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the-scandalorian · 4 years ago

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Tempered Glass: Chapter 1

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader (no use of Y/N) Rating: M (will become explicit in later chapters) Word Count: 5.5k Warnings: slow burn, canon-typical violence, cursing, sexy thoughts, pining, non-graphic description of wounds Summary: With the ghosts of your own mysterious past close on your heels, you can’t afford to get in the middle of someone else’s fight; however, attraction drives you to make a reckless decision, and you end up swept up in the Mandalorian’s story. Notes: (1) Reader is bisexual. It will probably only come up peripherally, but I wanted to make a note of that. (2) I did my best to keep physical descriptions of the reader out of my writing, but please let me know if something slipped in that isn’t as inclusive as it could be!

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Image from The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

You felt the weight of the Mandalorian’s gaze before you saw him.

Sitting in the cantina on Nevarro, you were alone in a corner booth—a seat close to the back exit that had a clear view of the front door.

You were halfway through your drink when the hairs on the back of your neck prickled, and you had the overwhelming feeling that you were being watched.

You scanned the cantina and, in your periphery, registered the Mandalorian’s head snap back from your direction to face the man sitting across from him. You hadn’t noticed him enter, but it must have been just moments ago because you surveyed your surroundings every few minutes.

The two men were seated a few tables away. You observed the Mandalorian for a moment, noting his stiff-backed posture and the tension in his shoulders under his battle-worn armor. He could tell you’d caught him staring and that you were watching him.

The man sitting across from the Mandalorian was gesticulating as he spoke. You’d been on Nevarro long enough to recognize him as Greef Karga, local leader of the Guild. You could only see his back, but he was boisterous—a stark contrast to the Mandalorian’s silent stillness—and his voice carried.

Karga was saying something about bounties and currency—no surprise there. Mandalorians were the most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy. You didn’t know much about them besides the legends you’d heard as a child, though it was very unclear what was true and what was myth. You’d only ever seen one in person before, and that Mandalorian had been terrifying, threatening.

This Mandalorian, however, was... intriguing? He was, of course, intimidating—in his head-to-toe armor with a long rifle leaned against the table, he was the very picture of a warrior. Any person with sense would be scared of him, and judging by the sidelong glances he was getting from the other patrons, most were.

The very relatable experience of having someone catch you in the act of watching them—as you’d just done to him—however, humanized this Mandalorian. Noting his broad shoulders, you couldn’t help wondering what he looked like under all that heavy metal. You’d heard rumors that some Mandalorians never took off their armor in front of another person. That would be a real shame.

Though you’d have preferred to continue thinking about the man under the armor (and the things you wanted to do with him), a small voice in your head reminded you of the potentially dangerous reality of your situation.

Why was he watching me? He can’t possibly recognize me.

No one had come after you in years. There was likely still a steep bounty on your head, but many of the people who wanted to find you were dead, imprisoned, or deep in hiding. Some were convinced you’d been taken out in a star cruiser explosion (because you almost had been). And, you no longer looked like the photo that was attached to your bounty puck. Your hair was a radically different shade and length. You wore contacts to obscure the real color of your eyes. You always chose high-necked clothing to conceal the identifying scar that slashed an angry line beneath your clavicle.

You kept a low profile, moved often, and assumed a fake identity, but you felt safe enough in your anonymity to come to a planet like Nevarro, a place that was swarming with hunters.

Plus, you reasoned that if the Mandalorian was looking for you for a job, this is probably not how it would have happened. It would have been stealthy and quick, potentially bloody and violent.

No, you didn’t think he was looking for you, which meant he had been looking at you. Out of interest. And that was so, so much better.

You turned your body towards him pointedly to make it more obvious that you were watching him. The slight forward lean of his shoulders told you he registered your movement in his periphery. His helmet stayed trained on Karga, but it was impossible to know exactly where he was looking through the black t-shape of his visor. You would have bet he was looking back at you.

The Mandalorian responded to Karga, pushing some credits back across the table. You could hear the low undercurrent of his modulated voice, but you couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. It looked like they were arguing about the currency of the credits on the table.

As Karga dug in his pocket for something, the Mandalorian turned his helmet slowly back towards you. Throwing caution to the wind, you smiled at him and winked, and he dipped his head in acknowledgement. You watched him expectantly, figuring this was when he’d walk over to your table.

Instead, he turned his head back to Karga, responded to something he said, and grabbed the credits off the table. They were clearly finishing up their deal. The Mandalorian slid out of the booth and strapped the long rifle to his back. He started toward the front door.

Maybe you’d read the whole situation wrong. Like you, he was trained to be aware of everyone, everything around him. Perhaps, he’d just been surveying the cantina, not necessarily you.

Feeling slightly disappointed, you finished your drink, dropped some credits on the table, and got up to leave. You were pulling on your jacket when a familiar feeling made you flick your head up. The Mandalorian was standing at the front of the cantina, his dark silhouette framed in the light of the open doorway, visor trained on you.

From where he was standing, he looked you up and down, lowering and raising his helmet to survey your body from top to bottom and back up again—a gesture that could have easily been achieved without moving his entire head in such an obvious way. His penetrating gaze and brazen attention made you shiver.

He waited to see what you would do.

You were tempted to go to him, to see what would happen, but the stubborn part of you wanted him to come to you—and, more importantly, the sensible part of you was worried this was somehow a trap. You made an impulsive choice and decided to prolong the chase...whether that chase would prove to be literal or figurative, you weren’t totally sure.

You smiled slyly at him and turned, slipping out the back door.

***

The second time you crossed paths with the Mandalorian, you saw him before he saw you.

You were walking down Nevarro’s main thoroughfare, a busy street lined with vendors, pushing through the crowd, when you spotted the back of his reflective helmet. A couple weeks had passed since you had seen him in the cantina, and you’d been hoping to see him again, always keeping an eye out for his distinctive profile.

These past two weeks, you’d found your thoughts straying to his image—strong, mysterious, intimidating. He was sexy. There was no getting around it. You’d spent enough time around people in masks and full-body armor to know that it wasn’t just the mystery of the helmet that attracted you to him. There was something about him you couldn’t shake.

It didn’t help that you were bored and lonely here on Nevarro. It was not your favorite planet. It was dry and hot, the surface a mosaic of cracked flows of hardened lava and loose tephra—unwelcoming terrain. It was volcanically active, too, steam pouring from fractures in the hard, black ground. A river of molten lava ran under the city itself. Who would choose to live here?

For you, Nevarro was no more than a stopover—a place to stay for a few months before moving on to the next planet. You could leave any time, easily book passage to a bigger city on a prettier planet, but that shameless part of you that imagined the Mandalorian fucking you in his full armor was bold enough to convince yourself to stick around for a little longer and see if you could run into him again. Why not?

You’d been running for years, denying yourself comfort, companionship, consistency. Couldn’t you indulge just this once?

You had no reason to think the Mandalorian had thought of you for one second after seeing you in the cantina, but you let yourself hope. He didn’t hide the way he looked at you, and he hadn’t pursued you as a quarry when you left the cantina (and what a relief that was), so that meant...he’d flirted with you...right? That was probably how a Mandalorian flirted? Maybe you were stuck in his head the way he was stuck in yours? A girl could dream.

You watched his helmet disappear and reappear as you both weaved through the throngs of people. The Mandalorian had a purposeful gait and an immediate effect on everyone around him: the crowd parted for him as people avoided his path and his gaze. No one wanted to be noticed by a Mandalorian.

Well, almost no one.

The Mandalorian clearly relied on his menacing appearance and the notorious lore associated with his armor to ensure that he was left alone. You, on the other hand, depended on stealth and the ability to disappear in a swarm of people to stay hidden. This meant that while the crowd parted easily for him, you struggled to wend your way through it.

He turned down a side street.

The fact that he’d hounded your thoughts since you first saw him spurred you into recklessness, and you followed. As you turned down the same side street, you saw the edge of his cape disappear into an alley. The further away you moved from the main street, the more you began to question yourself.

This is potentially a bad idea.

This is definitely a bad idea.

Your existence hinged on your ability to stay lost, to be anonymous, to change your appearance, to never be sought out. And here you were, seeking out a bounty hunter.

You’d been slipping into a dangerous false sense of security these past few months—spending more time in each place, neglecting to change your chaincode as often as you should. Just because no one had come for you in a couple years, didn’t mean you were safe. You needed to snap yourself out of this delusional thinking.

But maybe... not yet?

You picked up your pace.

It was just the two of you in a long alleyway, and you were sure he could sense you behind him by the slight turn of his head, but he didn’t stop or turn around. You weren’t being stealthy, only a few long strides behind him. He had to know you were there.

He walked surprisingly quietly, considering his heavy armor and determined stride. The loudest sound he made was his cape whipping around his calves. His long rifle was strapped to his back, and he was carrying a camtono in his left hand.

He quickly slipped down another shadowy passageway that you hadn’t noticed. You turned to follow, about to say something, but the passage was deserted. You walked to the end and back, checking to see if he’d turned again, but there was no trace of him. No doorways led off the passage. The only things in the alley were a stack of abandoned wooden pallets and a grate that emitted hot steam. He must have given you the slip on purpose, taken some secret route to evade the stranger on his tail.

Understandable. It’s what you would have done too. I probably should have come up with a better plan than just pursuing him.

Well, fuck.

You were more disappointed than you cared to admit, but you turned and headed back to the apartment you were renting a few blocks away. You were slightly embarrassed by how impulsive you’d just been. You wouldn’t have felt so abashed if it had paid off, but it hadn’t.

You’d overstayed your time on Nevarro. Your self-imposed limit was two months per location, and you’d been here two and a half. You couldn’t push it any more, especially for such a ridiculous reason. It was time to go.

***

The third time you encountered the Mandalorian, neither of you saw the other coming.

You packed up your things, fitting everything you needed in one backpack. You purchased more food and let the hours of the afternoon drag on, waiting for the sun to sink low in the sky before heading out.

When it was evening, you slipped your blaster into the holster at the small of your back. You slid a vibroblade into the sheath at your hip and strapped a much smaller one to your calf where it was concealed under your pants. As you slung your bag over your shoulder and scanned your small space to make sure you hadn’t forgotten anything, noise erupted outside—an explosion, not far away.

There were enough ex-Imperials and bounty hunters on Nevarro that street fights and loud commotions were commonplace. You slipped out your front door, figuring you could avoid the action by slinking through the alleyways. You knew the layout of the city fairly well by now.

You crept through the dim streets. You guessed that the fighting was a couple blocks to your left based on the muffled sounds of intermittent blaster fire. You made your way toward the cantina where you knew a few regulars who would have transpo connections, but you only made it a couple blocks from your apartment before you ran into trouble.

Suddenly, shouts echoed down the street behind you. You made a hasty left turn, looking back to see if anyone was following as you broke into a run. With your head turned, you didn’t see the Mandalorian backing his way down the street toward you. You collided painfully with his back and crumpled to the ground next to him. He, mostly unfazed, made a grunting sound and snapped his head to the side to see who’d hit him. He kept his body and his blaster trained forward at two shadowy figures that were stalking towards him, but he pointed his left vambrace down at you, prepared to neutralize you if needed.

He cocked his head at you as if trying to assess whether or not you were a threat. Before you could think of anything to say, blaster fire screamed down the alley toward both of you. You grabbed your own blaster and sprang to your feet.

Noting the way you trained your blaster away from him, the Mandalorian redirected his attention back to the oncoming assailants. As more blaster fire streaked toward you, he jumped in front of you to shield your body with his and fired back down the alley.

I guess he decided I’m not a threat.

The figures drew nearer—one, a hulking man, and the other, a wiry woman with blue hair... both bounty hunters. They slunk around stray crates and garbage bins, making it difficult for either of you to land a direct hit.

The Mandalorian’s beskar armor lived up to the crazy stories you’d heard. Blaster fire pinged off of it without leaving a mark. Standing so close behind him, you noticed that his armor was different than what he’d worn just earlier that day. His old armor, painted a rusty reddish-brown, had been mismatched and battered. This was new, pristine, unpainted—a stunning reflective silver.

It was the same Mandalorian though. That you were sure of.

You kept most of your body behind his protective stance, just peaking your head and arm out periodically to take a shot. You leaned around him again to fire, and you hit the woman in the thigh while she was momentarily exposed. She grunted in pain and paused her advance.

You ducked back behind the Mandalorian. You were surprised and confused by the way the he was treating you like a partner, protecting you instinctually. You hadn’t exchanged so much as a word yet.

Weren’t Mandalorians supposed to be merciless, violent bounty hunters? Why was he trusting you? For that matter, why were you trusting him? It sounded absurd to think that he just felt trustworthy.

The next time you poked your head out, you noticed that the man had stopped shooting and was watching you intently from where he was hiding behind a stack of boxes. He made eye contact with you and held it, and you saw recognition dawn on his face. He pointed at you, turning to the woman to yell something in a language you didn’t recognize, and then charged forward, blaster drawn. His mouth formed your name, your real name, as he thundered towards you. You froze where you stood, partially exposed.

Fuck. He recognized me so easily. How?

Hot blaster fire zinged past your ear. The Mandalorian lurched forward and fell to one knee in a controlled movement as fire erupted from his vambrace. His quick thinking snapped you out of your panic, but your heart thundered as you processed how close you’d come to getting shot.

As the man’s clothes caught fire and he began to flail in panic, you came back to your senses and shot him in the chest.

The female bounty hunter, who was still several paces behind the man, disappeared down an alley behind her, just as you resumed shooting in her direction.

It won’t be long before word spreads that I’m alive on Nevarro. FUCK.

The footfalls of the woman faded quickly, and you knew she was too far ahead to catch.

You and the Mandalorian were left alone in the alley. Things were quiet for a moment.

You turned to look at each other. It was then that you noticed the bundle tucked tightly in the crook of his right arm, the same arm that held his blaster. He shuffled the bundle to his left arm carefully... tenderly?

He tilted his helmet slightly, starting to say something just as you did the same. Before either of you could form a sentence, several more figures rounded the corner behind you.

“Come on,” you yelled, grabbing his arm to drag him forward. For the moment, the two of you were in this together. It was better than being caught in this fray alone. You figured you’d be able to slip away from the action soon enough.

As you ran through the streets, you both noted the echoing footsteps picking up behind you at each juncture. More and more people—bounty hunters—were joining the pursuit. It seemed like every bounty hunter in Nevarro was being drawn to the Mandalorian.

What did he do to bring this much heat down on himself? I need to lose him.

You considered turning down every street or alley you passed, but at least one hunter blocked each one. Every doorway was shut tight. The hunters were right on your heels. You kept running, the Mandalorian pounding along behind you, until you reached the main street, emerging near the archway that marked the entrance to town. Beyond the archway, the flat expanse of Nevarro stretched out before you; a silver ship, not far ahead, was the only thing that broke up the uniform landscape.

You both stopped abruptly in the middle of the street, as at least twenty bounty hunters closed in around you, each with a blinking fob in their hand. You were trapped. The pinging chorus of the fobs was enough to rip you back to a not-so-distant time when that sound was a constant refrain in your nightmares. But even at the height of the Empire’s search for you, you’d never had this many people on your tail.

Up until this moment, you hadn’t been too worried about making a getaway. You knew you would get out of this. You’d been in worse situations. But now? Blood rushed in your ears, and your adrenaline spiked. You were cornered, outnumbered, and somehow in the middle of a fight that had nothing to do with you. You were surrounded by bounty hunters, and one had already recognized you. You’d spent years disappearing and here you were, back in the thick of it because you turned down the wrong alley at the wrong time.

You glanced at the Mandalorian and tried to formulate an escape plan—or at least a way put some distance between you and him.

