#very nonstandard though it seems

[haganenoyuki]

the below situation has me considering actually ironing out a system for commissions for that sort of thing. there's a lot of people who are way better and faster than me at character art but I think my workflow and intuition with flyers and posters and other graphic stuff is good enough that I can justify asking for rates that I would find worthwhile to work for

[goblinhoursinsomniaramblings]

I Know Those Eyes Pt 2

why yes i am continuing this

“You’re certain.”

Batman’s words were clipped. Less a question than a threat of consequences. Tim nodded, no hesitation.

“I’d have to have access to a blood or skin sample for 100% confidence, but… yeah. As of 1:23 A.M. this morning, we have confirmed visuals of Lex Luthor and Damian Wayne, alive and mobile, in downtown Gotham City.”

He brought up images of the hotel.

“Hotel Spillane, originally used by the Falcone family, mainly used by the successors of their original business interests. Several legal and executive representatives of one of these interests arrived over the course of the night and previous evening, with Luthor and… Damian being the last to arrive.”

Keep it together, Tim.

“Oracle looked into Luthor’s new identity. It’s so obvious I am actually mad. He’s backstopped a whole life story as Lex Luthor’s estranged twin brother, Lionel V. Luthor, going by the nickname Vlad. Sole inheritor of all Lex Luthor’s assets.”

He brought up the images on file for ‘Lionel’ as well as his own analysis of the footage.

“The confusing part is what he did after inheriting–he has been spending a lot of money on sustainability research, alternative fuels, updated emergency service systems, things like that. As far as I can tell he wants to make premium versions of those things and sell them for a profit, but is playing the long game by flooding the board with cheap goods while gaining good PR.”

He called up the files on VladCo.

“The rest he used to get a tech startup running, VladCo. Apparently he’s interested in ‘standardizing the nonstandard’, whatever that means, but he hasn’t really made anything for the mass market yet. The closest we can find is he’s been making something classified for the U.S. government.”

He took a shaky breath and called up what he had on Damian. He felt Bruce’s pained, shocked exhale more than he heard it, but it was there all the same. So… there really wasn’t any doubt.

“Daniel Summers. On paper he’s 24, was raised in Chicago, and while he’s acting as Luthor’s bodyguard we couldn’t find any official records of him being employed in that capacity. Probably because Oracle was only checking every thirty seconds and his birth certificate didn’t show up on any records until just before they arrived at the hotel.”

He started counting off on his fingers.

“So, 1: whoever is adding them to the system isn’t done yet. 2: they don’t actually care if they get caught. 3: they, very specifically, don’t care if we catch them.”

“You’re saying he’s taunting us.”

“It’s looking–hang on, Oracle says there’s a situation developing.”

One quick shortcut and video of a meeting room popped up on the screen. ‘Lionel’ was smugly facing down his very angry looking investors and their representatives. Suddenly, each of them seemed to calm down. Unnaturally fast, and in unison, with a very particular dull look to their eyes. Tim felt a chill down his spine.

Mind control. Lex Luthor was a meta now, and he had mind control! No wonder Damian hadn’t reached out–

But why? What did he still need Damian for? Unless…

Oh.

He met Batman’s eyes. The taunting, the lack of discretion, finding his first victims in Gotham City.

This was a hostage situation.

***

“You know, badger, you’re perfectly free to walk away from this part of the plan.”

“No, I promised. … still really creepy to watch, though.”

All the papers were signed, all the signatories overshadowed. Now all they had to do was get out of range.

Danny frowned as he saw the receptionist reach for the phone. Right, spy games. Someone was probably supposed to give her a code word when the meeting was over–

Her eyes went glassy, hand freezing around the phone, and seriously that would never stop being creepy to watch. Still, non-violent solution, he’d take it.

As they approached their car, Danny scanned the quiet, ominously lit street. Not for obvious cameras–he knew for a fact Oracle would never allow one to be obvious–but for the best possible angle a camera could have. Eliminating the ones that would have already been used, that left–

He had thought about this moment. How he would give some signal to let them know he was back. That he had been thinking of them.

… Tt. Another time. Too many layers to communicate through, too little space to do so. His gaze had lingered with a purpose, he could only hope that would communicate that Damian was still a part of him too.

For now, that would have to be enough.

***

-major reveal of this chapter: ‘Lex’ has mind control powers

-lol damian/danny is the ghost king, vlad holding him hostage? ha no

-yeah they did not plan the hostage thing but vlad is gonna jump on it with both feet later. like he’s not gonna take credit for it, amirite

-some chapters will be longer. some will be shorter. the main thing is still vibes

-yes, the last little bit is going to make things so much worse with the bats

-why Summers? anything winter-related would be too on the nose, and using a name associated with a very different comic book universe felt appropriate

-i've been a touch stressed so this got put on the backburner. yes, because current events

@hinari @blankliferain @grimdarling69

[whereserpentswalk]

I was discussing gender with the goddess Hel last night, and when I mentioned loki, she mentioned how strange it was that most mortal depictions of them that portray them with a nonstandard gender identity, still show them with an incredibly male presenting body. It really made me rethink things. Like, there's no reason to think of Loki with a masculine body. We should see more humanoid depictions of them with breasts, or with a hairless face, or with a high voice.

The ancient sources definitely seem to depict Loki as being like humans in those cultures who broke from the gender binary, but we always assume they're being compared to perisex amab people when there's no reason to think that way. Especially given how many myths show a male presentation as a default, yet they're still very clearly not cis.

Can't say much for my own interactions with loki, as they've been limited, and the forms they've appeared in have had almost no humanoid features outside of a grin and hands (though even their hands were clawed and robotic). Also I just haven't interacted with them as much as I have other gods.

[iamnmbr3]

Lord Voldemort <- break his ass down, please. (Love you blog, btw! 💖)

How I feel about this character

One of the characters of all time. I find Tom Riddle to be an absolutely fascinating character who is so fun to explore. I think he came out a lot more 3 dimensional than JKR perhaps intended (I say this because a lot of the backstory we get on him makes him a lot more nuanced than the narrative seems to acknowledge) which I absolutely love. His complexity, intelligence, creativity, self sufficiency, determination even in the face of impossible odds, ruthlessness, penchant for drama, and the tremendous amount of adversity he has to overcome provide a lot of richness that is fun to analyze and read about. I mean, without him we wouldn't have the story.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Alphard Black. Yes, I wouldn't have called it either not too long ago but now this ship lives rent free in my head. (If you want to read about why you can look at this post here). All hail the dysfunctional, hilarious, and emotionally compelling mess that is Alphalord - which I ship both in serious incarnations and also for the crack humor potential; truly the versatile ship of all time that gives me way too many feels but also is very fun to make crack humor posts about. Also, although it's not my OTP, I think there's a lot of interesting potential - all of varying degrees of darkness - to explore pairing him with Regulus as well.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I talked here about how fascinating I find Voldemort's relationship with Snape. He does genuinely seem to like and respect him - to the point that he is actually willing to do favors for him and expresses regret about killing him. Though also...on the flip side, he doesn't like him enough to not murder him (although interestingly from an in-universe perspective we could even read him using Nagini to kill him as him not being able to use the killing curse against Snape due to feeling conflicted). I really like the idea though of him destroying everyone who he feels even somewhat close to.

Which leads me to my actual answer to this question since I already wrote about him and Snape in the Snape ask (linked in the previous paragraph) which is - Hagrid. In the book 2 flashback Tom and Hagrid are on a first name basis. And Tom clearly already knows that Hagrid has an Acromantula because when he gets the unexpected and unwelcome news that the school is going to be closed he immediately knows just where to go to find someone to blame. This suggests that he and Hagrid had a preexisting relationship where Riddle gained Hagrid's trust enough to learn things about him.

It's notable that they would have probably been the only 2 orphans at school (after Hagrid's father died.) I can imagine them running across each other during holidays when everyone is home. (They also both had a nonstandard accent - though Riddle has succeeded in mostly getting rid of his own accent by the time the memory takes place - that might have been looked down on by some of their privileged pureblood peers).

It's also not even clear if Tom intended for Hagrid to be expelled (though he certainly was willing to risk it in order to prevent the school from closing and to avoid incurring any blame himself) given that he seemingly intends to kill the spider and say that it got loose by accident rather than as some sort of intentional plot. He also doesn't kill Hagrid when he has the chance in book 7. This is probably just for plot reasons so JKR can have him carry Harry's presumably dead body back to the school, but in-universe it's interesting. Maybe Tom thought he could still turn Hagrid into a useful servant (which I don't think would have gone well). Either way, the fact that they seemingly had a sort of friendship at one point is very interesting and lends an added layer to Hagrid's assertion in book 1 that Slytherins are bad and not to be trusted.

While Tom likely viewed Hagrid with a certain degree of disdain right from day one, it's up to interpretation whether he ever also felt any positive emotions about his relationship with Hagrid or if the friendship was purely a one-sided farce. I prefer the former because I think it adds more depth and complexity to the characters and relationships if Tom ended up having some feelings of genuine camaraderie with Hagrid but was still willing to sacrifice him to protect his own interests. It makes the moment even more interesting if he did not specifically intend for Hagrid to get expelled and thus ends up losing one of the few people who, unlike the majority of his housemates, doesn't look askance at his presumed lineage as a muggleborn and his utter poverty. And this also adds interest to his decision in the end of book 7 to capture Hagrid rather than kill him.

Though of course, neither Snape nor Hagrid hold a candle to the true Tom Riddle BROTP of all time - Tom & Nagini. I love the way he is generally very touch averse but likes to hold her and pet her like a very terrifying therapy animal.

