#we knew what was coming but it didn't make it any less impactful

[allisonreader]

Whenever I read Hard Enough Left, I am struck once again by how much I love this story. When that feeling strikes, it always takes me a little off guard by how strong it is. I always know that I love this story, but why it always strikes me hard that this is why I love this story.

I don't know that I can ever fully articulate how much I love Hard Enough Left (and all of the related stories, starting with Life's Highway which started it all) and how much they mean to me. Both of these stories are comfort stories. I read pretty much all of Life's Highway last week when it was such a hard and sorrowful week for me.

I admire the writing so much and honestly wish that my own writing could be half as inspiring as I find @nurfhurdur 's. (And it has done a lot of inspiring for me over the past few years.) The sound and flow and even the details are all something that I wish I could do. Though my particular voice and turn of phrase seems to be pretty set already as in comparing older and newer stuff.

I love Hard Enough Left enough that I want to share it and recommend it to everyone, even if they don't care one whit about Pixar's Cars or racing history. One day I want to get my parents to read this story. I want to share it with my boyfriend. I want to make or have an audio copy so that I can listen to it while driving up to the lake or when visiting my boyfriend.

I love these stories as much as the two movies that they are inspired from. (Which I also had just watched again and had that same feeling of "I love this so much, it feels like home.")

I'm also so grateful that I have been able to play with your OCs and get to share what I have done for playing with them, with anyone who will listen. I always hope that I do them the justice that they deserve, as I do my writing out of love.

[lowkeyerror]

another reader x maddy like notice me pls the dykes (me. absolutely FERAL. please.) are BEGGING for one pls bestie

Punish

Word count: 1.3k

Notes: Complete filth, little to no plot, dom!reader, spanking, fingering, edging, daddy!kink

Masterlist

Y/n was a girl full of intentions. She wasn't a free-spirit by any use of the words. If anything, she was calculated, almost meticulous in planning out the details of her life.

The girl liked it that way. With things planned out, there was less room for distractions. Hangouts with her friends, after school activities, homework, and time for herself were all penciled in weekly.

In today's society, she wasn't a nerd, but a girlboss. It was well known around East Highland that if anyone at the school was ever going to make an impact on the world, it would be Y/n.

" What's with that face? I don't like the confusion." Y/n shut her locker to see Lexi standing next to her with her eyebrows furrowed.

" It's just- Maddy's looking over here. I'm pretty sure she's staring at you."

As of late, Maddy had become Y/n's number one enemy. Y/n hated Maddy because the Latina was a distraction, perhaps her biggest distraction.

Y/n simply hummed at Lexi's words. To anyone else, it would've come off as content or disinterest, but Lexi knew the girl better than that.

" Is there something you want to tell me?"

Y/n dismisses the question," Nope, I have class in 5 minutes, and it would take me way longer to explain anything to you."

" Are you going to tell Maddy the same thing because she's coming this way?"

Before Y/n could say anything, her name was being called," Y/n, I need to talk to you."

Y/n lets a sigh escape her lips," Can we talk after class? I've got a half hour to spare before I need to be at-"

" Now is the best time," she plasters a fake smile on her lips.

The scholar relents," Fine. Later Lexi."

Maddy smiles at her best friend's sister," Later, Lex."

Lexi watches as the two girls walk off together, Y/n trailing behind Maddy. It was strange to see her friend not leading, but following. However, she knew what kind of effect Maddy had on people.

" I don't have time for this, Madeleine," Y/n grunts as the Latina places kisses up her neck in the empty classroom.

" Make time."

Maddy's lips tickle Y/n's skin as she speaks. Her hands freely roam the other girl's body.

" Why are you always so needy?" Y/n shudders under the Maddy touch.

" Baby, now you know that's not my fault. You're the one always looking so pretty for me; so innocent. I see you and fuck, it makes me go crazy. I need your fingers inside me."