He surveyed the scene, seemingly calm in his blank mask of beskar, and began to walk towards the archway, as even more bounty hunters appeared. Not having come up with any better alternatives yet, you followed him.

The Mandalorian stopped short when Greef Karga sauntered out from the shadows to block your path forward through the archway.

“Welcome back, Mando!” Karga’s voice, the voice that had seemed jovial in the cantina weeks ago, sounded threatening as it rang through the street. “Now, put the package down.” He rested a hand on his hip, pushing back his cape to expose his blaster.

The bundle must be valuable. You wondered briefly what the Mandalorian had wrapped so carefully under his arm. A rare material like kyber? Something unstable like rhydonium? A set of holodisks with important intel?

The Mandalorian mirrored Karga’s movement, hovering his hand over his own blaster. “Step aside. I’m going to my ship,” he replied calmly. He sounded awfully certain considering the circumstances. Your eyes flicked back to the silver ship, an old Razor Crest, that sat just beyond the archway.

Karga chuckled. “You put the bounty down and perhaps I’ll let you pass.”

“The kid’s coming with me.”

KID?

“If you truly care about the kid, then you’ll put it on the speeder,” Karga said, pointing to a speeder parked in front of the building on your right, where a droid sat in the pilot’s seat. The droid let out a series of cheerful beeps, indicating its readiness.

“How do I know I can trust you?” asked the Mandalorian.

How did he know he could trust me? This guy seems to play fast and loose with trust.

Karga scoffed, “Because I’m your only hope.”

Shit.

Any second, this fight was going to turn into an every-person-for-themself situation. You and the Mandalorian had helped each other thus far because it had been convenient, but now that you were trapped, you knew this precarious alliance you’d formed out of necessity was about to fracture. You hadn’t missed the way he said I and me, not we and us. You weren’t part of his equation, and you couldn’t blame him—of course, you were also going to prioritize your own safety over that of a literal stranger.

You surveyed the street, looking for the least obstructed escape route. You hoped you could run fast enough once this tense moment passed and the fight started in earnest.

The Mandalorian stepped back into you suddenly, taking the opportunity to whisper urgently, “Jump in when I say go.”

You were stunned—so stunned that you followed him without thinking as he walked over to the speeder.

For the first time, the Mandalorian looked down at the bundle in his arms. You gasped when you saw that it was in fact a sleeping child—a tiny green infant. He took a moment to watch the baby before glancing at you briefly. He looked back down at the child and without any warning, he breathed, “NOW.”

You dove head first onto the speeder as he raised his blaster and shot a hunter who was right behind where you had just been standing. From the outside, you imagined that it looked like the two of you were partners—the way you moved together, coordinated and seamless.

You scrambled back and pushed crates out of the way, staying down on your stomach, as the Mandalorian flung himself over the side of the speeder and landed next to you. Blaster fire screeched all around you as the hunters reacted in unison.

You both stayed prone on the floor of the speeder, reaching only your blasters up to return the fire that was raining down on you. The Mandalorian rolled over to carefully place the kid down before yelling at the droid at the front of the speeder.

“DRIVE!”

When the droid shook its head in refusal, the Mandalorian demanded again, holding up his blaster threateningly. The droid acquiesced, and the speeder lurched forward. You grabbed the child and hugged them to your chest as the crates shifted around you.

You made it almost all the way to the archway—you and the Mandalorian taking out several of the bounty hunters as you went—before someone had the sense to shoot the pilot droid. The speeder crashed to a halt in a rain of sparks. Fire ceased and a tense quiet fell.

The Mandalorian edged toward you on his elbows. You could hear the bounty hunters closing in around you, the crunch of their boots ominous. You curled your body protectively over the child.

“Fuck,” you whispered. “What now?” You looked into the black t of his visor, wishing you could see his eyes.

He nodded as if that was a sufficient answer to your question and worked his way toward the edge of the speeder. Slowly, silently, he pulled his long rifle from his side and eased it between two crates, pointing it at a hunter on the roof of the closest building. You heard the sound of the rifle powering up and its screeching discharge as it vaporized the hunter. And then another. And another. The Mandalorian’s reload was lightening fast. You took the chance during the ensuing chaos to scoot to the edge of the speeder and take aim at a hunter with your blaster. The remaining hunters scurried away, taking shelter behind walls, doorways, whatever they could find.

The Mandalorian paused, and for a tense moment, nothing happened. The threat of the Amban Rifle was enough to create another temporary ceasefire.

“That’s one impressive weapon,” bellowed Karga. You couldn’t see him from where you lay.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna walk to my ship with the kid, and you’re gonna let that happen,” the Mandalorian stated authoritatively.

We.

“No, how about this? We take the kid, and if you try and stop us, we kill you both and then strip your body for parts,” Karga spat back.

You could feel the hunters starting to come out of hiding all around you. The subtle rasp of tephra under foot gave them away again. You looked behind you and saw that one hooded hunter was edging closer to the speeder. The Mandalorian had his back to the hunter, as he faced Karga. You trained your blaster on the approaching hunter, ready to fire. Before you could pull the trigger, the Mandalorian kicked the canister at his feet, knocking the hunter over, and sat up to stun him with the rifle.

Apparently, he had been aware of the man the whole time. His peripheral vision must be largely obstructed in his helmet. How is he so acutely aware of everything around him?

Everyone opened fire once again.

Over the sound of blaster fire, you heard Karga yell, “Don’t hit the target!”

The Mandalorian rose to his knees, leaned over some crates, and activated his vambrace so a sudden burst of flames cleared out the hunters that were closest to the speeder. You took out two more with your blaster while they were distracted by the flames.

The Mandalorian grunted in frustration as the fire streaming from his wrist sputtered out. Then, he grunted and doubled over in pain when blaster fire hit him in the side, where he wasn’t protected by his armor.

He clutched his side and ducked back down to crawl his way over to you, gently pulling on your arm until you released the child, so he could look at their face. The child cooed and opened two huge, watery eyes.

You looked away, feeling like you were encroaching on a private moment.

Is this his kid? Who is after a child? What is the story here?

You leaned away and fired several more shots, injuring another hunter.

Then you heard it. A streaming projectile took out one of the hunters on a nearby roof. As the hunter screamed and fell to the ground, several figures in Mandalorian armor, powered by jetpacks with blasters in hand, rose up from behind the row of buildings lining the street. There had to be at least a dozen of them—maybe more. It was hard to tell in the chaos. They seemed to be everywhere. They took out hunter after hunter as they slowly lowered themselves to the ground and sparks rained down around you.

You both sat up to watch.

A particularly huge Mandalorian in blue armor with a large repeating blaster touched down next to the speeder and bellowed, “Get out of here! We’ll hold them off!”

“You’re going to have to relocate the covert,” responded the Mandalorian, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

“This is the way,” replied the huge blue Mandalorian, as he continued to fire at the bounty hunters.

“This is the way,” agreed the Mandalorian next to you.

In one fluid movement, he strapped his rifle to his back. You sheathed your blaster as he thrust the kid back into your arms, and he grabbed your free hand, hauling you to your feet as he stood. You jumped from the speeder together. He pulled you along behind him, continuing to shield your body with his as much as possible. The juxtaposition of the way he held your hand and how he was brutally taking out hunter after hunter with his blaster was jarring.

A blaster shot grazed your thigh as you ran, and you swore at the stinging pain, doubling over slightly without loosening your grip on the child. The Mandalorian turned his head but didn’t stop pulling you forward. You faltered for a moment but gritted your teeth and sped up to sprint behind him, leaving the chaos in your wake as you crossed under the archway. You made it the short distance to his ship, where the ramp was already lowered.

You followed him up the ramp. He shoved his blaster into the holster on his belt and started forward into the ship.

The idea of being trapped with this strange Mandalorian was absurd, but you didn’t have much of a choice. If you stayed on Nevarro, the remaining bounty hunters would tear the city apart to find you. This was the fastest way to get off world: a calculated risk.

You sensed movement behind you before you heard Karga’s voice.

“Hold it, Mando.”

You both spun around to face him. Karga had a blaster trained on you and the kid in your arms.

“I didn’t want it to come to this. But then you broke the code,” he spat.

The Mandalorian was silent as he assessed his options. Silent was clearly his default state. He was used to hiding behind the intimidating mask of his armor.

You were trying to guess how good Karga’s reflexes were and if you could grab your blaster from where you’d resheathed it at your back fast enough. As you thought it out, the Mandalorian tipped his head subtly to his left at what looked like a carbonite chamber. Before you or Karga could register his plan, he shot a metal cord from his vambrace, hitting the button to activate the chamber and filling the hull with freezing mist.

In the gloom, the Mandalorian grabbed you roughly and pushed you out of the way. Karga shot blindly. You whipped out your blaster and fired back, knowing exactly where he had been standing. You heard him grunt and fall backwards off the ship with a thud.

The Mandalorian made quick work of shutting the ramp, deactivating the hissing carbonite chamber, and initiating the takeoff protocol from a control panel on the wall.

You slumped onto a nearby crate, exhausted, as the ship lifted off the ground. You let your backpack slide off your shoulders onto the floor next to you. Still holding the baby to your chest protectively, you loosened your arms to study their sweet sleeping face.

His face? Her face? Who is this child?

Wordlessly, the Mandalorian stomped forward and snatched the kid from your arms. You looked up in surprise as he disappeared up the ladder next to you. He was gone for a few moments before the ship jolted as it left Nevarro’s atmosphere and jumped into hyperspace.

You rested your head on the cool wall behind you, trying to catch your breath. You let your eyelids slip shut for a minute—until you opened your eyes at the loud thud of the Mandalorian jumping back down into the hull, ignoring the ladder all together. He walked purposefully towards what looked like a storage bay, set the sleeping child down inside, and closed the door with a snap. He turned slowly to face you.

***

Chapter 2

#my writing #din djarin x female reader #din djarin x f!reader #mandalorian fanfic #mature #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x female reader #mandalorian reader insert #tempered glass

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chicoriii · 4 years ago

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Season 4, Episode 4 - Mr Pigeon 72

I have no idea where to start. This episode has some good things and some extremely stupid.

Marinette isn't still completely fine, but I prefer when she deals with it through being hyperactive than being a whining crybaby.

I know people don't agree with me, but personally I don't buy the whole revealing identity to Alya. It's not a problem with Alya herself, I would say the same about every single character who is not named Alix Kubdel at this point of the story. I haven't written anything in my post about Gang of Secrets, because I thought it would be undone in some way at the start of the next episode. The creators did nothing to explain why revealing identity of Ladybug to anyone was super dangerous and would result in a catastrophe in seasons 1-3 and the first two episodes of S4, but it's magically fine in episode 3. Only Alix made sense to me, as she will be the rabbit Miraculous holder, so she is destined to discover identities of everyone sooner or later and Marinette is aware of that. While it's not necessary to learn identity of anyone to other temporary Miraculous wielders, including Alya. Also that reveal hasn't been foreshadowed in season 3, while the show usually does it, especially if it's about something as important as that! More, in late S3, it's been shown that Alya still can't resist to not talking about Marinette's love life with Nino, despite she asked her to not do it. Now the girl, who is overly excited about superhero stuff, has no problems with even accidental revealing anything to Nino or someone else. She's even "stealing" Bunnix line that she's great at keeping secrets (sorry but you, the creators, haven't shown us that she's indeed is before!). This is why I think that reveal hasn't been planned before they started writing season 4.

But okay, I can deal with it, even if I don't buy it, but things these happened in Mr. Pigeon 72 are even more inconsistent with previous seasons. I have been worried about it, so it doesn't surprised me. For some reason Guardian related-things that have been kept in a secret before from everyone minus current Guardian and the future Guardian, are now fine being done in front of Kwamis (remember, they haven't been allowed to learn about making potions before!) and a civilian who is just a temporal Miraculous holder, not someone who is supposed to be trained to be a new Guardian. You can say - new Guardian, new rules, but why? Marinette has been portrayed as someone who respect authorities, she has never questioned any Fu's rules. It wasn't even said in the episode that she's going to change the rules. I hate that the writers don't even bother to explain us what's going on. Probably they don't bother about consistency, they think the audience is going to be too excited about Alya knowing Ladybug's identity and helping Marinette to question anything about it? How Alya could be allowed to learn the Guardian secrets? She is just best friend of the protagonist, she is not one of the main characters to get that special treatment. I makes zero sense to me. Especially since Su-Han will be introduced in episode 6 and he should help Marinette with understanding the Grimoire, Alya isn't necessary here for any other reason than fanservice.

In my opinion the way how they discovering how to make charms that protects from akumasitation was the most stupid thing that happened this season and one of the most in the whole show. Marinette who is the new Guardiand and portrayed as someone extreme intelligent and creative couldn't find the solution for days, but Alya with zero training magically discovered it in a few hours at worst. And when she told her the solution in not even very clear way, Ladybug did it immediately with no effort. That was so anticlimactic. At least the animation was fine, but other aspects of it was just a big disappointment, and I was looking forward for it. Thank goodness it's just the beginning of the season, I hope later important events of the season will be better written and portrayed.

Also I find it absurd that Rena Rough is walking with a page from the Grimoire like it's just an ordinary book and she's talking about it in front of a random civilian, like things that are written there are nothing special. She or Ladybug are not careful about Miraculous lore anymore. Not to mention that they are giving hints that Rena is very close to Ladybug in public, suspiciously close. And now with them being too careless, that's not hard to suspect that Rena Rouge is someone very close to Ladybug, maybe even as a civilian. Shadow Moth knows Rena Rouge's identity, and it's easy to him to learn who is Alya Cesaire's best friend if he doesn't know it yet, after all his son is in the class with her. Marinette has always been super careful and serious about her duties before, why that sudden change with zero explanation? It's just very out of character to her in my opinion.

I didn't like the akuma battle either, it's now the worst fight of the season in my opinion. It was so short and felt very lazy. I only liked that Plagg got some action and interaction with Ladybug (though it should be suspicious for her that he managed to reach to her that fast). He should be aware now that Alya knows Ladybug's identity but he acts like nothing happened. Not a word about it being unfair towards his kid or something, weird.

Thankfully the rest of the episode is generally more or less fun to me. It was nice to see Marinette and Kagami interacting again. I loved Kagami in the episode, although it was a bit weird to me that she isn't seemed to be affected by her breaking up with Adrien. Like her crush was very shallow, so she managed to recover herself from it very quickly. While it's been shown that Luka is hurt, despite Lukanette always seemed to be much more shallow than Adrigami in my opinion. But maybe it's because she's so down to earth, so being less emotional makes sense for her character. I liked how her attitude was opposite to Marinette's hyperactive: "No, I don't want to be in a relationship with Adrien again, he disappointed me, just let me live!!!". And she's another character who said that Marinette and Adrien are made for each other. I'm not surprised that Kagami sees it now when she tried to be with him and that didn't work. She's observant, sees more than many other characters. It seems she's an Adrienette shipper now. It's also good that her issue with Adrien wasn't resolved that easily and too fast. They need more time, but I'm sure they will be friends again.

So, we've gotten shirtless Adrien. I remember seeing a tweet of Thomas in which he answered to a question if there will be a beach episode and he said we will get something similar. I wonder if he meant this episode. Oh, they just remembered that Adrien is supposed to be allergic to feathers. It seems Adrien has allergic reactions only when it's somewhat related to the plot. When it's not, he's completely fine.

The reference to the famous Umbrella Scene™ out of nowhere in a random episode? It probably means something. I can see "reverse crush" supporters interpreting it as a proof to their theory, especially since this time Adrien did something clumsy and Marinette is laughing because of it (actually both of them). Or maybe because it's the first episode of season 4 with Marinette and Adrien interactions, they decided to be that much gracious for Adrienette fans, to compensate lack of it in the first three episodes. Oh wow, Marinette managed to propose spending more time together to Adrien without stuttering. Probably because she has done it spontaneously. Marinette is the most nervous when she's planning and thinking what could go wrong too much. This time she had no time to it, so it went more smoothly. It's like they building development of their relationship, but it didn't seem in Guiltrip (that's episode 11 chronologically) that something changed.