My unpopular opinion about this character

There's a lot I've talked about before like the fact that I think Tom really did want the DADA job and I also think he's a lot more emotionally intelligent than he gets credit for and the people he seems to enjoy hurting most are actually monied purebloods and the person who behaved most unreasonably in the orphanage memory was actually not Tom.

So for this I'll go with the fact that I view Tom as a much more tragic character than the narrative seems to frame him as. It's weird that so many other characters who do bad things get framed as a tragedy not an inevitability - something that is closely linked with the idea that even for characters who have gone down the wrong path there can be redemption. We see this with Snape, with James Potter, with Regulus, with Dumbledore, arguably with Grindelwald whose last act is to lie about the Elder Wand, and sort of even with Peter Pettigrew.

In contrast, Dumbledore always acts as though it's a forgone conclusion that Tom was going to turn out evil and ignores the way wizarding society and even he himself failed to ever do anything meaningful to help Tom or try to guide him onto another path. That doesn't mean he might not have still become Lord Voldemort. But it's never treated as something that even might have been avoided. There is no discussion of what a loss it is that his talent and power and intelligence and creativity weren't used for good. But it is a loss.

It's not inevitable that Tom turned out the way he did. It's not inevitable that he lived a life where he never knew what it was to be loved. It's not inevitable that the first person to ever offer him mercy is Harry Potter and by that point it's far too late and he doesn't even understand what Harry's trying to do. It's not inevitable that because the wizarding world has no concept of social services he grew up in a muggle orphanage without any knowledge of who or what he was, hated and feared by all, and in turn learning to hate and fear them in return. It's not inevitable that Dumbledore immediately gave him up as a lost cause and he never had an adult in his life who could provide support and guidance and a sense of safety. It's not inevitable that upon arriving at Hogwarts he got sorted into a House with people like Walburga Black who would have called him mudblood and hated him for his poverty almost as much as his bloodline, breeding further anger and resentment. And it's not inevitable that he made the choices that he did to kill and to maim. It's SAD. He could have done and been so much more.

I mean, to be clear, from a reader perspective all of this makes Tom an interesting and fun character. It's not bad from a storytelling perspective that these things happened. But nonetheless, it's a tragedy. And I think that gets very little play in the narrative. Yes, Harry tells Tom to try for remorse, but it's framed by the story more as an instance of Harry being ridiculously decent. When Dumbledore discourages Harry from feeling pity for the horrifying state Tom will find himself in the afterlife, there's nothing in the narrative framing that suggests the readers are meant to view Dumbledore's callousness as awful.

From an in-universe perspective we can talk about the strange bias Dumbledore had towards Tom from the moment he met him, but from an out of universe perspective it's more about the author's bias. Yes Dumbledore is meant to be flawed and imperfect, but we readers are not meant to think his treatment of Tom is an example of that imperfection. We're supposed to think it's just fine that upon learning that Tom has lived a lonely and miserable existence where he is constant mortal fear of being declared mad and forcibly locked up, Dumbledore's first act is to use magic to frighten and to punish. Partly this is just because that scene is a flashback about the villain of the series and JKR kind of forgot that from an in-universe POV he wasn't the villain of the series yet.

But also maybe it says something more profound - because in the end of the story the narrative declares "all is well" and yet none of the factors that led to Tom Riddle's rise have actually changed. As Harry is sending his children off to school 19 years later in the accursed epilogue, nothing has actually changed. It's fine to have a story that doesn't have a happy ending. But the narrative frames the ending as a black and white "everything's fixed now and they all lived happily ever after" sort of ending and...no. And this stems, I think, from the failure to engage with the elements that make the main antagonist a great tragedy rather than a cartoonish inevitability. This all makes the story much more interesting, but I'm not sure JKR is fully aware of what she wrote.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I wish we saw more of him in book 7. The opening scene at the Manor in Deathly Hallows is really tense and gripping and interesting...and a lot of the wedding planning and camping stuff in my opinion...is not. More scenes of the Death Eaters and Voldemort (delivered via Harry's visions) could have been very engaging. Furthermore, Harry could have actively explored Tom's mind and/or widened the connection to try to figure out where the Horcruxes were. This would have added drama, made Harry's connection to him more central to the plot, and allowed us to see more high stakes and interesting scenes.

[moxpunk]

Welcome to Moxie's Big Final Fantasy XIV Ninja Headcanon/Personal Lore/Observation Dump! ... or whatever I end up calling it.

Preface, I've been doing a lot of roleplay on my Keeper miqo'te, Rina, a lot as of late, and I play her as a Keeper-ass Keeper from the Black Shroud that's found her way to Hingashi and settled in with a ninja-clan. So, naturally, I'm going to scour a whole bunch of lore-junk and extrapolate from in-game resources to figure out flavor. Plus, ninja-stuff in XIV is Nonstandard Magic to an extent, and that's fun to play with.

Don't take this stuff as hard Facts or anything, or feel like if you've got a different interpretation of this stuff that it's Wrong. I like to have fun with this sort of thing, and these thoughts have been rattling around in my brain for long enough. They need to get out.

This is essentially going to be a big list of observations and shit, so I'm tossing it below a break for everyone's convenience.

Yeah? Yeah. Let's dig in.

Ninja hand-signs (Mudra) operate on the same logic as Dancer dances. What I mean by this is: Dancers have been established already that by moving their bodies in specific ways, they can manipulate aether in and through themselves and others around them. The body is a natural conduit for aether, and by moving it in specific ways, a specific outcome can be achieved. Ninjas do the exact same thing with their hand-signs, but just on a personal level. It's an outright game mechanic for them, too, instead of it being something that just happens with every action they get. I know that this is more of an observation than some hidden thing, but I still think pointing this out to characters during roleplay is a fun a-ha moment.

Ninjas have access to all six prongs on the established Elemental Wheel. Again, more of an observation than something wild and hidden, but it wasn't until I looked at the different Ninjutsu that it clicked. Katon = Fire. Raiton = Thunder. Hyoton = Ice. Huton = Wind. Doton = Earth. Suiton = Water. Of course, we don't see much in terms of flexibility in terms of utility or manipulating these elements into anything but attacks, so I wouldn't straight-up call ninjas Masters of Elements. It's a fun thing to notice, though, where most other jobs are restricted to three (maybe four) elements at most.

(Mild Shadowbringers world-building spoilers in this next one, just a heads-up.)

Umbral-aligned aether is really important to utilizing ninjutsu. So, this one comes from the in-game text on Doton calling the technique "a patch of corrupted earth". Plus, it just makes sense thematically: ninjas use darkness-aligned techniques. We're starting to get into Moxie Headcanon with this stuff. First off, umbral-aligned aether is inherently unstable because it's the alignment of movement and chaos. This is great for people that practice a fighting-style where leaving very little trace, even aetherically, is a benefit. You don't want someone tracing your operative back to their hideout, after all. Second, this probably explains how a ninja can hide themselves in plain sight. It's not quite "melding into the shadows" that people from the Source interpret it, as it is "destabilizing the aether around the body that visual light seems to pass right through". Something like that.

Ninjas can just use space-compression, huh? (Note: this one is just kinda funny to me because I personally consider in-game actions you get before level 50 with ARR/HW-introduced jobs to be stuff most people can do if they train.) This one just comes from reading the quest-text for when you get Shukuchi, and it kinda blew my mind. Just... straight-up calls the technique compressing space to teleport. Guess that makes sense how ninjas can carry so much bullshit on them, they just compress the aether until they need to use said item. Still, it's crazy to me that this comes even before learning the final mudra.

Speaking of mudra, my Keeper girl has turned them into prayers to Menphina. This one is all Rina lore. It works surprisingly well if you kinda squint and have a certain interpretation of what little Keeper culture we've been able to observe. The first mudra, Ten, is literally pulling aether from the heavens, which can easily be interpreted by a devout moonkitty to mean it's pulling aether from the moon and its goddess. Chi, earth, is where Dalamud landed and exploded the world with a ton of aether (Yes, this means that Rina, in another life, could have easily been part of the Keeper sects that were happy to see Dalamud crash). Jin, man, is pulling aether from the people Menphina watches over from above. Does this mean that when Rina performs ninjutsu that she's effectively praying? Yes, absolutely!

Ninjas might be able to tap into the Aetherial Sea? This one is Pure Speculation, I'll admit. But, with being able to summon the Hellfrog and other auspice-adjacent creatures and Bhavacakra translating literally to "Life and Death", it makes me think that ninjas have the capacity to tap into the spirit-realm. At the very least, making a pact with an auspice/yokai/voidsent-in-disguise for borrowed power seems very fitting and thematic.

I'm just gonna talk about miscellaneous ninja-tools for a moment. Because I think they're neat. I like that Death Blossom combos into Hakke Mujinsatsu, where the lines being drawn are clearly supposed to be connecting lines between the kunai embedded into the ground. I think that with being able to spatially condense shuriken using Shukuchi, doing the opposite through Ninjutsu to embiggen and empower Fuma Shuriken is fun. I'm a big wrestling mark, and with Dokumori being included so Rina can perform a Green Purple Mist on someone in a fight utterly tickles me. It makes me want to think of more fun tools to give Rina. Stuff like flash-cotton/flash-paper, smoke bombs, actual bombs, and other fun things she can just yeet at others in the middle of a fight.

Ninja-scrolls are effectively Arcanist books. We all know the the fun trope of "this scroll contains a powerful ninjutsu, and must be protected at all costs". Hell, we got it in the Ninja job questline. It got me to realizing that they would function in almost the exact same manner as Arcanists' books. Specific symbols drawn using aetherically-charged ink producing a specific outcome? That's Limsa Lominsa bean-counter magic, baby.