Y/n was struck, but didn't want to admit it. Maddy's words got her to her deepest core. The stubborn girl tried once more to stop this," And I need to go back to class, Madeleine."

Maddy couldn't take no for an answer. As Y/n tried to leave, Maddy gently grabbed her hand. She guided Y/n's fingers into her mouth. Y/n's eyes dilated as she watched Maddy suck her fingers.

The feeling of the wet tongue swirling around her digits was making her lose the will to fight.

" Maddy," It's a plea that leaves Y/n's lips.

The fingers depart from Maddy's ljps as she smirks at Y/n's drop in formalities. However, Maddy drags the saliva covered fingers down her body.

They trail between her slightly exposed cleavage, down her shirt, until they slip under her skirt. Y/n feels Maddy's wetness through the thin cloth of her panties.

Maddy's eyes meet Y/n," Daddy, please."

That sets it off for Y/n. She removes her fingers from the girl's underwear. She pushes the girl until she's against the teacher's desk. Y/n doesn't hesitate to bend the Latina over the desk.

" You're such a fucking slut, you know that? You can never wait until I'm ready for you. Always fucking up my schedule like the impatient whore you are."

Y/n pulls the skirt down in a swift movement and lays a harsh smack on Maddy's ass. The girl responds by sticking up further for Y/n to hit again.

" Why can't you be my good girl, huh? The rules are so simple, have you forgotten?"

At the lack of answer, Y/n slaps Maddy's ass harder than the time before causing the girl to yelp.

" Answer me, when I'm talking to you, Maddy. Tell me the rules."

" Don't bother you at school."

Y/n offers another smack," Broken."

" W-wait for you to come to me."

Y/n starts to undo her belt. It causes Maddy to bite her lip in anticipation.

" Next one, Madeleine."

" Don't be a dirty slut."

Y/n kicks the girl's legs wider. With the belt hanging loosely in her hand she squats down, coming face to face with Maddy's pussy. It's already dripping. A string of her wetness starts quickly falling to the floor. Y/n is quick to catch it with her finger. She licks the finger before standing up straight again.

She slashes the belt 6 times quickly in an x motion, hitting Maddy's bare ass with each strike. The girl's legs buckle and small whimpers escape her lips.

" So you do know the rules, you're just being disobedient for attention, huh? You like it when I punish you. Don't even try to lie because your pussy dripping while I spank you, tells me all I need to know. I should leave you here like this. Ass out and red, panties on the floor, pussy dripping."

" You wouldn't," she challenged.

Y/n stood directly behind the girl. Her hand gripped Maddy's neck while her other hand jammed three fingers into the popular girl's pussy.

Maddy's eyes rolled to the back of her head as Y/n's grip got tighter, and her fingers worked the girl's pussy.

" Fuck my fingers. You were begging for them? You must not want them that bad, I'll pull them out right now. Throw that ass back on my fingers, prove to me that you need it."

Maddy began moving the best she could in her position. There wasn't much room as she was trapped between Y/n and the desk.

" My fingers bigger than your boyfriend's dick, Maddy? He just not fucking you right, baby, huh. He doesn't know that you need to be treated like a whore, does he?"

The hand that was on her throat transitions to grab a fistful of her hair," Can't hear you over the sound of my fingers filling your pussy, speak up."

Maddy is gasping for air, trying to form any words. Your fingers remove themselves from her pussy, making her cry out. They instead start assaulting her clit.

" I asked you a question, Maddy."

She was an incoherent pile," He d-doesnt-"

" He doesn't what?"

" God-he doesn't fuck me like you do. Fuck me please, put them back inside of me please daddy."

It was Y/n's turn to smirk. She completely removed her fingers from the Latina.

" I'm going to class, Madeleine. I'll see you when I see you."

" Y-you- you can't leave me like this."

Y/n put her fingers in her mouth, quickly sucking the girl's juices off of her fingers. Once they were clean, she grabbed her belt, and fed it through the loops on her pants.

