#thinking of different myths/backstories is really fun

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Thoughts on Bonney and her situation? I feel so bad for her… :[

oda has always been really good at introducing information about characters through their backstories that recontextualizes a lot of their behavior in hindsight, and i think bonney is maybe one of the most skillfully done examples of this in the whole comic.

i started suspecting some time before reaching her backstory that she might be younger than she generally appears, because it struck me as consistently odd how everyone on egghead seemed to mention knowing her as a child and how fast she’d grown up, but having that information confirmed in her flashback completely changes her as a character in a way i find really compelling and fun.

like, throughout egghead i have been mentally comparing bonney a lot to law. from the start she’s playing a similar role as he does in the dressrosa saga, as the arc’s supernova ally-of-circumstance, and the similarities between them only grow deeper as we learn more about her history and motivations. bonney is really similar to law in a lot of ways; she aligns herself with the strawhats while on a revenge quest for the death of her adoptive father, who sacrificed himself in order to cure her of her childhood terminal illness.

the main difference, of course, is that bonney is twelve.

she’s twelve! and she was ten before the timeskip. which means she’s about as old in the present of the story (10-12) as law was in his flashback (10-13), or as ace and sabo were in the post-marineford flashback (10); that’s the age and maturity level she’s at. she’s twelve years old and she misses her dad. her tragedy is fresh and recent and she hasn’t quite grown around it yet, and she still has her whole future ahead of her.

i really liked the reveal that her devil fruit basically relies on her being a kid with a big imagination full of infinite possibilities. it’s very thematically resonant with her role as the emotional and narrative core of the arc set on egghead, the island of the future. any future she envisions for herself she can make real!

related to this, she also relates to religion and myth like a child does, where it all may as well be real because anything still could be. when kuma tells her about nika, she envisions someone who’s really somewhere out there in the world who she could find. the sun’s in the sky- maybe they’ll find him up on the sky islands?

and the thing is that she’s right!

bonney is a kid and the futures she dreams become real, because her ability to imagine the impossible hasn’t yet been beaten into submission by the horrible weight of reality. saturn tries to break her spirit and depower her before he kills her by crushing her ability to picture any future for herself, and it almost works.

and then there’s nika, and everything becomes possible again.

[precambrian-sea-pancake]

Gonna infodump about my D&D character

(Sadly forced to keep things confidential because my party members follow me on tumblr…you know who you are 👁️👁️)

I’ve only had Gawain for a short time but OH MY GOODNESS I FUCKING ADORE THIS SILLY GUY!!

Also kinda shocked that the moodboard I made for him got that many notes. That’s a first…

Also please enjoy the drawing @hootbon made for me. I will never shut up about their art.

So…for what CAN post publicly…

Gawain is your token Lawful Good Paladin TM. Bonus points for being a protector aasimar I guess. (Though I might multiclass into a bard depending on how things go. It would fit him well. They’re my favorite spell caster.)

His personality is gonna be SO fun to play. Before I explain that, I should mention that he’s actually the youngest of the group at 24. The second youngest is the Kobold (Maran) who’s 37. So he’s a lot more naive and still understanding himself and the world around him. People often dismiss him due to that unfortunately. But, you know, imagine a dumb collage age boy and you get somewhat of an idea.

He’s a very sweet and compassionate guy, extremely extroverted and fun loving…maybe a bit flirty at times. Definitely cracks witty comments and one liners in battles ranging from something clever to “suck my dick” or something dumb like that. That doesn’t mean he can’t be serious, he absolutely knows when he should. Ironically he’s the most “normal” of the group, often being the straight man. Overall heart of gold and just wants to help people.

He has a bit of a rebellious and impulsiveness to him. As clever as he is, he’s mostly driven by his emotions. It’s always a “do what feels right in the moment” rather than logic. In general he’s just very emotional and struggles with hyper empathy. This also causes him to question a lot of the authority around him.

I’d also say he has that Disney Princess syndrome. Gawain is convinced that he has some grand destiny and is meant for more. He’s always wanted to explore and learn more about the world, meet new people and cultures, live a life of glory and adventure. Maybe he’s in over his head or maybe he’s not…we’ll see.

However, another big reason for doing all this is that he wants to understand who he is…more accurately WHAT he is. He was born to humans, raised by humans, and grew up in a mostly all human kingdom. So he grew up thinking he was one despite some strong differences between him and the others. Aasimar are VERY rare, and more like myths to most people, and others don’t even know they exist. So people either assumed he was blessed or cursed, some treated him like the messiah, and others thought he was a freak and dangerous. So yeah, he never felt like he belonged and wants to learn about himself.

Somewhere in his life he ended up becoming a squire and completed his training just before the start of the campaign…

And that’s all the backstory information I can post because my friends will see this.

I guess I can do a bit of trivia:

It’s still D&D lore, but the world itself is homebrew. Humans are actually not the majority race, far from it. Most humans live in a large archipelago with various human nations. I remember the DM said the estimated population of humans was 20,000 to 30,000. The two mainland continents are one dominated by dwarves and the other by elves, along with other races being far more common on the mainland. Not really about my character but I LOVE that detail. It’s somewhat relevant I guess since I said Gawain grew up in a human society.

The god he venerates most is Ilmatar.

His eyes reflect his emotions and power. When using any of his abilities or when under intense emotions (both positive and negative), his eyes will turn a solid gold color.

Prior to his training, he was a courier. His parents ran his town’s postal service and that’s one of the things that got him into the idea of adventuring.

He’s more of a cat person than a dog person. He likes both, but I feel like he’d go for the cat.

The first weapon he ever used was a bow rather than a sword. The specific sword he uses is an arming sword.

He is a wonderful singer, his voice is almost ethereal in when he sings (little aasimar headcanon of mine).

His favorite study is anthropology, but also really likes history and geography. He’s always collecting little souvenirs and trinkets from everywhere he visits.

He keeps a diary and loves to write stories and sketch things. A lot of story inspiration comes from his dreams, which are often very vivid…and he remembers them super well.

Neither of his parents have blonde hair, nor is it a recessive trait they had. It’s actually part of his aasimar traits.

He talks in his sleep because I think it’s funny.

If this wasn’t a medieval fantasy world, he’d definitely use Gen Z slang. Maybe even tell someone “L + Ratio” or “Skill issue” after besting them in battle. In that same hypothetical reality, his favorite band would be Starset and The Score.

He takes good care of his appearance and health, so he does enjoy certain beauty products. A spa day is his ideal day off.

He hates salmon. He thinks it tastes bad and prefers catfish. I don’t know why I even thought of that fact but it’s there.

[imagines--galore]

||The Thread of Fate|| Part Thirty-Seven

Summary: Soulmate AU. They say the Thread of Fate connects you to your one true love. It may tangle. It may stretch. But it will never break. Wrapped around your little finger it tightens when it feels your soulmate is close and loosens when they are far. And becomes visible with the colors of your soulmate’s Nation when you finally fall in love with them.

Pairing: Zuko x OroraOC (ATLA)

Rating || Genres || Warnings: T+ Romance. Adventure. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Family.

Previous Chapters - Masterlist

A/N: BEACH PARTAY!!!! Also romance cuz, I am a SAP! Also some angst cuz.........blame these characters and their backstories okay! Honestly this chapter got away from me but I had SO MUCH FUN writing it :3 PS: The stories in this chapter are derived from different myths as well as stories from within the Avatar verse. I just mixed them up a little.

"So tell me again where Toph got all this new beach stuff?" Orora questioned as she tied her hair back with a square piece of cloth to avoid getting too much sand into it. Suki glanced up from where she had been pushing a pole into the sand that was holding up the canopy under which they could sit if they required some respite from the sun.

"Oh! She got a good deal on it!" The girl shrugged, not at all effected by the look in Orora's eyes because really, Suki was the only person who didn't think Orora was scary. Then again, Orora didn't find Suki's warrior face intimidating either.

Which was a big mystery to Sokka who found both of their expressions to be quite unnerving. And that was a much nicer word he was using.

Orora rolled her eyes as she adjusted the knot of the sarong she had tied around her waist. For their little beach party, the waterbender had opted to remove the unnecessary clothing items, such as armbands, gloves, shoes and pants. She still wore the colors of the Fire Nation, with her bandeau wrapped around her chest, and a pair of short pants that ended just above her knees and clung to her skin. The sarong provided some modesty, though it left much of her dark brown skin exposed.

Especially the scar that marred her abdomen.

Suki found her eyes flickering towards the puckered and raised skin. "Is that where....?" She trailed off, remembering the story Orora had told her how she got it. Glancing down at it, Orora sighed, her fingers gently tracing the scar as she nodded. "Yeah, it doesn't hurt anymore though, and I can hide it." She shrugged, not really bothered by the scar.

They all had them. Some, like hers, Aang's and Zuko's were visible.

Others, not so much.

And strangely enough those scars ran deeper.

Bumping her shoulder with Orora, Suki smiled at her friend. "Hey, no deep diving into that over-thinking brain of yours." She teased as she swung a friendly arm over her shoulders. "We're here to have fun." The Warrior stated as she began to lead them to where everyone else was helping set up the food station. "And admire our boyfriends." She added with a gleeful smile, one that had both girls dissolving into giggles, though with Orora, it was more of a nervous sound since she couldn't help the blush that stole across her cheeks whenever she would catch sight of Zuko.

Everyone was in their swimming costumes. Toph and Katara hadn't gone for the Fire Nation look as Orora and Suki had. Katara had simply donned the underclothes she usually wore beneath her water tribe clothing, with Toph following her example. Of course the colors were according to the Nation they belonged to. Aang had removed whatever covered his upper body and his shoes and had raced straight towards the water, where he was currently enjoying the waves he was creating. Sokka and Zuko had gone up to the house to get some of the gathered firewood and other supplies returning only a few minutes ago.

And the moment Zuko had taken to removing his outer robe, Orora had volunteered setting up the canopy a few paces away, and had dragged Suki along with her.

It hadn't taken long for Suki to pick up on the real reason behind Orora's eagerness to walk away. Which is why the first chance she had, she was leading the girl back to where the other were.

Sokka was eagerly cutting up some watermelon, with Katara saving the slices from her brother's vivacious appetite and passing them around. Zuko picked up two when the tray passed by, and made his way towards the approaching girls.

"Here, I got some for you." He said, holding out a slice for Orora who blinked at it as if she'd never seen a watermelon before. Suki, with a playful nudge at Zuko, that had him stumbling a little too closer to Orora, skipped off to join her boyfriend.

Chewing the inside of her mouth, Orora accepted the fruit, before forcing her gaze to drag up to meet his.

Though that turned out to be a bad idea because that meant she had to watch every inch of Zuko's bare chest and the sight had the blush returning to her cheeks in full force. When he had been last at the beach, Zuko had barely been eating, and it showed with the way his body had been painfully thin. Now though? With a good many weeks of good food and almost constant firebending training while teaching Aang, he was back in form. A form that included a toned, muscled body that would have anyone who found him even remotely attractive stare.

And Orora found Zuko to be extremely attractive.

In an effort to distract herself, the girl began to eat the watermelon. "Thanks." She mumbled through a mouthful, some of the juice from the watermelon streaking down the side of her mouth, staining her skin.

And prompting Zuko to follow the trail of the drop as it dripped down her chin. Unable to stop himself, he reached out to run his thumb against her skin, wiping away the residue and effectively stroking Orora's chin as he did. She stared up at him, her eyes wide. He could see the shifting emotions in them. A mixture of nervousness and something he couldn't quite place.

Though he knew it was a positive emotion.

With the way her gaze had kept flickering towards him even as she had been working on setting up the canopy with Suki, who's helpful nudge had placed them with barely an inch between them. Then again, he had been no different. Because as soon as he had the chance, his eyes would find Orora's figure and more then once, Sokka had to ask him to stop staring at her.

He couldn't help it.

While seeing her in the colors of his Nation had invoked feelings he never knew he had, seeing her in the swimsuit just increased them tenfold.

Or maybe a hundred-fold. He wasn't sure.

What he was sure, was that the urge to kiss Orora, which hadn't exactly been dormant for the past few days now, rose in full force. Making this the perfect moment to ask her what he had been meaning to all day.

"Orora, I-"

"Heads up!"

A giant wave came crashing towards the shore.

Pure instinct was what drove Orora to drop her watermelon, grab Zuko's wrist and pull him behind her as she kicked her leg out in an arc, cutting the wave through the center, leaving the both of them mostly dry, save the spray of water that came from the wave crashing on either side of them.

"Sorry!" Aang called out from where he was standing, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "That one kind of got away from me." Orora rolled her eyes. "You need to learn to work with the wave and not against it by creating your own Aang." She advised. "Didn't Katara teach you that?" The tone of her voice was teasing, and loud enough for the other waterbender to hear.

"Hey! We've never had proper waves to work with before." The girl called, playfully frowning at Orora who grinned. "No time like the present then!"

Glancing back at Zuko, she stole a quick bite from his watermelon slice. "Save some for me?" Without waiting for an answer, the girl made her way towards Aang and Katara.

Leaving Zuko to stare after her retreating form with a slice of watermelon in his hand that only had one bite taken from it.

"Do you have to be that obvious about who your Soulmate is?" Came Toph's voice, snapping him out of whatever daze he was in as he watched Orora splash about in the water and laugh with Aang and Katara.

"I'm not obvious." He tried to argue, even as he forced his eyes away from Orora and looked at Toph as she stood next to him. The blind girl cackled. "Oh please. I'm blind and even I can see how obvious it is." She was holding a watermelon slice in each hand. "Now stop staring and brooding. You can stare and have fun instead." She suggested, before taking a bite from each of her slice and walking off.

                                            ————————–

What followed was an impromptu session of boosting a natural wave and riding it with an ice board. Having never had the chance to do that before, Orora was having the time of her life. It was exhilarating, every time she would watch a wave begin to crest, knowing she was giving it the power to go even higher before riding it on her ice board.

She did fall in on her first few tries, but practice did make perfect. In the end, it was Aang who did the best. Not because her and Katara were any less powerful, but because the boy was cheating a little by giving himself a little boost with a gust of air.

The three of them emerged from the waves, soaking wet and laughing, racing each other to where everyone else had set up and were having fun on their own.

Toph was being her lazy self and had kicked back and was lounging under the warm sun. Suki was standing above the moving figures of Sokka and Zuko as they played about in the sand.

"Er...what's going on?" Orora asked, a little confused at the look of determination on Zuko's face as he gathered a handful of sand. "Sokka challenged Zuko to a castle-bending dual." Suki replied, trying her best to hold back from laughing a the sheer absurdity of the name her soulmate had given the little competition.

Katara shook her head. "Leave it to Sokka to turn anything into a challenge." She laughed to herself, watching her brother use seashells to decorate his sand construction, a look of intense concentration on his face, with his tongue sticking out as he did.

"So, who's winning?" Aang asked, after airbending himself dry. "I want to say Sokka." Suki responded, but then she giggled. "But maybe you should judge for yourself."

She probably didn't want to hurt her boyfriend's feelings. Because while Sokka's construction was already crumbling in some places, Zuko's sand castle looked much more put together. Orora couldn't help but smile as she watched him work on his creation. Spying a seashell next to her toes, the girl quickly picked it up. Stepping up behind him, she reached down to hold the shell out over his shoulder.

Zuko glanced up at her, squinting slightly since the sun was right above her head. "Thought you might need this." She said, pressing the shell into his hand as she crouched down next to him, shoulders bumping. "Thanks." The boy responded with a small smile before returning to his nearly finished construction.

Resting her knees against the coarse sand, Orora smiled. "I didn't know you could make sandcastles so well." She observed, the sounds of the others giving Sokka tips fading in the background. Zuko shrugged. "I used to spend all my time at the beach whenever we came here, making sandcastles. Most days I had someone with me." He continued, a sadness overtaking the joy in his golden eyes. "Uncle." He began to list, his voice low yet firm. "Lu Ten." He cleared his throat while his fingers poked holes in the wall he had created to mimic windows. "My mother." His voice was barely above a whisper and the shift in his tone had Orora reaching out to gently lay a hand over his forearm. He stopped. "Even Azula."

Every bit of the confession hurt him. He'd never realized just how he had lost so many people to different reasons.

His Uncle he had lost because of his own stupidity. Given the chance, Zuko would beg for the man to forgive him for what he had done.

His cousin he had lost to the war. Sometimes Zuko wandered how different his life would've been if only Lu Ten hadn't died.

His mother he had lost to the Fire Nation. No one knew where she was, but in his heart, Zuko knew she was alive and out there somewhere.

His sister he had lost to their father and his idea of perfection. Azula's proclamation that she was to be an only child did hurt, but not as much as the knowledge that he would never have his sister back.

Maybe he never had her.

A warm hand against his cheek guided his sorrowful gaze to meet one full of determination, conviction and a gentleness that had his heart aching because did he still didn't think he was deserving of it.

"You may have lost your blood family over the years Zuko." His Soulmate spoke, her voice mirroring her emotions, the hand resting against his cheek sliding to stroke his scarred skin. "But you've gained a whole new family."

Under her guidance, his head shifted to where Sokka and Katara were arguing over something, with Aang trying to placate the two siblings, and Suki watching as Toph finally decided to grace them all with their presence. "Really? Is that what you call sand castles?' She scoffed.

An earthbending move later, one that had Sokka's entire structure crumbling, much to his dismay, Toph had created a perfect sand replica of the market place they had visited not even an hour ago. Complete with tiny human figures.

As everyone marveled at the creation, minus Sokka who sulked because his girlfriend was admiring someone else's sand creation, Zuko couldn't help the smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"We both did." He said, turning back to look at Orora, reaching up to cover her hand with his own. Smiling the girl nodded.

"We both did." She agreed.

                                            ————————–

Sokka and Orora get into a squabble and they decide to play beach volleyball. Sokka chooses Suki and Aang. Orora chooses Zuko and Toph. Katara acts as referee. Game starts off with no bending, but the rules go out the window after a bit. Orora's team wins because they had more benders.