Hoo boy. I think I've gotten most of my thoughts out of me at this point. Thank you for sticking around and reading this big ramble of words! I might do a follow-up on this at some point in the future if The Inspiration takes me over and gives me More Thoughts, but that will be something I do at a later time.

[celosia-parade]

The following is all just about my feelings towards myself, not to others. I'm only speaking of my personal labels.

I dont rly personally vibe with "nonhuman" as an ID for myself even though I am an elf, a spider, etc. - like 'well obviously I'm a human so I guess being an elf and a spider is a part of the experience of being human,' is the thought process. Same with alterhuman tbh. I guess it's my Weird Take? Dunno

I guess, by the book, I'm alterhuman since my relationship with my humanity could be considered nonstandard? (In that, I am Other Stuff, as stated above).) That just seems like the default, though. I feel like that's a pretty normal thing for a human to do, so giving it a label doesn't seem like it could serve me. Maybe I am nonhuman, but to me that doesn't make me alternately-human, considering my personal feelings about humanity.

I say this as if there aren't those fleeting moments where the elfness seems to be a feeling of being "beside" humans, moving among them and delighting in our difference. But... then, that also just seems like what it means to have a human experience. Humans are very strange creatures, after all.

[g33se]

Playing bg3 right now. Got to the point with the druids and the tiefling city. A couple of opinions about the party:

Lae'zel: I liked her a lot when I met her first (competent, straightforward, my type of girl) but she's being very rude about the tieflings. Given that I'm playing a tiefling... well. Not keen on the way she compared us to cockroaches or the way she made the tiefling bow- granted the tieflings did have reason to want to stab her. So liking her quite a bit less now. Still, looking at her respectfully. She is hot.

Shadowheart: Never really liked elves all that much. Not super keen on the way she did a racism at Lae'zel as soon as we met her, but the moments of emotional vulnerability have me liking her a lot more.

Astarion: Stupid loser bastard. That man is clearly a vampire- I mean, look at the eyes/teeth/the literal VAMPIRE BITE on his neck and the ten thousand clues he's been dropping. Sexy of him to greet me by holding a knife to my neck I thought he was going to rob me. He's such a fucking idiot I want to jump his bones.

Gale: This man has bard energy. At least, the way I play bards. Also kind of single dad energy? Just a random wizard running around. Just a Dude, if you will. Had to put him back in the campsite since I'm a sorcerer and party comp will get fucked though.

Wyll: Thought he was a paladin at first. Then he started doing warlocky things. I like how he acts it's a nonstandard edgy warlock thing, I hope his storyline pans out well. Really like his back-and-forth with Lae'zel about ever doing nice things with her life. Immediately taken with the fight scene I saw him in first, looked fucking epic.

Overall, I really love Mind Flayers. They're fucking cool, that little starter scene when I converted a woman into one was fucking nightmare fuel. I did see the button saying perfect and press it knowing what it would probably mean. What the hell were they doing in Avernus though. And isn't Zariel the angel who fell because she wanted to kill demons with GREAT PREJUDICE?

I've also been save scumming whenever I steal stuff a lot because, habit. I just want to collect all the boxes and put them into the campsite. Also reloaded the same save three times because I wanted Asterion to take that one potato off a crying guard. (Probably going to try to see if I can do a revivify on the dead guard later? I don't know if the game has the 1 min timer on revivify or not.) Also I do like how yoinking just makes people do 'hey wtf' or 'you're getting arrested' because instantly trying to kill the party is. Weird.

Also reloaded the save once because I couldn't revivify Shadowheart because she died on stairs that were on fire. I know how to play dnd I just have a hard time conceptualizing it with game graphics.

Lower level dnd's always interesting. The take action to restore someone else at 1hp is also... inspired. Would be interested to see normal downing rules- that would force me to think in more dnd terms to play the game. I also keep clicking wrong and wasting attacks on the space right next to a person.

Weird how everyone can use scrolls.

I hate the 1/short rest mage hand it's a fucking cantrip and it can do, like, nothing. Going to download a mod for it later.

Going to have to use the speak with dead amulet a lot I hope. I love that spell. Not quite sure how I feel about your camp being a separate room- I feel like it trivializes inventory management and sending things there is. Weird. Where is all the weight going. I do like stacking all the boxes I find though.

Thought the Absolute people were part of a mind flayer cult so had to kill a few of them.

Current leader druid is a bit cringe. Don't want to kill her but definitely ousting her asap. Stop being a dick to my people (tieflings). Also really liking the tiefling responses so far.

Also wonder at the deal about the tiefling village. They seem to have a lot of hell stuff going on there.

Anyway, this is cool! Looking forward to what happens next.

[mozillavulpix]

So okay, a bit delayed but

the things about the Rain Code ending that confuse me (story and gameplay-wise)

Because I actually really enjoyed the ending but there’s a few parts that I legitimately don’t know why they did it like that, it almost feels like weird game and script oversights

So the final chapter of Rain Code has Very Big Danganronpa vibes.

The main reason being that at the end of the day, it comes down to the protagonist being forced to make an impossible choice.

The choices being:

a) Yuma reaps Makoto’s soul in the Mystery Labyrinth to uncover the truth (and escape the labyrinth he’s stuck in), but this means having to reveal the truth that everyone living in Kanai Ward is a homunculus that’ll turn into a mindless flesh-eating zombie if they’re exposed to sunlight. So they’re vampire zombies.

b) Yuma lets Makoto go, allowing him to keep them in relative safety under the artificial rain cloud where they’re in no danger of harming anyone, but that means Yuma can’t leave the Mystery Labyrinth since the mystery won’t be uncovered and his soul will eventually be consumed from staying there for too long.

Of course, in typical Danganronpa fashion, Yuma chooses the secret third option.

c) He lets Makoto go, but tells him he trusts him to tell the residents the truth himself. If that happens, the mystery of Kanai Ward will no longer be a mystery, so the Mystery Labyrinth will disappear on its own and he’ll be freed.

On paper this is a nice ending, but it’s done kind of weirdly?

1. The game actually physically makes you make the decision of either “Destroy the Labyrinth” or “Remain in the Labyrinth”, but it actually doesn’t matter what decision you make. Even though Yuma’s decision really does come down to “Remain in the Labyrinth”, even if you choose to destroy the labyrinth, the game will act like you chose to remain. I guess it’s because ‘Yuma asks someone to destroy it from the outside’ isn’t exactly either of those choices, but also the game treats it like this is a decision to “Remain” first and foremost.

This is especially weird compared to Danganronpa Ultra Despair Girls and V3. In those games, they give you the option to physically decide between the choices, and if you don’t do what the protagonist chooses to do (ie: “Don’t break the controller” and “Refuse to vote”), you get a nonstandard game over. But that’s not the case in this one. It’s just baffling because they didn’t need to give you the ability to make the choice if it doesn’t actually do anything.

2. It kind of contradicts itself on whether or not Yuma was choosing to sacrifice himself. 

On the one hand, he acts like there’s no way that Makoto would be able to destroy the Mystery Labyrinth on the outside in time before his soul is destroyed. So is the point that he’s choosing to give up his life for the hope that Makoto will find a better solution? Even if that’s the case, he is still resigned he’ll die, so it doesn’t even feel like the game is making him choose a “third option” at all.

But then just as he’s waiting to die, Shinigami suddenly tells him that there’s an emergency exit that he can use to leave the Labyrinth whenever he wanted. She offhand mentions it in an earlier chapter, but you had probably forgotten about it. I guess she didn’t want to bring it up until there was no other option because doing that breaks their contact, meaning he can never use her power again, but also...Shinigami, shouldn’t you have told Yuma while he was still deliberating on that choice? She’s completely silent when he has to make the decision, saying it’s all up to him, but like...coming-of-age story aside, don’t you think you should tell him important details like that before he chooses? Because the game seems to say that Yuma definitely didn’t remember that option.

3. Yuma gets his memories back as a consequence of choosing to break the contract with Shinigami and I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a good or bad outcome.

Because on the one hand, Yuma’s lost memories are that he’s Number One of the World Detective Organisation, that he’s literally the greatest detective in the world and is said to have the “world’s greatest mind”.

But on the other hand, himself as Number One seemed a bit unhinged and you’d also think Yuma would be conflicted over whether getting back those memories would fundamentally change the person he’s become over the course of the game.

Like, the main thing is the game spends zero time discussing the implications of this if he uses the emergency exit. Yuma is more concerned and upset about the fact breaking the contract means losing his memories of Shinigami. Which is fine, it’s a nice way to end it, but...are you worried about getting your old memories back or not? He literally doesn’t say. It’s like just a side-effect of losing Shinigami and they don’t bring it up at all.

It gives me major Danganronpa 2 vibes, but comparing it to Danganronpa 2 confuses me more than anything. Because in Danganronpa 2, it was clear that Hajime having to wake up as Izuru would risk destroying his entire sense of self. It was only through Hajime’s sheer determination that he changed the rules to force his personality to remain even after the choice was made. We also had a whole epilogue narrated by Hajime that gives an unambiguous answer that he chooses to live as Hajime once the story is over. In contrast, we barely know anything about what Yuma actually *is* at the end of the game. We know he’s choosing to be a detective, but that’d be the case whether he was Number One or Yuma Kokohead. We also don’t know if he has some kind of detective super-brain like Izuru or...Makoto. He just gives Kurumi a letter saying he’s leaving on a journey, and he’s in a place with mysteries, but he doesn’t do any actions on-screen to give us an idea of how competent he is.

