have together. 

There was no her in his plan, to begin with. 

The Devil never had a queen. 

‘You know what they’ll do to her…’

Another ray of daytime terror cuts through his thoughts: her wings plucked from her back, threads of flesh tearing from her naked body. Her screams die in silence.  

“She chose to leave, I asked her not to!” August yells into the empty room, frowning at no one but himself as he grabs the used shirt which hangs from the tall mirror. Turning to his reflection, he tenses at the sight of his body. Crimson valleys lead down his back, courtesy of her claws branding deep into soft tissue and toned muscles.

‘Do you know what is the probability of finding someone like her? A woman who wants to see the world burn with you? Who believes in your cause of building a new one?’

August swallows hard and combs his fingers through his hair with haste, attempting to act normal through the intensifying drumming in his ears. Being completely methodical, he pulls his long trench coat over his shoulders and collects his belongings into his black duffle bag on the bed. With a heavy painful breath, he forces his thoughts away, zipping the bag with urgency and reciting in his mind everything necessary for his trip. Time is scarce, the end and the new beginning are nigh; the smart thing to do is to forget her, erase her existence from the chambers of his heart. 

He doesn’t have one anyway. 

His hand secures the gun in its holster and harsh fingers lace around the black straps of his bag as he stretches himself straight, ready to leave this bedroom. That’s when his eyes fall again to the crumpled yellow note. 

‘You’ll never see her in Kashmir, you’ll never see her again.’ 

~*~

‘Amazing,’ the silver-haired wolf muses while scratching his bristly jaw. For 13 years the evil spawn’s eyes remained exactly as they were the day he picked her from the orphanage. Grey crystal orbs so naive, clueless, and oh so hungry for validation. A child desperate to prove herself worthy to someone, anyone. 

It was her single flaw and his greatest advantage.

Even now in the bloom of adulthood, the pale, scrawny thing standing before him is nothing but a lost little girl who wants someone to hold her bony hand. 

‘How can someone be so smart yet at the same time so blind?’

The cheap motel room smells like mildew and rotten wood. Speckles of dust float between the handler and his prodigy, cascading over his glance that seems rather alien and naked as glass. It pierces through her muscles - this sudden sense of peculiarity and estrangement.     

She chews the inside of her cheeks and sways slightly on her spot, arms hanging loose at her side. Ingvild lifts her chin to look at Liam, her eyes round with what can only be guilt. It makes her look like a child who broke an antique vase. 

“Thank you for answering my call,” she begins, wrapping her fist around a disposable phone before throwing it on the tidy bed.

Liam scoffs and shakes his head, ridicule spreading on his face. “You’ve gotten yourself into trouble over a boy, child?” He stares up and down the young woman, noticing the obvious change in her posture.

‘So, she truly is a woman now; how did I not see this one coming with her constant chatter about how handsome he is when I handed her the dossier?’

“Please don’t tell me you need money to get an abortion.” 

Ingvild frowns with disgust and shakes her head right away. “Never. No, it’s not what I’m here for.”

Displeased as always, Liam emits his usual grunt. He slowly shakes his head at his asset while running his fingers through his lanky grey hair. This is not how he imagined this mission to end. Her lack of emotions was a key element; Ingvild could have had a few good years running several missions for him, but what tipped the scale was for her to run into the wrong psychopath.

“Then tell me Ingvild, why should I listen to a failed assassin such as yourself? You’ve been weird about this mission since day one. Acting discreet, irresponsible, and reckless,” the old man’s Adam's apple bobs up and down in his throat as he speaks. Taking a small stride, he moves closer to get a better look of her diamond irises. So sharp and so strange, they’ve always irked him. As a child she downright looked like something out of a horror movie. 

“You’ve had 445 successful missions, not even 30 years old. Yet here you are a failure, and for what? For a boy?”

Shame traps her tongue and her glance drops to the floor. Failure stings like a rod of hot iron piercing her beating heart. Yet her mind races to the night at the pit where August finally claimed her, the memory of his lips sets glowing embers through her veins. On her skin remains the evidence of his embrace. Microscopic cells, tinted by his DNA. 

She doesn’t want this feeling to go away. 

Liam clears his throat, tearing her away from memories that turn from tar to honey the longer she dwells on them.

“You know why your mother gave you away, Ingi?” Liam asks, giving her a ghastly sardonic smile while cocking one eyebrow.

‘Liam never smiles.’ 

A small frown sets creases above her freckled nose. “I asked you many times before and you always said you don’t know.”

The Dane scoffs at her, his smile widening, exposing cigarette-and-coffee-stained teeth. The rot around his gums makes her curl her nose slightly and flinch as he leans closer. 

“You were a rape baby.”

The words send a pang through her muscles, like stepping on glass. She shakes her head with protest and steps back, yet Liam nods knowingly, standing in front of her.

“You’re lying.”

His small hazel eyes burn holes through her skull, his smile sinister and impish. “Your father was a savage, a rapist. He left your poor mother half-dead and impregnated in the forest you love so much. Who knows, maybe that’s why you kept going there as a child, reconnecting with your true nature.” 

Refusing to listen, she shies from his piercing glare. Liam reaches a coarse hand to cup her jaw, forcing her face back to his. “Your mother hated you. Your very existence reminds her of the most terrible thing that ever happened to her.”

For a child with such a limited emotional range, Liam finds that the muscles of her face are capable of stretching thoughtfully with spite. Pent up hatred creases her brow, her silver eyes turning to hot, molten gold. She bites on her tongue, keeping a vow of silence but he can read her face just the way an assassin would. 

“Nothing but a mistake, disowned by your own mother. So why would this man, this... mass murdering psychopath love you?” Liam shifts her head from side to side, inspecting the healing cuts and bruises that decorates her pale skin. “He saw an opportunity and seized it, used you…”

He pauses, moving away from a stare colder than icy lake water, “just like they will.”

Ingvild parts her lips with wonder, glaring at the person she knew all her life with disbelief. In the glossy reflection of Liam’s honey-brown eyes, she sees several black, long rifles pointed at her head.

Liam curls his thin lips with an utter lack of remorse and shrugs indifferently.

“She’s yours.”

*~*~

If colours had sound then the pale blinding white would be a continuous high-frequency hum. The tunes and shades of death. Like angry flies feasting on a corpse. 

‘Is this Valhalla?’

A small groan escapes her mouth, her eyes hurting from the sickly radiance of the narrow fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling. Her wrists feel numb as they’re pulled behind her back in restraints. 

“No,” she opens her mouth to speak, her throat burning, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Definitely not Valhalla...” 

‘You need to be a hero to enter Valhalla, stupid girl.’

Stupid didn’t even begin to describe it. August would never let her hear the end of it.

Loud, angry steps tap on the white marble floor, growing louder as the person approaching enters the room. Ingvild blinks, peering at the silhouette when a smile of comfort paints her drowsy face. Like a god, her lover strides toward her with his usual confidence. His ocean-blue eyes beam at her sight, his palm spread open to embrace his tiny Valkyrie. She chuckles at the mischievous, charming grin on his face as it reminds her the day they first met. 

Oh, she wishes to nibble his stupid chin right now and brush her fingers along his thick moustache.

But as she blinks again, large brown almond-shaped eyes replace the ocean-blue. A panther of a woman stands before her: confident, strong, and impossibly beautiful. Her dark, succulent lips are pressed together and concern shines through as she observes the small woman who has her arms cuffed behind her back and her feet shackled to the metal legs of the chair. 

With her head still heavy, the assassin turns her face from side to side. She quickly observes the armed guards at the entrance, the tall, greying agent standing nonchalantly against the wall awaiting orders, and lastly the sickly-looking, lean man who is positioned at the fore of a metal desk with his fingers laced together. Anticipation is written all over his line-riddled face. 

“Erica Sloane,” Ingvild calls knowingly, the ghost of a wicked smile dancing on her chapped lips as she turns her head to face the CIA director. Dressed in a black power suit and crimson pumps, the director is drenched with big dick energy.

“August told me so much about you, but he didn’t mention how fuckable you are.” Ingvild drawls, fluttering her lashes as she scans her from head to toe. 

Tilting her head, Erica grabs a white plastic chair and places it in front of Ingvild. She then takes a seat, crossing her long smooth legs together. Kindness and motherly concern pours from her dark eyes, expressions Ingvild never received from anyone in her life.

“Poor child, I imagine August Walker filled your head with many stories.”

“No…” Ingvild swallows, trying to dampen her sore throat. Noticing her struggle, Erica snaps her fingers and the greying agent rushes to bring her a plastic cup of water like a loyal dog. Focusing on the translucent beads around the cup, Ingvild flicks her tongue over her lips. “August was too busy filling other parts of me.”

The intrepid woman begins to laugh at her own joke, her voice dragging groggily while Erica rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“I imagine so.” She answers and then carefully tilts the cup to Ingvild’s lips, offering the drink to the girl who sips with desperation as if she walked the desert. “August was my best agent,” she explains, watching the stream of water that rolls down Ingvild’s chin as she gulps with an incredible thirst, “a really proficient assassin, ranked high in every mission I sent him to. My golden boy. Even though that shit-eating attitude of him was something else...”

Withdrawing the cup, she looks into Ingvild’s cold silvery stare. “Those snarky, arrogant remarks and him going through the whole department like a fox in a hen coop I could overlook. But that fucker had us all fooled, Ingvild, as he fooled you.”

Ingvild flutters her dark lashes and tips her chin up. Her defined cheekbones sharpen even more as a snake-like arrogance poisons her face. “August told me what you did,” she utters sincerely, while Erica commands the agent to refill the plastic cup. Loathing melts her beautiful sullen glaciers as she focuses on Erica. 