Seeing screenshot above, you can easily imagine how great friends they could be, being very comfortable around each other and laughing together, if not Marinette's anxiety. We need Adrienette development so much to get more moments like this.

Oh and I just realized that it's also one of the veeeeery few episodes with no real Ladynoir at all (the only other one I remember is Style Queen). So if there was no Adrienette it would be an episode without interactions of two main characters at all (although we almost got Ladrien). It could be another reason why this episode is that nice for Adrien and Marinette ship.

After seeing overly excited Marinette dancing in the rain, I can't believe she can manage completely give up on Adrien. It doesn't look like this at all.

Also we've seen three photos of Adrien wearing THAT scarf. It could not mean nothing different that foreshadowing that he's going to discover the truth about it somewhere this season. But I have no idea what Ladybug's mask with shining eyes could mean.

I don't know what to think about the episode. Despite absurd Guardian-related things, I still liked it much more than Gang of Secrets, but I have no idea if I generally enjoyed it more than other episodes of this season or not. At least it's an episode without stupid drama, which is amazing.

---------

I'm currently less active on social media, because my internet connection is very unstable, it often works very slowly to the point I'm not patient enough to visit Tumblr. Also I block spoiler tags again, because I don't want to see spoilers from the episodes those are going to be released very soon, as I feel that they reveal too much to me once more. We're currently in a marathon of the new episodes and since watching them is the more more enjoyable, the less I know about them, I decided to try avoid spoilers as much as I can. The only bad thing is that I can't be read discussions about the new episodes, reblog them and adding something from me until Optigami will be aired.

#miraculous ladybug #ml mr. pigeon 72 #ml season 4 #ml spoilers #ml spoiler #chicoriii about S4 episodes #ml season 4 spoilers #chicoriii #original post

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guiltycorp · 2 years ago

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Just did a deep dive into your genshin posts to get a feel for your thoughts on things and I'm still unclear but xD I did just want to comment about one of your recent posts. I hate that traveler is so silent on things like finding out about Kaeya. Especially since they have added canon lore stuff that matters in the main story (not just side stuff) to events (like that Scara had the gnosis and was MIA). Finding out sword stuff about Kazuha's family was cool but missing it isn't the worst

(2) Having archon quests like 1.4 and then getting the chance to confront Zhongli and us getting nothing (especially after getting nothing after fixing Liyue...), proceeded by getting several encounters with Venti and not confronting him at all despite 1.4 mentioning him in the "next time we see Zhongli or Venti..." option is just so frustrating

I'm actually really glad that you read through so many of my posts, it feels nice that even the older ones are still of interest to someone 🥺 Honestly I know I can be over-critical at times, but Genshin still fascinates me as a piece of media. Like, it both goes much further when it comes to writing quality than a gacha game would be expected to go, but also it.. sucks. It has an amazing cast of interesting characters, but then it does so little with them that you're left questioning your choices in fiction. Like, I recognize a lot of the themes and tropes which are also prevalent in other games and anime, but I think Genshin really does have its unique and in-depth take on it. So it's a shame that it can't quite reach the level of actually being good.

But to be fair to the Traveler... 1) Overall writing of Genshin suffers from pacing issues due to its gameplay and content release plans, I get why writers sometimes have trouble reconciling certain things even if it IS frustrating. And yeah, events are in that nebulous space where they sort of maybe happened in-canon but also not necessarily, so the game kind of awkwardly ignores most of what we learn through them. 2) But in case of Kaeya!

The Traveler already seems to have suspected something since this is clearly an answer to a pointed question, and they don't ask this of anyone else, so it's likely that the Traveler recognizing Kaeya's nationality isn't meant to be something surprising. Plus Kaeya's answer clearly shows that he isn't interested in further discussion, so it kiiiiind of makes sense why the Traveler would drop the issue. Kaeya already threw the Traveler a bone when he updated them on the Abyss Prince(-ess), but this doesn't look like a man ready to discuss his homeland or how it was destroyed. By the way, note how this kind of thing never happens anymore! Characters don't actively seek out the Traveler to tell them stuff, which also feels really awkward. 3) The 'next time we see Zhongli or Venti' thing was inexcusable. Like why phrase it like that? Even worse, going to Inazuma was given the flimsiest excuse, when it would make more sense to at least go to either straight to Sumeru or Snezhnaya for more knowledge. Like, the game didn't give us any reasons why traveling there would be more difficult than the isolated Inazuma or why Inazuma would be the logical next step. 4) They could have at least mentioned in the events that Venti or Zhongli are super avoidant and difficult to find, only appearing when it suits them, but nope, if we want to find them we just Go and Do That. 5) Another side of this is that there are plenty of characters who should be suspecting the Traveler themselves of being inhuman and overall a very strange being, but so far only Albedo vocalized his suspicions. To say nothing of Paimon! The Archons most probably recognize what she is, and I bet once the reveals about her come they will be like 'oh yeah we knew all along'. Which would be, once again, kinda weird. 6) I think this is both a case of not having clear enough plans for the future plot and also the unfortunate 'no spoilers!!' disease. I honestly believe that the game would play much better if the characters' intelligence wasn't put down like that, and if more of them just said what they think. Not much would change really!

#tbh i skipped kazuha's event lol #im unfortunately very uninterested in everything inazuma related #and about your last messages -#yeah the whole discourse was funny to me at first but now im just irritated #ask #anonymous #genshin #text

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tiredarts-main · 3 years ago

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I just had another Destiny prophecy dream… And oh Light, is this one a ride.

The whole time in this dream, I was a Sunbreaker Titan that looked like a very thin Shaxx with the Tangled Shore Hunter cloak

———

In this dream-universe, the Vault of Glass was a ring of floating Vex debris and shifting jungle above the Traveller, filled with alien life that died repeatedly because the area was so inhospitable. The Vex there studied death and time fuckery.

I remember one Fireteam member in that mission had the ability to pause time around them, and they used that REALLY well in the Vault itself. Parts of it shifted through time like the anomalies on Mars, flipping between Golden Age, Collapse, the Dark Age, and the current time- the City Age.

———

There was a version of the Enclave on Earth, accessed from a cave on a remote beach. Went in and found a spinning tablet that said go to the Moon.

Managed to get a lore expert on my Fireteam to investigate the Terran Enclave, and together, we ran to the depths of Luna. The first half of the adventure was Vex themed because that loadzone was for something else…

Found blue, glass-like Vex walls that disappeared when you looked at them. Weird… Navigated the corridors. The lore expert doubted me because the mission was in an area where I had an incomplete quest…

But we got to the end of that quest and fought a Lightbearing Taniks with a Burning Maul. For some reason, Taniks didn’t have any armor- so we were basically fighting a four-armed robot skeleton with a flaming mallet. Once we killed naked!Taniks, I got a Gravlance with a special skin and (I think?) a Patience In Time.

An in-game cutscene of the VoG boys and the Kentarch 3 played that showed they had met once and encountered Quria, dying horribly to the Blade Transform and being shot to their respective Vex lairs, from which the canon events played out.

———

After that, a Deepsight bridge appeared next to the boss platform, leading to an area that had the vibes of the tunnels in the Throneworld (icky and orange). It was a really cramped 3-person secret quest- that you accessed via another quest!

Basically I loaded into the Vex secret quest from patrol, beat it, and walked into the Hive quest from the Vex end loadzone without going to orbit!

———

There was a debuff throughout the main combat encounter called “Drowning in Darkness”- Basically you had to cycle between Fireteam members to kill a special Knight that gave the whole team immunity, but if you killed it, you couldn’t kill it again until a timer ran out.

In order to advance through the rooms, you had to enter this weird vacuum tube system made of flesh and fangs that spit you out in another chamber. You had to jump between three chambers to beat the encounter, killing the special Knight three times in each chamber in order to buy enough time for the debuff.

———

After the combat encounter, we ran through more tunnels, avoiding an illusory Shade of Oryx. A Shade of Savathûn confronted us in the final chamber, and tried to trap us with Hive runes. I deciphered them before they exploded, opened the mission end-chest, and cleared the activity.

———

The lore of the activity was about Savathûn’s actions as a trainee of Rhulk (the shade even had the spiky collar like him). It detailed the fall of the Scarlet Keep, and Savathûn’s use of the Taken.

———

Special highlights from the dream:

I talked vocally to the Terran Enclave’s weird spinny tablet thing and apologized for rushing it

The activity-end chests had to be shot in an order that Savathûn had shown for a split second (or deciphered from Hive runes, which is what I did)

At one point, my team just started shitposting about cheese? We were in a tunnel that reminded them of a cheese cellar and they just started screaming CHEESE as we were being chased by Thralls and exploding worms that burrowed up from the floor

The special Gravlance was from a Guardian Games quest that I managed to complete during the Taniks encounter by doing a shitload of damage to a boss without dying. The Patience In Time came from completing the Vex quest.

#textpost #destiny spoilers #the Destiny dream saga #destiny 2 #destiny #tired talks

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warrioreowynofrohan · 4 years ago

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The Leithian Reread - Canto VI (Beren in Nargothrond)

While The Leithian-related plot of this canto focuses on Beren in Nargothrond, almost the first half of it is a brief summary of the Silmarillion from Return of the Noldor through to the Dagor Bragollach. Which I love, since those events for the most part aren’t coverered in Tolkien’s other poetic works, and I prefer the poetry structure of the Leithian to Tolkien’s other (non-rhyming, more Rohirric-sounding) pieces of epic poetry.

This is a good place to note, for readers who are new to the poetic Leithian, that some names are different from the Silm (Tolkien started a revised version with Silm-consistent names, but he didn’t get very far with it). The Noldor are referred to as the Gnomes - a rough transliteration of their elvish name into a human language, drawing from the Greek for ‘knowledge’. Tolkien later rejected this on the basis that the word was already too associated with entirely different mental images, but given how transformative his use of ‘elves’ was (typical fantasy elves are now almost all inspired by his ideas of tall, beautiful, long-lived immortals), we might have completely different concepts of ‘gnome’ now if he’s gone ahead with it.

The second big diiference is that Finrod is referred to exclusively as Felagund - his Dwarven honorific - whereas his father Finarfin is referred to as Finrod. Tolkien had a lot of difficulty with Finarfin’s name and it went through a pile of different iterations. There are also other minor differences, like Finwë being referred to as Finn.

Returning to the poem - it’s hard to pick a favourite part of the summary section; I love so much of it. This is the closest I’m ever going to get to the Noldolantë (Tolkien wrote a couple pages of another poem focusing on the Return of the Noldor, but I don’t like it as much).

The mists were mantled round the towers

of the Elves’ white city by the sea.

There countless torches fitfully

did start and twinkle, as the Gnomes

were gathered to their fading homes

and thronged the wide and winding stair

that led to the wide echoing square.

There Fëanor mourned his jewels divine,

the Silmarils he made. Like wine

his wild and potent words them fill;

a great host hearkens deathly still.

But all he said both wild and wise

half truth and half the fruit of lies

that Morgoth sowed in Valinor

in other songs and other lore

recorded is.

There’s such a wonderful sense of place and of mood in those lines; the Return of the Noldor has always been one of the most compelling parts of the Silmarillion for me. In the same way that Elves have a different sense of time than Men, Valar must have a different sense of it than Elves; they’re acting, but within their own sense of time, and for the Noldor, in the wake of the Darkening, the desire to do something rather than wait around for the Valar (who are looking more deeply fallible than they ever have before) to fix things must be extremely powerful. And Fëanor’s presence and words and fury, brought into that environment, is like fire to oil. To be active and purposeful in the face of disaster, rather than passive and directionless - that’s a powerful force. The poem also acknowledges that Fëanor’s not entirely wrong (“half truth and half the fruit of lies”), however deeply distorted his ideas about both the Valar and the Secondborn are. As I’ve said before, I think that Eru intended for the Elves to be in Middle-earth, not Valinor; the entire Leithian is centred around the value and importance of an elf-human relationship that continues to affect the history of Arda down through the Third Age (and, in its symbolic meaning, even further).

There’s also a line about the Oath: Who calls these names in witness may not break his oath, though earth and heaven shake. The texts on the Oath are somewhat contradictory on its breakability, though they are united on its importance and severity (it is decidedly not just words, or something that can be casually laid aside). The Silmarillion says “so sworn, good or evil, an oath may not be broken, and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world’s end”. But that contradicts itself - it it can’t be broken, then there can’t be oathbreakers. Maedhros and Maglor’s final conversation at the end of the Silm is more illuminating to me: it’s not a matter of the Oath being physically or psychologically impossible to break (if it was, how did they go the 400 years of the Siege of Angband without actively attacking Morgoth?), but of fearing the fate they have called down upon themselves (the Everlasting Darkness) if they do break it. (Plus a lot of sunk cost fallacy, by that point.) Which is considerably less sympathetic: murdering innocent people in order to avoid the consequences of your own bad decision is, ultimately, the choice that innocents should bear the cost of your own choices, which is ultimately a form of cowardice. (Not to mention the inherently contradictory nature of saying “I’m going to do evil so that I won’t be damned,” which Maglor eventually realizes.)

(More of my thoughts on the Oath here.)

This is also one of the few texts we have that actually states the Oath (or rather, part of it; the invocations are not included) rather that describing it. I think all the ones we have are in Tolkien’s poetry; there’s no prose version.

The Kinslaying is not mentioned in this Canto; that’s saved for the Duel of Felagund and Sauron in the next one. But this canto does include possibly the only poetic rendition we get of Fingon rescuing Maedhros from Thangorodrim:

Fingon daring alone went forth

and sought for Maidros where he hung;

in torment terrible he swung,

his wrist in band of forgéd steel,

from a sheer precipice where reel

the dizzy senses staring down

from Thangorodrim’s stony crown.

The song of Fingon Elves yet sing,

captain of armies, Gnomish king...

They sing how Maidros free he set,

and stayed the feud that slumbered yet

between the children proud of Finn.

After describing the Siege of Angband and the Long Peace, the narrative moves on to the Dagor Bragollach, and specifically Barahir’s rescue of Felagund. (And in this account, as in the Silm, Orodreth is Felagund’s brother, not his nephew.) From there, it returns to the main story and Beren’s arrival in Nargothrond. It could not be more different than his reception in Menegroth:

When the ring [of Barahir] was seen

they bowed before him, though his plight

was poor and beggarly...

Fair were the words of Narog’s king

to Beren, and his wandering

and all his feuds and bitter wars

recounted soon.

Regarding Felagund’s fulfillment of his Oath to Barahir, and the betrayal by Celegorm and Curufin, and the abandonment by the Elves of Nargothrond, I’ve already written a fair bit in my (much earlier) posts on Finrod & Nargothrond and Celegorm & Curufin. I’ll add a few additional points here.

First, I do not think it was irresponsible of Felagund to leave Nargothrond to go with Beren. If his presence as king of Nargothrond was important (and I think it was; basically all of Nargothrond’s decisions after he leaves are bad, and he’s been the peacemaker and diplomat between different elven and human groups throughout the Silmarillion up to this point) that is all the more reason why Nargothrond is indebted to Barahir and his descendents, since Felagund would already be dead if not for Barahir’s actions.