Like, at least give Number One a different eye colour or something. It makes no sense that amnesia would change your eye colour to begin with, but this is a game with vampire zombies and a death god that can turn into an anime girl. Realism is not their priority here. It’d help give a clear way to tell the difference between the personalities. Hajime doesn’t show his eyes in the epilogue of Danganronpa 2, but Danganronpa 3 gives him hetereochromia just to nail in that his personality is some sort of combination between the two. Or even just a different outfit. Or a different hat. Why did make him look identical as Number One? It makes it all the more confusing.

anyway, I still enjoyed it. I think it was actually a less confusing ending than Danganronpa V3. At least it was clear on what things were real and what things mattered. 

But I just find it weird because these issues all have very simple fixes. Change the way the player has to make the ‘choice’ at the end. Have Shinigami bring up the emergency exit before that. And make Number One have some noticeable difference to Yuma so we know who he is at the epilogue there. I don’t know why they didn’t do it like that.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Adventures in beekeeping

May 2023

I went into winter 2022 with 5 hives, two of which were small and not expected to survive, and came out with two strong hives. Split each of them in March, but both splits failed. Caught 3 swarms, 2 of which are still going strong. Then the 2 big hives, out at the goat farm, both swarmed - guess I wasn't on top of them enough in late March & April, and they ran out of space despite the earlier splits I'd taken.

As of last weekend, neither had a laying queen, though they did have decent population & honey being made. I found queen cells that looked to have been used & opened, but no brood at all in one, and just a few scattered capped cells left in the other. Was there still hope they'd replaced their queens? I had to check the internet for a chart of the timeline, & compare to the last time I'd seen eggs or a queen in those hives.

Good thing I take (& date) notes in my phone each time I inspect, or I'd never remember anything that's going on in my hives. One had definitely had a queen 3 weeks before, so not too worrying (though there's a lot that can happen to a virgin queen after she emerges, such as getting eaten by a bird on a mating flight). The other, though, had had a capped queen cell at that previous inspection, & evidence it had already swarmed then, meaning it was anywhere from "getting less likely" to "just about hopeless".

With the splits failed & both hives queenless, I didn't have an easy way to fix them. My home bees could potentially donate a frame of eggs, but that's still at least 4 weeks before a queen might get back to work, and the hives' population was already on the decline. I resolved to give them a few more days, and then come back with a purchased queen, to put in whichever hive needed it more. I'm working too much right now to get back to it any sooner, anyway, and had run out of time that day.

I had to reduce the size of one of those hives by half, as the population was low enough (must've been a big swarm, or a couple) that they couldn't defend all the honey they had, if another hive should try to rob them.

Ok, early honey harvest for me! The next day I dragged my extractor up out of the barn & cleaned it, got all set up, uncapped 4 frames, and started to spin them...and something went "thunk". A rubber piece that connects two pieces of the extractor had disintegrated, & I couldn't continue without it. I've been running all over looking for this part - learnt a lot about this type of coupler, something I couldn't even name yesterday morning - and concluded it's a nonstandard size, probably gonna have to replace the whole coupler. Very nearly got one that'd work at the bee supply place locally, but after much struggle taking mine all the way apart (it was quite stuck) we determined it wouldn't do after all, even though it could fit in place.

I picked up a queen from a shipment they got in today & went up to the goat farm, only to find both hives have new queens, both laying well. This is good, of course, but now what'm I going to do with this one I just bought?? Neither of those seemed a good candidate for a split she could go in, since they had no brood to share. Not impossible, but not ideal. So I took her home & split the larger of the two swarm hives, removing its original queen & 5 frames of bees, brood, & stores to a new hive, and putting my new bought queen in the original hive. It would be better to let them sit queenless for a couple days first, but keeping her in my house in her little box seemed more risky.

Meanwhile the partially-extracted frames are sitting in their boxes on my kitchen counter, wrapped in plastic wrap to ward off the ants, but the ants may find them nonetheless. My very good, very kind friend said I could come do my extracting at her house, though I couldn't borrow her equipment bc she's harvesting this week too. I'd love to go hang out with her, but I don't have the damn time, what with work & game night & Mother's day this weekend. If I can't get the part replaced in the next day or so, I'm going to have to figure out how to fit all these frames in my chest freezer, or I'll risk losing the honey.

Whew. It could be going a lot worse, but it's sure going a lot right now. I gotta finish my smoothie & get back to things. People will start arriving for D&D in 45 minutes, and I haven't mopped the floors or refreshed my memory of where we were in this dungeon.

[youzicha]

Visible Cities

Marco Polo is still entertaining Kublai Khan by describing fictional cities, but during his sojourn in Xanadu he has been practicing drawing, so now he illustrates them while he speaks…

MP The marvelous city of Zed, oh Khan, is arranged in long neat rows of identical houses, stretching out in both directions forever. In front of each house there is a single flower pot, and in each pot grows a single sprig of mint. In the morning, while the sun is still low in the sky and the air is bracing cold, the wives in the houses step out to rub the mint leaves with their fingers, but without plucking them. They pause to—

KK Hang on a second. What’s behind the houses? Are there flower pots there as well?

MP No, the pots are only in front of the houses. The space in the back is empty.

KK I can’t see that in the drawing though. The house blocks the view. Really, there could be anything behind it.

MP But, um. Okay. Let’s do it this way; I’ll change the drawing to make the houses transparent. This way you can see the back lot also, and confirm that it is empty.

KK Very clarifying, thank you. Although I can only see the back lots in the foreground. Near the horizon they get so small that they are unreadable. Maybe there are still flowers behind those houses?

MP I actually intended all the houses to be identical, even if it is hard to put that into the drawing. I think this line of questioning goes a bit against the spirit of the exercise, which was more like a— But wait, it seems some of your courtiers have comments too.

DZ Yes. I wanted to ask, earlier you said the city stretches away forever?

MP That’s right.

DZ I think that’s wrong. Actually the city is on the surface of a cylinder, so it is bounded in size. If you walk far enough in a straight line you will get back where you started.

MP But look at the drawing! I made the ground completely flat.

DZ It looks flat in practice because the city is very big. You can’t see the subtle bend.

EN If I may interject. I think we may trust the artist that this part of the city is flat and infinite. But that doesn’t mean that the entire city is like that. There might be another part, hanging in the sky, which is curled up in a giant loop.

MP But the sky is completely empty, I didn’t draw anything at all there.

EN The disconnected part might be floating very far away, so it would just look like a tiny speck, too small to see. That’s consistent with what you drew.

MP Could I have one more cup of this excellent jasmine tea? And I think I will need another hash brownie.

✵✵✵

This is of course an allegory for the philosophy of math that I tried to sketch in a previous post (prompted by @raginrayguns). Mathematical structures (e.g. the integers) are fictional and imagined; the mathematician describes the setting, and then you try to think through hypothetical scenarios (if you rub the mint in your fingers, what will it smell like?).

My point of transposing it into art/fiction is to say that the suspension of disbelief that this requires seems pretty modest, comparable to what we do when think about any kind of fiction or hypothetical scenario. When Doron Zeilberger writes “I believe that finite integers, finite sets of finite integers, and all finite combinatorial structures have an existence of their own, regardless of humans … What is completely meaningless is any kind of infinite, actual or potential. … the sum and product of any two integers is well-defined only if the result is less than p”, that seems to imply that Marco Polo’s story is “completely meaningless”, which seems too harsh! Can you really not use your imagination a little bit, Zeilberger?

Similarly for the claim that it is impossible to pin down what the “standard” integers are, because any description we could write down in first-order logic will also apply to some nonstandard structures. When it comes to something as simple and natural as the natural numbers, that also seems odd to me. Could Edward Nelson really not guess which layout, of the many city plans consistent with the drawing, Marco Polo had in mind? Is it really pointless to say that something would be true in that city, even if it might not be true in some of its nonstandard sisters? And are there not lessons to be learned from the imagined life in Zed that can guide us in our own grids of asphalt and silicon..?

[honeypot482]

Unsure how you found my and that post, but thanks for the support! Hope you enjoy it;

You’d not even been working here for a full year yet, why would they have called you in for a performance meeting if not to get rid of you? Sure, this was a much more professional place than any you’d worked at before, but you were so sure you’d become indispensable as the management secretary. The anxious pit in your stomach only grew as you reached the meeting room, all blinds closed so that nobody could observe.

“Come in and take a seat. Get comfortable, this might take a little while to go through.”

Your boss appeared at the door just as you got there, an intimidating figure standing over you at that moment. You slip through the door and take a seat near to the other person in the room. HR, you’d guess. Your boss follows you after closing the door behind you. You’re certain you heard the click of the lock as he did so, but decide it must be your mind playing tricks. He sits across from you, next to his equally well-suited colleague.

“I’m just going to get straight into it, if that’s okay? Unfortunately, it seems that some information regarding your time outside of work and certain aspects of your… personality has been unintentionally learned by some in the office. As such, I’m afraid that I have to notify you of a change to your position with us here.”

Your mind reels, racing down every possible avenue of thought trying to figure out what it is they could possibly have found to be so quick on the trigger, but nothing particularly springs to mind. 

“You will be given a few less administration duties to perform, typically the ones other staff can perform just as easily, reducing your workload to provide time for new responsibilities we will be adding to your contract.”

That was… not what you were expecting. A promotion perhaps?

“As I said, information has recently come to light, that being your private tumblr account. I will not disclose the source of this information, but needless to say I found it very… interesting. You seem to be someone of very many nonstandard desires, if I may say so. I have been looking for a method with which to improve staff morale in our office, and I believe you might help with that.”