The CIA director narrows her eyes at her in return, and curls her lips downward as disdain fills her mouth. “I am not the one who made Walker murder Agent Hartmann, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“You deceived him,” Ingvild retorts calmly and sucks in her bottom lip, collecting the remaining droplets of water onto her tongue. “That’s what you and your little agencies do to people like us. Set up traps for predators and pretend to act surprised as they eat the bait.”

Holding the cup, Erica stares at the young woman thoughtfully, the burning hatred in her eyes reminding her so much of Agent Walker: An entitled spoiled brat, thinking he can wind the world to the direction only he sought to be right. 

“You can’t blame a predator for following its nature, and you can’t expect him to behave otherwise.” 

“Is that how you see yourself?” Erica asks, moving the cup away, though she can see the thirst on Ingvild’s gaping bottom lip. “August poisoned your mind but I assure you, you are not the monster he is. You never had the choice that he did.”

Erica’s voice suddenly becomes soft, and her big brown eyes become round with care that only a parent can express. But the only form of parent Ingvild ever had was Liam, and he was never much of a father, was he? It took less than a few hours for him to give her away. 

She wonders how long it took for her real mother.

Her gaze drops, peering at Erica’s shiny crimson shoes as they counter the lifelessness of the floor like blood in the snow. Memories whisk her away again, a man in pursuit of a woman deep in an icy forest. She should have died that night and yet here she is, shackled to a chair. The voice of the man who saved her echoes through her head with a fair warning: ‘Liam never gave a flying fuck about you.’

Sharp as a needle, it pricks her heart.

“I know what Icarus did. Moulding you into the perfect assassin, depriving you of the childhood and the life you deserved.” Erica’s voice cuts into her trail of thoughts, making her raise her gaze back to the beautiful woman. “Now, I don’t know what twisted fantasies August may have offered but I can assure you, they are empty just like him. You read his file, you know what he’s capable of. Looking at your scars and bruises I assume he hurts you for his own sick pleasure, taking advantage of a woman who only wants to be loved.”

‘She doesn’t know him like I do, the way he drank my lips and called me his angel, the way his fingertips beat the warm blood in my arteries.’ Ingvild shuts her eyes, soaking in the remnants of his touch as it still ghosts across her body.

Erica’s kind, tepid hand wraps around the young woman’s jaw, lifting her pale face with the cautiousness of a human tending a wild creature. Grey and dark-brown collide at the seams as they share a silent stare.    

“If you’ll give us his location, we can arrange for your freedom and protection.”  

Ingvild breaks away from Erica’s grip, pushing herself back in the chair as much as she can. The screech of metal against marble makes the guards cringe. Slow and cold, a sardonic chuckle begins to burst from Ingvild’s lungs. The laughter echoes off the walls while she shakes her head with disbelief. 

“Do I look like a dumb bitch to you? Even if this was true, do you think I’m willing to be a slave to another government? Kept ignorant and tabbed? I’d rather rot in this cell while my beautiful monster dismantles your old world order.”

Drops of water splash at her face as Erica squashes the plastic cup in front of her, sulking with fury. Her eyebrows knit together and she purses her lips as if this young woman is something sour on her tongue. 

Evidently, Liam was right; the girl is far too gone, living in the little fantasy world August built for her. 

“If you think he ever cared about you for a split second, then you are a dumb bitch. No matter how this plays out, you and August are never going to end up happily ever after.” Erica spits, holding her finger at Ingvild’s childlike frown. “He’s never going to come for you. You were nothing but a toy, a plaything for him to pass the time.”

Ingvild scoffs and rolls her eyes, refusing to let these words cut into the beating muscle in her chest. 

`Stick and stones may break my bones...’

Solid, slender fingers wrap around her jaw, squeezing around her cheeks like a big spider. She is met with Erica’s long lashes, while those deep brown eyes slice into her soul. 

“You might think you know him, but I’ve worked with August long enough to know that he never loved anything other than his precious ego. So I would consider this as your final chance little girl, because if you don’t talk right now - this nice fellow here...” Erica pauses and gestures her head to the scrawny man who begins to hum a blissful tune while cracking his knuckles. Twisted excitement shines through his beady eyes as he glances at the set of sharp surgical tools lying on the desk.

“He’s going to make you sing like the precious bird you are.”

Fear shies from Ingvild’s stoic, icy face. The well-lubricated gears in the labyrinth of her head begin to work, observing the possible escape options and scanning every cavity, crease, and man in Erica’s lovely torture chamber.  

The door suddenly bursts open. A man in his mid thirties with bright red hair and a freckle-covered face rushes in, huffing heavily. His pink skin glistens with sweat, the strands of his fiery hair sticking on his large forehead while his hand holds onto his chest with distress. 

“Sloane, there is something you need to see…” he opens his mouth breathlessly.

“Not now!” Sloane snaps at him, looking at Ingvild with contempt. There is nothing she wishes more than to avoid torturing a young woman, especially someone as misguided as this poor porcelain doll. All she needs is to make her see the truth, that August never cared for her, that she was just another pawn in his grand scheme. 

“Director, I am sorry, but you really need to come and see this.” 

Agitated, Erica snaps in her chair to look at him. “What is it, Agent Louis?”

“It’s John Lark’s manifesto, ma’am…” he sighs, shoulders slumping, “it’s… it’s everywhere.”

A shivering hiss escapes her mouth. The shiver that graces the rail of her spine is like a shower of icy water, making her slowly rise from her chair. August’s harmful “poetry” is released into the air like toxic gas, contaminating every fragile little mind in an already unstable world.  

“Do you like my little surprise?” Ingvild asks, making the baffled woman turn to gaze at her. There’s a malicious little smile dancing across her eyes, her brows lifting with an arrogance that strongly resembles Agent Walker. 

Swallowing hard, the CIA woman takes a step back, tugging her jacket straight and looking at the torturer who lifts a small hammer between his pliable fingers. 

“Break her, until she talks.” 

The harsh tapping of her heels dies down and her silhouette becomes smaller until it disappears behind the shutting door. 

“Pretty girl...” The man’s voice is brittle and thin as he is, every word ending with a slight snake-like hiss. He moves to scrutinise her from head to toe, flicking his tongue over his bottom lip with a prying nature. 

“You know August used to mock me…”

“I can see why,” she spits out, looking back at him with both fearlessness and utter disrespect. She killed men bigger than him, hell, August’s kneaded her to submission and his torture was nothing but sweet. 

She can take him on, she can take all of them on.

The lean man beams at her, holding up the small shiny hammer and running his finger over the rim pervertedly. The dead skin around his nails rouses disgust in her gut, yet she rolls her eyes and fakes a yawn.

He chuckles at her theatrics and kneels in front of her with one unstable hand pressing onto her thigh. His revolting fingers scratch gently at her denim, making her shiver. If August knew another man was laying his finger on her… 

But August is not here.

“Well… shall we begin, little bird?”

***

‘When this world ends and the new one begins, what will be of your little Valkyrie? Merely bones and rotting flesh laid in an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere and mourned by no one. Won’t you be jealous of the insects feasting on her narcotic tissue?’

Cold air seeps through his nose as sharp bullets of hail hit the ground with the fury of angry gods, shattering onto the ruins of an old bridge with a loud, clattering noise. Sheltered from the rage of the heavens, August stands beneath the wreckage, facing the men who came to make the final exchange. 

Blue and green ferns have grown over the decaying surroundings, climbing over rusted metal. Nature reclaiming its place over man’s occupied space. Justice and beauty in decadence and rot. 

‘Memento mori.’

“The plutonium,”  August demands, his thick brows shadowing his eyes in a battle to remain composed. Those same parasitic visions of sheer terror burden him like a daytime nightmare: pale as porcelain, she sinks to the bottom of a lake thick with blood. His hand reaches out for her, fingers trying to grasp whatever he can but she slips away. 

‘How far do you think Erica will go this time?’ 

A rogue droplet of sweat glides languidly down his temple, crossing over a bulging tendon. Unfortunately quite apparent to the three men who scrutinise him with wonder: two well-paid bodyguards and a slimy-looking slug, wearing a dark business suit that does nothing but emphasize his fragile masculinity. 

“The money first!” The businessman whines, attempting to make a tough face.

‘A cock and two balls.’ August jests and does his best to remain indifferent while anxiety threatens to claw its ugly talons in his throat. The seller’s receding hairline is thick with dandruff, his dull green eyes attempt to mimic confidence, as a beta male would do when facing a pure alpha, trying to compensate for lost dignity.  

‘I don’t have time for this,’ August huffs, his chest puffing and the immense shoulders stretching even wider, exhuming his natural overpowering dominance. His patience runs brittle as a dry twig. A restless throb thunders between his ears like a scab, latched inside his brain. 

The slug pries his mouth open to speak, yet his voice becomes dull as if the world just went underwater.

‘Do you think she’ll go as far as to let her men touch her? You know, not just the usual torture they put interrogated suspects through, but the type of touch only you are allowed to.’

‘She doesn’t have the balls, she won’t do that to another woman.’ 

‘Won’t she? It’s personal this time. Erica knows what you are capable of. And your Ingvild, she’s an apostle too now, an enemy of the world…’

Fever burns at his sweaty forehead and his lungs gradually collapse. Visions he can’t even bring himself to imagine attempt force their way into his mind. The yapping of the man who stands in front of him goes on and on; while August can feel himself speak in response, the words spouting from his lips are on autopilot. 

All he can think of is her, stripped naked, torn to shreds by dark shadows.   

‘She holds back a lot, but when she slips, aren’t her screams so beautiful? Her pleasant little voice, stretching so melodically, like skin over bone, thin and light.’