" Madeleine, whatever this is will only get better for you when you stop trying to be in control. I'm in charge of this, not you. I'll call when I want to finish fucking you."

" But-"

" Or I could just not call," Y/n's voice was cold as she spoke. She waited for Maddy to finish her back talk, but she didn't.

" If you can wait patiently… I'll consider letting you cum after I'm done punishing you."

With that Y/n exited the classroom leaving Maddy there with her ass out and red, panties on the floor, pussy dripping.

[prapaiwife]

It's so interesting because peat does have a hard time doing the crying scenes. And I seen some say that he can't do emotions well. But especially coming from Love in the air where he's playing the character sky. We've seen sky crying we would also seen him cry without tears pouring out. So I didn't no if it was intentional or just an actual note that they wanted to make in the show of Sky's actual struggle even when it comes to his own emotions and him not being able to cry when we clearly see that he wants to. When we know what sky has been through he has to have cried a lot in his life and now he's just numb to it all making him emotionally unavailable. But even when he had those moments when he couldn't die we can see clearly but hurt in anguish over his face and in his body language. Sometimes it's like bad for those about this a very traumatic in my life you start to detox from everything and everyone and just shut down. This makes it and pass it when it does fully crying after saying it wouldn't matter if you did cuz it doesn't change where he's at. But once prapai tells him "you can't cry so I'll cry in your steed". He's reassuring him that it is okay to cry and that it does make it better and he's not alone not anymore he's here with him to get through this together because he loves him. What happened before he has showed up doesn't make him love him any less and that really touches his heart so much in that moment that he fully completely breaks down. And just out to him but he wants him to love him and he wants to be with him which we knew but still makes it all the more impactful as a scene.

And so my favorite scene was seemingly the scene that was the hardest for them at the beach when tongrak came back for mahasamut. And so peat had to channel or hone in on his emotions. In that scene as we saw tongrak desperateness and that sadness and loneliness he was overcome with. Tongrak had came back for mahasamut and wanted to reach out to him and hold him and hug him he wanted him to put the bracelet back on. But he didn't know where to start, all he can do was listen to mahasamut pour his heart again to him and he couldn't see anything but listen because he knew something but the truth. So he wasn't there to hurt him he wanted to try to fix this but mahasamut wasn't budging he was very much still hurt. And in the behind the scenes we find out that's only been at least since they have been apart so now that rak is at the island face to face with him it's like a cruel game now that he wants no part of. This scene was so amazingly down and it's my favorite for a reason fort and peat never fail.

[melonteee]

I've seen many people complain that Oda in Post Time skip One Piece spends a lot of time worldbuilding and making up side characters on every island that distract from the main ones and the plot. While I can see where some people are coming from, as someone who reads comics from Marvel, I WISH the wordbuilding and side characters were that developed because most of the time, unless it's about space or magic or directly related to the plot, the world feels genuinely dead. Even the main setting of a story sometimes feels so dead, like for comparison

Around 2 years ago, they had an event where, at some point, an inhabited island got pretty much nuked. We spent 3 real life years on that island and the writers really couldn't make any readers care less about all the civilians (men, women, children and babies) dying as they wrote them as a single minded entity who didn't mind that fate if their government told them to do it so they used two of the "main characters" (the most selfish pricks imaginable who never even cared about the island and the people there as they are long-established villains + due to plot, were made part of the people who rule over the place and get the most privilege and best life there compared to everyone else), to pull the heartstrings of fans on how terrible it is for them to die this way and how tragic that these two had to die in this event... All because the plot hyperfocused on the island's government (not even interesting to read and full of what felt like highschool drama) instead of the people the government looks after and who would be the greatest casualty here. All of this didn't matter either because everyone on that island was brought back to life (that plot device was present even before the event so caring about anything was going to be hard from the get go) including the "main characters" that died.. Guess who got to come back to life first while many others were on a waiting list years down the line still ?