"Hey guys! Look what I found in all the stuff Toph got!" Aang called as he raced towards the group as they finished up their lunch. Sokka raised an eyebrow. "And a ball has you so excited because...." He trailed off, the exact opposite of Aang who looked like he would start vibrating with excitement.

"We can play a beachball game! I haven't played one in so long." He added to which Zuko gave Aang a look. "Probably because you were frozen for a hundred years." He pointed out, earning a few chuckles from everyone at the dryness of his tone. Aang gave him an annoyed look, before continuing. "Please!! I know we can scrounge up a net from that pile too." He aimed a finger towards the various items Toph had stolen, been gifted bought.

Sokka, wanting to recover from his failed attempt at impressing Suki with his sand castle skills stood up. "Come on you guys! It'll be fun!" Orora made a face even as Aang ran to try and find a net. "Do we have to?" She groaned out, having wanted to lie back and take a nap in the sun.

"Not stepping up to the challenge Orora? Are you scared I'll beat you?" Goading had always worked for Sokka when he wanted Katara to do something. And he knew it would work the same on Orora. The girl scowled, before scoffing. "If anyone will be tasting defeat Sokka it'll be you." She shot back, arms crossed over her chest.

The water tribe boy smirked, knowing he had her. "Then how about a game. Your team against mine. Winner gets bragging rights!" He held out a hand, which Orora shook with a firmness that actually had Zuko feeling concerned.

"I'm going to sit this one out and act as the referee." Katara stated, not wanting to get in the middle of her siblings little squabble. "And to make things fair, no bending." She added as she moved to help Aang set up the tent.

His smirk widening, Sokka reached out to grasp Suki's arm, before setting a hand on Toph's shoulder. "I call dibs on these two." He stated, to which Orora shrugged, a smile of utter confidence playing about her lips.

"You may have the greatest earthbender and the best Kiyoshi Warrior on your team Sokka." She responded, leaning against Zuko with a casualness as one would lean against a wall. "I have the Prince of the Fire Nation." It wasn't the title that had Zuko feeling proud, but rather the fact that she saw him as a strong player. "And the Avatar on my team."

Thinking that perhaps he had been a little too hasty with his pickings, Sokka glanced from his two teammates.

"You wanna trade?"

The question had him receiving a slap upside the head, courtesy of his disgruntled soulmate, and a punch to his arm, courtesy of an annoyed earthbender.

The game started out nice enough, with all of them following the rules, though the rules were bent a little to allow Toph to use her seismic sense to know where the next ball was coming from.

Surprisingly the three of them worked really well together as a team. Suki would call out or guide Toph from whatever direction the ball came from, while simultaneously defending the area in the back. Sokka with his highly trained senses as a warrior was able to predict moves before they even happened. The moment he would see the ball arching through the air, the boy would spring into action to deflect it.

On the other side of the net, the three benders seemed to be holding up rather well. Though it was a little difficult for them to not automatically rely on their bending, they made do through sheer skill alone. Orora, looking to practice her leg work, took to kicking the ball back every chance she got. It would've been considered foul if Suki hadn't been doing the same, so Katara let it slide.

At Toph's orders, Aang decided to plant his feet firmly on the ground and refrain from jumping too high. He was also afraid his instincts to use airbending would kick in if he were jump any higher then the net.

So he left the jumping to Zuko, who was surprisingly a good player. He'd actually been the first one to score a goal for their team, leaving everyone a little stunned because well, who knew Zuko of all people could play a good game. Since he was already tall, it made it easy for him to catch the more higher shots.

As for Katara?

She was enjoying the time by sitting there with Momo asleep in her lap while she petted his head. Every now and then she would call out words of encouragement as well as the score, though honestly, with how much each team was scoring, since they were all almost equally matched, she kept mixing up the scores.

It took about twenty minutes into the game before an accidental or rather instinctive use of bending on Toph's part brought the game to a temporary halt.

"Foul!" Orora and Aang called as Toph disintegrated the sand arch she had created to slide the ball back in their direction.

"Hey! She did what she had to do to defend her side." Sokka jumped to defend his teammate. "What, she couldn't defend her side without her bending?" Zuko responded, coming to stand beside his team. Suki frowned. "You're using your bending moves to defend your side." She argued back before all of them turned their attention to Katara who'd been braiding her own hair and had missed the bending usage. Seeing several annoyed faces aimed in her direction, the girl shrugged. "Why don't you go ahead and use your bending then? And Sokka and Suki can use weapons if they want." She suggested.

The six players paused, exchanging glances.

Simultaneously they grinned, similar expressions of determination on their faces as Sokka, who had been holding the ball threw it in the air.

"Game on!"

Once the bending began, their makeshift court became a little too contained. So the entirety of the beach became their court, and whichever team let the ball touch the sand, the opposing team would get the score.

There were several rocks jutting out from the sand. A physical aspect of the landscape Suki took advantage off as she launched herself from various heights to catch whatever shot Aang would hit in the air. Having been limited to only using Airbending, the Avatar was using the tricks he had learned long ago playing airball by giving every hit a little air boost, allowing it to fly across the beach.

Toph thwarted several of his would-be-scores. Wanting to practice her sandbending a little, the girl would block the path of the other team members. It was hilarious whenever either Aang, Orora or Zuko would meet one of her obstacles, either in the form of a sand wall, being locked in place by sand, or having a wave of sand throw them off balance.

Having brought his water tribe club to the beach, don't ask why, he had just grabbed it, Sokka was using the more heavier end of the weapon to his advantage by hitting the ball harder and hurling it back in the direction of the other team.

Every now and then the sun would glisten down on the slides and arches made of ice as Orora would either navigate the ball, herself and even her teammates by creating the constructions to help them score a goal. Since firebending wouldn't help him out in the game, Zuko was only using the physical motions of all that he had learnt. And they were coming in pretty handy since he was able to score quite a few times over the course of the game.

The game itself was chaotic, disorganized and fierce. Each bending move was ruthless, and each kick and hit had a strength behind it that would scare any seasoned warrior. If there was one thing scarier then an armada of soldiers, it was a bunch of teenagers determined to win the game. There was absolute pandemonium and barely any sense of organization with every single player giving it their all, barely stopping to celebrate a score. Which Katara had stopped keeping fifteen minutes ago in favor of creating ice crystals for Momo and watching him try to catch them.

That wasn't to say the game was without it's comedic moments.

Sokka was smacked in the face on several occasions. And sometimes by his own team. CoughTophCough.

Once they'd begun to use bending, Aang, in a fit of annoyance at having missed a shot had stamped his foot, triggering his earthbending by accident and making the ground shake just a little. Toph had been really proud of that.

After having scored a particularly ruthless goal against the other team, Sokka had all but swept Suki up in a passionate embrace, much to the embarrassment and grossness of everyone around. Aang had covered his eyes, red in the cheeks. Toph and Katara gagged. Orora and Zuko just felt plain awkward from where they stood next to each other, barely an inch away and yet unable to reciprocate how Sokka and Suki were doing so in that moment. Their gazes met for a brief second, before they looked away again.

The two Soulmates were rudely interrupted by Katara as she doused them with a wave of water.

Then there was the running into one another while trying to keep the ball from touching the ground. On several occasions the players would run smack into each other, often those who were on the same team. Minus Toph, who could quickly step out of the way whenever she sensed someone about to run into her.

One such moment had ended with Aang and Sokka knocking heads and falling back dazed as each of them saw stars in their vision. Katara was the only one who tended to them, the other four carrying on with their playing. Though she'd fussed over Aang more then Sokka, which had annoyed the older boy slightly. But then they were back in the game and it was forgotten.

Another moment had been Suki and Orora slamming into one another in the air. They'd both seen the ball as it hurtled towards the ground, and instinct had both girls jumping, with Suki managing to smack the ball away. However, neither girl was able to get pivot in the air, resulting in the both of them being knocked together and dropping to the ground. Luckily they had only been a few meters from the ground, so neither of them were injured.

Though it did have their respective soulmates rushing to their aid. Which would've been nice if the two girls hadn't been so preoccupied with winning the game for their team. They'd rushed off the moment they were up, leaving Zuko and Sokka to glance at each other, both equally stunned yet all the more infatuated with their Soulmates.

Orora seemed to have the worst luck when it came to running into people. She'd barely recovered after slamming into Suki when she went down a second time. Though this time, when she ran into Zuko, and the two of them fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs, it wasn't so bad.

"Ow! My head!" Head pulsing from where she'd come in contact with a stray rock, Orora pulled herself away from where she had landed feeling her hands bury a little in the sand as she pushed up. Only for her body to freeze once she realized the position she was in. Zuko was no better as he stared up at the dangerously close face of his Soulmate.

Blue clashed against gold and time seemed to stand still.

Everything around them disappeared, their friends, the beach, the sounds of nature around them. All that existed in that moment was the two of them and how close they were.

They'd been close before, but never in an embrace as intimate as this one. One that had skin brushing against skin, chests heaving from the exertion of the game, warm breath running along the other's lips and cheeks flushed.

Her hands framed his face where they were half-buried in the sand. An instinctive rose within her, one that urged her to touch him, to feel him even more then she already was. Orora fisted her hands in the sand in an attempt to control her wayward thoughts.

One of Zuko's arms had instinctively wrapped around Orora's waist, and she could feel his fingers brush against the puckered skin at the side of abdomen. He allowed the tips of his fingers to run along the raised skin.

He felt, rather then saw her breath hitch, as her chest brushed against his, since their eyes were still locked. "Are you hurt?" He heard himself ask, unaware of the heated prickling sensation that seemed to be creeping up his body from where his legs were tangled with hers. A little preoccupied by the sudden warmth that sang through her body, Orora was only able to give him a slight shake of her head as her response.

They were both lost in one another, and yet somehow, neither of them had ever felt more seen. It was always that way, whenever they would lock eyes, but the sudden intimacy of that moment made them realize exactly what that feeling had been.

A feeling that simmered within their souls since the first time their eyes had met.

However, the moment was shattered by an angry voice. "IF YOU TWO ARE DONE MAKING EYES AT EACH OTHER???!!!! GET BACK IN THE GAME!" Aang all but roared from where he had been defending for their team all by himself.

That seemed to snap them out of the moment they were both trapped in. Scrambling to stand, the two teenagers raced over to where Aang was, red in the face, hearts beating fast and something akin to frustration and disappointment burning under their skin.

While Orora tried to push the feelings aside, so that she could analyze them later and discern them for what they were, Zuko's mind raced, reliving the moment over and over again.

He tried his best not to use his bending, but the excitement of the game as well as the unintentionally heated moment he had just shared with Orora caught up to him. Without thinking he threw out a punch that set the ball aflame as it flew through the air, sailing over Sokka, who ducked out of the way with a shriek.

They all watched as the ball finally came to a rest a good few yards away, black and smoking, before it disintegrated.

Every eye turned towards Zuko, who gave a sheepish smile and a nervous laugh. "Sorry."

Katara, who had taken a quick nap during the remaining game, declared the match over with no winner. Which earned her several shouts of disapproval. But one glare from the water tribe girl had the players scrambling as they parted in different directions under the guise of cooling off after the game.

With Orora and Zuko walking away in different direction, making it a point to not look at one another as they did.

                                            ————————–

Sokka was the go-to meat guy. There was no doubt that out of all of them, he knew how to roast every kind of meat to perfection. Which was why he was stuck with cooking duty. And since he had no desire to suffer alone, he had dragged Zuko with him under the pretense that he needed someone to control the temperature of the fire.

As the only resident vegetarian, Aang had volunteered to prepare his own food, plus dessert.

For once, both Katara and Orora were happy to have someone else cook, leaving the two of them, along with Suki and Toph to lounge about under the canopy after the rather strenuous game.

"Haven't had that much fun playing a game in awhile." Toph claimed as she lay against the sand, arms crossed behind her head. Orora raised an eyebrow. "When exactly was the last time you played a game Toph?" She asked, to which the girl frowned in thought. "Does being in the Earth Rumble count?"

Katara was the one to respond. "No." She stated from where she lay atop a towel, her eyes closed. Suki, who had downed an entire waterskin spoke up. "I doubt any of us have had the chance to play a lot of games."

She certainly hadn't. Not when she was training as a Kiyoshi Warrior almost everyday since she'd been a little girl. Orora hummed in agreement, thinking back on all those days she had so sorely wanted to go outside and play in the snow, but had been told that it wasn't proper for a lady of her station. "The last time I played a game was....before my mother died." Katara admitted in a soft voice, prompting Orora to glance at her as she sat beside the younger girl. "But I did go penguin sledding with Aang, so I guess that counts." She added, the sadness in her eyes melting away to be replaced with a happy smile as she recalled how much fun that had been.

"Was that when you realized he was your Soulmate?" Suki asked, coming to sit down in front of Katara who sat up as well. Toph was still lying down but they all knew she was paying attention to the conversation. Katara pursed her lips, glancing down at her finger where only she could probably see the string.

Orora frowned. "You know I've always wandered, since Aang was buried in the ice so close to your home, did you ever felt your string tug? You must've passed his location many times no?" She asked, curious to know Katara's experience. The other girl hummed. "Now that you mention it." She muttered softly. "I did feel it tug once, a few years back when I was traveling through the area where we found Aang a few years later. But I was really young back then, so I had no idea what the tug was." She added with a shrug.

Tilting her head as she allowed her thoughts to voice, Suki added. "Do you think Aang finally emerged from the ice because his own string sensed you were close?"

They'd all heard how Katara had been a catalyst in Aang's emergence from the ice. Everyone had thought it had been fate.

But perhaps it had been more then that.

Her eyes widened as Katara shook her head. "No, it couldn't be that." She paused, not believing herself. "Could it?" She looked around at her friends.

Toph hummed in thought. "Suki's right. I mean, how many people passed by that area over the hundred years Aang was in the ice." She shrugged. "Not many since it was the South Pole, but still there were people. Aang could've emerged at any time, but he chose to break through the ice when you were nearest to him."

Orora, who had been listening to the entire conversation in thoughtful contemplation, let out a small laugh. "What?" Suki asked, as the other two girls turned to look at the older girl.

"Nothing, its just strange how by being Aang's soulmate, Katara is single-handedly responsible for all of us being here together today. I mean," She continued, glancing at Suki. "If what happened never happened, Suki, you would never have met Sokka because he never would've left the South Pole." Turning towards Toph, she continued. "And Toph, you would've stayed with your parents, and continued to fight in the Earth Rumble, I suppose." The girl shrugged. "Eh, I doubt it. My parents would've caught me sooner or later."

Picking up from where Orora had left off, Suki added. "And you would've never met Zuko." The mere thought of such a notion had a chill running down Orora's spine. "I never would've met Zuko." She repeated softly with a nod, her eyes flitting towards her Soulmate.

As gaze remained fixed there for a few moments, allowing Toph to nudge Katara, and for Suki to exchange a look with the younger waterbender. "Speaking of Zuko, has he asked you out yet?" Katara asked, trying to appear nonchalant when really she was dying to know how her two friends fared.

                                            ————————–

"No, Sokka. I haven't asked yet. There! Are you happy?"

For the past ten minutes Sokka had been rephrasing the question over and over. At first Zuko had told him to mind his own business, but finally he had snapped. Mostly because he wanted to shut the boy up, but also because he was frustrated with his inability to form words around Orora that would have him actually voicing the question.

"Really?" Aang looked up from where he had been peeling some fruits. "I thought you would've asked her by now, since we are in a safe place with no immediate threat looming over us." He waved his arms in the air to add emphasize to his words.

Zuko sighed as he lowered the intensity of the fire to prevent the meat from burning. "I just haven't had the chance to ask yet." He admitted with a shrug, looking just as dismal as he felt. "I'm just-

                                            ————————–

-waiting for the right opportunity to ask me. I know it." Orora shrugged. "We just keep getting interrupted." She added her eyes towards the sand where her finger drew nonsensical patterns. "Well why does he have to ask you?" Toph asked. "I mean I asked The Duke and that worked out for me."

Suki was the one who responded in Orora's place. "She doesn't want to ask him because Zuko already promised he would." Katara blinked at the Kiyoshi Warrior, a little surprised she would know that. "And I don't want to steal the moment from him." Orora added.

Toph scoffed. "Well if that little moment you two had during the game wasn't the perfect chance-"

                                            ————————–

"-then I don't know what is." Sokka stated, turning the meat over the spit, only to jump back as the flames were given a little extra boost, courtesy of an embarrassed firebender.

"Don't take it out on the food!" Sokka exclaimed, even as Zuko regained a control over his emotions. Glancing in the direction of the canopy, Zuko sighed. "Don't overthink it too much Zuko." Aang advised from where he was now plating the dessert he had been working on. "Just come out and ask. Its not like she's gonna reject you or anything."

Humming under his breath, the young Prince nodded. "Right." He muttered. "Just come out and say it."

                                            ————————–

It was nearing dusk by the time they were finally called for dinner. The girls had made their way towards the fire when Sokka had waved them over, and were now starting to settle down.

Despite the strangely charged air that seemed to linger between her and Zuko, Orora didn't want to sit away from him. The Prince was a little surprised when she sat down next to him, but smiled at her nonetheless before reaching out to give her hand a gentle squeeze.

Both dinner and dessert were finished in record time since they had all been starving. And once they were full and sipping on some leftover watermelon juice, Aang proposed a little idea.

"Hey, why don't we all tell stories?" He said, looking around with a smile. Katara smiled in response. "What kind of stories should we tell?" She asked, to which the boy shrugged. "Any story. From our Nation, or maybe one that we loved hearing when we were kids."

Zuko smiled. "Technically we still are kids." He stated in a dry tone, which had everyone around him chuckling. "How about you start Aang?" Suki suggested from where she was leaning against Sokka's shoulder with his arm wrapped around her.