“Shut up!”

All eyes lift to August in silent bewilderment. His fists tighten, nails digging into his coarse palms as the will to rip someone to shreds beats through his blood. These men will be no more than a casualty. 

“Do you know who I am?” He asks in a deep, menacing tone, his hand but a second from reaching his holster. By measured calculation, he already anticipates how quickly he would shoot them one by one without so much of a scratch on his cheek.

“I’m John, fucking, Lark. My apostles are awaiting orders this very instance,” he reaches for his phone, ignoring the flinch in their posture as he draws it from his pocket and shakes it in his hand on display, “and you want to stand here in this shit weather and measure dicks? Spoiler alert,” he takes a stride in front of the little man, careless of his bodyguards who reach for their weapons, “mine is far bigger.”   

The seller peers at him silently, noticing the icy crust of rage in August’s glare. His pale eyes cut like diamonds while the shadow of his brooding figure falls upon the small man’s face. 

“You will get your money once I get to see the plutonium and confirm it’s authenticity,” August calls out assertively, each word distinguished, each syllable emphasised and sharp as a blade. Death is no longer an enemy to August Walker but an old friend, and those trolls under the bridge are a mere joke to the inferno he’s been basking at his entire life.

‘Limb by limb, feather by feather, while you waste your time...’

‘She wanted me here, she wanted me to secure the plutonium. If I don’t do this, it will all be for nothing.’

‘So now you are doing this for her?’

Not saying another word, the seller nods and snaps his fingers. Agitation is evident on his face yet the violence emanating from August forces him to bite down his pride. One of his henchmen approaches with a suitcase and opens it up to show August the orbs.

Thunder rips through the sky and the hail turns into a symphony of wrath. Icicles break across the construction site above, splashing water everywhere around them. Staring at the platinum spheres, August sees his own reflection dulled by the dirty silver curve. 

A dormant thing. But when set into motion, ever so deadly. 

He presses the beryllium rod to test the authenticity of the material and a sigh of relief pipes itself through his nose at the sound of the radioactive note on his testing device. Celebration blooms in his weary heart but the festivity is deemed achingly empty and dies out right away. 

‘Stop thinking about her, she’s gone. Focus on the cause, you’re almost there, just keep pushing through the doors.’ 

~*~

The blizzard melted into shy rain. The soft little drops dampen his hair, perming his large curls with the assistance of the cool winter breeze. Standing with the suitcase on the side of the rural road, August awaits his ride taking him to the helipad to proceed to Kashmir. It has been so long since he last met his true colleagues, since his departure from Lane in Norway. Avoiding any risks, contact was kept only necessary for the last stages of their tasks.

Doom’s day.

Securing the plutonium should have brought him relief, yet his chest continues to sink into his spine as if it’s being filled with coals. August Walker threaded through life alone, yet this sudden solitude is suddenly harrowing, making him feel like a gutted fish. Looking to his empty side he the ghost of her appears, giving him a bratty smirk. 

“Go away,” he chides, refusing to think of her. Of that stupid mouth talking back, tormenting him with sweet saccharine and cinnamon-like kisses. In his reminiscences, the softness of her lips still hinges. Tenderness meeting the bristle of his neck as she lay gentle wet markings up his coarse jaw. 

His fingers press to his mouth trying to harness the memory. 

A large car drives into the side of the road, speeding up and braking right next to his legs, missing August’s foot by an inch. Frowning at the careless driver, he grunts and brushes his hair before opening the passenger door.

“Took you awhile,” he grunts as he slips into the seat and peers at the driver. A bulky man in his early 40s with dark short cropped curls and thin lips. He shoots August a glance and turns back to the steering wheel.  

“Not my bad, you made a fucking mess, Lark.” The man answers and begins driving right away, careless of the fact that August didn’t put his seatbelt on and that he is holding radioactive material. 

Throwing the seatbelt over himself and fastening it, August growls and carefully secures the case on the side of the driver seat, his index finger remaining on the brim. He gently caresses the hard black leather. “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

The driver peers at him oddly before looking down the road, driving fast and passing a large log truck. “Releasing the manifesto. MI6 and the CIA are all over the place,” he says and turns the radio on, letting August hear the news on his own. “I get why you did it now, it’s brilliant to cause another distraction but you’ve made shit a bit harder with those cunts running around. They tracked it back from London and have been surveying the entire area.”

“I didn’t release the... “ 

August stills, his muscles shriveling up as realisation quickly hits him. 

‘Oh angel, what have you done?’

Drawing out his mobile phone, August immediately begins to search the newsite, his eyes an ocean of panic, fluttering back and forth. It’s everywhere, news about an anarchist manifesto, spreading like a virus through every social media outlet, leaked by codename “Jane Lark”. 

“Fuck,” he hisses, reading his own written word as he goes through an article posted on the BBC’s newsite. But she changed the last verse, added a little piece of her own:  

“Valkyries mounted onto beasts,  We will ride eternal to the sun. The blazes will sear us but we will not back down,  United by our cause of just war, Unflinching we will scour the earth, Until humanity comes together in tranquil and harmony.”

‘She loves you, you see? The way she lets you bleed her, use her, spill all your pain inside her. The way she held onto you just a night ago, your name falling from her lips, her body pressing into yours to take all of you. She’s the only one. The only woman who did and ever will. 

And you left her to die.’

________________________________

Disclaimer: I don’t own Mission Impossible and August Walker

[the-evil-authoress]

GX Month Day 1: “Hero Signal”

We’re kicking things off with everyone’s favorite hero Judai/Jaden Yuki’s birthday! Show the fluffy boi some love!

This chaos ran away from me. But I’m quite happy with it.

Jaden’s knee bounces, one eye on the game in his hands, the other on his phone. He’s played this game a hundred times before so he doesn’t really need to pay full attention unless it’s the boss fight. His duffle bag is already packed. He’s ready this time, he’s waiting, he’s...excited? That’s a new concept. He can’t remember the last time he’d been excited for his birthday. But last year his friends had gone out of their way to surprise him, so-

Maybe he’s expecting too much.

No, no, we’re trying to be positive here!

Jaden shakes his head, misses the timing for a jump, and has to start the virtual obstacle course over. Today’s gonna be a good day. Clutching the console tighter, Jaden tries to ignore the thick, slimy feeling bubbling up his chest.

His phone vibrates and he dives for it.

[come meet me at central park]

Yes! He snaps the GameBoy shut without saving, chucks it in his bag as he shoulders it, and runs for the door. The park, huh? Maybe he’s not supposed to bring his stuff? Whatever, won’t be their first impromptu sleepover.

He snaps to a halt at the sight of his mother slipping her shoes off at the genkan. “Mom?”

She looks up as if startled to see him. “Judai?”

And there goes his good mood. His mother eyes the bag on his shoulder, what would have been a pleasant but entirely fake smile crinkling into a frown.

“I’m heading out,” he grumbles as he walks past her to get his own shoes.

“I got off early today so I thought we could go get a cake.” Ugh, she sounds so damnably confused, like really? What did you expect?

“I’m heading out!” Jaden snaps, shoving his shoes on, and throws himself out the door before she can get another word in edgewise. It slams behind him. He takes off running.

Geez. Breathing through his teeth, he tugs on his hair. No one even calls him that anymore. ‘Cept that freaking voice in his dreams-

Nope. Not thinking about that. Today’s gonna be a good day.

Winged Kuriboh trills by his head but it’s Neos’ voice that startles him. “She seemed like she was making an effort.”

“Too little, too late.” Jaden huffs and steadfastly plows forward to the train station and out of their middle of nowhere suburb. “I’ve already got plans.” He tightens his grip on the bag strap. And he’d much rather spend the day with people who actually know him and what he likes. He cringes in delight at the memory of the mountain of presents from last year. Wonder what they got him this time?

The train ride is dull like usual; Jaden sticks himself in a corner and plays on his GameBoy until Kuriboh alerts him to their stop. Then the console is shoved back in his bag as he shoulders it and shoves his way through the other passengers toward freedom. The park is a ten minute walk from there, and his friends are conspicuously easy to spot.

There’s a gazebo deck out in balloons and streamers and one of those shiny fucking rainbow “Happy Birthday” signs with his name. Sweet Neo Space, Jaden wants to hide in a trash can like Syrus did at the tournament.

“I can’t.” Jaden spins on his heel, hoping no one has spotted him yet. Sparkman actually goes out of his way to grab Jaden’s shoulders and spin him back around, and Jaden lets him despite the fact he could easily break out of the ghostly hold. “Alright, alright. Gods, my friends are embarrassing.”

As if on cue, someone must have noticed him because a chorus of voices call out.

“Jaden!”

“Jaden, over here!”

Yeah, like he hadn’t already seen the giant sign announcing his birthday to the world. That had to be Atticus’s idea. Walking up to the gazebo is an odd cocktail of emotions, somewhere between please let me die and I will die happy. A mountain of presents sit on the table. It’s...it’s bigger than last year?

“You look like you’re about to faint,” Bastion says, already offering an arm to steady Jaden.

“I might,” Jaden squeaks, a rare moment of vulnerability that is both terrifying and insanely freeing. “You guys... This is a lot.”

“And nothing less for such a special day!” Atticus throws his arms out in a grand display and Jaden winces with a strained laugh.

“A little too much,” he admits.

Atticus’s expression falls into confusion as Christina snorts and Alexis gives her brother a critical look. “I told you his name on the banner was too much.” Jaden nods in silent agreement, not daring to meet their eyes. Bastion’s arm remains a comforting support around his shoulders.

As extravagant as Atticus likes to act, he actually stops to consider this before shrugging. “I’ll keep that in mind then. I guess I do get carried away.” Scratching the back of his head, he smiles sheepishly.