You can feel the heat in your cheeks burn uncontrollably. You know exactly what is on your blog, the kind of things you’ve written about, fantasised about there. There’s no way this could be leading where you think. Right?

“From here on, until you decide to leave us, you will be required to leave up to half of your allocated work time per day free to take appointments from colleagues on this floor. Your calendar will be kept up to date with when and what they request, and upon the scheduled time you will take them to the unused meeting room at the back of the office and fulfil their planned needs, regardless of what they are. Not acquiescing to these demands will be cause for a strike, and upon receipt of three in a one month timeframe your contract will be terminated. I myself will be in charge of accepting these appointment requests, and you may trust that I won’t allow the more egregious requests to pass through to ensure your safety and attendance through the week. Your tumblr account will be distributed throughout the office in every morning work allocation email and colleagues will be encouraged to browse it. Your free time not spent in appointments will be spent on your account. You will also be required to alter your uniform. It does not matter what you wear coming into this office, but during your working hours you will be wearing your underwear and nothing else. A suitable raise will of course be applied to your salary, and one set of lingerie may be purchased by the company for you per month as uniform cost.”

You sit in shocked silence, trying to ignore the increasingly large wet spot in your underwear. This sounds both terrifying and too good to be true. Surely Mr HR can't allow this? Even though an increasingly large part of you is decidedly hoping that he can. 

“I understand that this is a rather large departure from the work you were expecting to continue doing here, and you may be assured that you will only ever receive a glowing reference about your administrative duties should you decide to leave us. Your new contract is here ready to be signed, but you may take the rest of the week to consider your response. I eagerly await your decision.”

The way he looks at you tells you that he isn’t lying, and the still unknown man beside him continues to portray no emotion aside from a careful inquisitiveness towards you. If none of this is a trap, some kind of twisted test as an excuse to fire you, then there was no thought required, you’d sign it in blood if you had to. Sure, you’d had different aspirations in life, but fuck, this sounded like a dream job opportunity. Days upon days of letting the men and women you see every single day use you to take out their frustrations and get them off? Even just the thought has you close to orgasm. You look back at your boss, about to ask the question, but it seems he already knows what you’re going to ask.

“You want some kind of confirmation, right? That this isn’t a trick? Very well. Remove your clothes. All of them.”

The commanding tone in his voice isn’t one you’ve heard before, but it’s certainly one you could get used to hearing. You hesitate for a single moment before you notice that your boss is already in the process of freeing his cock from his suit pants. It’s hot. Very Hot. Hot enough that you don’t even notice yourself removing your own clothes until you’re in your underwear. You see his thick cock flinch as you remove your bra, so you can only imagine what it does when you bend at the waist and remove your panties. 

“Good. Now on your knees. Crawl over to me, and take my cock into your mouth.”

You do as requested, nervous but eyeing his thick member with lust. As you take it into your mouth you notice his smell, the same cologne he wears every day. Clearly he’d planned for this. You find you have no complaints. He rumbles out a few low groans as you find your pace and swirl your tongue around his head. As he places a hand on the back of your head and pulls you further in, you glance across to see Mr HR rubbing at his own dick through his trousers. You find yourself gagging on your boss, swallowing at his head as you feel his precum leaking out into your throat. He lets go and you pull up and away, turning instead to the still stroking man next to you. You look into his eyes as you reach towards his belt and begin unleashing his dick too. It’s nothing special, but it has a curve to it that looks like it would feel simply incredible scraping along the walls of your pussy. 

You take the new cock into your mouth as you place a hand around your boss, stroking him eagerly as he watches you force another man’s dick into the back of your mouth. The both of them moan almost in sync as you please them. It’s not enough. You need more. Still gripping your boss, you lead him around to your rear and place him right at your lips. His hands feel good as they grab your ass and spread it apart, you can almost feel his burning stare on your dripping holes. His first thrust into your cunt causes him to moan loudly, then you to moan with Mr HRs cock still in your throat, making him groan in turn. It’s the first time you’ve been spitroasted, but you already hope it won't be the last. The pounding of your boss into you feels incredible, and the way it pushes and pulls the cock in your mouth all on its own feels divine. 

Your whimpers grow in frequency as you feel the familiar tension bubbling forward, pushed on by the merciless beating your boss is giving your pussy. If you’d have known he felt this good you would have done this a year ago. You force the dick in your mouth into your throat as you cum, clenching both ends around their respective dicks as you writhe in the pleasure. The pace slows naturally as you finish, and you take the opportunity to switch, curious how you taste on your boss. You stand and turn, sitting to impale yourself on the spit-covered dick. You were right, the curve felt phenomenal slide in and out. Your boss replaces his hand in your hair, gripping a little tighter this time as he forces your lips over his head. The taste of your cum mixed with his precum tastes slightly sweet, so you have no problem sucking even harder than before as you ride Mr HR in desperate desire to tease another orgasm out. The rhythm reaches a fevered pitch as the volume of groans and lustful cries grows louder. Your boss is bottoming out in your throat as you can, and Mr HR has started fucking up deeply into you as he reaches around to tweak at your nipples and roughly grope at your bouncing tits. 

The orgasm rips through you quicker than you expected when your boss pulls your hair back so that you look into his eyes and he stares down at you, cock bouncing on your face as you keep riding on. He pulls you up when you’re done spasming, and instead puts you on your knees between the two of them. Mr HR stands, apparently getting the message, and you grab the two hard dicks bouncing around deliciously in front of your face. You pump at them steadily, licking the tips here and there, before finally deciding to just do away with the little dignity you might have left as you look up into their eyes and earnestly beg for them to spray their cum all over you. You’re in the middle of telling them just how much you need to feel it on your skin when Mr HR shoots his thick load across you, covering your neck and tits in a deliciously warm load. You let go of him and apply both hands to your boss, looking at him and pleading. He erupts with a deep grunt as an inordinately huge load covers your face and tongue. You feel some drip down onto your chest as you stand back up licking your lips.

The contract is signed before they’ve even put their cocks away. You think about cleaning up and getting dressed, but walk out naked and cum-covered instead. After all, this is your job now

The fun the office would have

[teamcuriosity]

On Annihilape: Methods, Care, and Ethics

right so it occurred to me that I should prooobably discuss Annihilape a bit since it's a very controversial mon. let me just put on my Serious Voice™ for a bit

--

As an expert in nonstandard evolution and the owner of an Annihilape, I often get questions about the species and how to obtain it. To put it simply: most responsible Primeape owners will never end up evolving their Primeape. The exact circumstances behind what triggers the evolution are still very poorly understood, as it's not uncommon for Primeape to die from what appear to be the same conditions that trigger the evolution. In fact, they still die when they become Annihilape. I love my dear Pollen Puff dearly, but it doesn't have a pulse. It's just a highly-tangible mass of spiritual energy. You have to physically kill a Primeape to evolve it into an Annihilape, there's no way around it.

Current theories to possible evolution triggers involve raised cortisol levels in tandem with some sort of reason to live. The reason part is purely speculative, as we can't read the thoughts of a Primeape, but we can interpret it from the fact that all Annihilape that evolve continue fighting through evolution as though they don't even notice that they've died. So, either they're too angry to stop fighting, or they have a reason to continue. As for the raised cortisol, we have been able to record that consistently by drawing blood samples from battling Primeape. By nature, the species is able to handle baseline cortisol and adrenaline levels that would kill a human. However, they can still experience cortisol poisoning, and the symptoms are often far more intense once it crosses their tolerance threshold. It's why Primeape will often just seem to get so angry they die. However, it doesn't have to be anger. Any strong negative emotions will raise a Primeape's base cortisol, whether it be an increase in anger, sadness, fear, or even just general stress.

But hey, things happen. Sometimes, you end up in high-stress situations unintentionally and your Primeape evolves in the heat of the action. So, what then? Well, first of all, allow your newly-incorporealized buddy to finish out its fight. Spontaneous evolution sometimes happens prior to death, and allowing the Annihilape to finish the fight might put it at enough peace to allow it to pass on. Even if it doesn't, it will still allow it to regulate its emotional state and gain closure quicker concerning its own death. Make sure you give it plenty of attention and love during this tough time. Even if it wants to be alone, make sure you give it a comfort item with your scent on it so it knows you care. The last thing you want is for your newfound vengeful spirit to find a reason to hate you. Also, though Annihilape no longer need food to survive, they can still consume food and incorporate it into their body as pure energy. In other words, you can still give your ghostly friend its favorite treats from when it was alive and are thoroughly encouraged to do so.

Beyond that, make sure it has healthy outlets for its rage outside of battling. Annihilape are naturally confrontational and do gain a lot of enrichment from a good fight, but without other outlets, they may become lost in their violence and slowly lose their sense of selves. Contrary to popular belief, the Mankey line do have emotions and personalities beyond anger. They're actually incredibly intelligent as a species, and can demonstrate complex wants and desires if listened to. So, making sure they don't completely slip into a pure vengeful spirit mindset is crucial to maintaining their mental health.

In conclusion, I hope you never evolve your Primeape into an Annihilape. As it stands, it may as well be pure luck whether or not you get a successful evolution rather than a dead Primeape, and even if you are successful, your Pokemon will suffer great mental distress. However, in the event that you do evolve it, whether through ignorance or through poor luck, don't forget to love it all the same. It may be a ghost with anger issues severe enough to level a town now, but it's still your partner. Treat it with the same respect you always would have.

—Professor Violite Schist (it/they/fae)

[squidsystem]

I wanted to address this reblog but I kept forgoring to and also sort of some of the posts about Engage not doing very much with dragons, which I respectfully disagree with. I think the two dragon protagonists, Corrin and Alear, are actually very interestingly done, but they just don't explore them very deeply and are very Nonstandard Fire Emblem Dragons.