Now compare this to Oda and what he did with Lulusia. All things related to this island were mostly cover stories, many cuts back and forth in a "meanwhile in...", ... But once Chapter 1060 hits, we feel the tragedy and horror, we are at awe at how much destruction was unleashed on these people. That scene was made even more horrifying and sad when it was animated in Episode 1089...and then we learn the reason the island was obliterated had nothing to do with Sabo being there. Any island we knew who partook in a revolution could have been a target. We find out that even that was an excuse because the main goal was to test a weapon and nothing more. Oda is using a tool here called "less is more" for this island and it was sincerely enough for me to care A WHOLE LOT about Lulusia even if the main characters never set a single foot there and it wasn't part of the main plot. There wasn't even a main character who "died" there either to pull on our heart strings. We just saw these people triumphantly come out of a political crisis and enjoy their first hours of freedom after lord knows how long and then

They were all gone. Erased. And even if they didn't all see what was about to happen to them, they felt it. They died in fear

Oda is very very good at his world building, because he makes sure these islands are LIVED in, not just that they EXIST. It's all well and good to wipe out an island to show the political and immoral powers that be, but we don't feel the impact unless we SEE the people and culture existing on the island.

It's why now, with Vegapunk explaining the state of the world, we are getting reactions from EVERY corner of the globe. We are being reminded how big this world is, how lived in this world is, and how many people are suffering under the world gov. We CARE about this world, we care about the PEOPLE in this world, and Oda's spent years building his world up for THIS moment. It's really spectacular.

[bltngames]

I Have Complicated Thoughts About Mother 3

Note: Patreon donors can listen to this article as a podcast narrated by me. Click to learn more.

Confined to a tiny room, I pulled out my off-brand retro portable and loaded up the fan translation of Mother 3. It had been on my list of "important games to play" for literal years at this point, if not more than a decade, and playing Mother 3 was bottle necking a lot of other stuff -- for example, I also wanted to play Undertale, but swore I'd need to finish Mother 3 first, despite being very graciously gifted Undertale only a few months after it came out on PC. 

Being something I wanted to play, that obviously meant avoiding spoilers. When the ability was added to places like Twitter or Tumblr to block specific keywords, often the first one I'd block was "Mother 3" alongside the names of a handful of characters I knew like Lucas, Claus, and Kumatora. 

I'd played a couple hours of Mother 3 once before, right when the translation patch first came out, so I knew what happened in the opening scenes of the game. I knew what a gut punch it was. It definitely worried me, because as I started the game back up, now in 2021, I silently thought about what it would be like playing a game that starts with your player character's mother dying, as I looked up at my own bed ridden mother. 

It was May of 2021 that she developed debilitating back pain. There was an easy enough explanation for that; we had just gone through a hellish (and potentially legally dubious) renovation forced upon us by the corporation that owned our gigantic apartment complex. Due to a scheduling error, we had less than a week to pack up our whole apartment so they could move us out, renovate the unit, and then move us back in. We attributed her back pain to that moving process -- lifting cardboard boxes and such.

But the back pain kept getting worse. They prescribed her stronger and stronger medication for what they claimed was sciatica, but it never seemed to help. After multiple trips to the emergency room, she was finally admitted to the hospital proper, where her femur randomly shattered during a routine procedure. The femur is the longest, strongest bone in your body, and typically only breaks during extremely violent impacts, like car crashes and stuff. For my mother, it broke as nurses were shifting her around to clean her bedding. Tests for bone cancer seemed to come back negative, so the doctors shrugged at us and considered it a freak accident and just the toll of old age.

There was no way she was making it back up the stairs to our apartment any time soon (if ever), so it was decided she'd have to heal from that broken leg at my brother's place, and since my brother and his wife both work day jobs, I volunteered to take care of my Mom while she got better. Hence why I was stuck in this tiny room, booting up Mother 3 in July or August of 2021.