“Oh you think?” Chazz scoffs. “Should have seen what my party looked like.”

Jaden latches onto the ability to swerve the conversation away from himself. “Oh, yeah! Sorry I missed that.”

“You weren’t even invited!” Chazz snaps. “That dolt went and invited himself!”

“You had fun and you know it,” Atticus says, undeterred.

“I have photo evidence,” Syrus says with a smug grin from where he sits on a table bench, and Chazz snaps to gape at him in horror.

“Delete them! Delete them, you little rat!”

“Make me!” Syrus challenges, deftly dodging Chazz’s lunge and darting behind Hassleberry, a solid wall of muscle who Chazz still tries to lunge around.

“Oi! Who said you could drag me into this?!” Hasselberry shoves both of them away as Chazz flails his arms uselessly at Syrus.

Snickering, Jaden moves away from Basation to drop his bag under the bench next to Christina as the game of chase continues. “You brought your bag.”

“Crashing at your place after this,” Jaden says. A statement not a question, and Christina sends him a look but thankfully doesn’t ask.

A screech pulls their attention to Chazz awkwardly dangling from the gazebo railing after what must have been an epic nosedive. “You did that on purpose!” he screams at a smug Syrus, and Jaden’s hands fly to his mouth as the laugh spills out of him.

“Think twice about chasing me next time!”

Just damn his friends are insane and Jaden loves it. Atticus and Bastion take pity on Chazz and help him back into the gazebo, while Jaden cautiously looks over the spread on the table. One side is the pile of colorful boxes, a giant cake with whip cream and strawberries on the other, and Jaden baulks at the figure with a book in his hand at the far end of the table.

“Zane??”

Without looking up, Zane points directly at Atticus and flips the page in his book. “Don’t get used to this.”

“Suuuure,” Christina drawls with one of those I know something you don’t want me to smiles. Ever the king of poker faces, Zane doesn’t react. He doesn't even react to Atticus dropping a party hat on his head on his way to the-

That’s a deep fryer. That’s a deep fucking fryer that Atticus pulls a fresh batch of fried shrimp out of. “Atticus,” Jaden croaks. “I love you but I hate you.”

“Awww, I love you too Jaden!” Atticus doesn’t miss a beat and Jaden slumps onto the bench to bury his face in his arms. These people will be the death of him!

And he will still die happy.

“I think we broke him.” Syrus pokes his shoulder.

“Just leave him alone for a bit.” That’s Alexis’ voice, a brief but firm hand on his shoulder to remind him she’s there if he needs her but will give him space. It’s a little terrifying how well she’s come to know him, that they all have really; Jaden can’t remember ever making the decision to let them get so close. But maybe it’s a good thing, Jaden thinks, as Atticus passes out plates of the best fried shrimp Jaden has ever tasted, he and Bastion eagerly exchange deck theories, and the mountain of presents turns out to be mostly snacks, new video games, and useful but themed items rather than more stuff that will collect dust in his room. The E-Hero throw blanket and the Winged Kuriboh pillow are coming with him to the dorm.

[I’m sorry I couldn’t make it! Happy birthday, Jaden!!! Send pictures!] Chumley texts part way into the festivities with a liberal amount of heart and party popper emojis, and Jaden has to take another moment to recollect himself.

“I tried to get Aster out here too, but the guy said he was too busy.” Atticus holds his hands aloft and shakes his head like this is such a tragedy.

“Hey, I’m surprised you got Zane in on this.” Jaden looks up from the pillow of his arms. He’s starting to tire in the high energy atmosphere but he doesn’t want to leave yet. Maybe his friends won’t care if he just zens for a bit? They didn’t seem to notice last time when he quietly retreated to the side with Christina, but they’d also been screaming over a board game.

“I had the day off anyway,” Zane says, still not looking up, and no one bothers him for not engaging. Then again, Zane has never been much for engaging in anything.

“Just keep pretending you don’t care.” Atticus ruffles Zane’s hair and Jaden sniggers at the way Zane’s poker face cracks the tiniest bit.

Syrus and Hassleberry start arguing over who’s gift Jaden liked better - Jaden refuses to choose much to their dismay - Christina and Alexis seem to be talking about a show they’re both into, and Chazz and Bastion are debating the existence of other realities - really, Chazz? They already know those exist. They’ve been to one.

Jaden smiles, hidden by his arm, left to chill in peace and interact as he pleases.

Yeah, this is a good thing.

Maybe us against the world doesn’t have to just be the two of them anymore.

[epiphany-of-a-madwoman]

The Last Dragon | The Witcher

Chapter 17 | A Tale of Dragons

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x Targaryen!OC

Summary: Visenya Targaryen is the eldest and only surviving child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell. When Robert Baratheon’s rebellion was won, instead of being slaughtered by the Mountain like her mother and siblings, she was saved by Ned Stark and taken as his ward. Years later, after she’s killed at the Red Wedding, she wakes up outside Blaviken. Now she finds her destiny intertwined with the White Wolf on her quest to go back home.

Warnings: Soft Visenya being soft with Geralt and children

Word Count: 5.6k

Note: Click here to read the previous chapters ♡ Also! My tag list is open!

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

She counts out each second, blade in hand as she moves along to her quiet muttering. Each step is like a dance, careful and practiced, as she leaves footprints in the dampened dirt. Every breath is even and quiet, inhaling on the beat and then exhaling on the offbeat. If her movements are a dance, then her breathing and counting is the song she sways to.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

She spins in time with the crescendo to the imaginary music. Her blade slicing through the air, steel whistling in the wind. But it isn’t uncontrolled. She maintains a firm grip on her blade, manipulating how it moves and where. She’s in a trance, captivated by the breeze on her bare skin and the symphony in her head. It’s not the rigorous and disciplined sword training she’s used to, that’s been hammered in her mind from the day she first held a sword. Instead, it’s lighter and freer, her sword becoming an extension of herself rather than a tool she uses separately from her.

“What are you doing?” a small voice says.

The music silences and her movements stop. She lowers the blade to face the ground rather than outward and turns, eyes falling to the ground. A small elven boy stares up at Visenya, curiosity, and wonder gleaming in his wide green eyes,

“Practicing,” she says, staring down at the small boy, no discernable emotion on her face. Despite the bluntness of her words and the blank expression on her face, the boy isn’t deterred.

“Can I try?”

She recognizes him as Rohir, the little boy that got knocked unconscious by the skeevy bandit Visenya killed. Within a few hours of making camp, he woke, restless and unable to stay in one spot for too long, much to the chagrin of his mother.

The corners of her lips twist into a look of amusement, eyes faintly twinkling in the dim light. He’s small, not much smaller than she had been the first time she held a sword - albeit a wooden one. She remembers faint memories of training yards and practice dummies at the Capitol; holding weapons too large for her, whilst onlookers simply ignored her, except for Ser Jaime. He stuck close to Visenya when he could, whether out of a sense of duty or genuine enjoyment, she never knew. As the years go on, she leans toward the latter, but a small part of her still hopes it was genuine liking.

A grin slowly creeps onto Rohir’s face, the prospect of sword training making his entire face light up with anticipation.

“No.” One word, two letters; that’s all it takes. The grin on his face and the sparkle in his eyes immediately disappear, leaving no trace of ever being there. Instead, a scowl overcomes his young features, his hands crossing over his chest. Visenya can’t help the snort that leaves her mouth, only further infuriating the boy.

“Why not?” His voice is petulant, a faint lisp following each letter.

“You’re too small. You’ll only hurt yourself,” she says, a hint of amusement in her otherwise deadpan tone.

“Says you!” he responded, fire and frustration coating each word.

“Says me,” Visenya mimics his words, lacking any of the heat that he possesses.

“But I’m really good!” Rohir exclaims.

She sheathes her blade, turning away from Rohir, eyes focusing on Geralt. He’s sitting on the ground, back against the trunk of a tree that’s on the other side of the camp. He sits so he’s not in the immediate line of sight, but at a vantage point that he can still see everything.

“I am sure you are,” Visenya says, a slight smirk on her lips. Ice cold leaves crack under the weight of her feet as she moves towards Geralt. Her walk is loose and casual, not a tense bone in her body.

“So why won’t you let me hold your sword?” He follows closely behind her, a furious storm, but his anger only furthers Visenya’s amusement.

“Because, you’re too small, and my sword is too big,” Visenya responds. She’s halfway to Geralt, standing in the center of the camp. Rohir huffs an argument on the tip of his tongue, only to be cut off by Amaria.

“Rohir! Come here, En'ca minne,” He loudly inhales only to sigh a moment later. Visenya hears his feet stomping into the dirt as he walks away. Quiet laughter follows Visenya as she closes the remaining distance between her and Geralt.

His eyes don’t move to meet hers; not when her feet appear in his peripheral vision nor when she joins him on the ground and her shoulder faintly brushes against his.

She says nothing and neither does he. Gold eyes focus on the flurry of movement and noises that fill the clearing. It’s more lively and happy than it had been only four hours ago. Amaria switches between tending to her still unconscious husband, only bearing to leave his side when she has to chase around one of her children who are acting up. The two youngest - Elana and Vyron - squeal in glee, chasing each other around without a care in the world. As their forms zip past Visenya she hears faint wisps of their conversation. They’re acting out a grand tale brimming with adventure and happy endings. They’re so free and untouched by the tragedy that was gripping at their feet, begging to pull them under its desolate claws.

She remembers those days. When she’d run around Winterfell like a feral animal, unblemished by the fate of her family. The horrors she was able to bury so deep in her mind they felt more like distant nightmares rather than reality, the box only unlocking when she grew old enough to understand that more than just silver hair separated her from the Starks.