The boy hummed under his breath, before nodding. "Alright! I've forgotten where I heard the story, but I'm gonna tell it anyway!"

                                            ————————–

"Some people believe that long ago the spirits and humans lived together. And though it wasn't always harmonious, it was peaceful at times. But the humans began to fear the spirits more and more, and as the fear grew, so did their desperation to protect themselves."

"During that time there lived a young man who was seen as one of the braver ones since he did not fear the spirits. Or rather the spirits did not fear him. No one knew which it was."

"He was a firebender, and he would often leave his village to explore the nearby forest at night. With his fire to guide and protect him, he would chat with the spirits and enjoy the many parties they held."

"One day he came to know that some humans had destroyed a place that was sacred to certain spirits. The spirits were angry and wanted to take revenge, but he tried to prevent it."

"During his attempts, a spear flew through the air, killing one of the spirits. At such a brutal killing, and that too in front of them, the spirits were enraged, and their very physical forms began to manifest the negative emotions they were feeling."

"The firebender tried to find the being who had thrown the human spear, and was shocked to realized that it was a Dark Spirit. The Dark Spirit had tasted just a small amount of the darkness that thrived in the hearts of humans and spirits alike, and thirsted for more."

"It had been the one to throw the spear. The one who started the war between humans and spirits. He had also been the one to sow discord in the minds of the humans about the spirits."

"Desperate for the slaughter to end on both sides, the young man set out to find the opposite of the Dark Spirit, the Spirit of Light."

"It took him months, and along the way, he met several other people. An earthbender, an airbender and a waterbender. They became friends in their shared goal of stopping the war between spirits and humans."

"Finally, they found the Spirit of Light. They spoke to it of what the Dark Spirit had done, and it agreed to help. But at a price."

"The four friends would have to choose someone from them who would be the one to carry the Spirit of Light within. Not only that, but they would have to give up their gifts of bending to that person. For only when both humans and spirits would see the four elements united within a human body, accompanied by a spirit would the fighting end."

"It was a hard decision, but in the end it was decided that the Firebender would be the one to carry all the gifts."

"Honored to have been chosen, the man promised his friends that he would end the war and so stepped up to claim his rightful place as the first Avatar."

"Not long afterwards the Avatar and the Dark Spirit met in battle, with the Spirit being imprisoned forever. And though he had wanted to see humans and Spirits live together in harmony, the young man knew it was never to be."

"So the Spirit World and the Human World were created as mirrors of one another, where each would reside in peace, with the Avatar acting as the bridge between them since he or she carried the Spirit of Light within, as well as the four elements."

                                            ————————–

Silence followed Aang's story.

"Was that...........was that a true story?" Sokka finally asked, to which Aang shrugged. "I'm not sure. It might be? Like I said, I don't know where I heard it before, and I'm probably mixing up some stuff." He added.

"Well whether that story was true or not, I thought it was great." Orora said, smiling at the younger boy, who grinned back. "Who's next?"

"You know Toph, I've always wandered how you became the Blind Bandit." Sokka spoke up from where he was sitting Suki. "How about I go next then?" Toph said, sitting up from where she'd been leaning back against one of the rocks that decorated the beach. "That can be my story."

Sensing the nods of affirmation from her friends, the girl began.

"I was about ten years old, learning everything I could from the badgermoles every chance I could get. It was there that I met an earthbender. From what he told me, he was a soldier passing through, and had seen me sneak away to the tunnels often." She held up a finger in Sokka's direction who had just opened his mouth to ask his question. "And before you say anything Sokka, my seismic sense wasn't that great back then, so I didn't sense him before." The boy looked a little shocked at having been so predictable with his question but stayed silent.

"Anyway! He came up to me and told me he knew what I had been doing." The girl smiled softly, the firelight flickering in her unseeing eyes as she continued. "And rather then ratting me out to my parents, he decided to help me train himself. I asked him why he would want to teach me, a girl who was blind. And he said that I reminded him of his son who he had to leave behind to go fight in the war." Toph shrugged. "He probably made up that part of the story cuz his heart did pick up when he said that, so I just thought he was hiding something else, but I didn't ask about it."

"We began to train, and honestly he taught me everything I know about earthbending that the badgermoles hadn't taught me. And finally, when he thought I was ready, he decided to take me to the Earth Rumble." A glimmer of excitement seemed to exude from her as she continued, smiling as the memories passed through her mind.

"It was a little tricky to sneak out, but we managed and the nights we would sneak away became the highlight of my week. It was so much fun sitting there and sensing all the earthbenders as they battled it out. Going there only had me practicing my seismic sense, and I could predict a person's move before they even made it. It only made me anxious to get out there and show them what I was capable of."

She shrugged. "The old soldier was hesitant, but he could see I wasn't about to back off. And before any of you ask." She held up a hand. "He never told me his name. I called him Old Man because that's what I had sensed him as when I met him."

"I entered my first competition just a few months before you guys came looking for me. I won the title the first time through," She revealed, before the excitement and joy all but disappeared from her tone and she frowned, looking a little sad. "But for some reason I never saw my friend again." She wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling her legs close to her chest. "I had sensed him in the audience during the battles, but later I couldn't sense him at all."

A brief moment of silence followed Toph's reveal, with Orora, who was sitting on Toph's one side reached out to gently place a hand on the girl's forearm.

"It was so strange." She whispered, looking every bit the thirteen year old she was. "And I can't still make sense of it."

Shrugging away the hurt she still felt over her friend leaving, Toph concluded her story. "After that I defended my title for a good few months until these three showed up." She gestured towards Sokka, Aang and Katara. "And the rest is history."

                                            ————————–

Katara tells the story of her Gran-Gran and how she left the North Pole in search of her soulmate rather then marry Pakku.

"Speaking of people who found each other." Suki said, hoping to help lift the dark cloud that now seemed to loom over Toph. "You guys told us how your grandmother was from the Northern Water Tribe. How did she get to the Southern Water Tribe? Cuz from what Orora has told me, her tribe is really stingy when it comes to their females."

Grinning and eager to share the story, Katara sat up straight. "Well, Gran-Gran, much like Orora, had lived her whole life by the rules and traditions of the Northern Water Tribe. But she told me how she'd always held on to the hope that she would meet her soulmate."

Katara frowned slightly, looking away. "But that changed when her father announced her engagement to a man named Pakku." Sokka grinned. "Though that all came full circle since he taught you waterbending." He chuckled, at which Suki, Toph and Zuko looked more then a little intrigued.

"What?"

Nodding with a small smile, Katara continued. "That part comes later. What happened then was the betrothal necklace was sent." Her hand went to the one around her neck, the very one her mother had owned and that Pakku had made for her grandmother. "But my Gran-Gran had already made the decision of running away."

"Kind of like you." Zuko whispered to Orora, who smiled before coming to settle against him, her head resting on his shoulder with his arm around her waist.

"Packing what she needed, Gran Gran left a few days before her wedding and escaped the fate that was decided for her."

"That took guts." Aang stated in an admiring tone, earning a smile from his soulmate. "It did. All she had was her few possessions and her string to guide her. Her soulmate could've been anywhere in the world, but she decided to travel to her sister tribe. And, well, to end on a happy note, she found our Grandfather, married him and even though he died years ago, she is living a happy and contented life."

                                            ————————–

"On the subject of love stories." Orora said with a playful smirk on her lips as she turned to her boyfriend. "Your Uncle once happened to mention your obsession with a certain one that involved a Dragon Emperor and how he fell in love with a mortal woman."

Zuko pursed his lips, cheeks flushing with embarrassment as he looked around at his obviously shocked friends. "Zuko reads love stories!?" Toph cackled, earning a glare from the Prince. "Its not a story. Its a classic play." He reiterated, though that didn't work in his favor.

"Oh we're sorry Zuko." Suki said, holding up her hands in a placating manner. "We didn't mean to offend you by mistaking your favorite love play for a love story."

Shooting a look of annoyance at Orora, who was grinning up at him, Zuko rolled his eyes. "What do you guys want to know?" He spoke in a grouchy tone. Aang grinned. "The whole story. And don't leave out any details." He added.

Sighing Zuko shrugged. "It was just a play my mom would read to me when I was a kid. Though the fighting was what interested me the most."

"Sure." Both Katara and Sokka echoed at the same time, earning laughs from the listeners, minus Zuko.

Clearing his throat the boy began. "Its called Love Amongst the Dragons, and it starts with the Dragon Emperor. He was as powerful as an Emperor could be. But he was also full of pride and boasted of his strength to all those around him."

Despite the teasing, everyone was listening to the story with their full attention. "He liked to go around challenging anyone who was stronger then him, and for a time he won every single one of them. Until one day, when he faced the Dark Water Spirit."

The fire flickered, casting shadows all around. The sun had set a good while ago, but no one seemed to notice as they continued to listen. "The Emperor was, of course, defeated in his arrogance and pride. As punishment, the Spirit bound him to a mortal form and sent him to live in the human world. Only when he would learn of humility and let go of his shame would he regain his true form and be able to defeat the Dark Water Spirit."

Orora couldn't help but draw similarities between what the Dragon Emperor had been through, and what Zuko had been subjected to since he had been a young boy.

"The Dragon Emperor decided to take up the name Noren and began to roam the land, the shame of his defeat hanging over him." Zuko's voice lowered slightly, and he couldn't help but seek out Orora's hand, which readily wrapped around his own. A squeeze of encouragement was all he needed as he continued.

"Despite all that he felt, Noren did begin to appreciate the humbleness of the life of a mere mortal. And all that he experienced slowly culminated in him falling in love with a mortal woman."

Despite his best efforts not to, Zuko couldn't help but glance at Orora as she nestled beside him. She had turned her face up towards him while he told the story, and gave him a smile when they gazes met briefly.

Turning his attention back to the rest of the audience, Zuko went on. "The love he felt for the mortal woman, was strong enough to help him overcome the shame of his defeat, and all his past actions. He earned his true form and was able to defeat the Dark Water Spirit."

He ended with a shrug. "The play ends with the Dragon Emperor embracing his mortal lover, who turned into the Dragon Empress so that the two could be together forever."

                                            ————————–

"Since Zuko told his favorite love story." She didn't even flinch when Zuko glared at her and whispered angrily. "It was a play."

"I'm gonna tell you guys one of my favorite stories." She stated, sitting up straight despite the sleepiness that was beginning to creep up on her. "Its the story of how the Sun loved the Moon so much, he died every night to let her breathe."

The very words had her audience sitting up, already captivated by what was to come.

"There was a time when the Sun was a god of sorts. His light was so powerful it brought herbs to life and grew food from the ground. The light from the Sun chased away the monsters that lurked in the night. And everyday, everyone, came out to worship him. They sensed the warmth of his glow. They felt alive in his daylight." A sad lilt overcame her voice as she continued. "The Moon, however, was seen as something bad. A darkness. One that brought a cold presence to the world each night. Everyone would hide in their homes when she rose, afraid of the darkness she brought with her."

"Did the Moon have her own light?" Aang asked, looking every bit as the boy he was as he asked the question. The older girl shook her head. "No, she didn't have her own light for she was born without it, unlike the Sun."

"The Moon craved to be seen." Orora found her own gaze flitting towards the sky where the moon was already shining her ethereal glow. "She wanted to be loved, just as everyone admired the Sun."

"What no one knew, was that the Sun had a secret." Orora revealed, returning her gaze to her captivated audience. "He fell in love with the Moon for the good she brought to the world despite all the hatred she received. He admired her for it. She hid parts of herself from the world that he knew the world would embrace."

"The Moon too, had fallen in love with the Sun long ago. For all the worship he received, and the admiration humans sang off, he never once grew arrogant, and only looked to make the human's life better."

Orora sighed. "But they were opposite souls, the Sun and Moon. They were lovers who rarely met and always missed one another." She smiled softly, her fingers tracing two circles in the sand to represent the Sun and the Moon. "Yet they both waited patiently for the rare days when they might coexist peacefully."

"The Sun wanted to make his true love happy. He wanted to show the world what she had to offer. The kindness and love she could not share. He thought for weeks about how to give her the breath of air she wanted, leaving the world in a cloudy haze."

"But then, at last, he knew what he had to be done."

"What did he do?" Toph asked, eager to know what the Sun came up with.

Orora smiled. "From that moment on, every night, he sacrificed his light so that it would instead shine on the Moon so the humans could see her in all her beauty. He gave up something he was admired for every night, so that she would have her moment to shine."

                                            ————————–

Suki was up next after Orora's story.

And though the girl tried her best to remain awake, she only caught snatches of the tragic love that was shared by Oma and Shu during a time of war.

Sokka, Aang and Katara had heard the story before, but since Toph and Zuko hadn't, it was an interesting new tale for them. However, halfway through, Zuko felt Orora slump against him completely. He glanced down at her to see she had fallen asleep with her head resting against his shoulder.

The boy smiled, tilting his head so that it rested atop hers in a tender embrace.

He began to doze off as well, and was only gently shaken awake by Katara who stood over him with a smile. "Sokka and Suki went for a walk." She spoke softly so as to not wake Orora. "The rest of us are heading back to the house to sleep." Zuko responded with a nod as he leaned back against a.......rock?

There hadn't been one behind him before.

Catching sight of Toph, the girl gave him a grin and a thumbs up. He said his thanks, knowing she would hear him.

The night was beginning to get cold, but with the fire in front of him, and the fact that he could regulate his own body temperature, meant that he wasn't cold, and he could make sure Orora wasn't either.

It was funny how just a few months ago, he'd been here in front of another fire with different people, raging about how angry he was at himself. Not to mention the Orora with him back then had been a projection of his mind. One he could not touch or feel, but could only hear and see.

And now, here he was. More at peace then ever before, with an arm wrapped around his girlfriend as she slept, a look of utter peace and tranquility on her gentle features. Turning his head, he dropped a soft kiss to her hair, opting to wait for her to wake up so they could return to the house.

Though the kiss seemed to have done the trick. Groaning softly as her eyes blinked open, Orora gazed around blearily, trying her best to clear the fog that had settled in her brain while she slept. "Where's everyone?" She said softly, reaching up to rub the heal of her palm against her eye. "Back to the house." Zuko revealed, reaching out with the shirt he had discarded that morning and wrapping it around her shoulders as she pulled away from him. "We should head back too, so that you can get to sleep."

The fire was put out with a brief wave of his hand, before he turned his attention to Orora and helped her up. She was still tired, but was more awake then she had been before. "Come on." She whispered, reaching for his hand and intertwining their fingers. Smiling Zuko began to lead the way back up towards the Summer House.

"Today was fun." Orora commented, smiling to herself. "I can't remember the last time any of us had fun." She mused to herself. Zuko shrugged. "Well when we win this war, hopefully we'll have more days like today."

Catching on to what he had said, Orora turned her head to look at him. "When, not If?" She asked, referring to the statement he had just made. "Of course it's when." He responded with a conviction that surprised her. "We're a strong team, and all of us have something to fight for." He fixed her with a determined look before adding. "So yeah, I know we won't loose."

They'd reached the stairs of the Summer House by now. Pulling slightly at Zuko's hand, Orora brought him to a halt before she pushed herself up to catch his cheek in a loving, lingering kiss.

With her hand cradling his other cheek, Orora smiled at the sight of him staring at her, his eyes wide and wanting.

The last bit of realization had her blushing as she slowly pulled away.

"I'm glad you found your reason Zuko." She whispered softly, referring to the conversation they had had so long ago by the lake they had first battled in. A time when both of them had been practically strangers and yet the connection they had was so profound that neither had realized just how much it would come to mean to them as time went on.

She began to walk up the stairs, leaving Zuko to stare after her.

And the moment she turned back to look at him, the wind catching her hair, his shirt around her shoulders, and the familiar, yet forever breathtaking, smile on her lips, an image surfaced in his mind.

A image of her standing just where she was, with that very same smile.

In his dream.

When he had been sick.

In Ba Sing Se.

Even then his heart and soul had known what had taken his head so long to catch up on.

She was the balm he had always needed, would always need.

And now that he had her, he never wanted to let her go.

"Will you go on a date with me?"

The words rushed out of his mouth before he even realized his tongue was forming them.

The girl blinked, startled. "What?"

Clearing his throat, Zuko steeled himself before repeating what he had said. "I was wandering Orora," As he spoke he began to ascend the stairs, drawing closer to her with every step. "If you would do me the honor of going on a date with me?"

He was standing in front of her now, though still a step down. Not that it made any difference, since the position only allowed them to be face to face, rather then her tilting her head to look up at him.

She still hadn't responded, her hands clasping the front of his shirt tightly in front of her.

Remembering what he had slipped in the pocket that morning, he reached out to pull out the moon peach he had bought for her.

He held it up between them, watching as her eyes widened in surprise. "Please?"

Her hand lifted to take the piece of fruit from between his fingers. "I would love to." She finally replied. Leaning forward she sealed the deal with yet another kiss to his cheek. Though this one was pressed against his scar.

"Tomorrow at six in the evening?" She suggested, to which he simply nodded, his smile just as tender as his gaze. The wind was soft as it played with their hair, bringing with it the sound of the waves still crashing on the beach below.

Orora began to walk backwards, never once breaking the eye contact the two of them shared.

"I'll be waiting."