My Mom never got better. It would be eight months before they told us they had somehow missed detecting her cancer, and by then, it had spread so viciously they weren't even sure where it originally started from. By the time they told us this, she had only days left.

Every step of the way in those 8 months, as she insisted over and over she was healing and told me about all the things she wanted to get back to doing, I believed her. But my Mom also taught me to always expect and brace for the worst. So as I watched Mother 3's Claus and Lucas bury their own deceased mom, there was an undeniable heaviness swelling in my heart. A feeling I could not shake. Though I didn't know yet, I knew something wasn't right, even if the doctors continued to shrug as more symptoms mounted. I could see myself in the same shoes as Claus and Lucas, and I didn't like it.

Once upon a time, I loved RPGs. I cut my teeth on Final Fantasy 2 for the SNES. Though to be honest, I don't remember my time with it very fondly. I didn't really understand the genre; I thought "hit points" referred to points on the body you could be struck at. Like, your elbow is a hit point. Your ear is a hit point. So on and so forth. When the game told me a monster like Scarmiliogne had "3,000 Hit Points", I figured that meant he was a giant, and thus had more surface area to strike at. I was not a very bright kid, but in my defense, nobody ever bothered to correct me, either. 

The first RPG to really stick out in my head was Earthbound (known in Japan as Mother 2). On the surface, Earthbound felt like a kitschy look at hometown Americana, as filtered through the lens of a Japanese writer. Though Earthbound sort of focused on contemporary America when it came out, to me, it's always carried this vibe of Norman Rockwell by way of The Peanuts gang. Though you chat it up with mohawk wearing punks, visit video arcades, and order pizza over the phone, something about its story feels deliberately retro and nostalgic, even in the mid-90's when it first came out. 

Earthbound is about leaving home for the first time, feeling sad about it, and calling your Mom at a payphone to cheer up. It's about taking on huge responsibilities while you're still just a kid swinging a baseball bat. It's about going from your house on a dirt road and traveling all the way up to the big city and beyond. It's about making best friends and bullies, and some of those story elements hit close to home for me. It's about finding an inner strength you didn't know was there, and to keep going, no matter what. It's about music and the secret song that plays in your soul. 

Earthbound is a warm, deeply heart-felt game that also happens to feature zombies, bubblegum chewing monkeys, time travel, secret civilizations full of unknown creatures, and a sequence where you beat up an entire police force one cop at a time. 

That is not the kind of game Mother 3 is. 

I suppose I wasn't really sure what I expected Mother 3 was going to be. All I'd really known was Earthbound, plus the 5 or so hours I'd played of the original NES game, retroactively renamed from "Mother" to "Earthbound Beginnings" in 2015. The retro Americana vibes I felt in Earthbound are even stronger in Beginnings. Though the story of Earthbound Beginnings claims it takes place in the 1980's, the visual identity rings much closer to the 50's or 60's. One of round vintage Cadillacs, greasers with big pompadours, and roaming hippies preaching peace and love. 

Mother 3 deliberately obscures when and where it's set, for reasons that will eventually become clear. You better get used to it too, because holding information back is kind of a running theme. 

Because if I'm being totally honest, I didn't like Mother 3. And at first, I was struggling to figure out why. Earlier when I said "I loved RPGs", that's because my life changed to a point where I felt like I didn't have room for them anymore. Games with lots of dialog meant they demanded my full, undivided attention. When I was sitting at a TV or a computer, I was often multitasking between multiple forms of output -- I'd be doing work while watching a Youtube video or listening to a podcast, and that slowly began to push out story-driven games like RPGs in favor of lighter, more replayable experiences I could engage with while I also did something else.

The one place that was not true was in the portable space. I didn't have a smartphone for the longest time, so I'd often find myself in a commute or on a lunch break at work with nothing to do but pull out something like my Nintendo DS and crank away at an RPG. I devoured games like Final Fantasy IV, Phantasy Star Zero and Bowser's Inside Story. Even games I did not particularly like, such as Kingdom Hearts re:Coded and Pokemon Pearl ended up getting a lot of play. 