More often than not she wishes she could go back, to be protected by the naivety of childhood.

“I didn’t take you as a fan of children?” Geralt’s voice pulls her from her thoughts. She glances over at him, the small smile that managed to slowly creep onto her face disappearing.

“Why?”

“They seem too loud, I thought you liked the quiet,” Geralt says. Visenya snorts, rolling her eyes. She returns her gaze to the clearing. Rohir sits beside his mother, a pout on his lips, still upset by Visenya's refusal to train him. Elana and Vyron continue to whip through the clearing, with no sign of stopping any time soon.

“I do, but children aren’t terrible,” Visenya answers, watching as the two youngest stop in a portion of the clearing that’s the farthest from anyone. Elana is yelling, the words foreign to Visenya, but Vyron seems to understand her perfectly.

“Do you want any?”

Visenya shrugs, watching as the respite the two children have taken ends as they continue to run around the clearing. She’s never thought about the prospect of children. For most of her life it seemed inevitable; she would be married to some lord or another, bear his children, and then die at some point. But then the war happened, and everything about her life that seemed certain became undetermined.

Visenya opens her mouth, despite not actually having an answer for his question, but is cut off as Elana appears, jumping onto Visenya's lap. Her breath is temporarily lost, and before she can regain it, Vyron quickly follows, landing on the right side of her lap just as Elana moves herself to rest on the left.

Geralt grunts, watching the two rambunctious children with a wary gaze, praying to every god that may listen that they don’t decide to jump on him next.

“Do you have any stories?” Elana asks, her face beaming in the dim light. A wide smile makes its home on her face, wonder causing her wide eyes to nearly glow. Vyron’s expression mimics hers, but his face is softer and smaller, causing him to look more like an excitable puppy. It’s nearly identical to Rickon, who clung to Visyena’s leg as if his life depended on it.

‘How fitting that he’s now dead,’

The thought enters and leaves her mind before she can fully comprehend it. Mentally she clears her mind, opting to focus on the wide-eyed children in front of her.

“What an odd question to ask. Why do you believe me to have any tales to speak of?” Visenya asks.

“You’re an adventurer. Adventures always have tales,” Elana says, her tone not allowing for objections. Her words are fact and she seems set on not accepting any other truths. Vyron doesn’t speak but opts to enthusiastically nod his head in agreeance with his older sister, a matching grin on his face.

“Do they now?” Visenya asks, tilting her head to the side.

“Yes,” Elana says, giving Visenya a single nod.

Laughter bubbles out of Visenya's mouth - the sound so light and sweet it captures the attention of Amaria and Rohir. She throws back her head and her eyes shut, the noise continues to resound in the camp. Geralt watches with less wariness, his face morphing into a less stern expression. On the opposite end of the camp, Amaria stands from her position, quickly making her way to the group of them, Rohir following behind her like a shadow.

“Elana, please, I’m sure the both of them would like to be left to silence,” she says, moving to grab her daughter. Elana’s posture slouches, the smile on her face falling ever so slightly. Visenya finally stops laughing, opening her eyes and looking towards Amaria.

“No, it’s quite alright,” Visenya says, shaking her head in disagreement as she adjusts to get in a more comfortable position. Amaria freezes in place, eyes darting between her children and Visenya as if she doesn’t actually believe the words she’s saying.

“As a matter of fact, I happen to have a tale that I know quite well, but it’s not one that I’ve experienced personally. Would you still like to hear it?” Visenya asks a playful grin resting on her features. Elana immediately perks up, nodding her head so enthusiastically it might’ve fallen off - Vyron following his sister's every movement.

“Yes, please please please,” Vyron and Elana immediately begin to plead, widening their eyes to achieve a more innocent and puppy dog appearance. Visenya’s eyes dart to Amaria, silently asking if it would be alright. The worry melts from Amaria’s face, posture relaxing as she grants Visenya a single nod.

She pauses for a second, racking her brain for a tale to tell that would be suited for an audience this age. She doesn’t think about it for long, a story she’s known since she could read words on a page immediately entering her mind.

“Let me tell you a story about dragons,” Visenya says. Elana and Vyron grow silent, waiting with bated breath for Visenya to continue. Rohir appears from behind his mother, a pout still present on his lips, eyes scowling at the dirt, but he continues forward, sitting right beside Visenya. He grabs a stick and begins tracing symbols into the dirt, refusing to make eye contact with anyone but the ground, attempting to maintain an air of disinterest.

“Many years ago, in a world far far away, there once was a city - Valyria they called it, and what a grand city it was. A place filled with wonder, magic, and dragons.”

Elana and Vyron gasp, audibly portraying their excitement. Rohir is more subtle, his ears only twitching slightly as his movements pause for a brief second. Visenya leans her head back, closing her eyes as she begins to bury herself in the stories she read a million times over, clutching that worn and torn book every night like it was the only thing keeping her on the ground. After a moment of silence and a deep breath, Visenya opens her eyes, staring straight ahead and into the fire that flickers a few feet away from them.

“It was a great city, managing to tame dragons they would ride into battle. They were fearsome and respected, managing to conquer large amounts of territories with their dragon fire. For 5,000 years Valyria was the capital of the greatest civilization, the heart of an empire that ruled half of the world. It was grand, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, which leads into this story.”

The children are enraptured, eyes solely focusing on Visenya - even Rohir abandons his guise of not being interested in her tale. She doubts that Vyron is following the story, but his eyes are wide and mouth agape - growing more exaggerated each time she mentions‘<dragons>’. Elana is young, but her eyes are sharpened with intelligence that’s older than her as she seems to follow the story well.

Amaria no longer stands, opting to sit on the ground, opening her arms as Vyron crawls off of Visenya’s lap and onto his mothers. Visenya glances at Geralt, his eyes already on her, his gaze burning into her. Her mind stutters, fog momentarily taking over so she can no longer focus on anything. Eyes snap away, once again focusing on the fire to clear her mind.

“There were many great houses, one of them known as House Targaryen, with shining silver hair and amethyst purple eyes, the family held distinctive Valyrian features. Targaryens were believed to have a closer connection to their dragons, to understand them in a way the other dragonlords never would.”

“Because they had magic, right?” Elana says, her voice firm and sharp. Rohir turns to his sister, a pout on his lips as he shushes her. She turns to face him, a matching glare set on her face.

“If you wait, she’ll tell us,” he says. She huffs, an indignant look on her childish face.

“I just wanted to know!” Elana says.

“Well, you should just wait!” Rohir says, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Rohir, be nicer to your sister, she’s just excited,” Amaria says in a soft and soothing tone, diffusing the argument before it could get any worse.

“But--” Rohir says, but quickly grows silent when he receives a stern glare from his mother. He huffs, slouching his shoulders and looking towards the ground. Amaria sighs, looking at Visenya with a soft smile on her face. Visenya smirks, amusement glimmering in her eyes.

“But to answer your question, in a way they were magical. They didn’t have mages, but they had visions that would come in the form of dreams. The most notable of these came from Daenys the Dreamer, who saw the fall of Valyria.

“But they had dragons! What could beat dragons!?” Rohir says in disbelief, eyes wide in shock. Visenya turns to him, the smirk on her face turning into a knowing look that has Rohir ducking away from her gaze. She chuckles, a soft sound that is carried away by the sudden roar of the fire.

“They did, but dragons couldn’t save them from the natural disasters that tore through the city. Fire, ash, and smoke filled the air, managing to kill even the dragons.”

“So they all died?” Elana asks with a quiet and sad tone, a strong lisp following every vowel.

“All except House Targaryen, who because of Daenys’ dream went west to Dragonstone, an island far enough away from Valyria to escape the desolation,” Visenya says.

“What’s dissolution?” Vyron asks. Elana turns her head to look at him.

“I think it means the end,” Elana says.

“No, it means death. There was lots of death!” Rohir says, turning to face his siblings. Vyron just nods, whilst Elana cocks her head to the side, brows furrowing in thought.

“It’s when something is damaged beyond repair,” Amaria says. “Their homeland was destroyed, just as many homes to the elves have been.”

Visenya looks at Amaria, who meets her gaze. There’s a sadness in her eyes that Visenya didn’t notice before, but it’s familiar. It’s the same look she saw in Filavandrel’s eyes, and any other elf she met that day.

“But they brought dragons with them, right? The dragons weren’t all dead, right?” Rohir asks, breaking Visenya from her mild trance. Before she can answer him, Elana whips her head in his direction, a look of exasperation on her face.

“Of course! They were the best with dragons!” Elana exclaims.

“I was just asking!” Rohir yells back, straightening his posture and face contorting into a petulant expression.

“Well, why are you asking stupid questions?” Elana responds, turning away from Rohir to face Visenya and rolling her eyes. Visenya’s hand shoots up to her mouth, attempting to cover the grin on her face. It manages to muffle the small laughter that escapes her mouth, the noise escaping the notice of everyone except Geralt and Amaria - who looks at Visenya with exasperation in her eyes.

“There is no need for arguing,” Visenya says, looking pointedly at Elana with a single eyebrow raised. She at least has the decency to look sheepish, scrunching her nose and looking down at the ground.

“Sorry,” she mutters at the same time as Rohir.

“You are forgiven, shall we get back to the story?” Visenya asks, a slight smirk on her lips. Elana looks up at her through her lashes, nodding her head.

“Good. They did bring dragons with them - five to be exact. While the names of four have been lost to the ages, one name is known to everyone who knows of House Targaryen; Balerion the Black Dread. He was a massive dragon, who when he grew to full size, could black out entire towns as he passed over them, his wings large enough to cover the sun.” Visenya says. The children make various sounds of wonder, eyes wide and unblinking.