Corrin is less interesting as a dragon and more interesting as a child of a Great Old Dragon. They're one of very few dragons that we've seen transform just from rage (if I recall correctly only Rhea shares that trait). I think it's cool how primal they show Corrin and by extension Papa Anankos to be when their power goes out of control. I personally think Anankos's lore is one of the coolest examples of how degeneration can be so fascinating and ultimately tragic, and something I was thinking about a lot while I was writing the original post. I love that Anankos was an idealist, just like Corrin is, but slowly succumbed to degeneration, and tried so desperately to stop himself from losing everything, to the point that the only thing that soothes him is a song that's about his future child. That turns me into a sopping wet pile of goop every time I hear it. Everything about Anankos is so tragic, and I wish Fates was better written to capitalize on how lonely, bitter, and honestly scared Anankos was. I'd love to see Corrin contemplate more on it. I also really recommend just listening to Fallen Corrin's lines from feh, mainly Male's because he literally looks and sounds like he's hanging on by a thread, and that's really what Anankos feels like, to me.

Alear is also super interesting to me, and yes, we should get it out of the way, it's lame and cringe as hell that Alear never gets to transform into a draconic form despite being the first pure blood dragon character. It sucks and we better see it in supplemental content eventually. I especially love the Engage dragon forms, they feel so atypical for dragons in this series, being based on real world lizards! Awesome stuff.

But the main thing I think is so interesting about Alear is the way, as someone who doesn't remember their life before their reawakening, they feel so uncomfortable with how they are othered by essentially everyone. Everyone loves and supports them, but they can never be the normal person they feel as though they are. There are no Divine Dragons remaining, and while they can have some kinship with Veyle, they have no choice but to be The Divine Dragon. The burden of that expectation is insane and I don't think the text really explores that enough.

Also... Can we talk about how easy you can read transgender allegory into Alear fire emblem? Past Alear is one of my favorite inclusions of the game, seeing the way Alear once was as a depressed, repressed tool who couldn't let themselves think or feel anything lest they be killed like each of their siblings. All they care about is protecting their sister and not dying, because they feel as though they have to live as a Fell Dragon. When they get given the opportunity to live with Lumera and live as a Divine Dragon, they're happy for the very first time in their life. And in the future, when they truly do become a Divine Dragon through Lumera's sacrifices, they seem so resolute and truly happy to live as they are. Even though their identity keeps getting challenged, and Sombron and the hounds refuse to acknowledge that Alear is a Divine Dragon, Alear and their allies never give in, and always affirm that Alear is a Divine Dragon, no matter what they were born as, and no matter what other people say they must be. That doesn't have anything to do with dragon stuff but come on that's so easy to read as a trans thing and really dragons and transgender people are only a few degrees of separation apart.

I feel like this post is now criminally long but squidsystem don't caare. Play fire emblem. It's good, I promise

fire emblem dragons are so cool and awesome when they actually interact with the implications of them and it's a shame that some of their character designs are just really bad which obscures the cool stories involved with them. Because fire emblem dragons are just people, they think like people, they grow like people, they act like people, but they live a mind bendingly long time. I love the child dragon characters because more often than not they're either unnerving with how much they've lived and how much they understand when they literally just look like 10 year old, and or they are too young to even comprehend the meaning of their quite literally thousands and thousands of years lifespans. The fact Tiki is still grappling with the traumatic experience of losing everyone she's ever loved 2000 years after losing them is just such big frown. Like imagine the existential horror of being an 11 year old weird girl but for centuries instead of a year. The old as fuck dragons are really cool too, I think the degeneration lore is really cool and I don't see concepts like it get explored enough, the idea that being so powerful that mortals consider you an unknowable is so unsustainable that they essentially lose their sanity and eventually their sapience is so fucked up. And they probably didn't even realise it was happening until entire ages had already passed. Imagine being a member of a species with a fatal flaw that no one could know about until it was far too late. The fact pretty much all dragons in Fire Emblem are the humanoid manaketes is literally because the ones that didn't are more or less extinct because they were too prideful to relinquish their power, and in some sense, their entire identity. More FE stories should examine the experience of their dragons. Are any manaketes dysphoric because they're forced to live in a body that doesn't reflect who they really are? Imagine the angst. I love fire emblem

[ryjelsum]

cohost seems to be financially disintegrating as many have predicted and i don't want to say i told you so, but.. i will say i still think that they are really fucking dumb for running into what is essentially an angel investor paying to make a better social media site for people, and deciding "we're going to make everything completely proprietary with no interoperability with existing standards (ie. activitypub) even though it's going to be a goddamn miracle if we get off of the ground otherwise."

implementing support for activitypub would not have precluded them from having a strong 'local' community like they were trying to foster. it would not have precluded them from implementing nonstandard features like tumblr style heavy profile page customization. like, honestly, if they would have based cohost on the activitypub standard in the first place, even only a very basic amount of support, and released large portions of it as open source.. they would have got people doing the fucking work for them and they could have stepped more towards fundraising and project management. a lot of people on fedi are people who had been on tumblr 5-10 years ago and long since left and in general people are hungering for a well-maintained tumblrish fediverse software.

if they took that angel investor money specifically meant to make a better social media website and put it into even partially supporting the one commonly used standard they could have really got a ball rolling, they could have had a much better shot at making it self sustaining. but they had absolutely no focus on how to sustain it, that was why i was initially skeptical of the platitudes on their website..

[animehouse-moe]

The Valiant Must Fall Volume 2: Nonstandard

So, finally, we've gotten the second volume of Aida's latest series in English. Not too far off from the experience of the first volume, it improves in some areas, expands on various pieces, but may leave readers dissatisfied or questioning what's going on. Is it worth the read? Personally, I believe so, but I don't know if it's quite for everyone, which is what I'm hoping to explain here.

Also, apologies for the lack of images but I couldn't find any scans for the series online, so I've had to do without.

Okay, so Adashino, Kinsmen, Sessohiki, Meiji Restoration, etc. etc. Yeah, bit of a hefty plate for those that aren't too interested in a more traditional approach to Japanese historical storytelling, and those that don't have much knowledge of Japanese history.

Much like the first volume, I think that Aida does a good enough job in filling in the gaps for those that might not have the necessary knowledge and understand. I say "enough", because I think there's more that could be done in structuring the story to help readers, but that's mostly because of the average English speaking person's understanding of Japanese history and storytelling.

Anyways, lets go back over some of the core aspects to the story. Haruyasu and Shino try to kill her mother and fail, Haruyasu nearly dies due to the Sesshoseki, and Shino's brother leaves the group there. Following that we go on the run as the crew regroups.

And that's really all that happens in this volume. The storytelling is very slow, but then hits explosive moments towards the end of the volumes. You might say that it's a bit formulaic, though we're only on the second volume so it's hard to really be fair in that regard.

Let's talk specifics about this volume though. There's two things that sort of rub me the wrong way, that I think will be even taller hurdles to others: the Sessoseki (for reference, the name literally means "killing stone" and comes from a Japanese myth), and the handling of characters.

The concept of Sesshoseki is undeniably cool. An all powerful sword that consumes its user. It's dangerous, and is treated as such within the story. But it's almost underplayed. The demonic side of it isn't really displayed, and the combat feature doesn't carry the weight that you might expect. I wouldn't say it's terrible, none of this really is, but it's aspects that can very easily turn readers off from the series. Which is why it might be important to note that Aida's art is rather stiff through this second volume as well. Good layouts and paneling, but it can't really create that feeling of movement or flow that the art itself can.

Alright, the handling of characters. The supporting cast can fall flat, frankly speaking. I think some are certainly more interesting than others, but characters can easily become one dimensional or focus solely on delivering a single aspect to the story. I wouldn't say it's incredibly uncommon in more traditional Japanese storytelling to see single-faceted characters like this, especially with how Aida can treat them through this second volume. But for regular audiences this side of the pond, it can be abrasive. A character that seems important one second is gone the next, and that guy with the name that you can't remember actually comes back to be important and interesting. It's not quite hit and miss, but it's very whimsical and flippant with how characters can be approached.

So where does that leave all of this? In between a rock and a hard place?

Yes, but sort of no, but mostly it depends. There's bumps in the road for almost every reader, but overall I think it's a story that has the potential to hold interest, especially as this volume ends in a more interesting fashion, teasing the involvements of Shino's other siblings. The real question isn't so much if you like point A and point B in the story, but rather if you can find interest in the distance between them. The gaps stuffed full of historical information and interactions, the names that are a mile long and the details that seem all too forgettable.

Gunslinger Girl was never a mainstream or wildly popular series, but The Valiant Must Fall surely shrinks that fanbase to even a fraction of its predecessor. I know it sounds like I'm saying a lot of bad stuff about the series, but I really do want potential readers to be cautious with signing on for this series. It's not impossible to get into, but it's also not something you can just jump on and get the gist of.

[darkphoenixlady]

Queen Buffy - Episode 3

First Episode

Episode 3

The next morning, Buffy takes a tray of scrambled eggs on toast up to her mom’s room. As she walks through the door, she stops and smiles as she sees Dawn lying asleep beside her mother. A discreet snap of her fingers has a second tray appear balanced on her hand, with a bowl of her favourite cereal on it.

“Good morning sleepy heads. Did you sleep well after last night?”

Dawn sits up with a yawn and looks at Buffy oddly, “Breakfast in bed?”

Buffy smiles, “Yep, I thought you could both do with it after that demon attack last night. And all the men tromping around at oh god o’clock.”