At some point that changed, and it changed so gradually I didn't even realize it for the longest time. Over the last ten years I have tried and failed to enjoy portable versions of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, and found neither game to my taste. FF5 felt far too boilerplate in terms of structure and I simply got bored of it halfway in. With FF6, hype had led me to believe it was some kind of life-changing RPG super-classic, and I came away extremely unimpressed with both its story and its pacing. 

Both FF5 and FF6 came at a time after I'd finally gotten a few Android devices of my own -- in fact, most of Final Fantasy V was played on a Samsung tablet while I was at work. By now, I was starting to question whether or not having breezy mobile games like Pac-Man 256 was hurting my ability to commit to longer RPGs, even in the last space where it felt like I could sit down and focus on them. 

This is sort of what spurred me to start Mother 3 at all: since I was at my brother's place, my desktop computer and most of my video games were on the other side of town. All I had with me was a 12 year old laptop that was only good as a word processor, and a handheld emulation device called an "Anbernic". As the weeks stretched into months, I needed something to do or I was going to go insane. It seemed like no better time to knock something off my bucket list, but now it was starting to feel like strike three with portable RPGs. 

My malaise only added fuel to the fire: am I now simply too distractible everywhere? Would I rather be playing simple, quick-hit arcade style games, forever? 

It seemed like the perfect scapegoat, too. Maybe the problem wasn't that Final Fantasy VI hasn't aged very well, and more just the fact that my tastes had changed. After all, Final Fantasy VI is deeply beloved and considered one of the best games in the series. Perhaps I was the problem. 

But that's not entirely true. The problem with FF6 is that its story simultaneously felt too complex and dead simple at the same time. By now, I was engaging with RPGs where I'd only play them for 20-30 minutes once a week, and I could never remember what was going on because the plot felt like it was over my head. But when a major event would happen, it was always conveyed in this rushed, shallow way. The reason I could never remember what was going on is because nothing ever felt important enough to leave a lasting impact on me. 

That was never true with Mother 3. Even though it took me close to three full years to finish it, it wasn't that hard to recall where I'd left off, even if "where I'd left off" was over four months ago. 

No, the further I got into Mother 3, the clearer it became that I was not vibing with the story. 

Whereas the first two Earthbound games seemed to be deeply mired in warm feelings of childhood nostalgia, Mother 3 is a bitter, angry game about how much growing up sucks. All three games are of children coming of age and taking their first shaky steps into adulthood, but whereas Earthbound wields rose-tinted sweetness, Mother 3 grabs you by the neck and lays out a cold, harsh reality. 

You play as Lucas, who has a twin brother named Claus, and a father, a cowboy named Flint. The death of their mother shatters their entire family; both Flint and Claus have emotional breakdowns, the latter of which ends in Claus running away from home and Flint leaving to go find him. Both of them vanish. That leaves you, as Lucas, in the care of your grandfather, Alec.

Unfortunately for Lucas, the accident that killed his mother was only the start of a dangerous chain of events, and he soon finds himself swept up in adventure in the way RPG protagonists generally do. Earthbound set itself apart from typical RPG tropes by getting away from fantastical elements and basing itself in real life (albeit a strange, exaggerated version of it). Places with bicycles, fast food, and ATMs.

Mother 3 generally avoids this. You're introduced to Tazmily Village, an isolated farming community of log cabins and dirt roads, buried deep within the heart of the Sunshine Forest.

It's not really known when or where Mother 3 is set. Compared to Earthbound's attachment to contemporary America, Sunshine Forest and the areas surrounding it feature strange creatures like dragons, and even old, dilapidated castles. And yet Mother 3 also seems to have more in common with the wild-west-era American frontier than it does anything else, but even that isn't quite right. 