                                            ————————–

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[supernatural-bias]

rant about Gabriel to me I need to understand him

im going to format this like you've never seen the show, just in case you haven't, so if you have just bare with me

gabriel is a bit of an enigma. for the first two and a half episodes he shows up in, he's not even known as gabriel. he's on screen as 'the trickster' and is masquerading as one. (tricksters in spn canon are powerful demigod creatures of myth that can alter reality how they want, normally using their powers to play deadly pranks on malicious humans in ironic ways. i.e mauling someone who tests products on animals via a sewer alligator)

the reason he's doing this as a self proclaimed "witness protection" method is because he's in hiding, pretending to be a trickster to hide from his family; which is heaven since he's the archangel gabriel. surprise surprise. this is revealed in the episode 'changing channels', (season four) which is i believe the best ranked episode on the entire show by the audience and one of my favorites. 'mystery spot' (season three) is another one he stars in (as rhe trickster, not gabriel. we still dont know that), and i think it's the second highest ranked. and 'tall tales' (season two) is the first one he shows up in which is also very highly ranked.

gabriel has a habit of faking his death a lot to escape responsibility, which he does in the episode 'hammer of the gods' (season five [?] i think) after being "stabbed" by lucifer so he doesn't have to really stick around and watch his family (lucifer and michael) fight. but we don't know that it was a fake out for nearly eight seasons. (there is an instance where he shows up again in season nine but that was a fake out and not the real him). in 'hammer of the gods' we also find out that gabriel really had gone all in with his so called witness protection while pretending to be a trickster; so much so that most of the mythological world/pretty much anyone but cas sam and dean knows him as the actual god of tricksters, loki, and not by his true name. later on when he comes back in season thirteen we find out that's because the real loki offered to share the same face with gabriel back when he first came to earth wayyyyyyy long ago to help him out. and when we meet loki later when gabriels trying to kill him for selling him off to one of the princes of hell asmodeus (i'll get into that) it's basically just the actor richard speight jr playing two roles at once. if that makes any sense. one of my favorite episodes, although i think that's just because i hadn't really seen gabriel in months and was over excited. i'll have to see if the hype holds up on my rewatch

but okay, for some backstory on the whole being sold thing, after gabriel faked his death in 'hammer of the gods', he ran off to some island to get in contact with loki and his kids (think fenrir. spn uses real mythological names and bloodlines as side plots sometimes) to go dark again. loki pretends to entertain the idea and let's gabriel play poker with hookers for a few days (gabe has also stared in a porno before and enjoys eating candy even though angels never get hungry. he's fun that way) before betraying him and basically selling him off as a slave to a prince of hell, who locks him away for hundered (thousands maybe?) of years, constantly draining his archangel grace just enough to not leave gabe powerless, but also enough to torture him horribly. it's awful, and all explained in the episode 'unfinished buisness' (season thirteen) which is all about him enacting revenge on loki and the tricksters kids. but the takeaway is that the first time we see gabe after season five, he's a completely different person. almost like a scared animal. if the animal has had its mouth sewn shut by a demon, that is.

anyways, sam and dean and cas help revert him back to his usual self, and he runs away from his problems for a few episodes, before finally confronting them and dying for real this time at the hands of an alertnate world version of his brother michael a few episodes later. the later seasons writing was so fucked up in my opinion, and the way gabriel died was done so wrong, but i think that's because im biased. frowns

my explination of him does no justice. he's a smug, silly, tricky, multi layered, funny son of a bitch that has fuck ass smile where his eyes crinkled at the corner and i. oughhh. i love him. urgh. yeah

[ljjsims]

Greek Goddess Legacy Challenge: Generation #5 Persephone: Complete

You may bow now: The Queen of the Underworld has arrived! Please welcome Persephone to the stage!

When you were younger, your mother used to call you little Kore (maiden). a name as forgettable as your mother seems to think you are. You love her, really you do, but you wish she wouldn't be so strict. You need to be inside the house before dark. Hell, you can't even leave your mothers property, because she is so scared you'll meet bad people… How are you supposed to know what you can bring the world if you can never try to become someone? You want to make a difference! So when you meet a young man standing at your mother's fence, you take your chance and tell him to take you home. Finally free from your mother's clutches you can finally discover the world and yourself.

Little bit explanation with the sheets: - First sheet is for describing your current generation, with the challenges you need to do each life-stage. Also, because I love the myths, a bit of mythological background. May it inspire you :) - Second sheet is the preparation sheet for this generation, with important characters for your story. It is technically optional, but I love seeing sims with a backstory in my world, so I would highly recommend it. - Third sheet is for your gens children. They all have their own little challenges if your interested in those. I try to make all of them a bit different from each other, so it doesn’t get boring. Your heir is also on this sheet, but I’ve put their challenges on their own sheets. Stay tuned for those ;) - Fourth sheet is completely optional. If you want sims with names from the myths and love making sims to see them in your world, this is for you! All with a little mythological background ofc, you know me.

Next Generation is Hecate! Previous Generation was Demeter First Generation is Gaia

The Greek Goddesses Challenge by LJJ-Sims is a challenge based on the ancient mythical creatures and stories from Greece. I fell in love with Greek mythology in high school and have not let that love go since. In this challenge you will follow 10 deities in their journey through life. Every goddess has a different take on and goal in life. Special about this challenge?  All your kids have little challenges of their own, not only your heir. These challenges are optional, so if you feel like these are too much or just too restricting for you: by all means let them go. I also have sheets for characters that you can make before you start each generation. This gives your challenge a lot more personality and makes it frankly easier and more fun!

A little disclaimer: because I made these gods and goddesses into a legacy challenge, the relationships in the myths don’t exactly match the relationship in this challenge. There is a lot of keep it in the family in mythology, to put it lightly. And apart from the fact that you can’t do that in the Sims, I don’t really like that part. So I didn’t include it, thus the inconsistency. An example: Ares is now Hera’s stepfather instead of her son, which she conceived with her brother  and husband Zeus. This inconsistency can also be found in the stories. It’s just based on and not copied exactly, as Sims live lives that are a lot shorter than those of immortal gods. And it takes a way from the creativity if we just copy the myths. Even if we wanted to do that, it’s quite hard, as every myths has its fair share of variations and some are just completely different stories.

I use the MCCC-mod to alter the length of life states. You can find the days-years ratio here: the boring stuff.

[kerubimcrepin]

What do we know about Joris le Sans-Pouvoir (Joris the Powerless)?

Aka, addressing the "cancelled Nintendo DS game"-shaped elephant in the room.

While this blog has gone deep into the show and character dissections, I think it would be remiss to proceed without addressing the elephant in the room — the game, the myth, the legend, the 2007-2009ish cancelled game Joris le Sans-Pouvoir.

There isn't a lot that is known about it, and all the data in this post comes from two developers.

The only videos of it we have available are uhhh......,

...Please say "Thanks Ronik!" for this video in particular.

I spent hours trying to convert these two SWF animation video files, — which demonstrate how the game was supposed to look, — to something actually viewable. There were many issues, with at least seven different programs.

I suffered for crepinjurgenology studies, but I did it.

Instead of recounting the story in my own words and omitting anything on accident, I will simply present to you, what the portfolios of two different developers say (these two pages are the source of all the images, gifs, and gameplay):

Joris Le sans-Pouvoir is the main character from a feature film Ankama due in 2013. It’s a new character IP situated in the DOFUS universe. I had the chance to work on a platform game prototype that was all about delving into of the character’s backstory. We wrote a lot of background and had a lot of fun designing and developping a cute and quirky platformer with a hint of metroidvania elements and a dash of Grow gameplay elements in-between levels. It also was a great opportunity to work with Jono Takeshi-san of Radiata Stories fame who worked with me on the art direction. (SOURCE)

Joris was the first Nintendo DS project developed at Ankama (in partnership with Magic Pockets). I began working on the project as narrative game designer, then took on the role of Lead Designer and Project Manager. Game design on this project involved boss fight, level design, minigame design, UI… I also designed an original collecting system where collectible items were used in a minigame inspired by the “Grow” series. The developpement has been put on hold to match the release of the animated movie with the same character (scheduled in 2013). (SOURCE)

Neither the movie nor the game, survived their development, due to circumstances. (shorthand for: I have no idea what happened, man. Maybe one day I'll write a post about the history of the movie, and truly open that can of worms, but god, not right now. I don't want to spend more time on this.)

Eventually, The Wakfu film turned into three OVAs instead, and the Dofus film changed its plot a bunch of times, and became Livre 1 : Julith.

...For some reason, in some version of it, Joris had a tail. Yeah, I don't know what that's about either. Cool clothes, though!

We don't know anything about its plot, and unlike cancelled projects Dofus Donjons and Welsh et Shedar (which was cancelled for years, until its recent resurrection), the lore of this game carries no relevancy in modern canon.

The name, Joris the Powerless, as well as the log-centric gameplay, both seem to reference the early concept that Joris had log-based powers, — and that without his "magic wand," he couldn't do much.

(Joris and his weird fucking "magic wand" were, in turn, borne out of the idea of a warrior who had a woman's voice. Which makes me chuckle.)

(The following quotes are machine-translated and may contain errors)

(SOURCE)

This is, by the way, the reason why I personally headcanon Joris to be really bad at huppermagic. So bad that he dropped out of the Huppermage Academy, and almost never uses magic in combat. It's a homage to his original idea.

(Yes, there is an actual reason why I headcanon Joris to be godawful at magic, besides just projecting my neurodivergencies onto him.)

I suppose that, even at this time, Joris was meant to be a store owner:

The gameplay loop involves going from boutique, to missions, and so on, while those two pieces of concept art involve the said boutique section, and show a female character saying «Pas mal, boss !».

In my opinion, it might be this character. Proto-Simone, perhaps?

Since the store seems to be the centerpiece, and the Grow-style minigames involved collectibles, I would assume that the plot involved Joris going around and finding artifacts for the store. That would also explain the concept art gifs of him adventuring.

(Though, the adventuring would probably just be the inciting incident/a vehicle for plot development. Nintendo DS games loved using the jobs characters did for that purpose.)

This is the extent of what I can surmise about the plot.

The developer portfolios also included these example documents, but the image quality is too bad for me to make sense of or upscale. I am including them here solely for some French people who are very good at reading blurry text. (If you learn anything, let me know, okay?)

Overall, my verdict is that this game's cancellation was both a blessing (Joris without Kerubim and Atcham is like tea without water and a cup. How am I meant to drink leaves? Are you stupid? Why are you giving me leaves with nothing?) and a curse (THEY CANCELLED A GAME ABOUT MY BLUE-COLORED YOINKY SPLOINKY (who has a THIN, GRABBABLE WAIST)????? FUCK!)

Hope this was a fun read!

[joshisodd]

I may not look it but i used to watch ft!!

I've been rewatching some of the episodes and im still wishy washy on whether or not I want to redesign all the characters but here's some recent and old character sketches!! I've been playing around with their designs but trying not to deviate too far so that the characters still look like who they're supposed to be

Idk if anyone would wanna see me redesign/rework every character but I'd post em if there were people who wanted to see that.

Here's the rundown for those who are interested:

My basic ideas for fairy tail are to make every character a fantasy trope/creature/class/myth. Some of the characters will change into a different thing over time as they gain experience. I feel like fairy tail has a lot of potential to write a more modern fairy tale type story because of the whole wizards and magic thing. With dragons and princesses n everything. This is obviously present in the story, but i really want to reinforce that idea. there are some characters who I think really fit this, like Erza (obvi main knight of the story but also has the title of titania queen of the fairies) and natsu (obviously dragon as an mc, sort of a role reversal of the evil dragon. and maybe a fun demonic plot twist haha). But with other characters i may need to make more changes. Lucy is a loose version of the princess (with a fun runaway backstory), but I want her to evolve into a priestess. Grey kinda has nothing going on for him imo, the ice wizard thing keeps throwing me off every time i try to project something onto him. I think i'll go with a hunter -> demon slayer thing. He just happens to use ice magic. i don't wanna go with regular wizard because thats a bit boring lmao. It would also make the elemental thing between natsu and grey funnier bcuz he's a spooky demon and that guys a hunter so you guys REALLY shouldnt get along. They do anyway because the power of friendship lol Anyways that's the basic plan? even if i dont post it on tumblr just know its cooking in the back of my head. thx for reading all this haha

[batsplat]

been doing a Slow and Considered utena rewatch... and, look. I am deeply deeply wary of any mode of watching fiction about women that ends up just. centring men. this is not praxis. so as a disclaimer... 95% of my utena thinking has had NOTHING to do with this, it's just that this has become the place I put my motogp thoughts. not my utena thoughts. ideologically I object to even making this post on several different levels. so. with that in mind, and the knowledge that at most a single digit number of people will see this. let's go

one of my fave things about anthy as a character is how much she acts as... a mirror of sorts, not an empty vessel exactly but someone who isn't quite treated as a person in their own rights... like she's obviously not REALLY an empty vessel, she has her own thoughts and ideas and feelings and backstory, but her entire purpose is to not impose her own character on events. so you've got basically every character projecting something of themselves onto her - utena's desire to be a prince, saionji's performance of masculinity, miki's rejection of (his sister's) maturity etc etc etc... and they all essentially see what they want to see, or what they need to see, right. with saoinji he gets the worst of it because he's so obviously extremely delusional about this whole rose bride gig, he serves the function of accidentally revealing comic relief. but they're all at it. which makes it so fun to actually work through the show and detect where anthy is exerting agency... and she is kind of torturing the student council members, right - she might be the victim but she's also the tormentor

and what slaps about this 'witch' role that she plays is that she... kind of ends up bringing the worst out of everyone she comes across. she's unpopular, she's the scapegoat to be blamed when saionji has his depressive episode upon losing her, she's constantly positioned as a seductress just by existing. she brings out the pettiness in people, their smallest fears, lowliest desires... her brother was the one going around saving the maidens in the world - she might have the power, but all she could do with it was spirit him away and focus all the rage and bitterness of the world onto herself. she is the receptor for those emotions, she brings them out and then gets them projected onto her. and a big theme in this relationship between anthy and the outside world is this horror of crowds, of the judgement of mobs - which first really comes out during the ball in episode three, where nanami abandons her... "everyone's face begins to look the same and I get scared" she says earlier that episode

and then in episode 34 you get the 'explanation', the foundational myth of the show. anthy acting to protect her brother, who had taken upon himself the burden of saving the world - and in doing so takes the burden upon herself of the world's hatred. its fears and its cruelty. so you see the villagers come for her and enact their punishment... stabbed by each of them and hung up in eternal suffering

and that's the role she then takes in the series, right. she's the one who is leading mikage in corrupting students, whispering in his ear and pretending to be his loved one to further the cause. she provides miki with this ideal of submissive virginal femininity so he can fully condemn his whore sister. she teases out wakaba's envy of the special and the unique and the desirable by making herself appear the willing recipient of saionji's affections. she judges them even while she is judged - she serves a transformative function, she ends up revealing the worst in those who cross her path

and then you've got utena, who is the exact opposite - the extremely popular jock not yet disillusioned with societal ideals. her gender nonconformity isn't punished within the school environment (and her teacher's attempts to enforce the uniform code are never treated seriously, are merely scoffed at)... the girls love her for it and flock to her when she shows off her basketball prowess, swoon at her for merely walking past

utena is a strident individualist, one who with her protagonist juice doesn't even need any student council exemptions to defy the dress code. she stands out, she is supposed to stand out - and she is rewarded for it, up to a point. whenever she suffers her greatest defeats, she is forcibly feminised... whether she does so to herself, or whether akio quite literally dresses her in the costume of a princess. when akio has sex with her, she seems to embrace this femininity as a kind of maturity - but it is a false coming-of-age. this is not a style of presentation she would choose for herself. she wishes to be the prince

right then. none of this is particularly novel analysis - it's really just set up for where I'm going with this post. so that we're all on the same page. no particularly graceful way to manage this transition... but well. time to talk motogp. and I was thinking about some of this projection and perception business in relation to valentino. even if there is obviously something counterintuitive about relating anthy, whose entire character is about weaponised passivity, to valentino, who is anything but passive... but hear me out

valentino obviously has this stable enduring popularity going for him - one that resembles utena in being so unconditional he almost doesn't really have to care about it. public perception does matter especially when he can wield it as a weapon, but the public's love is never in question. utena can essentially opt out of a lot of the conventions and norms of the school because she doesn't even have to consider a world where she might be rejected. she is liberated by not having to fear the role of the social outcast. there is something about this with valentino too, who was horrendously popular before he even wanted to be and was prepared to deal with that level of attention paid to his every move. it's really key that this affinity starts when he's about 16-17... from then on, he is the public's starlet and then their god - and even when he has his scandals and controversies, that fundamental dynamic won't ever change. you see with a lot of his rivals how... there is this concern with image, right, this desire to be loved, or at the very least accepted by the masses. that simply isn't a concern for valentino, who often seeks to manipulate but far more rarely attempts to persuade. his popularity is a fact of his existence

Akio:  Oh? Wakaba-san... Utena:  Right. She's completely different now. Akio:  Like the goddess who leaves her name to the stars in the heavens... is that how it is? Utena:  But how did she become so pretty all of a sudden? Akio:  You don't understand, do you? You, living out your predestined fate... Utena:  Huh? Akio:  There are special people in the world. And they are always noticed. For example, like yourself... Utena:  Me? Akio:  Attend me. You're not particularly self-conscious, correct? That is the special quality that you carry from birth. Utena:  Oh? Akio:  Most people are but a single person amongst multitudes. However, given the slightest chance, they will shine with a light that they have never had before. Utena:  I've just wanted Wakaba to be happy for a long time. Akio:  It could even be said, that for many people, their special time lasts but briefly.