Dawn smiles as Buffy hands her the tray, and Joyce starts to wake up.

Looking at the tray, Joyce chuckles, “When did you learn to cook Buffy?”

Buffy puts on an offended look, “Hey, you should know, you taught me. Scrambled eggs on toast, see, nothing difficult.”

Joyce smiles, “I know, I don’t feel very hungry though.”

Buffy nods, “That’s OK, you just need to eat something so that I can give you your morning pills.” She pours on the puppy dog eyes, “Please, just a few bites, for me?”

Joyce laughs, and then winces, before taking a bite, “Mmm, Buffy, this is delicious. How did you sleep?”

Buffy shakes her head, “I haven’t yet. I’ll sleep once you’re out of surgery.”

“Buffy, you shouldn’t. You need to sleep.”

Buffy shrugs, “It’s only a couple of nights. It’s not like I need much normally as the slayer, either.”

“Promise me you’ll get some sleep tomorrow.”

Buffy smiles, “Don’t worry, I plan on it.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

A little while later, Dawn comes down stairs to find Buffy surrounded by screwed up bits of paper while she seems to be doing math on a fresh sheet, “Hey Buffy, what are you doing?”

Buffy looks up, frustration clear on her face, “I’m trying to translate a half remembered spell into runes.”

Dawn looks confused, “Why?”

“Because Pomona sprout learnt it while she was doing her mastery in herbology, but never cast it. Minerva heard of it, and Beth was too young to know of it.”

“Ok, what does it do?”

“It grades components, and sort of tells you if they’re suitable for wand making or potion making.”

“And, why do you want that?”

“I have the heart of the demon in the fridge. I want to know if any of it can be used.”

“Eww, why? Surely it’s tainted.”

Buffy pushes the paper away, “You’re probably right, even if you’re not, I probably need to take a break. Just put the plates by the sink, I’ll wash them later.”

Dawn does so, and asks, “Buffy, what were you going to tell me today?”

“Dawn, sit down and don’t jump to conclusions, OK?”

Dawn nods and takes a seat, “OK.”

Buffy looks at her hands, before taking one of Dawn’s, “Dawn, you’re magically adopted. The reason the insane people keep talking about your pictures is that you didn’t have a physical body until September.” She tightens her grip as Dawn tries to pull away, “Dawn, that doesn’t change the fact that you are my sister. Or that mom’s your mom too. It just means that you came into our lives in a nonstandard manner. Do you understand?”

Dawn looks panicked, “You mean they’re right, I’m a freak, and I don’t exist?”

“Dawn, Dawn! Look at me. Feel my hand gripping yours. Does that feel like something fake? It doesn’t matter how you came into our lives, all that matters is that you are my family.”

Dawn bursts into tears, so Buffy pulls her into her lap, “Dawn, it’s better you find out now, from me, than if one of my enemies found out, and tried to use it against you. Once mom’s better, I’m going to work out how to make sure that she’ll be healthy and strong enough to protect herself for the rest of her life. I’d like you to have the same thing.”

Joyce, feeling a bit better, gets dressed and comes downstairs before Dawn has finished crying out, “Buffy, what’s wrong with Dawn?”

Buffy looks up, “With all the people approaching her, and telling her things, I bit the bullet and told her she was magically adopted by us.”

“Oh, is that what I saw last night. I thought it was just my tumor.”

Buffy nods, “It is, and I can make sure that both of you can protect yourselves in future. I’m going to do something about it once you’re out of surgery.”

“Buffy, I…”

“Mom, I want you to at least be able to run away. What if we have another demon attack, or vampires try to burn the house down. I just want you both safe.”

“I know honey, and I think that’s an admirable way of thinking. But I’m getting old now.”

Buffy smiles, “That’s OK, it would help with that too.”

Joyce smiles, “You win. I’m going to sit in the yard as it’s a nice day.”

The rest of the day passes quickly once Buffy’s friends start to turn up to keep her company and… help with the chores.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The next day, after the nurse has inserted the canula for Joyce’s IV, Buffy recasts her monitoring charm before joining the others in the waiting area. Over the course of the day, Willow, Xander, Giles, and Riley all stay with Buffy and Dawn while they wait.

Even with the monitoring charm in the back of her head, the wait for news is excruciatingly long.

Eventually, the doctor walks down the corridor with an exhausted gait, and wearing blue scrubs.

Buffy stands up with a smile, as the monitoring charm suggests that Joyce is sleeping peacefully. As she does, everyone else stands up with her.

Once the doctor is close enough, Buffy asks, “How did it go?”

With an exhausted sigh, the doctor smiles slightly, “It went well, and she’s in recovery now. I was able to visualize the tumor completely.”

Buffy sags in relief, “That’s great news, were there any complications?”

The doctor shakes his head, “No, everything went smoothly. Barring something going wrong during her recovery, she’s going to be fine.”

Buffy squeals with happiness and hugs Dawn and then Riley. Finally, turning to the doctor, she pulls him into a bone creaking hug, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Rather than respond, the doctor instead arches his back in pain, and lets out a loud expression of pain. Quickly letting go, Buffy steps back, “Sorry.”

The doctor just waves her off.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 It’s only an hour later that Buffy and Riley are slow dancing in the lounge, with relaxing music playing, and flickering candlelight giving the room a soft and slightly surreal feel to it.

Buffy puts her head against Riley’s chest, “Mmm, can we put this song on repeat?”

Gently, Riley says, “Whatever you want.”

Buffy frowns slightly at the scent of vampire coming from Riley’s left arm, but shakes it off as she leans back, “Can we put the whole night on repeat?”

Riley nods, “Absolutely.”

Buffy nods, “Good.” Then she leans back with a pleased moan, “Mmm, I can’t believe how relaxed I feel. It’s like all the tension’s just left my body.”

Riley quirks a smile, “Already? ‘Cause I had that scheduled for a little later on.”

With a slight hint of incredulousness, Buffy asks, “Scheduled? Are you planning on seducing me, Mr Finn?”

Riley’s grin becomes more pronounced, “Always.” Before he leans in for a kiss, “I want tonight to be special for you.”

Looking up into his eyes, Buffy says, “It’s more than special. It’s perfect.”

“I’m glad. You deserve it after everything you’ve been through.”

Buffy looks down at his chest, “Well, it’s nothing compared to what my mom had to deal with.”

“But it was a lot. And you were incredible.”

Buffy gives a humorous smile, “Not really. Just covering for the weepy child within.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You stayed strong throughout Buffy. You never even cried.”

Buffy can’t help shaking her head slightly, “Oh, I cried. I cried so hard, I didn’t think I was gonna be able to stop. I’ve got the tears in a bottle to prove it too.”

Turning her head, she rests it against Riley’s chest with her nose away from the vampire stink, before sighing.

Riley sounds a little hurt as he says, “Oh.”

“That’s all in the past now. Mom’s out of the woods, and I’m here with you. That’s all that matters.”

As she looks up at Riley, he captures her lips with his own, and the time for talking and quiet reflection comes to an end, and they move onto gentle love making, before falling asleep in each other’s arms.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Later that night, as the scent of vampire fills the room, Buffy wakes up from a dream of hundreds of her children dying as they fight to secure a source of food from another hive, before the more dangerous predators arrive to steal it away from both of them. It only takes her a second to recognize the scent from the other night.

“Spike, what are you doing here?”

“I need to show you something.”

Buffy sits up and stares at him, “Really Spike? Every time you show up like this, you risk all of your parts, you know that?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a good reason. As usual, I’m here to help you, and I… Are you naked under there?”

Buffy growls, “So what if I am? Get out.”

“No, I’m serious. I mean, not about the naked part, I mean…”

“Get out, or I will rip off your head and mount your polished skull on my wall.”

Spike steps back at the threat, before he rallies, “I wanna show you something.”

“What?”

“You need to see this. But we need to move if we want to get there in time.”

Buffy sighs, and gets out of bed. Spikes eyes widen before he spins around. With a click of her fingers, Buffy’s dressed in comfortable clothes, “Well, let’s go then.”

Spike turns back and does a double take, before leading her out of the house.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Spike leads Buffy to a rundown second floor two story apartment, accessed by a set of concrete stairs that’s covered by graffiti and posters. At the bottom of the stairs, a few steps go down to the first floor apartment. As they get close, the scent of vampires becomes almost overpowering.

As he leads her up the stairs and into the apartment, the stench is so pervasive that she can’t identify the individual strains anymore.

Looking around, the downstairs area Buffy can see the red, almost orangey, shapes of humans sitting or lying down on various bits of furniture, the dark blue shapes moving above them occasionally illuminated by the faint light, to reveal vampires drinking from different limbs on the humans.

From behind her, Spike says, “No slayage tonight. We’re here for something else.”

Buffy looks around, “What is this place?”

Spike just walks towards the stairs, “This way.”

Buffy follows Spike silently, and watches as a vampire in a leather jacket steps in front of him, “You can’t go up there.”

Spike just grabs the vampire by the throat and throws him to one side. Buffy walks past him and silently ascends the stairs. The hint of a familiar scent pulling on her nose.

As the scent becomes stronger, and more familiar, Buffy puts her hand on the wall, her fingernails carving through the plaster as easily as they’d pass through sand, leaving deep furrows behind her, as a rain of dust falls to the floor.

Vaguely, she’s aware that Spike is in a minor argument downstairs, but still she walks on, until she comes to a bare wooden door beside a crooked light fitting on the wall. Pushing the door open, she looks in side, and has to just stop and stare as she sees Riley sitting in an armchair, with a female vampire sucking on his arm. When he says ‘Harder’ in that almost feral growl he uses when she’s got him on edge, her grip on the door-jam tightens with a loud crack, as the wood shatters under her grip.