Tazmily is presented as the ultimate in idyllic life. It's a place where everybody helps everybody, intrinsically, out of the goodness of their own hearts. Poke around at the start of the game and you'll find that though they do have a jail, it's never been used, because nobody has ever committed a crime. 

Until one day, a mysterious man named Fassad appears. He's quick to charm the residents of Tazmily, and introduces the village to the concept of money. He also introduces the concept of deception, as in the night, Fassad steals some of that same money, sowing the first seeds of greed and distrust in these simple people. This rapidly transforms Tazmily from a sleepy, easy-going community to a bustling town of paved roads, automobiles, and even, thanks to further gifts from Fassad, technological entertainment delivered by his "Happy Boxes" -- cubes with embedded, glowing screens that emit a hypnotic signal intended to make people feel good (and more willing to spend their newly acquired finances). 

As Lucas, you oppose all of this. Fassad is clearly an evil, scheming man, both establishing and sabotaging a structure of financial power for his own gain, and its changing Tazmily for the worse. Since Fassad has arrived, Tazmily has seen an increase in monster attacks, and eventually even freak lightning storms that destroy whole entire buildings -- which coincidentally always belong to people that oppose Fassad. 

Funny how that works.

After Lucas and his grandpa Alec accuse Fassad, he uses his foothold with the people of Tazmily to brand you as a traitor. The very people that once treated you like family now curse your name for daring to threaten their modernized way of life. Soon, the first mayor of Tazmily officially disowns you, your grandfather is locked up in the newly built elderly care center, and your house somehow ends up being the next thing obliterated by the mysterious lightning storm. 

It's a hell of a first impression. The dominating message Mother 3 sends in its opening chapters is that things used to be better. Back when it was just people helping people, before the days of television, and cars, and roads, and even money. When the only thing that mattered was the sweat on your brow, the food in your stomach, and where the sun was in the sky. 

It felt cynical to me. Jaded. Things were different in 2006 when Mother 3 first came out, but it's hard not to read that today as some extension of the tired complaints around having too many devices and too much convenience. Like that meme that simply blames all of society's problems on having a phone. And it's a well Mother 3 goes back to over and over and over again: that Fassad brings the corruption of money, the corruption of technology, and the corruption of modern civilization, turning the residents of Tazmily into rude, vapid, ignorant zombies who have grown complacent with the increasingly bad things happening around them. 

And that's not the only thing in the game that can be read as cynical, either. More than once Mother 3 presents us with scenarios where Lucas faces down adult responsibilities and uses this as a way to express something depressing or frustrating as just being the way the world works. Such as early on when Lucas has to enter a factory as a new employee, and we're told about the joys of child labor -- including the hard hours you're expected to work for minimal pay.

Or how about when you receive a fast travel vehicle halfway through the game. Not only will it become permanently unusable if you accidentally allow it to run out of fuel (pretty easy, considering there's no visible fuel gauge), but refueling it incorrectly will cause it to explode, also rendering the vehicle useless. After all, you're just a dumb kid, and complex machines like these are meant to be cared for properly. 

Some of this is definitely meant to be more funny than serious or soul crushing, but the whole game has this rough edge to it that wasn't there in the original Earthbound, where Lucas brushes up against some fact of adulthood and it serves as an uncomfortable lesson. I couldn't help but read it as the game imparting something about how much growing up sucks, and how much that's just a part of life. Your parents will die, your neighbors are ignorant, work sucks and you'll probably mess it up anyway. Get over it. 

I even got this impression coming from the game's own upgrade systems. Both Lucas and another party member Kumatora can learn PSI abilities, which are basically the game's magic spells. When Lucas or Kumatora gets strong enough to learn a new PSI ability, they break out in an uncontrollable fever, a status effect that limits your ability to do certain things like sprinting. Until that fever breaks, you have to slowly walk everywhere. 