"you're not particularly self-conscious, correct" - and of course, this rare narrative juice allows them to transgress the established norms of gender without being punished too severely. utena can claim her role of prince, valentino can allow himself his girlish locks. it is during this time period that the public falls in love with him, the flamboyant clown who makes a mockery of the machismo of motorcycle racing. remember what valentino's very first rival in gp racing said:

“I saw a young guy with dyed hair and earrings who was like Superman on the bike. I thought to myself: 'That’s not for me.’ At first it was a shock. In 1996 we had already clashed a few times. He touched me once, we had an argument. In 1997 Valentino Rossi made me retire. But that’s not a bad story for me.”

it's transgressive - but it's ultimately going more or less unpunished. utena has her flocks of female admirers, straight men can't seem to get enough of valentino. he does not need to be self-conscious. he can be affected by controversy like anyone else, but rarely is he actively attempting to win popularity. he was loved enough early enough that it has become nothing less than a fact of his existence

which obviously brings its own perils with it. I've posted two extended discussions in valentino's autobiography of his relation to fame - and in fact they follow directly on from each other, first here then here. in one he frames his preference for the night in terms of the anonymity it provides, these precious moments where he can disappear. the night allows him to be unseen, to escape the crowd at last. his fame is such that he cannot live an ordinary life - and the italians never fail to recognise him

As I say, I have a special relationship with the night. I like moving in it, living in it, thinking in it, relaxing in it. The night fascinates me, because it’s the period of least confusion. The world calms down, it goes quiet. And, besides, I’m Valentino Rossi. I’m wanted… I’m a fugitive.

the second excerpt goes into more detail about his relationship with the italians - for all his love for them, how he struggles with the familiarity they assume. the extent to which they treat him as theirs... he talks of 'types' of italians, who all want different things from him - but what they want says more about them than it does about him. he might as well be a mirror. he is not expected to contribute to those discussions, merely to be a prop within them. the worrier, the sensationalist, the moralist... they all bring so much of themselves to this encounter and little of valentino - the idea of valentino is enough to make them content. which gets at the very function of sports, right. this arena of heightened emotion that you can project all your everyday worries and fears onto, a form of escape and also of release. artificial competition, in truth meaningless but the feelings are still plenty real. the very process of being a fan of someone involves a form of projection. you see what you want to see, you respond to the traits you want to respond to - and in the end, you form a one-sided bond that you get something out of emotionally speaking. the public persona and the athlete and the competitor and the character and the person... there is some overlap here, but it is far from absolute. if anything, the person is the least relevant. who cares about the contents of their hearts? this is not about loving an individual, but instead loving what the individual/team represents to you

and in that spirit, let's return to how I framed anthy's narrative role above. this object of projection, yes - but also this plot device to tease out hidden truths within the other characters, to allow them to reveal the worst of themselves. anthy draws out all this resentment and rage and then concentrates it upon herself. now obviously, valentino functions a little differently - he is not getting the masses to hate him. quite the opposite... the shared thread is in drawing out extreme emotions, in how he can become an idea in people's minds more than a person. which is where we get to the most pertinent other 'characters' in valentino's tale - his rivals, who themselves are on their own narrative arcs within the sport. who bring an awful lot of themselves into this rivalry, to an extent that sometimes feels like it's being missed when valentino's feuds are being discussed. what makes valentino so narratively useful is his malleability, how many different versions of him have existed across his career... the fact that he likes to vary his appearance fairly drastically provides a bit of a convenient navigational guide. a way of expressing himself that varies over the years and points to his self-perception as well as the role he will now fulfil. different rivals will have come across entirely different versions, each suited to whichever particular moment of valentino's career he found himself at... in some ways, what's most fun about valentino is that... as much as he is a person, in the context of the sport he is also a plot device, this surefire way of generating narrative tension that is really pretty unique. he's basically a way of putting guys into Situations, right. it's such a great idea for a sport to just have someone around to consistently put guys into Situations

and what that involves is rivals who are also pouring quite a lot of themselves into these rivalries... oftentimes they see in valentino what they want to see, or what they need to see, in a way that is only tangentially connected to 'reality'. here, it is jorge who is kind enough to provide us the parodic extreme, with his biography littered with film references and comparisons to other sports that all provide the road map for understanding his view of the world in the late noughties - less in the specifics of any particular inspiration he cites, but more in what it tells us about how he is processing events. valentino very obviously has a designated role here, this established legend of the sport who jorge can learn from and measure himself against and eventually conquer. the emphasis is very much on honourable combat and mutual respect - albeit with jorge's flair for the dramatic, this prior understanding that rivalries are supposed to get a bit ugly. jorge during the first half of that particular rivalry is on his own little coming-of-age arc that has markedly little to do with valentino the person. jorge talks of wanting to make himself a 'character' like that of valentino's, he desires the love of the public... his disillusionment comes when he realises that his end goal might not be particularly achievable. championships, yes - but the kind of affection valentino inspires? not a chance

instead of adoration, he is faced with widespread contempt and hatred, often at the hands of valentino's fans. it is a realisation the creeps up on him just as he wins his first championship... given the timing of motegi, you could say he is being forced to come to grips with this at the precise moment when he seals the title. valentino hardly shies away from adding fuel to the fire in that 2010 season, unimpressed by jorge's ill-advised gesture with the shirt at mugello - so painfully jorge in a way that was never going to work out for him - and later provoking him at motegi in the heat of battle. this is not valentino attempting to win over the masses. he knows their support is baked-in. often, he does not have to do his own dirty work where mind games and such are concerned... the media can generally be trusted to harm his opponents more than they do him, without much intervention on his part. valentino is far from a passive agent in this feud, but he can allow himself to be more restrained than sometimes appears. their rivalry in 2008-10 does much to change jorge, but valentino is left entirely unaffected

sullen biaggi courting a woman called valentina in a sequence that would make freud wince - unable to find joy while valentino tortured him. image-conscious sete priding himself on the respectful rivalry right until the moment where valentino laid bare the ugliness beneath. tormented casey, finding in valentino echoes of all his neuroses and more besides. brash jorge, who had already assigned valentino a role from the start, before finding that valentino might be possible to beat but impossible to imitate. and the brave marc, so keen to take his place at his idol's side in the pantheon he forgot to consider what fighting him for real might look like. valentino represents something completely different to each of them... it is remarkable in its own right that all three of sete, casey, and marc were so completely blindsided by any enmity developing in the rivalry. sete, who thought himself different from biaggi, casey, who thought himself different from biaggi and sete - marc, who thought himself different from all of them. sete befriended valentino, whereas all three of casey, jorge and marc idolised him at one point or another. each was eventually surprised by valentino in some way... for each of them, valentino was the single most influential rival in changing them as people. in their character arc, if you will

obviously, when you talk about projection, you do have to pay special attention to casey. who was really working overtime on the projection front. the casey/valentino rivalry isn't quite as interpersonally convoluted as valentino's rivalries with sete and marc, doesn't quite have the comedic flair of the jorge feud - but I'd wager that in terms of thematic richness, it comes out on top. a lot of the heavy lifting is done here on the casey side of the equation, given that valentino is more or less a static character in this rivalry. he is more casey's foil than vice versa. he is a plot device to provide us a thorough vivisection of casey's character. how much you enjoy this rivalry will ultimately depend on how interested you are in casey as a person, which *stares into the middle distance* does feel like a pretty niche area. obviously, this thematic richness makes it extremely utena-able, as has been previously discussed in this parish. it is the rivalry that has by far the best colour-coding, which - shush, this matters to me. and crucially casey has been so kind as to ensure that it matters... by giving us the key insight into his psyche that 'things being too yellow' is a thought that has existed in his brain. casey is hot-headed, defiant, wildly talented - valentino is calculating, cunning, and relies on those traits more than any other to get the edge over casey. talent vs ambition, if you will

what makes casey so utena-able, right, is that a lot of his sturm and drang essentially relates to the job description of being a rider. it's his role that he's chafing at, the elements relating to politics and public performance and all the rest of it. he has to make his peace with this role to some extent - and then he walks away entirely (achieves revolution, if you will). though entirely is maybe overstating things... after all, he hasn't completely shut himself off from this world. he still gives interviews, he has opinions, he sells his side of the story. he's not suddenly un-learnt the lessons from his time in the sport. there's a certain level of media consciousness, an ability to play the game, that clearly distinguishes him from his teenage self. he's grown up. casey's story is always in conversation with that role of entertainer, where he rejects it and struggles with it and begrudgingly accepts it. and while casey might not yearn to be loved, exactly, he does want to be appreciated. he wants to be praised. he wants to be understood

"we [jorge and I] both can be misinterpreted because of how we appear" // "and I hope to go to dinner with him [valentino], to tell each other, from our point of view, what our challenges have been"

if valentino is the witch, then casey can play the role of one of the aspiring princes - and the amount he manages to project onto valentino could fill a small library. neuroses about being excluded from the club, about being the perpetual outsider, about the system favouring others, about his isolation, about how he cannot treat racing as anything other than serious business, about his feelings of cultural alienation at least partly stemming from his isolation crystalising in a very particular view of the european soul, about not being given enough credit for his talents, about people unfairly judging him, about undeserving success, about being judged as an entertainer not just a rider, about having to sell his story to the press, about being seen as mentally weak, about the idea that he might be broken, about having his physical issues not taken seriously enough, about not being treated with respect, about others bullying him on-track, about others riding dangerously, about being publicly embarrassed... look, I think you get the point - all of these can somehow be found lurking in the rivalry with valentino

the thing about this rivalry is that you sat someone down in 2006 with a detailed psychological profile of casey but zero knowledge of motogp and came up with the brief 'come up with a guy to torture casey', honestly I don't think you could come up with a better concept than valentino. he just nails it on basically every front. as has also been discussed in plenty of detail in this parish, another particularly pernicious element is valentino's interpersonal charm - which works perfectly well to bewitch undersocialised brats in its own right. valentino is this larger-than-life figure within the sport and casey is unfortunately also very taken with him as a person. which, okay, maybe the lesson is to tell valentino to stop being so nice to twenty-year-olds - but broadly how their relationship develops in 2007 is primarily down to casey being a bit of an emotional mess. valentino is basically on neutral mode in how he approaches that rivalry, keeps a little distance as the battle lines are drawn but fundamentally is quite reserved and relaxed about the whole thing. given that he never gets quite as cold towards casey as he has done towards all his other major rivals at one point or another, this leaves casey in a position where he increasingly has to reckon between a perceived mismatch between valentino the person and valentino the character. the way he has dealt with this discrepancy is a combination of a) by verbalising it and implying he never really knew valentino 'as a guy', and b) by retconning how valentino actually behaved towards him over the course of their rivalry. it is quite convenient for casey to say valentino made an enemy of him the moment they became title rivals, that he flipped a switch and decided he wanted to destroy casey. it is also quite probably not true

casey's problem is that he tends to be someone who communicates his grievances in a fairly direct and straightforward fashion; he's not shy about voicing very specific complaints about everything from the media to the circuit officials to his team to other riders to the track to the constellation of clouds. as a result, it's actually pretty noticeable when he does not do this. laguna 2008 is one example where he is perfectly entitled to his general complaint about valentino's conduct - he is, after all, correct in his belief that valentino was willing to do whatever it took to stop casey from winning that race, including crashing them both out - but you do have to wonder why he is so coy about pointing to specific problems with valentino's riding. he flirts with accusations of brake checking, he says the corkscrew overtake was a problem but just one of them (perhaps not even the main one), he says the cameras weren't showing valentino's most questionable moves. which you'd have to say is highly unlikely. and we do actually know what casey does when he has what he believes to be a valid and defensible grievance where valentino is concerned - look at jerez 2011 and how he has beat that particular horse so often its bones are now thoroughly reduced to dust. this was caught on cameras and casey is in no way shy of referring back to specific details, most infamously the helmet valentino was wearing. we also know that casey is perfectly willing to engage with specific media utterances where valentino is concerned. exhibit A is how he never forgave valentino's crew chief jb for making it sound like the ducati could be fixed with some set-up changes - a wound that runs deep enough it made it to casey's autobiography. exhibit B is... well, any number of petty incidents over the course of 2011-12, including a particularly stupid one where an italian magazine reused some old valentino interview from somewhere to make it sound like valentino had attacked casey in late 2012, which casey then got snarky about on twitter (not the high point of that rivalry on any level)

given all that, you do start to wonder when exactly valentino supposedly became such a sore loser during 2007. now, what casey most likely actually means is that he did not appreciate valentino's comments about his struggles with the michelin tyres, and how that was used by certain parts of the media and a lot of fans to suggest that casey's wins were any less worthy. which of course is unfair and unpleasant for casey to have to deal with... but once you notice the vagueness, you do start to wonder why he is so restrained in issuing any more specific complaints. in an odd way, casey can actually bank on valentino's own reputation here - even by this point, valentino obviously had a bit of a reputation for being quite ruthless with his rivals. which means that you've got this situation where journalists are reporting on what casey is saying about valentino, without actually including any specific examples of what he could be referring to. let's be blunt here - I have found a lot of quotes of valentino in that 2007 to early 2008 stretch give full credit to casey for riding very well, and no evidence of anything that should have attracted this level of remonstrance from casey. that doesn't mean valentino hasn't said anything... it is obviously way harder to be definitive about this kind of thing the further back in time you go and there probably will be something he said at some point to some italian reporter that somehow made its way back to casey. but also... so what. if valentino said something mildly snarky about the guy who was schooling him to that year's title, then, y'know. whatever. who cares

now obviously casey does care - and he has this fun combination of being reasonably impervious to valentino's mind games on a competitive level (for the most part) while also being extremely ticked off at them. I'm not sure I'm quite convinced by the 'valentino deliberately got the donington crowd to boo casey' story - it rates about at the same level as the 'casey said jorge was faking his injuries' tale as an anecdote by a single reporter with some broadly supportive circumstantial evidence but nothing particularly definitive. (also, in this particular instance, obviously only valentino will truly have known what he was doing - unless he was yelling 'boo casey' at the brits, at best this is all conjecture.) it does feel reasonable to believe valentino did like to weaponise his popularity, make a show of the cheering crowds in a way that was also a touch targeted... the shirt comment at motegi 2007 I could easily easily imagine as something casey was quite sensitive to (perhaps also the reason why he has never brought it up since) - an actual heartfelt gesture that valentino turned into a bit of a joke. failing to shake casey's hand on-track when he sealed the title is... tough to take seriously (perhaps the reason that too has not been mentioned since), likewise the story that casey didn't take kindly to valentino rocking up to casey's home circuit with special livery and leathers. this is... I mean, it's fine, isn't it. usually valentino's tales manage to be way more bonkers than what I'm used to with tennis, but on occasion this is the kind of thing where I wonder if I'm too desensitised. everyone plays some mind games, right

the other more unknowable variable is how their interpersonal relationship developed, whether valentino really had been way warmer with casey before casey was regularly beating him. again, the evidence I can provide with my own eyes sees basically zero difference between early and late 2007 - certainly not in term of tone of parc fermé congratulations, which casey so diligently provided us as a yardstick in his autobiography. yes, the head rubbing rate goes down, but again. this is also broadly to be expected between title rivals. at this stage at least, there really is nothing untoward happening. if valentino is talking less to casey because they are now direct rivals, then... fine. sure. fair enough, really. whatever casey might think, this is perfectly normal behaviour. valentino obviously ends up dramatically escalating the rivalry on the track - and however you feel about valentino's conduct in that race, this is a straightforward case of someone responding to real competitive pressure in a way that ended up working out well for them. just like valentino's choice to switch to casey's tyres - you'd have to say that in pure competitive terms, there really is nothing to fault about valentino's decision-making in this particular instance. you can actually make a pretty compelling case that valentino is never as close to being a rational actor as he is in this rivalry. how he conducts himself in that rivalry, how he handles the interpersonal elements, how he thinks his way through the on-track puzzle... you can clearly trace the logic in each step. it's ruthless, yes, but entirely cold-blooded

so. let's circle back to how valentino is the very worst rival anyone could possibly have cooked up for casey specifically. a lot of that is how a lot of casey's neuroses interact with valentino, how valentino manages to tap into quite deep, half-suppressed feelings of anger, fear, loneliness... it's in how valentino challenges casey both on and off the track, how valentino forces casey to learn some of his tricks if casey wants to be able to compete. and some of it is about how valentino isn't quite as easy for casey to just hate in peace. casey's problem is that in a very theoretical sense, he does like valentino. in another world, he would want to be valentino's friend. casey speedruns his disillusionment because he's a sensitive young guy who needs somebody to tell him that he's doing a good job now and again. unfortunately that person was just never going to be valentino

failing friendship, what casey does instead is project about a million of his issues onto valentino. and what's interesting about this is that it is possible for him to do so. that valentino is malleable enough a character - slippery enough, if you will, that casey can see whatever he needs to see in valentino. that he can piece this together in his mind. in rgu, anthy as a character functions by being so passive that she draws the other characters into projecting their own issues, desires, angst onto anthy... the only certainty is that she will have some kind of an effect on every character. obviously, valentino is far from passive - but you could say that his default charm somehow manages to play out in quite a similar way. he's larger-than-life, his reputation precedes him, he's so many things to so many people. he can be anything to them, if they so choose. if anything, you actually kind of need valentino's charm in this particular setting, considering he's constantly surrounded by repressed loners who need someone to draw them out of their shells a bit. once valentino has worked his charm, all bets are off. it is the extent to which valentino is synonymous with motogp itself that allows casey to see all his myriad issues with the sport reflected back at him. casey believes that valentino is always looking to make an enemy out of his rival - but, ironically, this has never been less true for valentino than it is in his dealings with casey. lonely, tormented casey... he is the only one who could make a rivalry feel like a personal exorcism

here's something to consider: for all that valentino engages with the public far more readily than casey does, there is an argument to be made that casey cares significantly more about what people think of him than valentino does. as said up front, valentino has been so secure in people's adoration for him for so long that it has morphed into a simple fact of life... for better or for worse. incidentally, this is something people get wrong about how valentino approaches the marc rivalry - it does not matter to him if there is controversy, if people hate him for what he said, if marc fans all renounce him... even if common sentiment swings against him. he isn't attempting to persuade. he is fingering a wound and pressing against it for the sake of the pain itself. the love of the people is something he can be assured of until the day he dies - if he is controversial, then so be it. what valentino has always insisted on is the ability to define himself, and he will not accept letting anyone think he feels any differently about marc than he does. generally, he has been far more willing to let others tell the story of the rivalry for him past the conclusion of the rivalry. in sete's case, he mostly opts not to talk about it at all. he has guided the narrative as far as he needed to take it, but no further. this is not a game of persuasion... when casey engages with the public, he is determined to make them understand him better. to the extent that valentino attempted to get the masses to do his bidding, he did so either for the fun of it or as another tool at his disposal. it mattes less what people really think, as long as they can put pressure on his enemies. the crowd is a mob is a weapon