Secondly - and I’m getting this from Philosopher at Large’s Leithian Script, which emphasizes it very heavily - Felagund, as liege-lord to the Bëorings, has certain obligations to them even outside of his oath, including providing military assistance in times of need. Usual chains of communication have been cut since the Bragollach, so Felagund’s only just now finding out that the Bëorings have, aside from Beren, been basically exterminated; and that Barahir and later Beren spent years fighting a very long-odds guerrilla war without ever asking or recieving assistance, while Nargothrond was safe and largely inactive. This is going to strongly enhance Felagund’s (legitimate) sense of indebtedness to Barahir’s kin.

Thirdly, Celegorm is often treated as something of a meathead (because he acts like one; all his decisions are terrible in both moral and practical terms), but this sequence makes it clear that both he and Curufin inherited their father’s rhetorical abilities; his speech is specifically compared to Fëanor’s speech in Tirion (Many wild and potent words he spoke, and as before in Tûn awoke his father’s voice their hearts to fire, so now dark fear and brooding ire he cast on them...) But ironically, the direction of Curufin’s speech is opposite to Fëanor’s - while Fëanor’s was about rallying the Noldor to fight Morgoth, Curufin’s is about discouraging them from fighting Morgoth, by frightening them, and he does it so effectively that it’s unlikely Nargothrond would have showed up at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad even without the additional motivation of being furious at the brothers. And continuing on that theme, the brothers are setting themselves against the first real attempt anyone has ever made to regain the Silmarils from Morgoth. A mission that resulted in Beren and Lúthien having one Silmaril, and the Fëanorians having the other two, would obviously be better in terms of their goals than all three remaining in Morgoth’s posession, but they don’t appear to even consider it. This is part of a long thread throughout the Silmarillion - every action taken directly in service to the Oath aids Morgoth and harms the Eldar.

The people of Nargothrond, by the way, really do not come off well here - they’re rejecting their king for someone who has just threatened violence against them all (Celegorm’s speech is basically threatening them with another Kinslaying here and now).

And as a final point - what Celegorm and Curufin do here is one of the worst crimes imaginable within their society. The sacredness of the relationship between guests and hosts (and they are guests in Nargothrond, having fled there from the Bragollach) is a major theme in a lot of pre-modern societies. People familiar with A Song of Ice and Fire will remember its importance there; for a more historical source, Dante places ‘traitors to guests and hosts’ in the ninth circle of hell in the Divine Comedy and goes beyond that to state that people who betray their guests or hosts go directly to hell even before they die, while their body becomes inhabited by a demon for the rest of their life. From this betrayal, to the usurpation of Nargothrond, to the attempted rape of Lúthien, to the attempted murder of Lúthien, to Celegorm’s servants leaving Eluréd and Elurín - young children - to die of exposure, everything we see from the brothers from this point on is them committing crimes that are literally unthinkable to elves. Which is to say that the Eldar might have found Dante’s explanation pretty credible.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #fëanor #sons of fëanor #beren #finrod #celegorm #curufin #nargothrond #oath of feanor #lay of leithian #leithian reread

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hesesols · 4 years ago

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Into the WILD

Day 16 of Ichiruki month 2020

Trapped inside fantasy MMORPG. Send help please?

Rating: T

FF/ao3

The first thing that strikes him as odd is that the ground underneath him is dewy soft. Not that the carpet in his tiny student accommodation isn't soft. It just isn't as soft by comparison and doesn't smell so strongly of grass and urgh- he hates pollen with a vengeance.

It makes his nose itch like mad and –

Wait!

Last time he checked summer was already over and the northern hemisphere was entering early autumn.

Brown eyes open in alarm.

The sun is in his eyes as he sits up and he's lying in a sea of golden tulips and ruby red camellias, blades of grass and crushed flowers under his fingertips.

He isn't alone.

There are others next to him. Each one garbed in unusual medieval clothing- intimidating-looking armours with spikes and brightly-coloured capes, fur-trimmings and equally garish-looking armbands; brandishing weapons that range from claymores to wooden staffs. Everyone seems to be in more or less the same state of disbelief and wide-eyed amazement at their new surroundings.

Where are they?

And holy shit! Is that a real-life armoured bear?

"You look like you could use a hand there, Kurosaki."

"Ishida?"

Ishida or at least who he assumes to be Ishida- his annoying cousin of sorts and fellow guild member- stands in front of him, offering an outstretched hand. Ichigo recognizes the voice but those pointy ears, the gleaming ivory bow that stands at a grown man's height and strange cleric-like clothing- those are definitely new. He grabs hold of it and pulls himself up, wiping at the grass stains with a fierce scowl before turning to the strange elf-like creature.

"What are you wearing?

Uryuu snorts, "I could ask you the very same question, Kurosaki."

Ichigo glances at the midnight black armour he has on- light weight, extra resistance to magic and +25% endurance to all physical attacks- wait, where did that come from?- the reassuring weight of Zangetsu in his hands-

He blinks.

Name: Zangetsu. Also known as: Sword of the Moon, Cursed Fang. Status: Legendary. Raid item from the Sacking of the Gollum King's Palace at Hueco Mundo. The mythical black blade forged by the Grandmaster Yhwach over the Fires of Sokyouku for a full year and a half in preparation for the Conquest of the Soul King's Throne (see also Conquest of the Soul King's Throne). Grants the wielder—

Reeling from the surprise, he falls flat on the grass.

How the hell did that just happen? How did all those words and background information just pop into his head unprompted? Almost like they're in a fantasy RPG gam—

"What's going on?"

Uryuu's smile is grim and sardonic, sliding the half-moon glasses up the bridge of his nose before he tells him, "Don't freak out but I think we're inside the game."

"Anything?"

Uryuu shakes his head.

Ichigo sighs. The lines of communication are down and no one has been able to log back out into the real world since they first entered.

"This doesn't make any sense at all!"

10,000 WILD players across the world and different servers who were online and active at precisely 12 midnight that day somehow found themselves transported into the game world and trapped there as their game character persona.

They're calling it the Lockdown.

No one has a clue as to why they were the only people affected, nor do they know how they came to. One minute they were logged in, playing the game as usual; the next thing they know they're lying flat on their asses in this strange new world strongly reminiscent of the game world of WILD, as their respective game characters.

He's one of the lucky ones he thinks. As a human Swords Master, there isn't much alteration to him besides the clothes and the muscle bulk added to his physique, unlike Chad who woke up as a bear armed to the teeth with a war axe and metal gauntlets. It wouldn't have been a pleasant wake up call for anyone, much less someone who wakes up trapped inside a fantasy MMORPG.

"What about Keigo then? Have you managed to locate him yet?"

Uryuu's eyebrow twitches. The pale blue glow from his hand falters for a fraction of a second when his attention shifts to shoot his guild leader a nasty glare.

Ichigo growls before mumbling out an apology to the raven-haired Cleric. He knows of course that Uryuu is trying his best and really in a strange new world that seems equal parts deadly and fascinating, the best is all they can do.

He's just … frustrated over the lack of answers and to make matters worse, one of their own still remains unaccounted for. Out of all the guild members who decided to switch servers during the Lockdown, it just had to be Keigo- scatterbrain extraordinaire. He wouldn't trust Keigo not to get sold on some crazy-ass get-rich-quick scheme in the real world, let alone in this virtual reality full of bloodthirsty monsters just waiting to make a nice dinner out of unsuspecting players.

The double doors to his studies are suddenly pushed apart, jolting him out of his thoughts. Orihime stumbles in barefooted and narrowly avoids tripping over the trail of her druidic dress robes in her excitement. Her cheeks are flushed and the pretty flowers in her flower crown bloom and blossom in magnificent shades of pinks and violets as she makes her announcement.

"Kurosaki-kun! I have his location!"

Ichigo jumps to his feet.

Finally!

It's the first piece of good news he's had since he found himself stranded here with the rest of his guild members.

"So where is the idiot then?"

Behind her, trails Tatsuki- their resident cynic and Shield Maiden who purses her lips and informs both him and Uryuu rather miserably, "You're not going to like this. He's in the Forest."

Ichigo resists the urge to face-palm as he sees Uryuu rubbing at his temple.

"Keigo must have been on his way back to HQ and decided to take the shorter route," Uryuu rationalizes things- as the team tactician he excels at it, "he couldn't possibly have known."

That's right. Keigo couldn't possibly have known that he would get sucked into the game and be left standing in place of his game character.

Tatsuki gives a derisive snort, "Doesn't make a difference. A level 25 Bard like him can't possibly survive the Forest of Hueco Mundo alone. He's going to get himself killed. The Forest is no man's land- level 70+ Hollows and player killers aren't warded out."

All eyes turn to their orange-haired team leader.

"What do you want us to do?"

Call it instincts but Ichigo has a nasty suspicion that player death in their new world would also mean certain death in the real world. The thought makes him nauseous and for obvious reasons, he isn't too keen on testing out the theory himself.

Keigo may be a pain-in-the-neck and downright insufferable at times but damn it! He's one of them. He's their pain-in-the-neck and they can't just leave him there.

In the real world, Ichigo Kurosaki may be just an ordinary university student bogged down by studies but here in WILD, he's a guild leader, it's his job to look after his guild members and he pledges to make sure that every single one of them makes it back home to the real world in one piece.

Ichigo heaves a loud weary sigh, grabbing the sleek black katana by his side.

"Let's go get our idiot back!"

"I told you we should have gone left instead of right!"

Tatsuki can feel her skull throbbing. She should have just stayed behind with Chad and Orihime.

"Stop yelling at me! It's not my bloody fault that you're so fucking incompetent that you couldn't get a better map!"

"Oh so I'm the incompetent one?! Never mind I was the one who organized the rations! We would have starved to death days ago if I hadn't triple checked our provisions!"

Tatsuki grimaces as the feel of exhaustion creeps in as does the unbearable chaffing on her thighs. It wasn't just the lines of communications that were shut off with the Lockdown. It turns out the Portals- their main means of transport have also been disrupted and that means that the full distance between Karakura and the Forest had to be covered by good old-fashioned horse-riding.

They've been riding nonstop since they left Karakura, trading horses with NPCs in the farmlands nearby to push ahead at a gruelling pace and rescue Keigo as soon as possible. It is a noble cause but the trade-off for the weeks' long worth of hard-riding leaves the three riders surly and sullen. This virtual reality that they're trapped in certainly feels real enough, right down to hunger pangs and sore muscles.

Chaffed thighs, bland food, little sleep and the heat (the sheer humidity was making her hair frizz) made for horrible traveling condition and it seems that both Ichigo and Uryuu are about to hit their respective boiling points.

She rolls her eyes, tugging at her horse's rein to halt.

"Both of you need to shut up before –"

A sudden rustling in the bushes nearby draws their collective attention and sure enough from the depth of the overgrown bushes, a Hollow emerges. This one seems more reptilian in features, flickering pink tongue and all. Something jumps at the back of her mind but Tatsuki ignores it.

The Guide is nothing more than a useless collection of WILD lore and trivia.

She doesn't need a lecture on Hollow classes and their special attacks to know that the only good Hollow is a dead one.

With a loud battle war cry, she unsheathes her blade and leads the charge, throwing herself against the beast.

Ichigo leaps through the dense foliage with Zangetsu drawn and bloodied in his hand. Despite Tatsuki's misgivings about his foolhardy plans and recklessness, the woman is just as bad with her own brand of battle lust, leading the charge like a crazy berserker.

All hell literally broke loose the second they stormed through the clearing. The sheer number of the Hollow horde overwhelmed them and forced them to break formation and the three of them took off in different directions in a bid to divide the remaining Hollows' attention.

He ducks behind a tree to catch his breath. Having lost sight of both Uryuu and Tatsuki during their retreat, he is in a sour mood and more than a little embarrassed that a level 98 Swordsmaster like him is being forced back by a horde of weakling Hollows in level 50s.

"Psst. Ichigo."

Ichigo grips Zangetsu tightly, eyes nervously darting at his surroundings. He could have sworn that he heard Keigo's voice. Well it's either that or he's officially losing his mind.

"Over here."

A head pops out from the bushes next to him and Ichigo reacts accordingly- nearly slicing the newcomer's head clean off his shoulder and Keigo almost becomes a casualty of friendly fire before Ichigo sees through the heavy layer of disguise and stops the blade mid-swing.

"Keigo?"

The bard is barely recognizable with his slashed and dirtied tunic, patches of dirt and dried leaves covering his face.

"The fuck you doing- sneaking up on me like that! I could have killed you!"

Keigo couldn't have cared less. With a loud wail and snot running down his face, he throws himself at his saviour and professes his undying gratitude in between hiccups and tears.

"ICHIGO! I knew you would come for me! I never doubted for a second!"

"Get off me! You stink!"

The happy reunion doesn't last as the roar of a Hollow and heavy footsteps of a lumbering giant still their movements. Ichigo pushes Keigo away from him and readies his blade, but even his quick reflexes are no match for the suddenness of the attack.

"ICHIGO!"

The Hollow's swipe knocks the air right out of him and sends him flying. The tree trunk of a young sapling snaps in half as his back connects painfully with it. The pain disorients him and he is enough of a doctor's son to recognize the signs of concussion. Also, he thinks he might have cracked a rib (or two) as fresh blood- metallic in taste gurgles past his throat.

His vision clears in time for him to see the Hollow- a Dragon class one with beady yellow, thick, iridescent scales covering its front and gigantic wings sprouted at his back, rearing up for another charge.

This time at Keigo, who is down on his knees- eyes wide with fear as he scrambles to get away from the advancing Hollow.

There's no time to think. Ichigo pushes everything he has- the very last spurt of HP and MP within him towards Keigo, taking his place before the monster with gapping mouth, awaiting certain death to come.

"Out of the way!"

His eyes snap open just in time to see a small lithe figure, sunlight reflecting off the bone white armour- so bright that he squints, leaping through air and landing gracefully on the Hollow's back. A glint of light flashes yet again and before his very eyes, one of the Hollow's tattered wings is cut off, an arc of blood spurts high into the air and the Hollow's roar of anguish follows.

"Are you deaf or stupid? Get out of the way!"

Ichigo doesn't hesitate. With Keigo tucked under his arm, he pushes past the pain and sprints for the clearing.

With them gone, the mysterious stranger makes quick work of the beast, easily dismantling its other wing before diving for the kill; sinking the white blade somewhere between the soft scruff, flabs of excess skin free from the scaly armour.

Ichigo watches in silence as the dying monster screeches in pain, a swan's song in roars of fury before it topples over with dead eyes, a fine cloud of dust from where its body fell.

With the urgency of the situation gone, he focuses on the newcomer. Sheathing Zangetsu as it becomes apparent from the markings and sigil on the stranger's shield and helmet that he is a Paladin, one dedicated to the path of the light. They're in safe hands- for now at least.

"Where did you come from?"

The Paladin regards him oddly.

"What do you mean?"

"Princess!"

Half a dozen of swords are suddenly drawn and held under their throats by what seems to be a band of armed knights. Their armours gleam with the same bone-white shine and the leader of the men- a tall redhead with inked markings across his forehead approaches them with a fierce scowl and the intent to kill.

Next to him, Keigo yelps.

"The fuck!" Ichigo curses. His chest hurts, he's barely standing on his feet and now this?

Can this day get any worse?

"Watch your mouth, you punk!" The redhead growls threateningly, "You're in the presence of the Princess."

Amber eyes narrow. Did they think he's stupid? There's no one vaguely even female in their company unless—

The Paladin removes his helmet and a cascade of black hair- dark as the night pours forth. Apple cheeks, soft petal lips and elfin features curtailed somewhat by the iciness of her stare and her unsmiling face.

Their eyes meet.

Oh!

The short stature suddenly makes so much sense. Ichigo gulps.

"They're Heroes, Renji."

Renji scowls and gives them a dirty look.

Ichigo's eyebrows knot in confusion. "Hang on- what do you mean by Heroes and how are you a princess? Royalty isn't a job class and Paladins don't call themselves Princesses. I don't care what level you are, that's not allowed by the game admins."