Riley looks up, “Buffy?”

Anything else he might have said goes unheard of by Buffy as she turns from the doorway and runs back the way she came. As she rounds a corner, and sees Spike walking towards her, she disappears in a flash of fire, and reappears on her favorite beach from when she was going to Hemery High school.

With a heart wrenching sob, she runs towards the sea and leaps into the air. A sleek black shape replaces her, and dives beneath the waves.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Morosely, Riley unlocks the door to his apartment and walks in. Slowly, he moves through the dark apartment, his senses on high alert. As he gets past the entry hall, his eyes pick out the telltale reflection of white skin being lit by the streetlight outside. Turning away from that part of his apartment, he switches on a table lamp and says, “Get out.”

A deep, gruff, voice, responds, “I need to talk to you.”

Riley looks back to see three men in black fatigues standing in the kitchen area, “I’m not in a talking mood.”

The man who just spoke walks forward, “Then listen.”

One of his old squad mates walks up with the man, “Riley, just give the man a chance. If you don’t like what you hear, we’ll be on our way.”

Riley glances at his squad mate before licking his lips and looking at the new man, “Talk fast.”

“We have a code one in Belize. A demon tribe is taking apart missionaries in the rain forest down there.”

Riley looks down at the ground, “And you’re telling me this because…”

“We’re going down to terminate their operation. We want you to join us.”

Riley pauses for a long moment before he responds almost guiltily, “I’m a civilian.”

“You’re a soldier.”

Riley’s voice rises slightly, “I quit the government a long way back.”

“We’re not government. We’re Army.”

Riley’s squad mate adds, “Just like you.”

The man in charge steps forward into Riley’s space, “It’s not The Initiative, Finn. We don’t do experiments. None of us give a damn what makes monsters tick. We just stop ‘em.”

Riley sways slightly, “What do you need me for?”

“I think you can handle yourself, and I always need bodies. I’m not gonna lie to you. It’s the real deal. High risk, low pay, and seriously messy. We ship out for Central America tomorrow midnight. Now, maybe civilian life is working out for you, and maybe not. Midnight, tomorrow. Decision’s yours.”

Riley stares off into the distance for a long time after the three men file out, and close the door behind them.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The next morning finds Giles standing on a step ladder, affixing a sign above the cash desk in Magic Box. Behind the counter, Anya and Xander are both dealing with the morning delivery, while Willow is adjusting things on the shop floor.

With a sigh, Giles finishes tying off the last corner of his Seasonal holiday sign advertising the various new year religious observations that are coming up, “And so it begins.” Climbing down the steps he continues, “No longer a victim of crass holiday commercialization, I’m a purveyor of it.”

Pulling a container out of the box she’s unpacking, Anya makes a face as she pulls one out of the container, “Oh, who ordered more chicken’s feet? The ones we have aren’t moving at all.”

Xander snarks, “That’s generally what happens when you cut them off the chicken.”

Anya huffs, “I’m serious. Maybe we could do a holiday promotion. One free with every purchase.”

Giles looks up wistfully, “Oh, year. Dear holiday memories. Merry tykes by the fire, enjoying their new Christmas chicken feet.”

Willow walks up to the counter and clasps her hands in front of her chest, “Aw, holding them tight as they fall asleep, painting their little toenails.”

Anya chuckles as she looks at the chicken’s foot in her hand, “That’s very humorous. Make fun of the ex-demon. I can just hear you in private. ‘I dislike that Anya. She’s newly human and strangely literal.”

Buffy walks into the conversation and takes the chicken foot Anya’s holding out, “Oh, thanks Anya.” Buffy takes a crunchy bite from the foot, “Mmm, these are great. Anyway, I just wanted to catch you and Xander. Um, something came up last night, and I need some time to clear my head, and order my thoughts. Um, would you mind looking after Dawn for another couple of nights.” Buffy turns to Giles, “Maybe you, Giles, if they can’t. Only, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get home for a couple of days.”

Giles stammers, “Oh, um, I think we can sort something out.”

Buffy smiles brightly, “Oh, thanks guys.” Turning around she walks away crunching the chicken foot, and seems to just fade into nothing before she gets to the door.

Willow looks at where Buffy was, before looking back to everyone else, the previous bickering forgotten, “Um, did anyone else see that?”

Anya looks outraged, “I did, she walked out of her without paying for that chicken foot.”

Xander shakes his head as he reaches into the pot and pulls out a chicken foot, “I think Willow was talking about the whole becoming invisible thing.”

Giles takes his glasses off to clean them, “Yes, yes, quite. I was going to look up the phoenix, but with the Queller Demon and Joyce’s brain surgery, I completely forgot.”

As Xander sniffs the chicken foot, and starts to nibble on it, Anya nods, “Is this related to the night light that Dawn has?”

Willow looks confused, “Night light?”

Anya nods, “It’s carved into a poker chip, and Dawn said that Buffy made it for her the night the Queller demon attacked.”

Willow looks curious, “Buffy made it? But magical artifacts are supposed to be hideously difficult to make.”

Giles coughs, “They can be. It depends on the artifact and the cost you pay. I really should try to find out what Buffy summoned with her wish.”

Xander makes a face, and spits a bit of chicken foot out into his hand, “Ugh, these are disgusting. How could Buffy just crunch them like that.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Joyce smiles at her daughter, even though she can see the tension in her shoulders, “Buffy, you don’t have to be here with me. You should be out with your friends.”

Buffy turns around holding a long haired silver wig, “Mom, I’m here because I want to be.”

“What about Riley?”

Joyce watches the twitch on Buffy’s face as she touched a nerve, “I gave Riley the day off, so I could spend time with you.”

“Buffy, I don’t think Riley would see that as a chore.”

“I know mom, it’s just.”

As Buffy sits on the end of the bed, Joyce puts her hand on Buffy’s arm, “Is this like Angel?”

Buffy shakes her head, “No, Angel never… I saw something last night, and I’m trying to get my head around it and everything else that’s happened to me recently.”

“Like the fact you’ve become proficient with magic recently?” Buffy looks guilty, so Joyce laughs, “Buffy, I was sick, not stupid.”

Buffy nods and clicks her fingers, a plastic water bottle with maybe a ¼ inch of liquid in the bottom, “Drink this mom. It will heal your surgical wounds. It’s not as good as putting them directly on the wound. But it will work.”

Joyce closes Buffy’s hand over the bottle, “Maybe once they’ve discharged me. I don’t think the world is ready for magical cure all’s. Now, you should go and do what you need to do rather than sitting around the hospital. I’m perfectly capable of entertaining myself.”

Buffy smiles before she disappears with a pop, leaving Joyce to look wistfully at the space she was just sitting in.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Dawn chews on some popcorn as she sit on a leather couch in Giles’ apartment, the local news playing on the TV.

“In an NBC exclusive, we are now going live to the Midland Ranch Road Beach on Avalon, just off the coast of Los Angeles, where the mostly eaten corpse of a blue whale washed up earlier this afternoon. Susan, what’s going on there?”

Dawn looks over at Giles, who’s pouring over an old tome, “Mr Giles, what could eat a blue whale, and only remove the skull from the skeleton?”

Giles looks up bemusedly, “Huh? Just call me Giles, or Rupert. What was that?”

Dawn points at the TV, “A blue whale washed up on a beach.”

Giles stands up and comes over to look at the TV where a reporter is standing up wind of a beheaded blue whale corpse that’s missing the skull. As the reporter continues talking, Giles sinks onto the couch with Dawn and cleans his glasses, “Oh god.”

On the TV, the camera pans over to someone who’s claiming that it was a dinosaur that did this.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 In the Magic Box, Anya is cashing up, and double checking the receipts against the receipt role from the till, with Xander sweeping the floor and generally tidying up for the morning.

Xander leans on his broom and looks over at Anya, “Anya, what do you think’s going on with Buffy?”

Anya looks up, “What do you mean?”

“It’s just, the way she was this morning. Running off who knows where without even a word.”

Anya shrugs, “Who knows, could be anything.”

“Yeah, but there was also that chicken foot earlier.”

Anya smiles wistfully, “It wasn’t that bad, I remember going to one party, and they served live bloodworms that you had to dig out of the victim yourself.”

“Would you stop being scary for a minute and listen to what I’m trying to tell you?”

Both of them look up as the bell on the door tinkles, and Riley walks in. As he comes over to the counter he asks, “She in there?”

Xander shakes his head, “No, we haven’t seen her since this morning when she asked us to look after Dawn for a couple of nights.”

“Did she say why?”

Anya shakes her head, “No, just that she wouldn’t be going home for a couple of nights while she worked stuff out.”

Riley stands there looking stunned, as though the bottom of his world has just fallen out. After a long moment he asks, “Can you let her know. Can you let her know that the Army want me to help with a demon thing? It’ll be a radio silence operation, no contact with civilians, or anything. I-I’ll be shipping out from the initiative helipad at midnight. I-If she wants to talk, I’ll be there until then.”

Xander awkwardly claps Riley on the shoulder a couple of times, “Sure, if we see her, I’ll let her know.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Riley stands at a parade rest while he looks out over the darkened parkland towards Sunnydale and Buffy’s home. Behind him, the other men are busy securing the last of the stowage for their flight to a military airfield, where they’ll then get a plane south.

His own gear was stowed nearly an hour ago, and he’s been watching the entryways to this field since then. As the minutes tick towards midnight, his heart sinks lower and lower in his chest. Until the sound of the helicopter spinning up causes him to, reluctantly, turn around and take his seat.

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