obviously in this particular dynamic, it is casey who gets the unfair brunt of the public's hatred - valentino, for all his transgression, is loved unconditionally. casey is too surly, too whiny, too flat, too withdrawn, too self-critical, too stubborn... he loses the masses before he even understands that he needed to win them. jorge was a long-term student of valentino who had put excessive amounts of thought into how one would go about replicating that sort of character - casey, by contrast, felt that surely when he proved himself in the sport, popularity would follow automatically. for all the joy of 2007, for all that he repeatedly emphasises in his autobiography how happy he was... it probably tells you something that a reasonably sympathetic interviewer described him in early 2008 as an "angry young man" whose mentality was informed by "bitterness and rejection". what happened was this - casey had spent years and years fighting and struggling his way to the top, had been put under unfair amounts of pressure, had suffered and doubted himself and suffered some more... with the expectation that, once he reached the pinnacle, he would have won. finally he would definitively prove how good he was, finally everyone would give him the credit he was owed. casey might not desire the adoration of the masses, exactly - too self-conscious, still the kid who hid in his helmet because he was embarrassed at the idea of anyone cheering him on. but he did want a little of that... certainly to be seen, to be understood. to be respected for what he was and what he could do

in the end, however much he enjoyed his title, the experience of 2007 will have felt like a disappointment. all of casey's prior angst did not suddenly dissipate because of his dominant season. he accomplished everything he always dreamed of accomplishing, and it did not suddenly erase what he had gone through to get there. worse still - the distaste of the viewing public, having just been treated to a close title fight between two of the most popular riders in an all-time great season for racing, in response to the 2007 season was palpable. casey wasn't supposed to be the challenger. he had shown them all for sure, but few pretended like they were particularly happy about that. the establishment, if you will, was not thrilled - valentino wasn't winning, the top american wasn't winning, the top spaniard wasn't winning. the racing was boring. none of this was casey's fault, but he was inevitably going to be the lightning rod for many of these criticisms. and it rankled. "it's been frustrating because everyone said my results were down to other things." "whatever we do we don't get credit." when he talks about feeling bad about getting the prize for young australian of the year over something as unimportant as motorcycle racing, and the interviewer prompts him that he has gotten some credit - "yeah, but so many people in press and paddock just want to put us down"

perhaps this sort of thing is part of what made casey so good, but on a human level you do feel like it would have been better for him to care a little less what the naysayers were saying. there were plenty of people who acknowledged just how good he was - not as many as there should have been, yes, but it was hardly a blanket dismissal. and he wasn't doing his cause any good with this kind of continuous talk - which is unfair, yes, but unfortunately this is a part of the game. not just of motogp, not just of european sports, but of sports full stop... professional sports is nothing without an audience and you cannot stop that audience from emotionally reacting to you. to reiterate, that's the whole point of sports. emotion in excess, released. that does not mean all is fair, that casey's criticisms aren't justified - but on a fundamental level, casey was always going to be disappointed. and, yes. valentino might be a bastard, might deserve plenty of the shit casey slung his way... but he was always going to disappoint casey. it was unavoidable. motogp never gave casey a fair shot. and yet, at the same time, casey's disillusionment was inevitable

rgu is of course a coming-of-age story that is heavily concerned with themes of innocence, of maturity - break the world's shell to achieve revolution. casey and his disillusionment are right at home here... the child who sought eternity, only for eternity to feel less sweet than it was promised. always looking behind him, longing after a half-remembered childhood innocence in a half-remembered land that he never truly got to live at all. an angry young man who never even had a childhood. youth forced prematurely into maturity, who wears it like an ill-fitting glove - jaded and naive at once, a cynic who is still at heart a kid. a revolutionary who barely comprehends what he is revolting against. casey might not fully understand the world he has entered, but he immediately grasps that it is unjust; he mistrusts all systems he comes across, without having any framework to make sense of what he is objecting to. at least his grudge against valentino provides him something to orientate himself. the lessons he begrudgingly learns from valentino in the following years guide him as he goes forward. he has not found the joy and the relief at the pinnacle he was hoping for - but for now, anger and hatred will do just nicely

so then. valentino is projected upon, while casey gets the role of the one loathed by the public. written off before he truly got a chance, blamed even when he is blameless. valentino is the inverse - he is uplifted, he inspires emotions in others as has always been his mission statement... that kind of love comes with its own cost, as valentino is well aware. it is also a love that easily turns ugly when directed at valentino's competitors, of which valentino is again aware. to him, this too is part of the natural landscape of sports... nothing unfamiliar to anyone raised within football culture. both of them are aware of the public's fickle nature; both are prepared to treat the crowd as more of a mob. a lot of rgu concerns societal roles, how baked in they are within every facet of society, how immutable they can feel... valentino and casey are both given their parts to play early enough that almost nothing was ever going to be enough to alter those roles during the course of their careers. each perception of them inevitably has been subjected to this filter - the beloved clown prince versus the moaner. in this, as in quite a few other things, valentino and casey neatly find themselves in opposition. even if, of course, casey ended up having to learn something from valentino in the art of entertainment. casey's role in that particular rivalry is as much as anything else that of the reluctant student - both on and off the track. and casey in all his talent is perhaps valentino's very best student... in valentino, he sees the shadow that he must gradually incorporate into himself - the basest of ideals he must both reject and draw from to survive and mature. a coming-of-age story where casey is forced to transform whether he wants to or not

I've been avoiding just regurgitating stuff I've written in the past, but I do think this paragraph from here is pretty relevant:

and valentino isn’t just a foil in the sense that he provides a striking contrast for casey to define himself against - he is also the agent of transformation who forces casey to learn from him, to grow and change himself, as well as a mirror who can throw into sharp relief elements of casey that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. not to get too jungian here, but the analytical psychologists would say that casey is being forced to confront his shadow self, with valentino quite nicely mapping onto a trickster archetype (junk science but can be fun if you don’t take it too seriously). the unconscious elements of casey’s personality he is not entirely at ease with, these strict codes and rules and standards he subjects both himself and the rest of the world to… valentino both acts as an embodiment of the various injustices casey has experienced throughout his life, a living breathing representation of many of the grievances casey has accumulated - and as this discomforting presence that teaches casey things about human nature, including those parts of himself that had existed within casey’s emotional 'blind spot’. valentino exists in such violent opposition to a lot of casey’s most strongly felt ideals that he not only serves as a conveniently malevolent presence to be projected upon at will, but also as this mechanism by which casey is forced to confront the shadow. it’s all over his descriptions of laguna - “valentino showed who he really was”, “I learned a lot about character, I learned a lot about race craft, I learned a lot about what people were capable of”, “I underestimated what people are capable of just to win a race”… valentino deceives, he manipulates, he tricks - but he also serves the function of revealing what was hidden. and on the one hand, it makes casey recommit to his own values, knowing that he would not have acted like valentino did - “in his place I would have apologised”, “I couldn’t have done that overtaking, if I touched someone and moved them I felt guilty. it was the stupid part of my character, but it was what kept me asleep at night”. but on the other hand, it also prompts a transformation within casey - a “change in mindset”, something that “helped me in the following years”, adopt “a different mentality”, that taught him to “be more selfish with my racing”, to “race for myself”. again: “but, after two years of racing with people who don’t worry about you, I’ve learned that I have to do the same.” “people think it was the turning point of the season, but instead it was the turning point of my career, because from that moment I told myself I wouldn’t worry about thinking about others anymore” - he’s very explicit about this, isn’t he? and of course, most memorably: “what happened between me and valentino at laguna 2008 won’t happen again, or if it does, he’ll get it back tenfold”. for all that acting like valentino did would cause casey sleepless nights, if given a do-over then casey believes he would match and surpass valentino’s brutality. if that’s not being brought in touch with your own shadow I don’t know what is

valentino is everything casey would never want to be and never could have been... and yet by the end of the journey, casey has become a little more like him. valentino is both casey's imagined ideal and his imagined monster. neither of them are entirely true or untrue - but both exist in casey's mind as much to fulfil a certain function for him as they are as an 'objective' truth

and even in the unadulterated adoration valentino receives you will find an element of dehumanisation... valentino captures the emotion of the common person, but he himself becomes a little less human in the process. an idol, a god, a monster... his rivals increasingly were drawn from the pool of his own fans, who brought along with them their own conceptions of valentino before they ever even knew him. jorge studied him endlessly, dissected him with his instructor in the dark art of communication, wrote about him in his columns. there must be something strange about competing against those who have analysed your smile, though valentino by then will have gotten used to that level of inescapable scrutiny. then again, of all valentino's rivals, you could say jorge had the most accurate understanding of what he was signing up for... a happy coincidence, perhaps - some of the things jorge wanted out of the rivalry, valentino was more than willing to give. jorge and the others, they saw what they wanted or needed to in valentino... and valentino has enough faces that they could find something to base that perception on. he had the ability to be all of their foils and play that role brilliantly

it is at this point of the post - safe in the knowledge that not one soul is reading what essentially by now amounts to a private journal which happens to theoretically be available online - that it is time to jump off the deep end. let's talk witchcraft

I recently made a post where I laid out my personal general explanation for how valentino keeps creating these like... narrative nexus events, ridiculously dramatic and memorable races that somehow just manage to completely change the vibe of an entire season, rivalry, etc. that was all very much about what valentino was doing in practise. there's real sporting reasons for why his approach to competition also has this particularly pronounced mental effect on rivals. obviously, that stuff is not really in the spirit of this post - I do quite like the stuff I wrote in terms of elaborating how 'valentino the storyteller' functions, but this time round I really am just talking about vibes

the thing about anthy in rgu is that... okay, I know the whole series is a deconstruction of fairy tales, that it's critically engaging with these assigned roles including that of 'witch', that anthy is constantly suffering throughout the story, that she is a victim of this storybook structure. but I can't help it, I do actually love anthy's version of being a witch. I love when she gets to be mean and torments the student council members, I love what she does with mikage, I love the mystique and the shape her 'powers' take and so on. it's a very compelling portrayal of witchcraft in its own right. a lot of anthy's actual witchcraft is focused around appearances, around illusion, around trickery and deceit and manipulation of the mind. her magic in some way 'protects' dios, yes, she saves him from the brink of death - and she does seem to have some more 'offence-based' ability in providing the sword to whoever possesses the rose bride. but even the sword seems to have little actual power in and of itself - saionji outright says that the power of the sword depends on the wielder. utena has to channel dios herself... which at most is only very loosely connected to anthy. she is the sword's host. beyond that, she dabbles in types of transformation... shapeshifting used to turn nanami into a cow, illusion and memory manipulation to make mikage see her as mamiya, transfiguring her own clothes and embellishing the uniform of the current owner of the rose bride in preparation for the duel. additionally, she seems to have some natural affinity for animals, with chu-chu essentially functioning as the witch's familiar. beyond that are the more subtle ways in which anthy works in conjunction with the setting to warp reality. the strangeness of the school and how she plays into its absurdist logic, the way she seems destined to attract hatred upon herself, how she seems to subtly affect and manipulate those around her... she serves as a mirror for the other characters to see certain elements of themselves reflected back, the blank slate to be projected on... her ability to draw out these traits is not clearly supernatural, but is not not that either

the school itself does a lot of work in slowly breaking down its inhabitants, subjecting them to its absurdist logic and making utena ever more accepting of the bizarre events that surround her. the pitch is one of surreal melodrama - so utena may wonder and scoff at the duels and the mirage castle in episode one, but by episode six she does not even blink at a kangaroo with boxing gloves interrupting her conversation. the school destabilises its inhabitants and removes the foundations of their very understanding of reality. knowing what we do of anthy and akio's influence on proceedings within the school, it feels reasonable to treat it as an artificial environment of sorts... the destabilising elements are not a bug, they are a feature. and, well, in the artificiality of the drama it presents, it does bear some superficial similarity with sports - which is all about artificial stakes. nothing about sports is real... the stakes, certainly for the viewer, are essentially disconnected from their material conditions. there is no rational reason to care about sports. motogp takes this one step further by making the trappings of the sport so patently ridiculous, embracing surreal melodrama all the way. a lot of the sport is absurd, from the body horror elements in how it handles injuries to the complicated network of allegiances and animosities that exists between its most high profile participants to its celebrations. while often scoffed at from the outside, or indeed by podcast hosts, motogp's over-the-top silly staged celebrations are part of the sport now, indelibly so. a frequently cited reason for why these celebrations are so unpalatable is in their very artificiality, the theatricality supposedly sapping away the 'true' emotions of the moment - they are accused of inauthenticity. but the inauthenticity... is the point. this is a show. it is theatre. it is entertainment. none of it is 'real'. you can resent your attention being drawn to the props or you can embrace the absurdity. you were always watching a stage

and of course, this is in large part valentino's doing. his fingerprints are all over the sport, but this remains one of his most noticeable impacts... having a bit of a laff as a teenager in the nineties, and now all these years later we've got terminator reenactments that baffle any outsider to the sport. a lot of the traditions of any sport will organically develop over time - but to those baffled outsiders, you would have to explain that this can all essentially be traced back the influence of a single person. valentino was all show, all theatre, all the time. his gift was in making the emotions so earnest that the artificiality got lost in the mix... again, without the emotions, none of this works. valentino's witchcraft is aesthetic as much as anything else - an affinity for illusions and mirages that allowed him to repeatedly take control of the situation. look at how he used his celebrations... in quite straightforwardly practical terms, they were very much part of his arsenal, a manner in which he could psychologically bludgeon the opposition. a way to make the defeat sting more for the opponent, a way of defusing his own past errors, a way of ensuring he alone had possession of the limelight. defeating his opponents by strangling them of oxygen. he has made this level of theatricality more or less the norm within the sport, a mode of engagement that suits him better than anyone else. and look at what he did to his rivals... he drew them into his web, forced them to join him in a world where cursing one of his rivals became an accepted, established sporting narrative. be wary of taking on valentino - he can break his opponents. he will put you under pressure until you crack. and everyone watching is waiting for that moment... if you slip, even just for a moment, everyone might just decide to believe he has worked his black magic on you

when valentino places his curse on sete, what he is essentially doing is putting him back in his place. sete had been his friend before he was his rival, someone who had trained with him and advised him how to transition to the premier class and had spent holidays with him. and then he became the challenger valentino never should have had. not the ultra-talented wunderkind who set the sport alight with their irrefutable natural skill - no, instead valentino faced an unexpected contender... one who had suddenly emerged on the scene when already a little older and a little wiser. the message valentino received from the press was crystal clear on this front - valentino should not be losing to this man. sete should have been beneath valentino. every defeat was a humiliation, one that called into question valentino's own grit and resolve. why is it that so much of the discourse in that early 2003 season was so concerned with why valentino was faltering, rather than paying credit to the man who was actually beating him? sete was at best a feel-good story... but feel-good stories do not make for worthy challengers. if valentino's later rivalries reflected well on him by allowing him to take on and best the new great hopes of the sport, this rivalry felt for a while like it could only do harm to valentino. sete had risen above his station... affluent and well-connected outside of the sport, born to a prominent family and afforded a good education - within the artificial confines of motorcycling competition he was far beneath valentino in the pecking order. he had become better than he was supposed to have been, he had defied those who had already written the narrative of his career, and he had imposed himself where he had no right to be

is it any surprise, then, that these defeats particularly grated for valentino? why is it that he looks quite so miserable at sachsenring 2003, in a way he does not after any of his other premier class defeats? it was sete specifically he could not stand losing to - in part because he had been told he shouldn't. even pre-qatar 2004, valentino is preemptively gloating at the chance to separate himself once again from sete. "a return to reality that is difficult to accept" he says of sete's dwindling title hopes during the motegi weekend... sete had had the audacity to seriously believe he might be a title contender, and for that valentino is going to punish him. after the events of qatar, all bets are off. while his comment that he was looking for an "excuse" not to talk to sete were made in anger and should perhaps not be taken completely literally, while he does most likely have a genuine grievance when it comes to the events of qatar... once valentino is given his excuse, he can fully devote himself to the task of destroying sete. what he is doing, in essence, is reimposing the status quo of the sport. here stand the talented - over there are their lesser peers... sete had already been assigned a role to play, had rejected the narrative he had been told was his own - but now, the narrative comes crashing back in with a vengeance. the story punishes him brutally for ever believing that he was something he was not. and in the worst indignity of them all, it has since sought to erase him from the tale entirely. valentino's authorial hand once again makes itself known - he, more than anyone else, is enforcing this erasure - but obviously it is worth questioning why everyone else has been so willing to go along with this. they were there, they saw all of this unfold, they at least should know valentino was in genuine jeopardy... the most myopic, miserly, miserable conclusion to draw is that valentino was never truly competitively threatened, that with full benefit of hindsight he was simply never going to lose to one who occupied such an inferior position in the hierarchy that sports logic follows. as depressing as this would be, perhaps it is the correct conclusion to draw. who knows

either way, valentino gets his will. jerez 2005 is when he strikes his fatal blow - and it is the moment he completes the punishment of his friend. again, this is reimposing the status quo... it serves as a cruel reminder to sete that he has nothing but defeat coming his way, that he is nothing. the last corner lunge in all its desperation serves to remind sete that valentino will stop at nothing to beat him. valentino would rather crash them both out than see sete win another race. and having the full weight of valentino's ire directed at you tends not to be a pleasant experience. from mid-2003 to 2005, valentino continually reconstituted the reality of the sport... rewriting the rules as he saw fit, deserting the dominant manufacturer on a whim and winning with his new project. deserting his friendship with sete on a whim and changing that story too. but for all these superficial adjustments, there were some laws of sport he was never going to touch. he enforces some of its cruellest edicts in his revenge against sete, destroying sete because he can and retroactively ensuring that sete's existing achievements would not get the respect they deserve. even in his own mind, perhaps most importantly there, valentino has been able to dismiss sete. this is his vengeance... pressure, pressure, pressure, exerted ever more expertly and more viciously off the track and on it to terminally crack sete's confidence. sports is all in the head and valentino ensured that sete would be trapped in his own. at its worst, competing can be a living nightmare. valentino did his best to become monster to the man who had once been his friend