The smile on the woman's face- Ichigo doesn't know what to make of it, but he thinks he's about to be made into a fool of epic proportions, especially when she pushes past her armed guards and tilts his face up by the chin with the tip of her white blade.

Smirking with dark violet eyes gleaming, she tells him, "That's because I'm not a Hero. Look closer."

Sure enough- when Ichigo focuses his gaze at her, her presence is shrouded in golden aura. The Guide pings- very belatedly and most unhelpfully, he might add.

Name: HRH Princess Rukia of the noble house of the Kuchiki, heir apparent to the throne of Seireitei. Status: NPC

He bites his tongue.

"B-But- but NPCs aren't sentient," Keigo blurts out.

Ichigo turns just in time to see him give out a pained yelp, being pummelled by the angry redhead, "Oh I'll show you how non-sentient my fists are!"

He winces. That looks like it would hurt… a lot. But Keigo's an idiot with thick skin, he'll live.

Rukia- her name rolls off his tongue easily. He refuses to even entertain the idea of addressing her by her royal title. For starters, a princess isn't supposed to be a Paladin, or know how to fight or use a sword, or look this good while having him at her mercy.

He gulps when violet eyes narrow at him.

"And you? Do you think that NPCs are non-sentient beings too?"

Ichigo is a fast learner and gives a quick shake of his head.

"Good-" her lips curve into a smile, hair dipping low to tease at the contours of his face as she whispers into his ear- "Because this NPC just saved your life. I'll show you just how deadly I am with my sword before you dismiss me as just another background token NPC."

The sword tip leaves his neck.

"Now, hold still."

That's all the warning he gets before a green glow is emitted from her hands- smelling faintly of mint and something fresh he can't quite name. He shuts his eyes, letting the healing magic wash over him, knitting most of his superficial cuts and wounds back into place.

When the light fades, his chest still hurts but at the very least he feels a little less light-headed and breathes a little easier despite the pain.

He wants to thank her- both for her healing and her timely rescue from the Hollow but she refuses to meet his eyes.

"Renji," she barks at her captain of guards who immediately stands to attention.

"Take them with us. He needs a proper healer. I can't set his broken ribs."

"It's Ichigo!" he calls out, interrupting their conversation and earning himself a hard glare from Renji but Rukia's gaze is almost thoughtful.

"Can you still ride, Ichigo?"

He nods.

A horse is brought to him under Rukia's instructions and as soon as he is properly mounted with Keigo seated behind him, the woman sounds the horn, black hair unbound and flailing in the wind as she leads the company into a gallop.

"To Seireitei!"

FF/ao3

Review, like, comment or reblog to send some love my way pretties~~~

I have a thing for fantasy AUs. Can’t you tell? Click on link for rec list of some off-main Isekai/Game animes. I have a special place in my heart for them.

#ichiruki #ichiruki month 2020 #irmonth2020 #ichiruki month #into the WILD #fanfic #mine #Day 16: video games #sentient rights for NPCs #Fantasy AU #Isekai AU #Tatsuki deserves to kick some Hollow butts

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box-bunny-grey · 4 years ago

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Hey remember when I talked about a video game and didn’t edit what I wrote? Guess what I’m doing again

So decided to see if I can’t make a habit of talking about games I finish here and there.

So here’s me talking about 13 Sentinels.

Gonna do my best to be non-spoiler too.

So 13 Sentinels is the latest game from Vanillaware, a company I’ve enjoyed a lot of games from (Muramasa: Rebirth, Odin Sphere, Dragon’s Crown) and is pretty heavy divergence from the ones I’ve played. I’m straight up just going to ramble on here in an order of events that makes sense to me. Also this is like just right after finishing the game so I might be general about some things/completely wrong.

Once you get past the prologue, you’ll have access to two gameplay modes, which you can choose at your leisure, provided you’ve met the requirements to unlock them (explained later in the story section).

Gameplay

13 Sentinels is, at its core, a tower defense game. You have a terminal you have to defend and, depending on the map, in addition to a city, whereyou either have the option of holding out for two minutes or taking out your enemies, the kaiju. The exception is generally boss levels, whose only goal is do defeat the boss enemy.

Your tools in defending your Terminal are the afformentioned 13 Sentinels, where you pause the game to make commands but otherwise the rest of the game functions in real time. Sentinels are divided into 4 generations and their pilots.

Generation 1 sentinels are your melee fighters. They get up close to the enemy and clobber them for big damage, and these are usually what you’ll be bringing in to deal with bigger, more armored kaiju. Their toolkit can lead to some interesting combinations. For instance, they have access to a buff that can massively increase their attack and movement speed but also massively increase damage taken, or massively increase defense but take a hit to their movement speed. They also have the ability to jump around the arena to smash smaller enemies while moving up to their targets. Finally, they have access to anti-air flares and EMPs to ground aerial units (which they generally have no was to attack unless they do so). A quirk of their EMPs is that they also function as a taunt, if a Gen 1 uses their EMP the kaiju will focus target them.

Generation 3 (we’ll get 2 for a reason later) are the opposite of Gen 1. Generation 3 are your long range units, able to use EMPs in a wide range with no taunt attached, along with rail cannons and a variety of missiles. Initially the Gen 3s might seem like the most powerful units, as in early game their ability to clear massive swaths of early kaiju seems overpowered. But as the game goes on you’ll find that while they’re excellent support fighters and crowd clearing units, some high level enemies will either have so much health or anti-missile tactics that you’ll realize the strength of your other generations for dealing with these situations. But as said, these units are great for clearing out massive swaths, and while not as powerful as the other generations in dealing with certain massive enemies can hold their own regardless.

Generation 4 are most support units. While able to stand on their to some extent, their primary focus will usually be applying shields and spawning interceptor drones, and dropping mines to impede kaiju advance. In addition, some can even draw enemies into a gravity pool to set up other sentinels to take them out in one fell swoop. Though depending on how you build you can also use them for some melee abilities, especially with one pilot’s passives, both mech and otherwise. Gen 4 are also the only flying sentinel, so if they have to be somewhere they can get faster and more directly than other sentinels.

I saved Gen 2 for last because they are all rounders, and thus have access to melee, ranged, and support abilities. Though they do not excel as any of the others do, and thus their abilities may incur higher cost, sacrifice range, or have a longer cooldown. Gen 2 however is not simply a lesser version, and that difference comes in their support. All Gen 2 support comes in the form of various stationary summons. Including a shield generator, healing generator, sentry turrets, and perhaps most valuable guardians. Guardians are the only way other than Gen 1 EMP to force kaiju to target something, but instead of one of your sentinels it is instead a dummy, thus allowing your melee units to sneak in a back attack or simply take the heat away from other units.

You have access to 3 of each generation, with the exception of generation 4 which was 4 sentinels. Each sentinel as said has a different pilot, and this allows you to build their arsenal differently to suit their strengths. For instance, as above I stated a Generation 4 can be melee built. This is due to some of the pilots skills (for instance, one where their stats get higher as more kaiju surround them) and passives for their mech which means low damage attacks of smaller kaiju can’t hurt them, and they can even counter those moves against them. Combine that with an armor piercing melee attack and point blank aoe missile attack and this support unit might wind up patrolling around the battlefield as much as your Generation 1s.

Other abilities of note could be that certain pilots get a stat increase if they’re far away from allies, or nearby other ones of note, or using the defensive action leading to a buff for the active team. While it all seems overwhelming at first the game eases you into different generations and kaiju types, that by the time you have access to the game proper post-prologue you’ll at least have an idea of what each unit can do, and even if you don’t chatter in between battles will suggest you give some thought to other systems.

In addition, how the game does ranking is interesting. Rather than having ranking and score intertwined, the ranking system is determined by how much damage sentinels, the city, and the terminal took. In addition, there are separate bonus objectives which are usually using certain characters or generations of sentinel, and/or either clearing the map in a set amount of time or without something taking a particular amount of damage (sentinels, city, or terminal). Getting maximum rank (S) and completing bonus objectives unlocks extra lore in the archives, while score is simply bragging rights to comboing together a lot of attacks.

Another feature exists in which once you get past the tutorials, pilots can only fight a certain number of times on the active party before needing to take a break. Thankfully the game gives the ability to recover all exhaustion of pilots if a bonus objective calls for it, and the only advantage to paying attention to this feature is a score bonus multiplier.

In short, the game does a great job of separating the meta version of the game (racking up maximum score) from fun challenge intended to be done for lore.

Story

Like I said trying to avoid spoilers so this might be short.

While the battles are their own part of the story, the general story portion of 13 Sentinels is its own, visual novel style section. After the prologue you’ll have unlocked about eight of the thirteen stories, and gotten an idea of each of these character’s goals. As you move on you’ll unlock the remaining 13, and play an interesting balancing act.

See, the stories have a point where you’ll be cut off from it, and either will have to do other stories or the Sentinel gameplay sections (Sentinel gameplay areas also function like this). It helps keep a good balance in the non-linear narrative, so reveals tend to come naturally as getting farther in certain stories will elaborate on revelations of the story that unlocks them.

It’s a fun ride and the stories have neat variety both in protagonists and structure. Unfortunately in the interest of keeping away from spoilers is why this section isn’t very big. I’d say if you even have a passing interest in sci-fi or mecha I think you’ll enjoy it.

Oh yeah also don’t worry about missing things in the story. The game does a good job of making sure you get everything, so if you see stories you think you missed it’s either something you’ll be able to do later OR an event that can be summed up as “well we accomplished nothing that sucks.”

Nitpicks

Really, I only have two issues with the game, and I can honestly say both are nitpicks.

The only gameplay problem I have is that the game doesn’t really tell you the difference between maxed out systems (your moves) and maxed out sentinel upgrades (your stats). The best way I can put it is this: systems level up to level 8 maximum. Sentinel upgrades level up to 999. So would have liked an indicator to that.

The other is a story problem and the best way I can think to put it is this: early on these are more that one character has discovered a truth of the world and the reason you’re cut off is you need to understand what’s happening with the other character’s story, or to have a good momentum of reveals. But as the story goes on, probably at about the 75% mark, stories start interrupting each other and the ping ponging is less teasing out hints and more because the character you were just playing as isn’t technically the protagonist of that plot point. I say this because some sections were light on this overlap as what was going on in the main story of one character was background for another, so they sometimes get a little messy as they overlap properly. It doesn’t hurt the game’s story tremendously and only happens a few times, but it did take me out of it when it did happen.

Really that’s it for negatives.

Is good game would recommend.

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moltenhair · 5 years ago

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Hey! Thank you so much for responding to my question! I definitely agree with everything you’re saying-though I’d like to expand on my question. Here’s an example. I’m a Harry Potter fan. If I ever wonder or have ques about a character, I can go on the Harry Potter wiki and find an entire backstory on that character, even if the character wasn’t expanded upon in the books or movies. Do you believe the creators of the show gave minor characters backstories, even if they weren’t disclosed to us?

I feel like there are IDEAS for backstories for the tangled characters within the crew who worked on it, but I don’t know if there is anything official. For example, the “Varian and the Seven Kingdoms” comic that was being made a little bit ago- and unfortunately no longer in production- was a fan work made by two artists who worked on the show. Sharing their ideas for Varian, his mom and their family’s history. It’s definitely not CANON but you can tell the women who worked on it had thoughts. Thoughts they couldn’t put into the show because they weren’t the ones calling the shots.

But, since you brought up Harry Potter (which I also grew up on and have a deep fondness for) let’s compare world building styles by the creator.

While it’s very hard to say nice thinks about JK Rowling right now, as a writer she definitely doesn’t treat “world building” like a dirty phrase. Even outside her main line of Harry Potter books there were MANY other books that expanded the world. And movies. And websites. All of which added something new to her universe. Before these ‘Fantastic beasts’ movies were made, it was a BOOK. Based on and written like the book from inside the lore. I own it and have had it since I was a child. It was ALL LORE. And there were others like it. She leaped at any opportunity to expand her world and to make it as big as possible. Was this to make more money off it? Possibly... But the fact of the matter is she wanted to expand the world and where people had questions, she provided answers. And when all the books were published and she still had ideas, she took to twitter and started posting her world building ideas there. For better or worse.

Now look at Tangled. Sonnenburg has actively avoided answering questions about the world he built with Tangled the Series. Or deflected the question to avoid a solid answer. He has alluded to there being answers for some, but others he has purposely avoided or explicitly shown no interest in answering. Even the things he says he has ideas for he won’t share. Even though it is abundantly clear to everyone- likely him included- that Disney is not going to come calling for a TTS spinoff about Cassandra. So when people ask him what his ideas are for Cass’ biological father, he has no real reason not to answer. Especially when he says the character has a complete story to tell. He just isn’t interested in world building anything that people are interested in. There is also no reason he can’t just.... make something up after the fact for the characters who have no backstory. Fans wouldn’t know if he just pulled something out of his butt to make up for the lack of history and explanation given in the show for characters and plot points that appeared. It wouldn’t take a whole lot of effort for him to pick a random name and use that for the answer to “What is Eugene’s Mother’s Name?”or “What is Varian’s mother’s name?” Those two questions are exceptionally easy to answer if he just CARED a little. But he doesn’t. He has negative interest in expanding what he created. And less if it’s something the fans are very invested in learning.

Of course... This does bring up the age old debate of “are after-the-fact additions posted by the creators on twitter actually canon?” and the answer is.... No. Obviously not. It’s not in the actual story so it’s not official canon. It’s more tertiary canon or canon adjacent. At best. Easy to avoid when discussing canon since it was never TECHNICALLY in the story. So any name we get for Eugene’s mom, any backstory for Cass’ father, would be a new reference point for people to base headcanons, but wouldn’t actually be canon until referenced in a published, canon property. What the fandom chooses to do with the information given to them in this fashion is entirely up to the individual fan.

#long post #analysis #Anonymous

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 4 years ago

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Here we are at the end of October, in the Year of Our Troubles, 2020. And here I am, continuing my journey to avoid reality by looking for meaning in nostalgia and TV Hunks. It’s Supernatural!

Alright so we’ve made it to my (possibly/probably) all time favorite quartet of the entire series - Disc 3, Season 1, episodes 9 - 12. For the last few discs, I’ve been keeping things pretty technical in terms of television production and broadcast. But frankly, this sh*t is my jam. All that gooey emotion, all that sweet sweet lore, throw in some man tears and *chef kissy fingers* c'est magnifique!

Now I’ll backtrack for a hot second here to talk about the filler vs. self-contained argument that I...probably jumbled in my last post. In shows like this, I tend to use “filler” to describe every episode that isn’t arc, but honestly, that’s not fair to a number of Supernatural episodes. The main difference being, is this episode meant to pad out your season or is it simply an episode that can stand on its own two feet? I’d say that’s the case for this entire disc.

First up, it’s Home. Guys, I think I cheered when I turned this episode on. We take our Winchesters, give them some small victories, build up their confidence, and then totally break them down again by sending them back to the beginning. This is not listed as the “official” return to the arc episodes, but I’d argue that Home is where we see a return to the Main Quest. Oh yeah, and Sam finally admits that he can see...what? What do we call these? Death Omens? I think Sam calls them premonitions? Either way, it’s…*shrugs* sure, do what you want. The premonitions do become important later and they’re basically the catalyst for the whole second season and that resolution takes us into the main conflict for the third season, and so on and so on, it’s a whole thing. It just seems like a hecking lot this go around, ok? But he finally admits it to Dean and that’s probably some kind of growth. Dean going back into that house again is also some kind of growth. Of course, he was like, 4 when he swore he’d never go back to that house again? Whatever, I didn’t care. I get too distracted by the fact that DEAN IS CRYING GUYS! LOOK! HE’S CRYING!!