“What did they do next?” Rohir asks.

Visenya pauses, cocking her head slightly as she tries to recall. Her only source of knowledge concerning her family is an old book that had been buried in the depths of the library in Winterfell that was tattered and torn from continuous use by the time she marched off to war. It was vague at best, not offering any new or rare information about her house, therefore the time in between The Doom and Aegon’s conquest is blank.

“Well, House Targaryen made a home at Dragonstone, away from the war that ensued twelve years later when Valyria was destroyed. Nothing of note happened until roughly a hundred years later,” Visenya says.

“Well, what happened!?” Rohir exclaims.

“That would be a story for another day. I believe it is getting too late to begin another - much longer - tale,” Visenya says, glancing at Amaria. She stands from the ground, Vyron still firmly attached to her. She reaches a hand towards Elana, who groans, but takes her mother’s hand, getting off of Visenya’s lap. Rohir doesn’t voice his displeasure, opting to silently stand and move to stand beside his mother, but it’s clear on his face. His eyes aren’t as bright as they were when he was enraptured by Visenya’s story and his lips are pulled into a small pout.

“Visenya is right, it’s getting late and we have a long day of travel ahead of us. Let us give our saviors some quiet,” Amaria says, turning her gaze to Visenya and Geralt for a brief moment before herding her children to the other side of the clearing. “Now say goodnight.”

Three ‘goodnights’ resound all at once, in various tones and noise levels; Vyron gifting Visenya with a particularly toothy grin.

She smiles, unable to force away the action nor the laughter that escapes her mouth.

“Goodnight. I promise to tell you another tale tomorrow while we’re traveling,” Visenya says, earning a blinding grin from Elana and causing Rohir to immediately perk up.

“You promise?” Rohir says.

“Swear it on my life,” Visenya responds without missing a beat. He nods his head, turning and rushing across the clearing, eager to sleep the rest of the night away. Elana tears after him - yelling about racing him there. Vyron squirms in Amaria’s arms, the grin still on his face, but Amaria maintains her tight grip on him.

“To bed we go, Dilthen er,” Amaria says to Vyron and places a kiss on his cheek. She turns to give Visenya and Geralt, giving them one last warm smile before she turns to follow after her children. They all gather in one section close to the fire and near the sleeping body of Aldon. For a few moments restless chatter and light giggles come from the children as Amaria attempts to lull them to sleep with a soft lullaby. Eventually, the noise dies down as one by one they all fall asleep, leaving only Geralt and Visenya awake.

“An interesting tale,” Geralt says, after a moment of silence - once the children have all fallen asleep, Amaria shortly follows suit, leaving only Visenya and Geralt awake. Crickets chirp all around them, the low rustle of wind disturbing their melody occasionally.

“I thought so too,” Visenya says, bones cracking as she stretches her body out. She wraps her arms around the tree behind her as she reaches her arms behind her, slumping against the tree a moment later. She continues watching the fire as the flames that used to rise towards the night sky die out.

“Is it real?” Geralt asks. He’s looking at her, she always knows when he is. Something about the way his gold eyes linger on her is so distinct that she'll always know when a gaze is him, even if it seems impossible to know such a trivial thing. Nothing about a person’s gaze leaves any physical sensory that can be identified, and yet, never once has she been wrong about Geralt’s gaze.

“Supposedly. Although, I’m sure some details have been lost to the ages - some purposeful and some not. Books aren’t always incredibly accurate, stories are often skewed to the favor of the author,” Visenya says. She turns away from the fire to look at Geralt, locking eyes.

“Details you knew perfectly,” Geralt says. His tone isn’t accusatory, but she can hear the underlying question in his statement.

“When I was a little girl I had a book that I would read every day. It was the only comfort I had most days. That story was one of the many tales within the book,” Visenya says, a smile that can only be described as melancholic on her face. Geralt grunts, continuing to watch Visenya, but not saying anything further. His eyes are curious, hoping she’ll continue and say something that makes her less of a mystery. Yet he’s also not willing to press her for information she doesn’t want to share. That much they have in common: two people with too many secrets that are wrapped behind scars that they cover up with fury and rage. Because it’s easier to lose people if they were never allowed close to her to begin with. Life is safer when she keeps everyone at arm's length.

Visenya stares up at the night sky, watching the stars as the ambient sounds of soft snores and dream laced giggles resonate through the clearing. She swallows thickly, a lump beginning to form in her throat as her mind wanders farther and farther away.

“They were my ancestors,” Visenya says, shattering the silent air around them. Geralt doesn't move, doesn’t even breathe in fear that it might disrupt the trace that Visenya is in.

“House Targaryen, the Dragon Riders from Valyria that conquered the Seven Kingdoms.” She chuckles after the words leave her mouth, brows furrowing ever so slightly as her eyes briefly meet the dirt before returning to the stars.

“An impressive ancestry,” Geralt says, his gravelly tone unsure, the words fumbling nearly awkwardly out of his mouth.

“Yeah I suppose so,” Visenya says, voice sounding a million miles away as if she isn’t even physically only a few inches apart from Geralt.

“Better than my lineage, anyways,” Geralt continues, looking away from Visenya. He adjusts his body, resting against the tree more comfortably as his eyes scan the dark forest around them, wary of any threats that may linger just out of eyesight. Visenya’s lips curl into a bare smile, he whispers of a chuckle leaving her mouth as she languidly leans against the tree.

“The dragons were the most impressive part,” Visenya says, eyes fluttering shut, the hectic day finally catching up to her as her body grows wearier the quieter their camp grows.

“Maybe we should find you a dragon,” Geralt says, a smirk on his lips and a gleam in his eyes. Visenya snorts, opening a single eye to look at Geralt.

“This world couldn’t handle me with a dragon, Geralt of Rivia,” she says, shutting her eyes.

“That may be so, but I’d still pay good coin to see it.”

She laughs again, cautious to not be too loud in fear of waking up the camp. She opens her eyes, turning her head to face Geralt, meeting his gaze head-on. Their eyes lock, the beat of her heart steadily increasing the longer they maintain contact. A fluttering sensation fills her stomach, one that she’s almost entirely unfamiliar with. The tired smile on her face softens as Geralt’s lips curl into a similar grin.

“But could you imagine having a dragon,” Visenya says. “To ride on the back of one and feel the wind against your skin and to just...be free.” Her voice is far away again, as she dreams of fantasies she stopped having at some point between childhood and having to become an adult.

“Hmm, I imagine it’d be cold,” Geralt says, a teasing undertone in his otherwise deadpan voice. Visenya reaches out, pushing against his shoulder as another round of quiet laughter leaves her mouth.

“That is what warmer clothes are for,” she responds. “It would be foolish to climb onto a dragon unprepared anyways, lest you become its dinner.”

Geralt laughs, a quiet gravelly noise that nearly causes the ground around them to vibrate and it’s so contagious she can’t stop the bubbling of laughter that also leaves her mouth. Eyes shining and grin getting larger, Visenya watches Geralt's normally harsh and austere face grow softer the longer he laughs. He nearly looks like a child, despite the scars across his face - both fresh and faded - and the deep-set bags under his eyes from the lack of a good night’s rest. His voice is hoarser than usual, sleep and exhaustion weighing down his words causing them to slur together. But the way his eyes are alight and the sweet grin that tugs at the corner of his lips are adorable - a word not often associated with a man like Geralt, but Visenya wouldn’t describe him any other way.

“Stop, it was not even that funny,” Visenya says, and despite her attempt at sternness, laughter follows every word.

“I’m not laughing,” Geralt insists, and despite his best efforts at swallowing it, a small grin still rests on his face.

“Yes you are,” Visenya says.

“I think you’re hearing things, Vis. Perhaps it’s time for you to sleep,” Geralt says, moving his eyes to scan the camp. Her laughter immediately dies down as the smile on her face dims just the slightest, but Geralt seems unaware of the sudden shift in tone.

“What did you just say?” Her words are a whisper, nearly unheard by Geralt. He turns to look at her, the light grin on his face disappearing once he notices her expression.

“That you should rest,” Geralt answers.

“I heard, but what did you just call me?” Visenya says.

He pauses, eyes scanning the entirety of her face, focusing on the unreadable glint in her eyes and taking special note of the slight frown on her lips. But she doesn’t appear angry or sad or any of the other flurry of emotions he’s seen on her face in their travels.

“I called you Vis,” Geralt says after a moment of silence.

“Why?”

“Because Vis is shorter than Visenya,” Geralt says. “Should I not call you that?”

She inhales, quietly, eyes moving towards the dirt. It’s the nickname she’s had all her life. Robb, Jon, and everyone else always called her Vis. It was shorter and easier, they’d always tell her. She’d always argue her name isn’t even difficult to say, but they’d never agree and she’d never say how much she secretly enjoyed the name. It’s been so long since she’s ever heard anyone utter the nickname, it’s startling to hear it slip from someone's lips so effortlessly.

Then she exhales, an unknown weight lifting from her chest as she meets Geralt's gaze.

“It’s been so long since I’ve heard that nickname. I wouldn’t mind hearing it again,” she says, lips curling into a shy smile. A small sparkle appears in her eyes. It’s not the fiery gold eerily similar to burning flames that sparks when she’s furious or the sly mischievous glint he’s familiar with. Nor is it a glassy look from tears that she’s trying her best to hold back when she’s drowning in sorrowful thoughts. It’s bright, but not painfully so. Instead it’s sweet and soft, like the first flower blossoming on the first day of spring or the soft wind after a harsh winter.

Geralt nods, his stiff features relaxing as the stress of inadvertently offending her dissipates.