here is the fun in having a witch around, then - this character who subtly exerts control on those around them to torment them. a voice in your head while you are riding, reminding you of the last time you made a mistake. the invisible hand that forces your errors. gags about your rival making dolls of you, carried around to stick pins into. the pernicious ill luck you face, so inescapable that surely it cannot just be coincidence... a malicious influence hanging around the edges of perception, doing the bidding of a witch. and what valentino does to sete benefits him beyond the end of that rivalry by providing him with a reputation of someone who does not just beat opponents, but breaks them. it is a reputation that did much of the legwork for him in his rivalry against casey, generally minimising how much work he had to do himself. little use in going around all day talking about how you might have broken another rival if somebody else is willing to do that for you, right. given casey's own specific neuroses, obviously this just happened to be basically the worst possible torment anyone could have cooked up for him - which was just happy coincidence, albeit of the sort valentino saw an awful lot of over the course of his career. the post-laguna stretch was so horrendous for casey precisely because it appeared to prove everyone's suspicions... which of course to some extent can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. everyone thinking you are broken is more likely to break you. a common trick in the charlatan's repertoire - let the mark prove the magic for you

so there we have the confines of valentino's witchcraft. a certain stylistic sensibility... flash and glamour, the sport's aesthetic ever more loud and colourful. positioning himself as the showman as well as the authorial hand, capable of writing his own fairy tale. an ability to reinvent himself, new eras demarcated with shifts in his own appearance as well as approach. a keen and savvy operator when dealing with the media, happy to slip them a line and waiting for it to bite his opponents. a weaponisation of his persona as the showman, most obviously in his celebrations. a reputation that does much of his work for him. a public that treats him like an idol and a god - surrounded by people who wilfully project onto him. he transforms and he manipulates and he deceives; he tricks his rivals into conversing with a mirage, then punishes them for their folly. slippery and hard to pin down and many things to many people... the sport is always watching you, so you had better watch it back

the only rival who ever truly proved capable of beating valentino at his own game was casey - as ever, the best student of the lot. while casey's evolution into a savvy media operator in his own right is interesting, as is valentino's complete and utter disinterest in countering the narrative casey repeatedly has set out in the press, there is a far more obvious moment in which casey's willingness to twist valentino's tools against their maker pays off. it is the moment casey continues to refer back to as often as he can - jerez 2011, when he immortalised a racing incident forevermore with his pithy retort to valentino's apology. casey understands the power of that line and that moment as well as anyone, which is of course why he will never stop talking about it... in some ways, the scene echoes laguna 2008, their other most infamous confrontation. first off, the line itself - "ambition outweighed your talent" quite obviously resembles "let his ambition to win take control over his technique", something casey accused valentino of in the aftermath of laguna. this distinction between ambition and talent, will and skill, mentality and ability... it is a continual theme in the rivalry, reflected both in what they themselves say and what others have written about it. casey calls valentino smart, valentino calls casey talented. they both question whether the other might not be a little lacking in the other dimension. the other key similarity is in how valentino has deliberately ensured casey's comments will be recorded - at laguna 2008, he interrupts casey's tv interview so that camera and microphone will capture him refuse valentino's handshake; at jerez 2011, he is accompanied by cameras to give casey his apology. back then, casey had been operating from a position of weakness, incapable of controlling his temper and biding his time. in the short term, jerez 2011 earns him a fair amount of backlash - but it does not matter. casey has waited for years to get his revenge and valentino's move to ducati would deny him the chance to do so on-track, which casey may secretly have regretted... this would have to be the next best thing. casey perfectly understood the importance of that image and managed to inflict a rare defeat on valentino in his own arena. integrating the shadow within himself, right... he did it on the track, and off it. if valentino is a god within the sport, then casey surely has his own place within the pantheon (x)

he is riding like a devil and is always at the front // he is very, very strong, very young - a great talent who rides without many problems. he is riding like a god! // today he rode like a god and he's a fantastic rival // he rode like a devil so he deserved the championship and he's number one // he rode like a devil and he made great results last year with nothing to lose and he raced all or nothing

valentino is the god of motogp, at times explicitly referred to as such, and casey is the heretic who dares to challenge him and even dares to win. who is resented by many for his accomplishments, all while failing to be quite what the motogp world wants him to be. casey is denying valentino [...] isn’t it just FUN when we’re talking rivalries and narrative foils and all the rest of it to have valentino come along, this bloke who is seen as a god by much of the world of motogp - to have him essentially anoint casey to the pantheon himself in the way he describes casey. 'rarely guilty of making an understatement’ is fair, perhaps, but valentino doesn’t generally talk about his rivals like this. it’s a casey thing! that’s why they’re such great rivals and foils, right - casey’s talent versus valentino’s ambition, this lovely dramatic contrast between two blokes who are so strikingly similar on some dimensions and violently different on others. truly two of the best to ever do it

valentino's last trick is ensuring that he is so difficult to defeat - not just as a rider, but in the totality of his persona - that any attempt to do so will inevitably burn his enemy. none of his major rivals have emerged entirely unscathed from the experience of competing against him. some are quite possibly scarred for life. valentino is the master of the pyrrhic victory... it is possible to beat him, to burn the witch and perhaps even surpass him, but valentino ensures there will always be a bittersweet quality. corrosive like the sun

once he has exhausted all his tricks and burned all his bridges, there is no going back for anyone. all this self-mythologisation and mythologisation by others can just about manage to promote him to true mythical status within this artificial world, a world partly of his own design... and as long as this world constitutes the whole world of his rivals too, they can never entirely escape him. casey, with his complex relationship with the entire sport, all his well-documented complaints and grudges and bitterness, is of course the easiest example of this. he sees valentino in so much, the sport is linked so closely to valentino in his mind - and thus valentino is ensured further immortality as casey's shadow. which is something valentino has done with all his rivals... all of their legacies, tied inextricably with his own. a sport you dedicated your life to that still at times feels synonymous with a man you despise

which feels like a good place to wrap this up. as much fun as valentino-the-person can be to engage with, sometimes valentino-the-plot-device is just as much fun, if not more so. the narrative role of the witch is to trick and manipulate reality on the one hand - but on the other it is to reveal what is hidden. to tease out truths and buried emotions from all those around them. valentino perfectly fulfils the role of the entertainer within his sport, ramping up the inauthenticity and artificiality to allow for a true emotional excess - while also being a changeable enough slippery enough character to allow him to fulfil so many different functions over the years. upstart, challenger, king, comeback kid, underdog, fading titan, mentor... he can be any of these and all of these and none of these. his popularity is so enduring and non-questionable that it allows him liberty in some regards, the freedom to transgress in some arenas... the gaze of all the eyes of the world on him might serve to rob him of his personhood, just a little, but obviously it also represents a gift and a strength. there's something just conceptually fun about having a figure capable of bringing out the worst of those around them, revealing their flaws as surely as he does his own, acting as a nailed-on source of narrative tension. one who is dehumanised by the many eyes directed upon him at all times, but twists this in his own favour... one who uses trickery and cons and curses to enact his vengeance. it's quite the feat to be loved as a witch, you do have to say

***

obviously this whole thing was quite a... long and perhaps not particularly coherent examination of just some stuff that's been rattling in my head. as much as sports is fun to discuss as sports, sometimes it's also fun to go full-in on the narrative elements! anyway. I doubt anyone will get this far and this kind of thing generally doesn't leave my notes/brain but. I had fun with it :)

[ringsandwings]

A completely unnecessary analysis of the flowers surrounding Bag End: sunflowers, snapdragons, and asters.

I got this idea after reading a ton of adorable Sam and Frodo fanfic involving the language of flowers and getting a little obsessed with floriculture. I went on a hunt to find any flowers that were actually mentioned in the books and found this very small passage in chapter 1 of Fotr, describing the flowers surrounding the outside walls and windows of Bilbo and Frodo’s home. so I took the different meanings and symbolisms of the three flowers mentioned, and found fun ways to relate them to either the story or the characters. Please enjoy this unhinged interpretation that absolutely nobody asked for!!

Starting off with the sunflower! These mean, undying loyalty and adoration. This symbolism originates from the Greek myth of the nymph Clytie, and her unrequited love for the sun god Apollo. When she realized her feelings would never be reciprocated she spent several days not eating or drinking, following the path of Apollo’s sun chariot across the sky, until she eventually turned herself into a sunflower, perpetually facing the direction of the sun and waiting patiently for Apollo to return to her. Alternatively sunflowers can also mean everlasting, specifically everlasting friendship, and obviously joy and happiness. Their symbolism at Bag End is particularly precious with the theory that Sam planted these flowers. I love the idea of him using these to declare his undying devotion to Frodo even if Frodo doesn’t notice it! It’s giving you want me and you just don’t know it yet. But if that’s not your cup of tea, then these could also symbolize devotion to the Baggins’s, Sam’s lasting friendship for both Bilbo and Frodo, or just good vibes. 💖

Next are snapdragons, which I think have the coolest symbolism! They can mean two things, either grace or deception, but the exact meanings are very specific. Snaps can thrive under really harsh conditions, they can grow in cramped rocky areas and survive in subfreezing temperatures, so they specifically symbolize grace under pressure or in difficult situations. And while they do mean deception in the language of flowers, they’re mostly used as an apology flower for deceptive behavior, or used as protections against it. During the medieval period which is roughly the timeline Lotr was set in, these flowers were seen as guardians against evil forces and were typically planted by gates and around wealthy residences like Bag End. I freaking love the idea of these flowers being symbolic of the bravery and perseverance of the Baggins’s, but it might be more likely that either Bilbo or one of the Gamgees knew about their protective qualities and either the gardeners planted them out of reverence, or Bilbo sweetly chose these for Frodo’s protection.

And lastly Asters! These were my personal favorite to research and play around with because they mean so many different things and literally have the perfect backstory. Asters got their name from the Greek word Astrea, which was also the name of the Greek goddess of innocence and justice who created them in myth. The most popular version of this myth is that Astrea was so distraught over the lack of stars in the sky, when her tears fell to earth they created the star shaped aster flowers. Shortly afterwards, she herself fled into the sky and became the constellation of Virgo. Virgo is, of course, Bilbo and Frodo’s star signs, and the Astor is an official September flower. These flowers symbolize faith and valor, but in the language of flowers they symbolize innocent love and undying affection. I am choosing to believe these were planted by Sam on purpose, purely because of their meaning, but there’s one more piece of backstory that literally connects these flowers straight back to him. Asters were also an emblem of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and her planet is the ruling planet of taurus, which just so happens to be Sam’s star sign! *loses shit*

This was a little longer than I thought it would be, but I hope someone finds this as adorable as I did :-) PS, I don’t actually think Tolkien meant anything buy these super random flowers and same goes for the character of Sam, this was one sentence in the beginning of the book that I took way too far lol! It’s not true and I know I’m reaching, but just let me be delulu 😘😘

[punklorde-hunter]

So 2.1, just like the previous patch SO much happened, and To no one's surprise, It blew everything we saw in 2.0 out of the water! And since i did something similar during 2.1, I'd thought it make sense to do the same for the next part. So without further ado!

Spoilers under the Cut!!!!

Of course the start of 2.1's story has to end right where we left off, in the room where we found Robin's dead body O_O. But i like the direction they go, where after we split off form Aventurine and meet with the Express, we get to see multiple POV's, kinda like how they did with Dan Heng on the Luofu but more complex. And man did it work wonders!

While I know there were people meming and a bit disappointed Duke Inferno never got to appear in game, I did like that Acheron at least remembers his last stand. Man stood by his principles and went out fighting (even if he' prob won't be playable)

I also like how they handled Acheron & Welt together. Like I said before never got to play Honkai Impact 3rd, but I did get to read a lot of the supplementary material like Second Impact, so it was nice to see that side of Welt from there. And that's while Acheron isn't his Mei it's nice they shared a kinship

What a fun Greek Myth ref to match the HI3 Ref

I got nothing to add to this the sand pit was hilarious as hell! The NPC walking into walls and clipping into floors made me lose it. The devs had way too much fun in that area lmao.

Siobhan give em one more chance 🥺

the straight Up Pikachu ref sdjaldsadkklds

The little detail of Aventurine's & Dr. Ratio's shoes was pretty cute, the lil' spades on Aventurine's sole and Ratio's sandals, it's nice!

Nice Unlimited Blade Works ref there Star Rail

This next parts more on the serious side, so I'll give a little heads up that rest of the post is prob about to touch on really dark topics like Enslavement, genocide, su1c1de, and not so nice things like that so be warned.

So,

Aventurine / Kakavasha's backstory....

there's so much I could say but they really did a excellent job fleshing out his character. From how he was "lucky" from birth but everyone he ever loved wasn't so lucky, how his reckless gambling with his life was there even as a kid, him feeling he's never been truly free only going from one master to another, mans got trauma and it's no wonder he thinks everything comes at a cost.

I haven't seen a lot of post about the part where Kakasvasha says his last goodbyes to his sister, right before the Narration explains that the small rebellion ended in the Avgin clan's extinction (it's vague if the Katacins survived, but considering how the story paints them, not many people are gonna miss them). over 6,000 deaths and over ,000 casualties, all on a planet that was barely survivable. And while his sister sends him off after one final prayer to Gaithra Triclops, it left him alone with no one, and we know how he ended up afterwards.

Not to mention the fact even when Aventurine killed his old master by STRANGLING HIM WITH CHAINS, he would've been arrested by the IPC had Jade not taken an interest in his bet. Man has been through it. No wonder he recklessly bets his life in gambles, it was either that or he dies.

Speaking of reckless gambling, the entire sequence after Sunday does his Harmony suggestion we get that oh so nice interactions with the young Aventurine and his shadow the true self other Aventurine that rags on him the rest of the way. The shadow Aventurine lays it in him that underneath that bravado is a man whose so scared to lose more and yet doesn't care if his own life gets taken in the process since all he has is that. Not even with all the money in the universe. Dr Ratio's "betrayal" was supposedly an act, but he still thinks on some level the doctor hates him and it was real, he has no one to confined in or anything.

But with the younger self it's different. The way his young self still has light in his eyes, how in the hallucination he's at the theme park with his family, who are dead. First he denies that there are any Avgins since they were all dead right? But then he shows a kinder side he would never show to anyone, much less himself. And it accumulates in the scene where he decides to live on a bit longer and says a final prayer to his past, to Kakavasha. I was choking up all through that final part.

I know the patch mostly focused on Aventurine, but even what we learned of Acheron is also sad. She's not really a Galaxy Ranger, because her status as an Emanator of Nihillty, a "Self-Annihilator," is tragic enough, means she'll forget precious memories, senses, untill there's nothing. So it's sticks out to me that Acheron is the one to give Aventurine the nudge to live on, she she also has lost so much but chooses to walk on in life. Plus Dr. Ratio's note to Aventurine was very Ratio, no-nonsense but also wants him to live on despite their differences. The Aventio fans are eating it up but it's still a nice gesture from Ratio.

Speaking of Sunday, I said I wanted him to get his revenge as a treat but I wasn't counting on him almost killing Aventurine with whatever Harmony power he put on him. Sure the man lost his sister to an unknown murderer, and the light cone memory of them of a simpler time is sad. There's still a few unanswered question about him and Robin's relationship, like if Robin's fondest memories of are the pretend concert between her and Sunday, why is ti as adults she only just got back to Penacony, and why the Harmony isn't in sync anymore that caused her voice to lose it's tune. Also Sundays controlling attitude and his raven bird watching in every scene he's in makes me think the once closed siblings may not be as close anymore

Also with the reveal of what "Gallagher's" role in the story is, the drink he made for my Trailblazer fits a bit TOO well. I don't completely believe he's working alone, but his association with the Something Unto Death meme has me excited for his role next patch. Let my chill bartender man be a bit shady as a treat. Truly the "most normal human in the game of werewolf" (Thanks Shaoji)

Also to no one's surprise, Sam & Firefly are one in the same. While I am interested on how the last Stellaron Hunter is gonna be like and what their deal is, it's a shame most people like em were spoiled by the twist since it makes Firefly and Sam SO much more interesting.

But overall 2.1 has been AMAZING in terms of characterization and with 2.2 being set to be the "climax" of Penacony's Story I can't wait to see what they do with the plot threads they have been cooking up.

[wingless-cupid]

I am asking about your listeners, do you have any random or fun facts about them? Or anything you'd like to share in general? I love hearing about other people's characters

most of my listeners are based on different myths. Angel is based on Hermes, Darlin is based on the story of Chang'e when she drank the potion in a self sacrifice way, Sunshine is based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, you get it.

Sweetheart is based on the Cheshire cat (milo really is a cat person haha) and Freelancer is loosely inspired by monkie kid characters no one talk about it./lh

also Freelancer sings a lot of death metal they love to scream.

none of my listeners (or even my versions of the canon characters) are white. every character I've drawn so far is either a poc or a literal demon

Angel used to do competitive fighting when he was younger and he was really good at it. He doesn't fight anymore, but he can for sure throw someone over his shoulder still.