Oh, and one more tie to the season arc - Hecking John Winchester shows up. I mean, he’s all over the episode and I think the most shocking thing we find out about him is that he was, at one point, a business owner?? But also it ends with conclusive proof that John Winchester is a massive dick who refuses to talk to his children. And I’m sorry, I don’t buy your “have to finish it first” excuse, I just don’t. To be clear, I’m not mad at the storytelling choice to do that, I’m mad at the character, which I guess is where it should be.

I like that this episode builds out more of the world that the Winchesters live in with Missouri Mosely (Not the State!). I like that we see they’re not alone in this very literal fight against evil. She checks back in later in the series and honestly, I love Loretta Devine so I would have watched a whole spinoff show about this character.

Two things I don’t like about this episode? #1 What genius decided that Mary’s ghost would just be on fire for 20 years? Like, cuz that’s what I am understanding about this ghost. That she is just constantly on fire. And that’s...unkind.

Mary, who did this to you??

#2 Only a man could have written this episode because no single mom is just gonna LET two rando dudes into her home.

Listen boys, you’re cute, but I’m a woman with two small children. Hell no you’re not coming into my house.

Next up is Asylum and this is so good at walking the line between creepy and Spooky. UNlike the Bloody Mary episode, I do not need to hide my face from the screen at any point during this episode.

Hey look, it’s like they’re brothers or something!

This one is another episode that does a good job building character and the world the Winchesters live in. Like any good procedural, it uses the main conflict to bring out the more important conflict. In this case, it literally brings it out, cuz the ghost is a psychiatrist who makes Same confront all his Daddy Issues. And by confront we mean, take it out on his brother who is the saddest-motherf*cker-I’ve-ever-seen BUT HEY! Salting and burning a body finally works for once in their lives! I love all the cringing that Jensen Ackles does in that scene because they clearly hadn’t figured out what that effect was supposed to look like yet.

It must have been a real surprise to find out the ghost didn’t light on fire.

Oh and then there’s the phone call! And man, this must have been a bitch of a mid-season finale, cuz this episode aired in November of 2005 and the next episode doesn’t come back until January of 2006 and so you’re just WAITING to hear what John has to say.

Now wait for two months to find out what he says.

And of course, it’s nothing. We come back in January to Scarecrow and John has nothing to say cuz he’s a massive dick. Just calling 6 months in to your nationwide search for me to let you know that I’m not dead, but also, I’m only here to send you on another assignment and cause tension. And so the show continues to break down our dynamic duo because the fight they have over whether they should listen to dad or not literally splits them apart. They also introduce Meg as a new and more involved villain for the series. I mean, sort of. We don’t see her again for like, another five episodes. And then again another five episodes after that. So like, I don’t really...know that introducing her as an antagonist...really had the effect they were hoping for?

Is she evil cuz she’s a demon or just because she’s blonde???

Here’s some issues I have with Meg, the first recurring female character who isn’t dead - she’s the first recurring female character who isn’t dead and also, I immediately hated her. I remember watching the episode the first time and as soon as I saw her I was like, oh she’s a ruiner. It was almost a relief to find out she was a bad guy at the end because it was like I was allowed to hate her? To be fair to me, Meg comes on hella strong trying to keep Sam from going back to his brother, so we’re not supposed to like her, but looking back on it now I feel like the perpetrator of some real girl-on-girl crime. Does Meg actually do anything wrong? Aside from leaning real hard on some indie-style manic-pixie bohemian free spirit nonsense, she doesn’t do...anything that should make me hate her? Until, of course, she actively acts as a wedge between our dream team, but before then, I don’t...think she does? Honestly, it could just be me, but I do think that TV has gotten much better at writing/directing/presenting female characters in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re literally shoe-horning in a third wheel. And again, ultimately we are supposed to hate her, I just can’t decide if I was picking up on signals that were intentional or not. I remember having similar feelings when they introduced Joe in season 2, but that’s still far ahead.

I am willing to admit that this might be just me. I will not take back the things I’ve said about Emma Watson though, those are justified.

And I think introducing more characters is important. It acts the same way introducing Missouri did -it broadens the world. For half a season, our only constants are the brothers. They’re these lone cowboys in a weird, mystical, dangerous wasteland and the villains are more obstacles than actual villains. When the story you’re telling needs to feel bigger than that, you need to do some world building and sometimes that starts with adding more characters. I will say, I hated Meg less this watch than I did on the first one. Or rather, I hated her cuz I knew she was The Worst, not because I felt like adding her to the show was a threat to the storytelling.

OH! ALSO! The first mention of Dean and Pie! My heart grew three sizes that day!

The hecking diner won’t serve him so he never finds out!!!

And finally, to cap it all off, we have Faith which is...a surprisingly rough episode? Ok, listen, Dean just resignedly accepting his own demise is like, ugh. UGH. ugh. Buddy. Buddy you are NOT Ok. Like, Dean is so intent on keeping everyone else in his family alive but does not seem as concerned about his own health and well-being and that...just...ughghghghg...I have a lot of feelings about that.

Listen, some day I will talk about Sam, but it is NOT THIS DAY.

Like, I get that Rev. Jerry Gergich Roy Le Grange is not actually healing people, but he literally tells Dean that Dean has a purpose and he was saved from an untimely death for a reason, and he’s kind of not wrong? But then he spends the rest of the episode stopping Roy from healing anyone else and feeling overwhelmingly guilty that he was saved over someone else. I think out of everything that season 1 has presented up to this episode, this is the most philosophical and thematically complex. There’s the question of faith vs skepticism - can we ever just blindly believe in a good turn? The fact that Dean can’t says a lot about him as a human. Then there’s the question of who gets to decide who lives and who dies? Who’s worthy of salvation and who isn’t? Why do bad things happen to good people and why do good things happen to Dean? I mean, when Dean sees the Reaper coming for him at the end, he knows that it’s in exchange for Layla’s life and he’s just...Ok with that? He doesn’t try to run or fight it, and it’s only because of Sam that he doesn’t bite it. And the end of this episode is just a real bitch slap to the feels because Layla, our Very Special Extra, knows she’s going to die and she knows she missed out on her chance to be healed because Dean was an Ass with a capital A and took her turn (probably). And she’s also just ok with that and it kills me a little bit on the inside.

Also, Layla is played by Julie Benze from Roswell and Buffy and Dexter and she’s always A+. And Roy was in Snakes on a Plane!

So yeah, not exactly “filler” in the true sense, but ties to the season arc are not as strong as in other episodes. And watching these episodes again I realize just how important they are to the series as a whole. I mentioned Helstrom last week and since then, I’ve finished the season. It’s only 10 episodes, and while I definitely enjoyed it, none of the emotional climaxes felt earned.

Is how I feel. About the Emotions in Helstrom. That doesn’t mean I won’t watch a season 2.

When you focus solely on the main arc in every single episode, you miss these little moments to develop character and relationships. When you get to the end of the season where the Winchesters are finally all in the same room taking on the Big Bad, there’s this feeling of satisfaction - you’ve been waiting for this moment. You’ve been waiting for Sam to reconcile with his father. You’ve been waiting for the guys to finally take on this thing that killed Mary Winchester. You’ve been waiting to see what will happen when the quest is over. That’s what makes the character decisions in the finale feel so big and so important, because they’ve been built up and built up for 22 episodes - 7 months in broadcast time. I think it’s harder to have the sort of weight that Supernatural builds in a show that stays so focused on the arc because its season is only 8 - 10 eps. There’s no room for sidetracking to build on the relationships in the show. You don’t have time for it, so you either have to keep character moments smaller (I’d argue MUCH smaller) or you end up with a finale that doesn’t resonate with the same gravitas as you want it to.

Don’t get me wrong - I know it sounds like I’m ragging on short seasons, but I think a short season can be very effective when it’s done right. I also think a full season of 22 - 24 episodes can be very effective when it’s done right. But I think there’s a fundamental difference in how you tell the story when you have a short vs. a long season. I think TV is still figuring that out as it goes, as writers who are accustomed to long seasons shift gears to tell their stories with fewer installments. But I hope that TV doesn’t completely do away with the more procedural-style/self-contained episodes since those can be a powerful way to connect with your characters. That’s why I’m here in the first place.

#Supernatural #Supernatural Season 1 #supernatural rewatch #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Sam and Dean #Home #Faith #Scarecrow #Asylum #Jared Padalecki #Jensen Ackles #CW #Meg

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cursedserpenthq · 5 years ago

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The Cursed Serpent has now been open over two months. I want to thank you all for making the first two months of this adventure so enjoyable. I am such a lucky admin to have reliable members who truly care about their roles, this group, and the other members. You all are so compassionate with each other ooc, are overwhelmingly inclusive, bring creativity to the group that I never could have dreamed of, and make being an admin so much easier. Your feedback, participation, and constructive criticism has made the group even better, and I can’t wait for all of the months to come!

With all that sappiness out of the way, I have a few upcoming IC updates and some admin business to make note of. I know this post is lengthy, but it’s important. Please like the post once you’ve read it in full.

IC Updates & Upcoming Happenings:

The votes are in and the next Jewel our crew will hunt down is the Water/Weather Jewel! As one of the crew members is a mermaid who was once part of the colony that protects the Jewel, I’ll be working with them to plan out the protection and the journey. While the path to the first Jewel was straightforward, the rest of the hunts will not be so clear. From now on, the journeys will take more time and include more twists, turns, and dead ends!

As you all are aware, we finished the main portion of our intruder plot about a week ago. The intruder will not reveal how to work the Memory Jewel to the crew. (After all, we have to give the crew some challenges when it comes to the Jewel itself!) Instead, the crew will embark on a journey to find someone who can help them work the Jewel properly. More information about this will come after our roles get a chance to rest and relax at Port Royal.

Speaking of Port Royal, the crew will arrive this coming Sunday (May 10th OOC). On Sunday, you’re free to post starters set there. Feel free to continue and finish any threads from the ship.

Our next discord event will likely take place the week of the 17th to give everyone time to get a few normal/non-event threads in during Port Royal.

The lore has been updated with information from answered questions and plotting discussions in the discord as well as IC developments. A always, you’re welcome to ask lore questions and submit suggestions both in the discord and to the main.

Admin Business:

With the state of the world right now and the stress all of us are under, I have done my best to be extra understanding when it comes to activity, holding limited threads, and not posting opens. However, I’ve noticed that this is starting to impact activity on the dash. Please be aware that after this post is made, I will be looking at all character accounts weekly to make sure that no one is bubbling, opens are being posted and replied to on a regular basis, and that no one’s posting pattern suggests that they are only posting last minute to avoid being placed on the activity check. We are a group with a three day activity limit, and that will not change. This is the second time that I’ve needed to make an admin note on this topic, so from now on, official warnings will be given to those who are consistently breaking the activity rules. Of course, real life happens to all of us, me included. As you all know, I suffer from a mental illness, and even I have days where I simply cannot post. That’s okay. You’re allowed to need a day off. There are days where you’ll only feel like replying to one person for whatever reason. You are allowed to take hiatuses and not give me, or the rest of the group, a reason for it (as long as you let me know that you need the hiatus.) All I ask is that you communicate with me if you need to be off the dash for three or more days or if your activity will be spotty for more than a week, just so I know that you’re not starting a pattern of posting to avoid the activity checks. I appreciate and value all of you and want you to be here. If there’s someone or something on the dash that is making it difficult for you to post or hurting your muse, even if it’s me, a plot, an event, etc. - please come to me. I’ll do my absolute best to help figure out a solution.

On the topic of coming to me with issues, I’ve been approached by a few members with the very valid concern that the pacing of the rp, even given our three day activity limit, has been too fast and is impacting the members’ ability to not only complete threads for the group wide events and plots, but also impacting their ability to complete personal plots. I hear you, I understand, and I’ll be making adjustments to the timing of events and plots going forward to help make sure everyone can tell their stories without feeling rushed. We will always be a group with regular plots and events, and because of our three day activity limit, we move faster than some other groups, but I do want to make sure that everyone has time to complete their threads and that they do not feel pressured to rush things. That’s not fun for anyone, and the point of rping is to have fun! With that being said, please remember that just because there will be more time between big events and plots, that does not mean your activity needs to come to a halt. There’s plenty to write about and tons of personal plots I know all of you have been developing! The point of the slightly slower pace is to ensure you all have time to tell stories, so make sure you’re taking advantage of that!

Additionally, I’ll be doing my best to give you all more information about plots and events beforehand and when they start. Hopefully, this will also help with the pace of the group and give you all an opportunity to tell your role’s story more fully without having to worry about when the next big issue will be dropped in and change everything. It should also help you all work your roles’ personal drama and storylines into the overarching plot.

When volunteering to help with group wide plots, or even just plots with other members, please be mindful of your time restraints and personal limits. Of course, there are some instances were we all believe we will have time to do something and then we realize we don’t. That’s okay. If that happens, please respectfully let the main or, if you’re helping with a specific character’s plot, the mun know so that we can make different plans and adjust. If you volunteer to help with someone’s plot, or if you ask for volunteers with a plot, please make sure you’re communicating with one another so that no one feels stuck or like they’re letting someone down.

I personally think as a group we have done a good job of welcoming new members. I see the effort you all put in to make others feel welcome, and I appreciate it so much. I would love to see this continue. So, remember, even if you don’t love pre-plotting and prefer to jump in and assume connections/go off chemistry instead, make sure you’re answering opens, posting opens, and interacting with new members. We are a small group, so everyone knows everyone, and there’s no reason that your character wouldn’t know someone else on the ship or wouldn’t have some reason to interact with them. if there’s an issue that’s making you feel uncomfortable answering or posting opens or reaching out for plots, please come to the main ASAP so we can figure out a solution!

Wooo, okay that was a lot! Thank you so much for sticking it out and reading the entire post. Remember to give this post a like!

#cs:admin

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loreolympians · 5 years ago

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How To Publish Well (What These Tags & Warnings Even Mean)

In order to publish to Archive of Our Own (AO3), you must fill out several data fields for each piece of fan fiction. Beyond improving your fic’s searchability, these data points are important for a more crucial reason - your readers’ safety.

Too Long; Didn’t Read (TLDR):

TAG WITH THE READER IN MIND: Try to get outside your head as the writer and put the readers’ potential triggers, preferences, and experience first. Take the time to learn the details below. Once you know them, it’s hard to forget.

USE A CLEAR WARNING: Think twice before keeping the default “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings.” If your story has no graphic violence, major death, rape/non-con, or underage sexual activity, go with “No Archive Warnings Apply.”

BREVITY IS THE SOUL OF WIT: Keep your summaries & tags brief to be easily digestible to the reader.

Category

This designates the romantic relationships present. Most fanfic involves romance, so for the few who don’t, your ‘category’ is “Gen/General” - For all others, read on:

F/F & F/M & M/M - Female/Female, Female/Male, and/or Male/Male romantic relationship, respectively.

Multi - More than one kind of romantic relationship, or a relationship with multiple partners.

Other - Romantic relationships that do not fall in the above. This is RARE. Do not tag family relationships with this. You will confuse/alarm your readers.

Gen/General: Either no romantic or sexual relationships or relationships are not the main focus of the work.

Relationships

Very simply, a: / (slash) indicates a ROMANTIC relationship - Jill/Joan are getting sexy & (ampersand) indicates a PLATONIC relationship (friend/family) Jill & Joan are best buds

Note: I beg of you (as a lover of side character ships) to only list those relationships that are SIGNIFICANT to the story. If two people are together or friends but their relationship has no change or spotlight in the fic, please do NOT include their relationship tag. Your story will populate when people search for that couple and irritate readers (such as myself) who find the coupling has no significant ‘story’ to tell. Readers are also learning to use a new “otp= true” search functionality which may limit your reach. If people are looking for just a story about H+P but you include 3 other relationships, you wouldn’t show up in that search.