“Now I have to think of a nickname for you,” Visenya says, a teasing smile slipping onto her face. Geralt groans and rolls his eyes, flashbacks of all of Jaskier's attempts at creating nicknames to call Geralt. Much to his chagrin, the White Wolf seemed to stick as his title that the general public knew him as, but Jaskier was determined for another one to call Geralt. And Visenya knows this, as she was there for every failed attempt.

“Please don’t,” he says, only causing Visenya to laugh harder. She quickly rests a hand over her mouth in an attempt to suppress the noise so as to not wake up the camp. But every time she glances at Geralt and sees how truly exasperated he appears.

“What about Ger. We’d be a pair: Ger and Vis; Vis and Ger,” Visenya says. “I should be a poet, did you hear that little rhyme I did?”

“Hmm, you’d give Jaskier a run for his coin,” Geralt responds.

She snorts a small smirk on her lips. Her thoughts wander to Jaskier, wondering what he could be up to and if he is still happy. He probably is, he could find fun in the dullest of affairs.

“As much as I hate to admit it, but I miss Jaskier,” Visenya says. This time it’s Geralt that snorts, an exasperated look crossing his face as he rolls his eyes.

“I can’t say I feel the same.”

“Don’t lie, Geralt. We all know he’s wiggled his way into your good graces, it’s just what he does. You’re annoyed and want nothing more than for him to leave and then one day, you enjoy the constant jokes and mindless prattling,” Visenya says. Geralt hums, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

She adjusts her body, attempting to get into a more comfortable position, eyes growing heavier as each second passes. The cool wind is soothing against her warm skin, the crickets a lullaby that pulls her closer to sleep.

“What about your ancestry? What family does The White Wolf come from,”

Silence washes over them. And just when Visenya thinks Geralt won’t answer, he does.

“My mother was a sorceress, that’s all I know about my family. She left me with the Witchers when I was young.” His voice is somber and low, quieter than the volume they’d been talking with earlier.

“Do you miss her?” Visenya asks. She’s cautious and careful, taking special care to not push Geralt. Once again she’s met with silence and after a few moments, it becomes obvious he’s not going to answer.

“I miss my mother. I can’t really remember her, but I have this… this void that her death left behind,” Visenya says. She sighs, glancing up towards the stars once again, using the wind to dry the tears forming in her eyes. “And it never goes away, no matter how hard I try to pretend it isn’t there.”

Her breathing stutters and she huffs out a weak chuckle, attempting to cover the slip up of emotional vulnerability.

"I’m not sure how to feel. A part of me resents her for giving me to the Witchers, allowing them to turn me into a mutant,” Geralt says. She looks at him, wide eyes watching him. He doesn’t look at her, opting to stare at the dying fire.

“Sometimes I hate my father, it’s easier to blame him for everything that happened to my family because of his selfish decision. But I can’t bring myself to fully hate him, and I hate myself for feeling so indecisive about him,” she says.

It’s silent again, the air more uncomfortable than moments ago.

Not allowing herself to think on it too much, she begins to move her body, shuffling to sit closer to Geralt, only stopping when their legs are touching. Tentatively, she lowers her head to rest on his shoulder, hand intertwining with his. Neither of them say a word, and the awkward tension dissipates. Geralt’s stiff body relaxes, resting his head on top of Visenya’s.

"I wouldn't mind having children someday, to live a simple life and retire from adventuring," Visenya says. 

Geralt hums in response, drowsiness coating the simple response causing Visenya's lips to turn upwards and her cheeks to glow.

They stay that way, silent and content with the comfort of each other. Eventually, sleep begins to once again pull on Visenya, and she doesn’t resist.

“Goodnight Vis.”

“Goodnight Geralt.”

o0o

Elvish Translation:

- En'ca minne: Little Love

- Dilthen er: Little One

o0o

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[samiralula01]

Jason Todd is the Anti-Batman

* A pointless rambling of the relationship and parallels between Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd.

Picture this opening scene: There are two boys in a dark alley.

One is dressed in an expensive suit with a tie his dead father helped him with only earlier that evening. His hands are stained red with the same blood now puddled on the grimy cement. His face is in shock.

The second boy is dressed in tattered jeans and hoodie. His hands are stained with tires grease and are clutching a tire iron. His face is in shock.

Decades later, there are two more scenes to consider.

A seriously injured man sits slumped over in his father’s study. Without warning, a bat crashes through the window, and everything falls into place. He now knows what he needs to do.

Elsewhere, an emotionally distraught teenager is curled up into a fetal position on a hotel room floor. Heart wrenching cries can be heard from him. But it is only momentary. He now knows what he needs to do.

These two individuals are Bruce Wayne and Jason Todd. While they are both broken and determined men, Batman is a hero. The Red Hood is not. He is the anti-Batman and this is why.

Two Boys in an Alleyway

Despite similarities in their stories’ early themes and elements, Bruce and Jason came to walk down very different paths. One of justice, and the other vengeance. Batman is determined to protect the innocent and Jason more so on punishing the guilty. Both their ideologies have intrinsic flaws, of course, and will naturally clash often. But this wasn’t always the case.

Before they became a father and son perpetually in mourning for who they once were and what could have been, Bruce and Jason were remarkably similar. The two are cut from the same cloth and Bruce knows this better than anyone else.

In the Dumpster Slasher three-part story line, (Batman #414, #421, #422) Bruce becomes emotional. Violent. He sits in the batcave alone that night and contemplates his emotions.

“Nearly blew it. I let it get too personal. Lost my detachment...nearly lost control. Almost beat Cutter to death. Wouldn’t have been any big loss.”

Only one issue later, at the end of this story arc, Robin is out on the streets and becomes angry when he happens upon a pimp is threatening a prostitute with a knife. Now, I want you to compare his line here to Bruce’s and note what Jim Gordon said to him as well.

Batman: "I think he’s had enough, Robin. What were you trying to do, kill him?" Robin (Jason): “Would it’ve been that big of a loss if I had?”

It is important to note here that Batman is not worried or upset just because Jason roughs up a pimp. That would be hypocritical considering his own earlier actions. If anything, it’s because one of the main reasons Batman even takes in these kids, these ‘robins,’ is because he doesn’t want them to be like him.

And Jason was acting just like him.

Jason can and has screwed up and failed due to his own actions, but it was never the reason Batman became upset with him. His reactions in the comics when Jason does things like running ahead and ‘jumping the gun,’ are more like this:

He either makes a teaching moment out of it or is attempts to understand Jason’s reasons in doing any such thing. When Bruce does become harsh in his discipline, it’s either when he feels as though Jason has endangered his own life or as I said, he acts too much like him.

While there are quite a few more similarities between Bruce and Jason that makes them alike, such as both being introverted and interested in obtaining all sorts of knowledge that they might not even feel is relevant, they are both, at the core of their characters, deeply caring and compassionate people.

The differences only start to show with how they act on it.

The Not-So Dynamic Duo?

“What happened to you as a child, the terror, the pain, the horrors (...) you were broken, and I thought I could put the pieces back together. I thought I could do for you what could never be done for me. Make you whole.”

Hot take. Jason Todd is a villain and is best written as a villain. 

Not in that campy way like he’s written during Dick and Damian’s Batman and Robin run while wearing that stupid pill-headed hood, (although, I grant he has a few lines that are enjoyable to read) but in all his serious, vengeful and downright brutal motives. 

The Red Hood is the perfect Batman villain because he’s so different from what the widely perceived perfect foil to the controlled and disciplined Bat is...the Joker. 

The Red Hood was vengeance at its purest. It is justice without being tempered by mercy. It is the rage of victims who were forgotten to become statistics. While other vigilantes wait for a cure, hope for rehabilitation, and pretend their system works, the Red Hood is a man of no such faith.

And this makes him a villain. And a damn good one.

During the Red Hood’s time as a crime lord in Gotham, he goes around blowing up buildings. He throws grenades into trucks. He mows down his competition with gunfire. Batman comes upon the bloodied hanged corpse of a man he was finished interrogating. 

But what is so compelling about this all is that before all the murder, all the guns and explosions, Jason Todd was a very different little boy. And all the great and memorable villains start that way.

The Joker is not someone you’re meant to sympathize with or even understand. In fact, I find him more terrifying because he’s unknown. He has no backstory (unless you want to believe the one he gave in Killing Joke, but the clown has a new story for every face he meets) and seemingly does what he does for a laugh of all things.

Jason Todd is in pain. He’s traumatized. Betrayed. Buried. Replaced. He is no one’s son because his father abandoned him.

Once upon a time, Jason Todd was a boy who saved himself. One of the biggest lies that Batman himself perpetuates is that he saved Jason from a life of crime. He tells Alfred that Jason was always dangerous. Bruce simply took him off the streets before he could be any worse.

But I don’t believe that’s true.

Jason grew up surrounded by crime, poverty, substance abuse and yet this amazing kid saved himself everyday by making a conscious choice to be kind and care about school, care about keeping his mother alive for over a year when he was just a child himself. That amazing kid was magic. 

Jason Todd as Robin was magic.

“Jason smiles. A bright smile. The kind Robin, the Boy Wonder should have.”

A good portion of his character’s assassination was in order to push the Tim is the perfect Robin idea. It was editorial decisions. The same ‘suits’ who insisted that Tim Drake be the Robin in the New Adventures cartoon despite having Jason’s backstory and personality. But I digress on that. 

Jason Todd was an introverted, studious, and emphatic person. He wanted to make friends with other kids his age even though he was a loner at heart. He joined the school baseball team and was a class officer, even if his training kept him from most social interactions.

He was also very much in tune with non-verbal cues and small changes in the environment around him. He was a thoughtful person who could be found admiring the stars or passing by scenery. When he teams up with the New Teen Titans, we get to see these aspects of his personality:

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful before. We’re actually riding above the clouds.”