Sweetheart is a fucking loser. cringefail. sopping wet kitten trying to drink milk core. Hunter from the owl house vibes.

also he gets really competitive with Milo over anything.

things Angel likes: long car rides, trips to different cities, boba, strawberry flavored things, ironing orange fruit patches to David's clothes, k-pop, magical girl/shonen anime, making you reveal all your secrets to them because they play dumb to make you think this squishy little cherub wont make it his goal to know your backstory. he knows everything about you. things you didnt even know about yourself.

things Darlin likes, but secretly: blueberries, sweets, cute fluffy things, going up to people and hugging them from behind without saying anything about it, Angel telling them he was never intimidated by them, Angel painting their nails, holding Milo's hand, cuddling with Asher, watching David cook, Sam petting his hair/taking care of them in general and finally fucking destROYING EVERYONE IN ANY GAME THEYRE PLAYING AND MAKING EVERYONE FEEL BAD ABOUT IT.

thats it.

[missholloween]

⭐

I HAD THIS IN MY DRAFTS AND FORGOT TO POST IT, I'M SO SORRY ARC

I've decided to go for a holloweane one, If I could hold you for a minute, aka my d&d hatchetfield au.

Holloweane week was a learning experience, as it was my first fandom week event. Because of that, my writing schedules where from 10 pm to 2 am, something that I could later see reflected in the quality of the writing (nothing editing couldn't have saved tbh). Holloweane week was also a great moment of hubris, as I thought I could write all night for a week with no consequences AND with class during the day. By the end of the week, I noticed it wasn't sustainable.

All three chapters of this fic were supposed to be part of the same one shot, and be published during Holloweane week. While I was writing though, I noticed I had three different sequences in mind (and that I wasn't reaching Holloway's chappel that day), so I decided to divide them in chapters.

A fun fact of chapter 1 is that all the attacks in the fight were looked up (especially for spells) and then rolled... And my rolls really fucking sucked! Duke failed like 3 rolls with advantage, but it was too late to not commit to the bit, even if he had to look cool.

Regarding the party itself, I went for "co-protagonists of their musicals", who casually are some of my favorite Hatchetfield characteres and with their own possible plotlines. The party composition is far from the best, but I think that's one of the most d&d things ever (having two teens/young adults and someone with a life crisis that is running away from their problems). Duke really balances it all out, even if it's only for some days. I'd really like to see them interact all in canon though, especially Emma & Lex and Duke & Pete.

For Duke backstory, I really wanted Duke to be a paladin AND for Holloway to be his patron. One of the prompts for the fic was worship, and there are few things I like more than a paladin/cleric/warlock deeply in love with their patron, and as Curt said, Duke is smitten and swooing. So, I wanted Duke to go through a journey to meet (and fall in love) with his patron, even if he doesn't really know it.

In this AU Holloway would've traded her identity for her powers, making her an otherwordly being. She would've been a bard before the deal. There's something really tragic about a storyteller becoming a myth and not being able to tell their tales anymore, and that being reflected by losing bard levels for aberrant mind sorcerer ones after the deal? I think that's really cool. And she isn't fully forgotten in this reality, as Duke vaguely remembers (and believes in) one of her aspects. I think that would be enough for her.

As a last fun fact, the Hollow's lady chappel was really inspired by a scene from Madoka Magica Rebellion. The despair and love Homura has in that scene it's what I was going for. Although unlike Homura, Duke does meet his love turned deity, and he gets to walk home with her <3

[oopsitszuli]

80’s music??? DEMON SLAYER HASHIRA??? HEAD-CANONS???

Authors Notes: Ummmmm. Hey y’all!!! Sorry for going awol and not posting in like a year. I got wrapped up with huge loses in my personal life and a lot of stress and mental health issues. I’m so sorry and I’m glad to announce that I am going to try and make a comeback!!! SO- without further ado, In honor of DEMON SLAYER SEASON 3, I’d love to introduce y’all to a fun little headcanon list I made while listening to music. And as always, spoilers for character backstories.

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The Hashira’s favorite songs from the 1980’s!!!

To start us off strong, the man, the myth, the music kickin Hashira himself;

Tengen Uzui🎵🎶

- Without a doubt, Tengen Uzui is a Mötley Crüe diehard. He SCREAMS the song ‘Girls, Girls, Girls.’ Much to the disapproval of Hina, Maiko, and Suma. But other than being a CrüeHead, I feel like he would also be way into bands like Warrant and Quiet Riot.

Next up is our favorite annoyed lover boy;

Iguro Obanai🐍

- While I thoroughly believe that Obanai would be a music elitist, I could see him getting in his feels to the song ‘Waiting for a girl like you.’ By Foreigner. Additionally, he would for sure relate to the song ‘Faithfully’ by Journey. Forever longing for his lovely Love Hashira and silently confessing his undying loyalty to her when no one else is around.

Moving on from lover boy, why don’t we take a gander at Lover Girl;

Mitsuri Kanroji💖🍡

- Mitsuri is definitely into big 80’s power ballads. I’m talking ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ by Poison big. But I also see her jamming to songs like ‘Edge of a Broken Heart’ by Vixen and ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ by Pat Benatar. She’s got a history with love and heartbreak that would make anyone sympathetic to her and I feel like she would really find solace in songs that told stories of heartbreak.

From someone who has a history with love, to someone who’s got a history of poisons. For our next candidate we have the woman Kesha wrote ‘Toxic’ about;

Shinobu Kocho🦋🧪

- Shinobu, my dear!! Oh I could see her absolutely kicking it to some Joan Jett. ‘Bad reputation’? Hell yeah! ‘I love Rock n Roll’? Hell yeah she does. But other than Joan Jett, I see one of her FAVORITE songs being ‘Bad Medicine’ by Bon Jovi. She probably listens to it while making her elixirs or discovering new medicine and honestly I love that for her.

Moving on from Shinobu, why don’t we take a look at the Hashira who took the world by their heart in less than an hour;

Kyojuro Rengoku❤️‍🔥

- Listen, Rengoku is a fire boy through and through, so I feel like his number one jam would be ‘Fire Woman’ by The Cult! And he would also absolutely adore the song ‘Heaven’s On Fire.’ by Kiss!!

Fire. Water. Two total opposites, just like their Hashira’s favorite 80’s song;

Giyuu Tomioka🌊

- I’m so sorry but I could not see Giyuu listening to upbeat songs from G’n’R or Mötley. My boy is just not that way. I actually see him listening to slower songs that have a little bit of kick. I also feel like his music is a reflection of how he feels about his relationships. So I believe one of his top songs would be ‘Nobody’s Fool’ by Cinderella. He truly is nobody’s fool and he is a lot more perceptive than people give him credit for!!!

His emotions remained tucked away just like him, but so are another water based Hashira’s emotions. The kiddo that gives us all misty eyes;

Muichiro Tokito☁️

- My boy Tokito has been through trials and tribulations on his road to becoming a Hashira, and after regaining his memories in full, I believe the guilt of loosing his brother would stick in with him. So I believe Tokito’s favorite song would be ‘Running Up That Hill(A Deal With God)’ by Kate Bush. He chooses to live for his brother but I feel as though there’s a part of him that wishes his brother was the lucky one. (Also that song could count for so many people. But I really think it hit him differently.)

From Hashira who tuck their emotions away, to Hashira who show their emotions a little too aggressively. Give it up for the man who can and will sweep you away;

Sanemi Shinazugawa🍃🎐

- Oh, Sanemi, my darling. Violent in actions, deeply lonely in mind. I believe our boy Sanemi wouldn’t be one to listen to music for fun, his music Is his way of finding people who relate to him without being outwardly vulnerable. He wants connection, but he chooses to find it trough ballads and songs that remind him of the home he so desperately misses. He finds solace in songs such as ‘Home Sweet Home’ by Mötley Crüe, ‘Coming Home’ by Cinderella, and ‘Something to Believe In’ by Poison. Songs from people who were astronomically different from him, and yet they all sang of Greif or wishing to return to a home that wouldn’t be truly theirs again. And for once, while listening, Sanemi felt seen.

The wind that sweeps you off your feet, that rustles your clothing, the ever moving force around us. So different from our last Hashira, steady as stone and built with a heart of pure gold. Our Stone Hashira;

Gyomei Himejima🪨

- Now I know a lot of people are like, “Gyomei??? Rock n Roll?! HA! Not that one.” But I raise you, Gyome Himejima’s favorite songs; ‘Sister Christian’ by Night Ranger and ‘Here I Go Again’ by Whitesnake!!

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There are my picks for the Hashira’s favorite songs from the era of S,D,&R’N’R!! I know CANONICALLY they would never touch 80’s music but that’s also because demon slayer is based in 1920’s Japan and I’m just having some fun :D

Hope y’all enjoyed, as always these are just my IDEAS and OPINIONS, and if you have any thoughts and suggestions please leave them in the notes!! I love you all and hope you’re doing wonderful!

© 2023 Oopsitszuli. All rights reserved. Do not modify, repost without credit, or claim as yours.

[lollytea]

Not to be unhinged abt your AU but I can see Fates really being a burden on Willow in this story. I recently listened to Hadestown and loved their role in that: "three mean women all dressed the same," they say out loud to Willow (and Hunter!) all the worst stuff they say to themselves, and that it's impossible to try and change things. "Doubt comes in and kills the lights, doubt comes in and chills the air," "what are you gonna do when the chips are down?" etc. They're like the anti-muses!!!

Ooooooh you right!!! I'm not too stringent about accuracy in this AU. Just going with whatever ideas are the most fun. So I'm thinking that the Fates are slightly different creatures than they are in the movie (and myth itself I suppose)

When you mentioned them speaking Willows's insecurities aloud to her, I was initially thinking they'd be Boscha, Skara and Amity? Like Willow's original bullies. However I don't think it's fair to Amity and Skara to confine them to their season 1 selves. Plus Boscha is....she's just some girl. I think it's likelier she'd be the girl who bullies Willow early on before she leaves home to train to be a God. She's such a "backstory" kind of bitch. We are leaving her in the backstory section of Willow's life.

But okay okay okay okay okay what if!!! So fates okay. Three miserable old crones. I'm thinking maybe Odalia, Terra and Hettie. Like they each have their own specific expertise that aids them in their role as fates and they're also capable of combining their power and sharing it among themselves. They're both individuals and a hivemind at the same time. Does that make sense?

So Odalia is an oracle. Self explanatory for her role as a fate. She's the one who knows all the significant dates. She's the one who says it's "it's time" when a human is due to leave this realm.

Terra has a mental link to the land and nature itself. Everything is connected via the roots beneath her feet. She can sense when a flower is withering. She can sense when a human is withering. She sees the world in plant terms. Thinning out the population is no different than trimming a garden. She summons the vines and stems that represent human life.

Hettie understands the complexities of human biology, fatal injuries and pestilence etc etc. She's attuned to every vein, every artery and every heartbeat and she's the only one among the three capable of cutting the lifeline. Terra holds the vine tight and Hettie snips it with one of her medical tools.

I think it'd be neat.

[arcxnumvitae]

Who/What inspired my muses

Part 2 babbyyyy I’m sufferinnggg!

Arata: More elf underground shenanigan tomfoolery. Also tying in some backstories for funsies with Val playing a big role in a pivotal moment. A muse I fully intended to have die! For some reason my friends took issue with that!

Katarina: I saw Kirei ( @thewolfisawake) make a fun looking institution and I wanted to stick my big meaty claws alllllllll in it. I asked her, all shy and shit, if I could make a Bastion muse too and she graciously allowed me to do so. Of course I had to make Katarina a half-elf. 

Emil: I thought it’d be fun to make a muse from Katarina’s human side of the family, the one her mom was estranged from. Kirei had included in her blurbs how some older families of the Bastion were still anti-supernatural creatures so I thought it would be an interesting thing to explore further in a muse, but since Katarina was separated from all of that...

Dawn: I looked at how I’d fridged William’s dead girlfriend in his backstory just for the sake of giving him angst and feelings and I really didn’t like that I’d done that! So I decided to flesh out Dawn as a person. Which led to me going to my friends and saying, “Y’all, this muse is deader than a doornail in his backstory, I can’t bring her back, right?!” And then I brought her back. This was when I started to firmly put my foot in fun Greek myth stuff and let my PJO kid flag fly by straight up incorporating Aphrodite into the mix.

Xiaodan: uh. dragon. dragon searching for Jianhuren. Searching with another dragon.

Meihui: uh. other dragon. other dragon searching for Jianhuren. drogon. They actually were made earlier, around Qingshan, pushed to being side muses, and then re-added as main muses around this time when Kirei petitioned for it.

Huaxiu: Hey, same mangaka, he looks like Qingshan-- oh baby we can make some lore from this. This is really where Red Eyes as a concept started to get cemented, a smooth, uh, 2-3 years after I first added Jianhuren, ahahaa. It was also shortly after Huaxiu that I created Zhaohui as a side muse so we were really chugging along the dragon train at that time.

Luiz: No clue. Truly, no idea. I think I just wanted to mash a bunch of different mythological creature facets together and see what I got. I know the inspiration for the gorgon blood he was infused with came from Kirei because her muse Crowe has gorgon blood.

Cornelius: What if I made a family member from the Texas side of Dawn’s family that she had never been in contact with? What if he looked like her dad too in a way to make her force her feelings and her grief? Cornelius truly was made actually as basically to circle around Dawn’s ongoing story, haha. 

Raven: ‘I know it doesn’t make sense, but what if Thanatos had a kid.’ How would that type of godly parentage manifest in someone?

Olympia: Hey, let’s do an Artemis god-touched. I only have Dawn and William at the moment after all.

Ava: Sort of a tie in with Arata’s story as she’s the right hand woman of, like, oh geez, the niece and former fling of the guy who owned him and his mom. I also basically just looked at D&D’s scrying spell, pointed, and went “I want that.”

Eira: What if I did a muse from Katarina’s dad’s side of the family? And what if she was utterly adorable.

Aur: Phew, so, actually, I didn’t have any huge plans for Aur when I first made him! He was an amnesiac and I left his backstory open and vague in case I thought of something later that would be cool to do with him! I figured I could get away with it for a minute since it’s not like he himself knew what his backstory was. In truth, I hadn’t even settled on him being a fae for a while either, I also kept that up in the air! If he didn’t end up a fae then he would’ve been a siren actually I think.

Soon-hee: She’s not really online anymore now but my friend Angie had come up with the idea to do a seven deadly sins thing and asked if I wanted to make a muse or two for it too. And I, contractually obligated by my love for F.MA, couldn’t refuse.

Arya: Ditto, seven sins inspo.

Matthias: Also another Angie-inspired, she came up with a pantheon of deities and asked if I wanted to join in. I thought for a good minute on what domain of power I wanted his to be and I settled on storytelling. Him having muses for sisters was inspired by Greek myth...and H.ercules. His current name came from my white boy of the month every month in a book series called S.ix of C.rows as a sort of homage. And his rings, silver eyes, and some personality beats came from the character Po from the G.raceling book series.

I’m panting..........but part 3, we’re on the way....... 

[ljjsims]

Greek Goddess Legacy Challenge: Generation #12 Iris: Complete

Last one in our line, end of this challenge.. And what better way to end it than to revisit all our previous stories? Iris, goddess of the Rainbow and Messenger of the Gods, is here to tell you every story you want to hear. Give it up, for Iris!

From a young age you have loved stories and writing them for your family. it turns out, you have a talent for it, making even the bleakest stories interesting. Your favorite stories are the ones you hear Growing up. the stories about your ancestors. Great stories about strong women and the challenges of their lives. You hear how every one of them had their own uniqueness and strength to them. There are some blanks in their stories already, And you hate to think that those stories go to waste after people stop telling them. So you decide to write them all down. you will be a published writer, famous for the great stories about your family. After all, every story is worth telling.

Little bit explanation with the sheets: - First sheet is for describing your current generation, with the challenges you need to do each life-stage. Also, because I love the myths, a bit of mythological background. May it inspire you :) - Second sheet is the preparation sheet for this generation, with important characters for your story. It is technically optional, but I love seeing sims with a backstory in my world, so I would highly recommend it. - Third sheet is for your gens children. They all have their own little challenges if your interested in those. I try to make all of them a bit different from each other, so it doesn’t get boring. Your heir is also on this sheet, but I’ve put their challenges on their own sheets. Stay tuned for those ;) - Fourth (and Fifth!) sheet is completely optional. If you want sims with names from the myths and love making sims to see them in your world, this is for you! All with a little mythological background ofc, you know me. Previous Generation was Artemis First Generation is Gaia

The Greek Goddesses Challenge by LJJ-Sims is a challenge based on the ancient mythical creatures and stories from Greece. I fell in love with Greek mythology in high school and have not let that love go since. In this challenge you will follow 10 deities in their journey through life. Every goddess has a different take on and goal in life. Special about this challenge?  All your kids have little challenges of their own, not only your heir. These challenges are optional, so if you feel like these are too much or just too restricting for you: by all means let them go. I also have sheets for characters that you can make before you start each generation. This gives your challenge a lot more personality and makes it frankly easier and more fun!

A little disclaimer: because I made these gods and goddesses into a legacy challenge, the relationships in the myths don’t exactly match the relationship in this challenge. There is a lot of keep it in the family in mythology, to put it lightly. And apart from the fact that you can’t do that in the Sims, I don’t really like that part. So I didn’t include it, thus the inconsistency. An example: Ares is now Hera’s stepfather instead of her son, which she conceived with her brother  and husband Zeus. This inconsistency can also be found in the stories. It’s just based on and not copied exactly, as Sims live lives that are a lot shorter than those of immortal gods. And it takes a way from the creativity if we just copy the myths. Even if we wanted to do that, it’s quite hard, as every myths has its fair share of variations and some are just completely different stories.

I use the MCCC-mod to alter the length of life states. You can find the days-years ratio here: the boring stuff.

I get all the information from several sites about mythology, but mostly use https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/goddesses. This is a great place to start if you want to know the myths surrounding a certain god or goddess. Wikipedia is also a friend of mine in this challenge, although I automatically doubt a lot of information that is on there. More of a book person? I absolutely adore Stephen Fry’s Mythos, which is very beginner friendly, and Nathalie Haynes Pandora’s jar. For little synopses of gods, I would recommend Greek Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook by Liv Albert.