Characters:

Self-explanatory. List all the characters in the story that are important enough to name (more than a brief flash of them in the background).

Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply - Reader doesn’t need any warnings as there is NO graphic violence, major character death, rape/non-con, or underage sexual activity.

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings - One of the warnings below apply, but you don’t want to tell the reader.

Note: This the DEFAULT. Please consider other options, as this is very vague and many readers, like myself, avoid fics with this tag because it sounds like it's saying “The writer should warn you about something awful but is choosing not to.”

Graphic Depictions Of Violence - Gory, graphic, explicitly described violence.

Major Character Death - A central character to your story dies.

Rape/Non-Con - Non-consensual interactions, often sexual, are present in your story.

Underage - Characters under age 18 engage in sexual activity (doesn’t include kissing or vague references).

Rating:

Not Rated - Default. This is treated the same as mature/explicit re: warnings since the site cannot detect what content is in your work. Please avoid this and be clear!

General - Suitable for all ages that can read. Should have no disturbing content.

Teen And Up - Appropriate for ages 13 and up. Can have romance but not explicit whatsoever

Mature - 18+ Adult themes present (sex, violence, etc), but not overly graphic or taking up a large portion of the story. Like a rated R movie.

Explicit - 18+ The story revolves around adult themes (erotica-level sex, very graphic violence and/or disturbing imagery).

Additional Tags

This is where it gets interesting. Ideally, tags are simple ways to inform the reader about the content. However, the way you use tags can either be super helpful to your reader, kinda funny, or come across as annoying (even callous/harmful). My suggestions:

KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid. Stick to the tags that truly represent the fic. Help readers search and find it based on the content. Don’t go overboard.

Look over the most popular tags and pick a handful that fit. Ask your beta reader or other writers for ideas on good tags to use! As of May 2020, these were the most frequently used tags in the Lore Olympus fandom: Fluff, Romance, Smut, Oral Sex, Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Fluff and Smut, Fluff and Angst, Not Beta Read, Shameless Smut

If you have to make a joke with a tag, please limit to a couple. Many people make their tags humorous, though hearing from backend (unpaid) AO3 staff, this becomes a hassle for them to clean up down the road. If you do make humorous tags, please be mindful and perhaps pare down their use.

Why is tagging/warning/rating important?

The better you tag/code your fiction, the better AO3 as a search engine operates. See “How to Search AO3.”

More importantly, your fiction affects your reader. We hope positively, but some content can be triggering or harmful. The beautiful thing about AO3 is its rating, warning, and tagging system, but it’s only good if the writers utilize it.

Many readers will seek out your fics based on how well you categorize. Perhaps they are seeking out a long-form angst with a Mature/Explicit rating.

Other readers will avoid your fics for the same reason (to protect themselves). Perhaps they explicitly avoid angst, sexual content, abuse and violence (to not trigger their own trauma).

Treat your readers kindly. Be transparent about your work (don’t try to trick people to read by avoiding tags/warnings). Warnings and tags should not be seen as “spoilers” but rather a necessary precaution to keep the reader informed and safe.

Part of a Series or Chapters?

Deciding whether you want your multi-part fan fiction to be one “work” with multiple chapters or separate pieces that are part of a “series” is a tough one. This is just a suggestion and not always the case:

One fic with multiple chapters - There is one main story. The first chapter and last chapter form a cohesive journey, and each piece cannot really be read (enjoyably) alone.

A series with multiple parts - The reader could read one part and be satisfied. They could even jump into part 2, 5, or 12 and read it without much context and find the story enjoyable and with its own individual, unique arc.

Summary

Give the reader a sense for the story in 2-4 sentences (think of it like an ad copy tweet for your favorite book).

Maybe include a short quote to entice or give a sense for your voice. Short being the operative word.

Avoid self-indulgent apologies or overly personal context. Chapter Notes (which you can place either before or after a chapter) are designed more for these personal messages, such as if you’re nervous because it’s your first fic or what it was that inspired you or saying thanks to a friend/beta reader.

There is more to AO3, such as co-authors, challenges, collections, etc. But that’s enough for now :)

Sources: This excellent Tumblr post, AO3’s lengthy FAQ section, and personal trial and error as both a reader and writer.

#Guide #Writing Tips #Writers Guide #fanfic #ao3 writer #ao3 #how to

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lokisasylum · 5 years ago

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Forever, You Said | Chap 04-06 re-cap

The following is a complete breakdown/re-cap of everything that’s happened so far during the following chapters of Forever, You Said.

Chapter 04: A Masked Ball (A Fated Reunion)

Chapter 05: Forever and Never, pt 01

Chapter 06: Forever and Never, pt 02

You can read the first re-cap HERE which covers Chapters 01-03

Since Chapter 07 and 08 are halfway done, I figured I’d better just post the recaps now.

Chapter 04: A Masked Ball (The fated reunion)

In the previous chapter (A Blackened Soul) we got a glimpse of everyone’s past through various change of scenes and POVs.

Namjoon and Jungkook

Hoseok and Jin

Jimin and Taehyung

And in the end we were left with the much anticipated event:

The Vampire Ball.

Chapter 04 opens up where Chapter 03 ended, with Namjoon and Junkook arriving to Paju and awaiting among the thousands of guests to get into the venue.

Once inside and briefly getting sidetracked by the activities around them they are greeted by Seokjin personally. The older vampire wastes no time in secretly measuring Jungkook’s worth and intentions with Jimin, but finding no malice in his heart he lets it slide as he and Namjoon have a small reunion between “old lovers”.

Ever impatient and slightly annoyed, Jungkook has to tear his eyes away from the scene when his eyes quickly take note of a familiar shade of blue among the sea of guests and barely makes a coherent sentence towards Namjoon before hurrying through the crowd in search of this person believing in his heart to be Jimin.

But when he finally catches up to the person and reaches out to stop them he find out (to his dismay) that its not Jimin, but Taehyung. The werewolf had decided to play a trick on Jungkook by acting as an obstacle to furthermore stall his reunion with Jimin.

Now at the very end of his patience, Jungkook was just about ready to blow a gasket when he remembered Namjoon’s warning for the night:

“If you want to get to Jimin you must first go through Kim Taehyung—“

With that thought in mind, Jungkook decides to first try to get on everyone’s good side instead of rushing everything and screwing up the only chance he has. Starting with his peace treaty with Taehyung by offering a birthday gift to him, much like Namjoon had done with Seokjin earlier.

Meanwhile, Jimin along with others are going over the last minute preparations for the night’s presentation. There’s a moment where he takes a peak from behind the curtains of the main stage trying to find the others by sensing their auras and scents. All seems to be going in order until a familiar scent makes him loose focus and begin to despair, but he quickly snaps out of it thanks to Hoseok’s concern.

Brushing it aside Jimin takes a moment before the show to check his phone and finds a few new messages which turn out to be one from Taehyung wishing him luck for the performance. And another message, but this time from someone in Malta wondering when he’s coming back.

This seems to disrupt his focus a second time as Jimin hesitates on whether to answer the message or not. Knowing very well that he shouldn’t be second-guessing his choices at this moment when he had already planned on leaving quietly after the performance. So for now he decides to ignore everything and just focus on the task at hand before Hoseok gets suspicious.

Back with the others, Jungkook has gradually relaxed and opened up to Seokjin, Taehyung and Namjoon throughout the night, while at the same time learning a bit more from each one. But a moment from friendly banter between Jin and Taehyung has him making a quick escape from the table with Taehyung to avoid the older vampire’s wrath.

A few minutes before the main show begins, Taehyung suddenly turns on Jungkook discarding all pretenses from before to give him a stern warning.

“If you so much as allow a single tear to fall from his (Jimin) eyes, know that I will not hesitate to reach into your ribcage and rip out your still beating heart as I watch your drown in your own blood!”

The music in the venue gets cut off as the main event is about to begin and Jungkook is grateful for the distraction. But what really captures his attention is that two of the main attractions are none other than Hoseok and Jimin themselves. Jungkook is absolutely captivated (for the second time since they met) by the blue haired vampire’s voice and stunning performance, but just as quickly as it began it ends. And Jungkook is once again running after someone until he makes it back stage where the others are congratulating Jimin.

It doesn’t take long for him to sense Jungkook’s presence, however, and approach the other in disbelief until the latter takes off his mask to reveal himself. Leading Jimin to go through a whirlwind of mixed emotions as, one by one, the others confess to knowing that JK was coming to the ball all along and how badly he had been wanting to see him again.

Guilt washes over Jimin for being angry at his family despite the fact that he himself was keeping secrets from them all along. But seeing there’s no escape from neither the past or the present he agrees to speak with Jungkook in private and the two exit the venue into the parking lot where they eventually take refuge in Jimin’s car from the cold weather.

A few hours of silence pass between them in the car, save for the sound of Jimin’s phone vibrating insistently and Jungkook can see that something’s not right with the smaller male as he eventually confesses to planning on leaving without a trace but now feels trapped by duty and loyalty.

Surprised by the news, Jungkook tries to persuade Jimin to stay in order to give them both a chance to get to know each other better, still clinging to the believe that nothing about their initial meeting had been a coincidence and now their fates had been sealed like their matching tattoos.

Jimin although still heavily skeptical decides to momentarily set his doubts and fears aside and kisses Jungkook.

------

Chapter 05: “Forever and Never, pt. I”

Chapter five opens up with Jungkook now in Jimin’s apartment a few hours after they left the ball. The two had agreed to spent the night together and while they freshened up separately, Jungkook still can’t believe everything that’s happened and the strange turn of events that led to them meeting again.

‘I’m really here—HE’s here.’

But more surprising was knowing that Jimin’s present-day-persona is a cop. A fact Jungkook tries to poke fun at later on when he reunites with Jimin in the livingroom, only to be chastised by the older male for snooping around his stuff.

A light discussion that ends in the kitchen when Jungkook notices that Jimin had been drinking blood or feeding only moments prior and seems to freeze at the realization. More so because the empty blood pint he finds on the counter shows its his blood type (A).

Sensing Jungkook’s distress and fearing this night could take a turn for the worse, Jimin has no choice but to lower his own defenses and make himself as open and vulnerable as possible for Jungkook to feel comfortable enough to sit and speak so that they could clear up whatever doubts they have between them.

Jimin tells him the best way that he can what he is, how vampire society really works unlike popular lore or fiction. Also debunking most myths.

But what really changes Jungkook’s perspective is hearing and seeing the misery in Jimin’s entire being and how lonely he must’ve felt all this time.

“I know you’re afraid, Jungkook-ah... And I won’t hold it against you if you decide to walk away right now.”

But Jungkook is quick to deny having such intentions, stating that it was thanks to Jimin that he was able to open his eyes and realize he was slowly wasting his life away and now that he had finally found Jimin, he had no intentions of letting the vampire out of his sight ever again.

Jimin attempts to give him an ultimatum as to what he was agreeing and getting himself into, and only when he receives full verbal consent from his human counterpart does he seal their pact with a kiss.

The two eventually make it back to the bedroom where they have passionate sex, but while they lay in each other’s arms coming down from their high, something triggers Jimin’s desire to claim and turn Jungkook. And though he tries to fight against it, Jungkook’s tender gestures remind him too much of Yoongi, making Jimin feel weak and way too vulnerable. So he has no choice but to use his dark gift to put Jungkook to sleep again so that he can have time to regain his bearings enough to think straight.

The chapter ends with dawn quickly approaching and Jimin making up his to seek out advice from a close friend.

------

Chapter 06: “Forever and Never, pt. II”

This chapter is divided by Two Acts (Act 01: [Scarred Hearts] & Act 02: [A Heart Without Color]) and

Act 01: [Scarred Hearts]

The first one opens up with Jimin and Taehyung sitting in a café after the vampire requested to meet with his lifelong friend and soulmate alone.

After teasing one another about their individual nightly activities and respective lovers. Taehyung, being in tune with Jimin’s true feelings, didn’t take long to gear the conversation towards the true reason for their meeting. Wanting to know what could be bothering the smaller vampire to such a scale when the night before he sounded like he was finally in good spirits and in complete control of the situation.

Jimin admits to feeling confused, lost and full of doubts now that Jungkook had somehow made it back to his life and although the two had wordlessly agreed to leave the past at the door once they made it to Jimin’s apartment in Hannam. To start over anew. But something changed, causing Jimin to internally panic thinking that the story would repeat itself.

Taehyung quickly reassures him otherwise, and that Jungkook was a good man who risked a lot just to be with him again even after knowing that Jimin was a vampire and therefore was worth a shot.

“I don’t know what to tell him.”

"Just tell him who you are, plain and simple. Leave nothing out just like you’ve always done in the past and let him decide in the end”

Jimin is grateful for the advice and words of encouragement though deep down he still feels guilty for not being completely honest with Taehyung about wanting to leave them all the night prior had it not been for Jungkook’s arrival. A fact that is shown to us through a memory of the night before and the mysterious person Jimin had been talking to on the phone when Jungkook found him in the living room.

Turns out the mystery person was none other than Jimin’s police partner in Malta, Maxwell. Who was worried about Jimin’s whereabouts since he was scheduled to fly back to Malta that very night, but then never did.

Jimin informs that there’s been a change of plans and he might need a few extra days to decide what to do.

Maxwell warns him that he doesn’t think he can continue to stall for him before their boss decides to suspend him if he doesn’t either return to Malta soon or offer a much more detailed explanation.

Jimin tells him that he doesn’t expect the man to and to just look out for him until he can decide in the following days.

Act 02: [A Heart Without Color]

Back to the present and opening up with Act Two, we find Jungkook finally awake in Jimin’s apartment. And though at first he’s mildly disoriented, he slowly regains some memory of what happened the night before and how he got there.

But for some reason he can’t explain, Jimin’s words begin to haunt and fill him with a sense of abandonment that has him sprinting out of the bedroom only to crash into the vampire on the hallway as he was coming over to wake him up so he could eat. Ending with the two toppling on to the ground.

Now relieved that Jimin is still there and everything before that was all in his head. Jungkook embraces Jimin tightly and they share a proper “morning kiss”.

After a brief flirting/lover’s quarrel session, Jungkook can’t help but notice a shift in the vampire’s semblance as Jimin hands him clean clothes for him to change into after he bathes. The same abrupt shift in emotions from the night prior before loosing consciousness. Causing Jungkook’s anxiety to fly off the roof thinking that Jimin was having a change of heart by trying to get rid of him after all.

Jimin calmly instructs him to take a long bath, eat and replenish his strength and that only when he feels ready to face him should he come looking for him so that they two can sit and properly talk. A task that Jungkook fulfills without further protests.

Soon it was late in the afternoon when the two lovers are sitting side by side in a silence that stretches for a while longer with both simply basking in each other’s company.

Jimin is the first to break it when he asks Jungkook if he’s truly ready to hear “the whole truth”, to which Jungkook asserts right away knowing that this was the moment he had been waiting for all along.

And so Jimin begins his story of how he was born in Busan during the late 17th Century in the Joseon era. A mother and father whom he honored, a younger brother which he loved dearly and a life of duty as a young soldier in the militia. Though his perfect world was violently shaken when a vampire attacked him and his brother as the two made the journey home to see off their dying father.

In a desperate attempt to protect his little brother, Jimin stays behind to fight the vampire while his brother escapes. But the vampire proves to be too strong and in a matter of minutes Jimin is pinned to the ground and despite still putting up a fight, the vampire drains him of all his blood. Leaving him hanging on to his life by a thread.

Rather than killing him right away, the vampire makes a bargain with him. To surrender himself in exchange for his life and the safety of his family. But Jimin never gets the chance to make that choice as he is turned against his will.