“Every so often, I notice you become awfully agitated...like something was going on you didn’t want to be part of. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

It didn’t take Bruce long to fall in love with this boy and ask to legally adopt him. He found him to be smart, thoughtful, quick at learning and funny as hell. Their first meeting opens with Batman laughing in the very same alley his heart was ripped out decades earlier. 

Even in the Rebirth canon, (RHATO #48) we see that Bruce is already set on taking in Jason while he’s still with Ma Gunn’s school. He likes this kid. A lot.

“Butler, actually. You’ll meet him someday, I’m sure.”

Jason Todd was happy. Most of the time. Unfortunately, he still wrestled with depression and would sleep all day on occasion and could be found crying hidden away on his own, withdrawn from the concerned Bruce and Alfred.

In A Death in the Family, Alfred and Bruce sit down and discuss Jason’s worsening mental health, particularly after the Diplomat’s Son where Jason becomes witness to sexual assault, suicide and the failings of both Batman and the GCPD to protect innocent people. Barbara, his tutor, someone he cared about and got along with, is also shot a few months earlier.

Bruce thinks Jason has become suicidal. Alfred does not disagree with this theory and supplements it with things he’s observed himself about the ‘lad.’

“I’ve come upon him, several times, looking at that battered old photograph of his mother and father, crying. When he’s seen me, he’s hidden the picture and left the room, refusing to talk.”

It is then that Jason discovers the truth about his mother at the worst possible time, when he’s not even thinking straight, and thus leads way to the tragedy that will be his murder at the hand’s of the Joker.

The Curse of Jason Todd

“Do you have any idea what you have done?! Do you? You have no inkling of what you’ve created -- what you have unleashed! You have set free a curse upon this world!”

Red Hood: Lost Days, which depicts Jason’s dark post-resurrection origin, opens with Ra’s al Ghul bellowing this line, the steam from the Lazarus Pit still rising off of him. 

I’m not going to analyze this line, I’m just using it to supplement a point of mine I hope I’m getting through well enough. The Red Hood is a compelling, tragic villain. He is similar to Batman in ways that Bruce always knew and may have even feared because of how intimately he knows his own deepest, darkest thoughts. Jason is the perfect foil as an antagonist for him because of what he represents to Bruce.

And it’s not his anger, or his rage, or even his brutality. 

It’s his compassion. His caring. His emotions. And how they can open up the worst parts of themselves. 

Both are motivated by preventing whatever trauma happened to them from ever happening to anyone else. They both trained for years with this motivation. And they’ve both acted out on the very person who inflicted their trauma onto them.

Here’s where their paths start to differ, however, and what separates them with a line of morality.

They both get angry. They both care so damn much. About Gotham, about innocents, about each other. They both get too emotionally invested and deal with consequences related to that. To manage with that, Bruce shuts down. He creates all these choices, rules and symbols. He uses every ounce of his self control to keep them. 

Bruce Wayne is not a good person. He forces himself to be with discipline and will. He chooses to be a good man and constantly pushes himself to live up to that. Because it’d be too damn easy to be just like the Red Hood.

Jason doesn’t understand that. Because no matter what Bruce had done or will do, he doesn’t hate him. He can’t. Despite his denial of the fact to different people, he still thinks of Bruce as his father. This great figure that so many others revere and are even intimidated by.

He’s not the only bat-kid to think of Bruce in this light despite the fact that the man is not. It took Dick years to overcome that perception. Tim only just started to begin understanding this true nature after his own father was murdered. 

But even if he did understand his (once)father, he still became the complete opposite of him despite so many early parallels. He doesn’t hold back his words and emotions, he doesn’t go into a state of controlled dissociation or emotional disengagement.

Jason Todd—the Red Hood—is Batman without all his rules and control. In a way, he’s what the darkest part of Batman himself wants to be. Jason does what Batman can’t do when it’s needed.

Because in Batman’s book, life beats out justice. Even if he could take down abusers and murderers, he won’t. He will choose saving and protecting lives over the apprehension of killers...he always does.

Batman is justice. Red Hood is vengeance.

Jason is a victim’s fantasy. He punishes and kills the guilty. Something Batman won’t do.

He is the anti-Batman for better or for worse.

[ladyloveandjustice]

My Favorite Books I Read In 2020

I read about 30 print books in 2020 (you can see them all here) (a LOT of light novels...needed that escapism) and I really liked most of them! I discovered a few gems I’d like to talk about here. From cats to Greek mythology to fantasy-horror-yuri, we’ve got a nice range!

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

Nothing beats a good snarky cat voice. The Travelling Cat Chronicles follows the journey of Nana the cat as he goes on a road trip with his owner Satoru and meets many of his owner’s old friends. We learn a lot about Nana and Satoru’s pasts along the way and bit by bit, the mysterious purpose of their journey becomes clear.

This book shows how a strong narrative voice can take a reading experience to the next level. Nana’s narration is acerbic, lively,  and just plain fun to read. Again, a pitch perfect kitty cat. The tale is also tearjerker and had me bawling like a baby, but they were good, cathartic tears that come from reading a story  that touches on the tragic aspects of life as well as the beautiful ones, helping one come to terms with how bittersweet but meaningful our experiences can be. Nana and his owner encounter many people struggling to find happiness and love along their way and each tale is touching without ever crossing into cloying sentimentality. I definitely strongly recommend this one, for both cat lovers and lovers of a solid, sweet stories.

Circe and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

I really enjoy how bizarre and messy and sprawling Greek mythology is and Madeline Miller doesn’t shy away from that weirdness, instead fully embracing it while giving strong reinterpretations of classic characters and allowing for resonant emotional journeys.

Circe follows the titular witch, who has long been used as an expression of men’s fears and anxieties about women in power, and tells “her side of the story”. Miller has a vivid, lyrical narrative style that really carries her big ideas well. She does a great job communicating Circe’s emotional torment as a lesser goddess growing up among the petty and ruthless gods of Mount Olympus, and how she understandably develops a fascination with humanity. Yet even among mortals Circe doesn’t have it easy, as often mortal men, they devalue her for being woman before recognizing her power. Circe is a compelling, layered character throughout, making many mistakes along the way as discovers her own power and struggles to find her place among the world of gods and humans. Her journey and the journeys of those around her are rife with tragedy, much like the Greek myths that inspired this novel (and BOY does Miller manage to pull in a lot of those myths). Yet it’s so epic in scope you don’t get bogged down by the bleakness, and there’s always a defiant, hopeful undercurrent. It was certainly the most ambitious (successfully so!) and inventive book I read this year.

Speaking of tragedy, The Song of Achilles gives us a tender, heartfelt look at some of mythology’s earliest Tragic Gays. It tells the story of Achilles and Patroclus, from their childhood up ‘til their end in the Trojan War. In the Iliad, we know so little about Patroclus he functions more as a plot device than a character, but Miller focuses on his point of view and fully fleshes him out, really exploring his backstory, his aversion to violence and the development of his romance with Achilles- so a reader can finally fully understand exactly why Achilles is so devastated at the loss of his love. You also fully feel the tragedy of Achilles developing from a brash, but very open and loving kid, to someone who loses himself in pride and warfare. The clear moral of the book- that these acts of violence or “heroic war deeds” are not what should be celebrated about men but instead we should focus on their capacity for love and mercy- is executed well, coming across strongly without feeling like it’s being hammered into your skull. And Miller’s lyrical way of writing is well suited for a romance, with some nice poetic lines like “our lips landed clumsily on each other. They were like the fat bodies of bees, soft and round and giddy with pollen” 

Favorite light novels: Otherside Picnic series by Iori Miyazawa 

Otherside Picnic follows the adventures of two university students, Sorawo and Toriko, as the venture through portals to a mysterious alternate world the two girls dub the “Otherside”. In this other world, the girls often encounter strange creatures that seem to be straight out of popular Japanese creepypasta/”true ghost stories”. But despite the terrifying things they find there, the girls are drawn to keep visiting this dangerous place. For Toriko, she’s partly motivated by the search for her missing (and somewhat shady) mentor, Satsuki, who got lost in this other world a while ago, yet Toriko still holds out hope she’s alive. Sorawo finds that she simply enjoys going on adventures with Toriko, and starts feeling increasingly nettled and irritated about the specter of Satsuki hanging over them...

Otherside Picnic is a fun blend of fantasy, action, horror, and slow-burn yuri. Sorawo is a really unusual and interesting female protagonist for a light novel- she’s prickly, dryly sarcastic, a withdrawn loner and also an anxious mess at times. Her rough backstory actually has clear psychological effects on her and you can see her social isolation in how she gets confused by Toriko being affectionate. Overall, she’s a really good character and breath of fresh air among all the hyper cheerful or overpowered protagonists, and her acerbic narration and biting banter is fun to read.

She’s also got really good chemistry with the more easygoing-but-not-without-her-own-baggage Toriko, and their romance is done quite well. It builds slowly and sweetly, not getting explicit until the end of the third and throughout the fourth volume (and Sorawo is VERY dense and on the defensive about it- but again, at least her denseness makes sense considering her isolated background). 

The series format is very suited to anime/manga, with each novel containing a few episodic arcs that can end somewhat abruptly at times, but all the arcs build on each other and the character develop bit by bit. The different bizarre creatures the girls meet are pretty interesting (my favorite being the ninja cats. Yes, you read that right. It’s glorious) and the action is generally pretty solid. My only real complaint is sometimes the author sometimes gets too wrapped up in the technical details of things like the equipment they bring to the otherside and it can slow things down.

Here’s hoping the anime adaptation coming out does this good little series justice!