When Jimin awakens the following morning he finds out the horrible news that not only is he now a vampire, but that his entire family has been slaughtered.

Jungkook can only feel pity for Jimin this early into the story and how he had to literally forsake his humanity in order to embrace his new life as a newborn vampire whose sole survival depended mainly on human blood.

But as the story progresses, Jungkook will learn that the friend from Daegu Jimin had mentioned during their first meeting was indeed Taehyung. The two had met after Jimin saved Tae from a midnight carnival that specialized in exhibiting “human oddities”, when a group of vampires attacked and killed his entire pack before selling him to the carnival where he was mistreated daily.

After a rough start, the two began traveling together out of safety and gradually evolving into a close friendship that made them inseparable for centuries to come.

The chapter ends with Jimin beginning the second half of his story on how they eventually met Seokjin. Marking the beginning of the cataclysm for things to come...

#bts #bts au #jikook #kookmin #vmin #jikook vampire au #Forever You Said #vhope #namjin #yoonmin #Ao3 #ao3fic #ao3 fic #vampire au #vampire jimin #tattoo artist jungkook #werewolf taehyung

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arkus-rhapsode · 5 years ago

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Ok. So what do you think of the latest chapters of fairy tail 100 years quests? What what's happening to characters? I think you're so possed that you even stopped reading more

Hoo boy... *Cracks knuckles* We may be here for a while.

So before I start, let me make clear that I actually keep up with 100YQ, though not for any actual interest anymore. I now stay with it for ironic enjoyment. Because I could say EZ has dumb stuff, but at this point, if you’re Hiro Mashima’s main audience, its fine. No, 100YQ is unique in that it has WTF moments that transcend just the FT fandom sensibilities.

Before I dig in, I’m gonna lay out some formatting rules because we’re cover A LOT. Im gonna be fair and split this up into positive and negative aspects of the series. Because I at least try to be intellectually in what I do.

To avoid from going on tangents and jumping around, I’m gonna be going in chronological order of events. Now this will not be an overview of the series up to this point because that’s stuff I’ve already talked about. Instead I’m gonna start from the point this went from genuine interest to ironic interest. That begin the Whited Out FT Guild.

Positives:

The concept of the wood dragon god having a kingdom on his back is really cool world building. Its actually something that I really liked about the Sea Dragon God as well. Having a realm reliant on the dragon as well as a reason to revere them. What with the water dragon god controlling the tides while wood dragon god is the supporting the city on his back actually makes them seem like god figures and adds to the lore of the world of Earthland in a way that Ishgar and Alvarez sorely failed at.

Laxus punching out Kyria. Petty yes, as Kyria is my least favorite dragon slayer. However a lot of Whited out FT mages were getting jobbered like crazy or just given unceremonious defeats. So Laxus actually seeming like an obstacle was good.

The cat twist with Touka is actually a funny bit of trolling and was one of the few times there was effective foreshadowing with Touka having a tail. (Too bad it was suck in the meandering Gajeel plot.)

The Dragon Eater guild is a much better final villain army than Spriggan 12. The 12 had little structure as to who was the stronger members, resulting in multiple Spriggans feeling like such major disappointments.

Most Mashima Villain organizations tend to broken up like this: Boss->Special Units (I.E Spriggan 12, Nine Demon Gates, Element 4)->Fodder Units.

No one cares when the fodder of a villain group is beaten as they’re just faceless minions. However, when you get to the special unit, that’s wheen there are actual obstacles and the villains start becoming more like characters. However, Hiro has been bad at this when he’s dealing with bigger organizations.

He never had to worry about telling you which member of the villain group’s special unit were more powerful than the others. Due to working with units composed of low amounts of characters, such as Team Lyon, Element 4, and Death’s Head.

You could say that all were roughly around the same power threshold. However, where the spriggan 12 royally failed was there were 12 of them in that unit and they were all just given the blanket term of being on the same level of the number 1 wizard saint. Yeah... that’s a check so large that Hiro could not cash it.

Hiro even seemed to retroactively acknowledge this by stating that August, Irene, and Larcarde were the three best to cover his ass for the fact that all the spriggans seemed to be jobbered far easier than ones supposedly equal to the number 1 saint.

However, the Dragon Eaters are opponents we’re gradually introduced to over the storyline and we actually see a demonstration of what a group of them can do, instead of 1 just trying take on all of team Natsu at once. We see that Skullion’s team is roughly equal to Team Natsu, giving us a gauge for the Dragon Eater strength, but then we get both Wraith and Nebal, underlings not part of Skullion’s thre man team, implying that are of a weaker variety and thus serving as a stepping stone to fight Skullion. But also introducing us to the Black Dragon Slayer Cavalry. Members above Skullion’s team that give us an idea if when they show up what the audience should expect of their strength level.

There’s a reason why in One Piece why Yonkou opperations have so many categories. You’re not gonna care about the minor thugs, but by making a distinction between the Headliners and the Disasters in Kaidou’s crew, you’ve made it so that we the audience will not feel disappointed if a Headliner is beat by a weaker character like say Usopp but still know that they are more than a foot soldier so this win meant something.

Now time for the negatives:

The concept of White Out is not awful, and is actually a fairly interesting concept for a villain motivation in FT. However, the White Witch is one of the most transparently evil characters in the series, thus you know that she’s doing this morally ambiguous action because she’s evil. Imagine if this were about humans or royals who feared the growing power of mages. Or a disillusioned mage with the concept of people like Zeref or the GMG, where is seems like magic is endless and how that’s a threat to the world. No, White Witch really seems like she wants to be this grand manipulator and actively enjoys calling heer whited out people, puppets.

However, there’s also the fact the whiting out doesn’t make too much sense. Some characters seem like mind controlled puppets like Juvia, while others are basically the same except their evil now like Gajeel, Mira, Elfman, Laxus. And some are dumb jokes like Jellal.

So there’s no consistency to this brainwashing. Only other time I’ve seen a mind control plot like that in media before is Yugioh GX. Sometimes people act like they’ve been brainwashed into something different like Alexis. But then people like Bastion and a lot of the gag members of the society like Rose and Bob act as if they’re not affected by anything.

Yeah, this white witch plot feels distractedly ripped off from the society of Light from Yugioh GX.

The concept of Team Natsu vs FT in the vain of the fighting festival arc is dumb narratively from two standpoints. First from a story standpoint in the idea that why the battle of FT arc was opportunity, due to the fact they were all willing to fight to free the frozen girls. Which allowed for others to show shades to their motivations Like Alzack willing to mow through his other comrades for Bisca or Thunder God Tribe assisting in protecting Laxus so he’s the last man standing. There’s a tangible reward on th line that motivates the characters to act as do.

Here, the characters are clearly fighting against their will because of an intangible force. This white magic makes them slaves and are fighting because “white doctrine.” Something they only believeebecause brainwashing. As such, you want to see Natsu and gang beat them up to stop the white witch and free them. There’s no force or intrigue that makes the audience care about both sides like seeing Alzack vs Jet and Droy because you know they both want to save their partners but only one can. Instead people only care because a surface level of “friend turned evil” device. It takes the B and C list cast of the FT guild and makes them props.

And from a meta standpoint, there is no tension, due to the fact this is a post final battle with acnologia Team Natsu. The team is bounds ahead of so many guild members like Macao, Reedus, Max etc. that the only real threat is the S class mages. So that makes that big page spread of evil FT in cult robes dull as only like 3 of them are gonna actually matter.

Then there’s Wraith. Nebal was a boring an generic crazy guy is unimpressive, Wriath was actually really interesting at first. Is ghost magic allowed for an interesting fight and his possession actually having limitations on how effective it was made for a cool skill.

But then the reveal about him and Makarov. I eye-rolled at that point, but then I saw the previews and was like, maybe this’ll be the best thing to come out of this series. Everyone wants to know more about past FT around team Makarov’s time.

But all the potential of young Makarov and young Porylusica and the rest of their team is put on fast forward as they’re all suddenly thinking about leaving. But maybe the reveal with Wraith could be interesting. I saw a lot of good theories like Wraith was Makarov’s half brother or Wraith was the son of Makarov and Porylusica who was killed by Ivan.

Well... Any theory would’ve been better than Wraith was some random ass mage and when they say he a Makarov are related its because the bonds of FT that is real family and transcends death itself.

...Gag me...

And and Wraith just fucks off into the afterlife. Because we can’t actually end a fight because of the protagonist’s ingenuity. No, the villain just kills themselves because feels. Isn’t that right August and Irene?

In conclusion

That’s my thoughts as briefly and coherent as I could make them. So if you wanna know my feelings on 100YQ, it can basically be summed in FT being FT. If you expected more, you’re gonna be disappointed. But if you genuinely love the world and character regardless of Hiro’s writing, you’ll probably still enjoy it regardless of what I’m saying

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exsanguisdraconis · 5 years ago

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i don’t have a blog for this so even tho i’m supposed to be fixing this blog up and getting active i’m going to use this blog to viciously complain about HBO’s His Dark Materials. the below opinions are overwhelmingly negative so if you aren’t interested in that, don’t read it.

I just... don’t understand these writers. I feel like over the course of the five episodes we’ve had that I’ve been very laid back. My expectations were high, I’ll admit that, because I needed SOMETHING to save me from the absolute shit tornado that was The Secret Commonwealth. I needed some good HDM to lift me up from that low and I was counting on the show. Maybe that was unfair.

To start off with some good things the show, for the most part, looks really nice. Most of the actors are really good. I was pleasantly surprised about the number of POC in the cast. The daemons, though not focused on nearly enough, still look really nice. Ruth Wilson is phenomenal in her role as Mrs. Coulter and even in the couple of scenes where I was like “why did they add this to her character” Ruth acts it out so well I’m happy to just accept it. I think this show is adding in a lot of the complexity to her character that Pullman always wanted, and given she was one of my first “older villain woman I definitely shouldn’t be in love with but am” crushes in media I’m thrilled about that.

My main problem with the show is that it’s---boring. And it’s ridiculously frustrating because it feels like you have to put effort into making it so bland and dry.

The newest episode is an absolute train wreck that lumps together all the minor issues I’ve had with the show into one big pile of shit.

First off I’ve never seen Dafne Keen in anything else. I don’t know if she’s a good actress. I know that in this, she’s really really bad. Even when they put her in emotional scenes, her inability to act like she has real human emotions sucks the life out of them. When Coram was recounting the story of his lost son in the last episode I went from being a little choked up to almost laughing with how much it just didn’t seem like Lyra gave a fuck. Her delivery is so monotone that it just zaps the feeling out of everything she touches.

Secondly what the fuck happened with Billy Costa. Or more specifically what the fuck happened with how they chose to handle the scenes with Billy. The death of Billy, the reactions of people toward him, the dialogue from Iorek, these are some of the most interesting parts of the book. But rather than having Lyra ask, get denied, and then ask Iorek to take her anyway, whisking her off into the night and encountering the witches and creeping into the fishing village where they’re met with terrified villagers... they spend several scenes with Lyra just asking people if she can go. And it’s not even heated argument or charming wit. It’s just “I want to go” and “No it’s out of the way and too dangerous.” Over and over again.

This really hits on a big problem I have with a lot of media right now where they want to tell me something rather than show it. Usually because that’s the cheaper route of doing things. I get it. The bear is probably difficult and costly to animate... however, why have him IN the show at all if he doesn’t get to be a proper character with proper emotional building scenes. I would have much rather them cut that scene where he’s just giving exposition on bears to Lyra in favor of him telling Lyra about the witches going to war and shaming the people for not having Lyra’s bravery in dealing with Billy Costa. Because those are scenes that tell us something about Iorek the character, and that’s always going to mean more than general lore about Svalbard’s bears.

You see it doesn’t mean anything to me to hear the words “it’s dangerous” or “something is really wrong here” and then not.... see it. The scene with Billy is meant to turn your stomach. You’re supposed to think “who the fuck are these people mutilating children in this way” as Billy repeatedly clings to a dead, dried fish and vacantly asks “where’s Ratta” over and over. And something that adds to that revulsion is seeing how other people treat this small, innocent, injured child. It’s not with compassion and sadness. People are AFRAID of Billy. They don’t want to look at him or touch him. The fishermen beg for Iorek and Lyra to come and relieve them of this evil being. They have no compassion for this child, no outrage for what has been done to him. All they have is fear.

And maybe I missed Iorek’s iconic “when I’m afraid I will master my fear” but I’ve watched the episode through twice and haven’t found HIM saying it first. So Lyra not wanting to look like a coward in front of him, and Lyra mastering her fear in favor of compassion for Billy means NOTHING. Because it wasn’t in the show. There was no scene where Lyra sees that Billy’s daemon substitute has been ripped from his dead hands and she flies into a rage at the utter disrespect of the people around her. There’s no scene where she gives him the coin with Ratta’s name scratched out in an attempt to give him that dignity and respect that was ripped from him before he died. So what did we get to replace these deeply emotional and telling scenes? Two sing-a-longs from people that can’t goddamn sing.

The thing about these scenes is they’re very straight forward, and we don’t care enough about Ma Costa or John Fa to care that they’re sad. At most they tell us “the Gyptian people are united” but we’ve already seen that. It was the FIRST thing they showed us about them. What we haven’t seen yet in this show is Lyra’s character development. Where Lyra starts to go from a pigheaded, selfish child into a more mature and compassionate person. These scenes rob the situation of deeper meaning. Because we KNOW Billy’s mom is sad, we don’t necessarily need to see it. The story isn’t about her or John Fa. The story is about Lyra, and by cutting more meaningful scenes where she deals with Billy and shows him compassion, and instead just showing her be a little sad at his grave side... it feels flat and emotionless. I didn’t feel sickened or sad for Billy.

I’ve read the books over a dozen times, and out of the series I feel like The Golden Compass/Northern Lights is the most special. It is paced well and filled to the brim with interesting characters and when things happen they happen for a reason. The show is making cheap shots at my emotions by showing a crying mother and honestly it’s bouncing off the rim.

To be clear I WANT this show to work. I felt like episode 4 was perfect. I had absolutely no complaints aside from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s painful attempt at a southern accent. I LIKE that they’re showing a bit of Will’s backstory rather than try and juggle flashbacks or exposition in season 2 (if they get a s2 and I don’t think they will unfortunately). In fact, it seems like most of the scenes they add in for themselves, most of the details they insert, actually have a lot of depth and feeling. Mrs. Coulter’s relationship with her daemon and her scenes of dialogue that hint at her self loathing is brilliant. The scene where Tony and his friend break into her home in defiance of Ma Costa and the others is exciting and emotional.

Third and finally I just feel like this show is trying too hard to say “I’m not the movie.” First off, I don’t think The Golden Compass was a terrible movie. There are a lot of things I don’t like, but when I think of a terrible remake I think of Gerard Butler playing the Phantom of the Opera and the train wreck into a flaming pile of dumpsters that entire movie was. And I think this show is trying so hard to avoid certain lines and scenes that were in the movie that it’s killing some of the best content from the book that they could pull from. The big problems with the movie didn’t have anything to do with the dialogue or source material, but rather pacing, acting, and set design choices that were made.

Idk. I hope we get a season 2 and I also kinda don’t care. Because if this is what they’re going to do with The Golden Compass I’m a little worried about what they’ll wind up doing with the other books in the series. And I feel bad because I genuinely like His Dark Materials, I even really enjoyed La Belle Savage. Sure the newest book was.... bad. Really bad, but at the very least the first three books of His Dark Materials deserve a really good show or movie and I feel like between some of the direction choices and Dafne’s acting (which I’m not entirely certain isn’t due to choices from the directors) in some ways this show is way, way worse than the movie ever was.

#his dark materials #spoilers #his dark materials spoilers #hdm spoilers #negativity and criticism here as an fyi

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