It doesn't really add anything to the experience. It doesn't make the game more fun, or more exciting. It's just one of those annoying things you have to put up with, because again, that's life, kid. Sometimes you get sick and you just can't move very fast.

The overall vibe of cynicism gets even worse as you start encountering Mother 3's handful of references to Earthbound. Mother 3 may go out of its way to forge a narrative separate from Earthbound, but there are definitely more than a few scenes referencing special moments from that game, and at least to me, all of them felt extremely pandering. It was as if Mother 3 was beating me over the head, jumping up and down shouting, "It's that thing you remember! Do you remember? Remember Earthbound? Look, we can do that thing too!" 

The further you progress in the game, the more these references change from feeling pandering to almost being mocking. It's eventually revealed that the game's true antagonist, and the man giving orders to Fassad, is Porky, the mean little rich kid from Earthbound. Porky has now become a man who seemingly lives in the past, having constructed multiple shrines of mementos from his adventures battling Ness and friends in the previous game. The ultimate version of this is his monument to nostalgia, New Pork City, the final area of Mother 3. 

It's effectively one gigantic theme park patterned after the major locales of Earthbound, all focused around celebrating how great Porky was back then, and how great he apparently still is.

And again, it felt unnecessarily angry. Just like how Fassad conquered and spoiled the idyllic village of Tazmily, Porky had taken ownership over Earthbound nostalgia and made it feel dirty. It felt like Mother 3, a game that went out of its way to be so different from Earthbound, sometimes almost shockingly so, was now spitting directly in my face. Porky, the ultimate obnoxious loser who just won't go away, refuses to let go of Earthbound. And you don't want to be like Porky, do you? 

It started to feel insulting. Several times over the course of playing Mother 3, I was considering quitting the game and never looking back because it seemed to be going out of its way to twist the knife. Was Mother 3 somehow bitter about Earthbound's legacy? 

Again, I had done my absolute best to avoid spoilers. Blocking Mother-related tags on social media was just the first step. In general, when Mother 3 came up in casual conversations I was privy to, I would quietly excuse myself and find somewhere else to be until I was sure they had changed subjects.

There has been a degree of "spoiler culture" discourse in recent years. Some claim it's a marketing tactic. Marvel movies only make you care so much about spoilers because that's how they get butts in seats on opening weekend. I don't know about that -- I've cared about spoilers my entire life, and I know I'm not alone. The pilot episode of the seminal sitcom Seinfeld ends with Jerry trying to avoid spoilers for a Mets baseball game that he recorded. And that was 1989. It's been a valid concern for much longer than any notion of a summer blockbuster movie.

Simply put, surprises are better when they are surprising. That doesn't mean you necessarily have to like surprises, but I think you'd have to be a pretty sad sack to go out of your way to ruin a surprise for someone else. For people who aren't curmudgeons about it, there are few things better in life than a nice surprise. Something unexpected like that could make a person's whole day, if not their whole week.

If modern movie culture has done anything, it's made people unable to keep spoilers to themselves. Blocking social media terms will only get you so far. When an artist posts a piece of fan art or friends share memes and they don't include any text, then there's nothing for the blocking algorithm to detect. And when a conversation starts with spoilers, there's simply no time to avoid the landmine -- which, to be fair, was the final punchline Jerry suffered in the Seinfeld pilot, as his neighbor Kramer blurted out the results of the game before Jerry had a chance to protest.  

Many of Mother 3's biggest mysteries were spoiled well in advance of me ever actually playing the game. The biggest one being the reveal of the mastermind behind the game's Pigmask Army, the aforementioned Porky Minch. Mother 3 goes to great lengths to tease this mystery out across its entire 30 hour run time, dropping major hints as you pass the halfway point. 

And then Porky, in his Mother 3 form, cameos as an early boss battle in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, one of the ten best selling games on the Nintendo Wii. Thanks to director Masahiro Sakurai, more people know who the final boss of Mother 3 is than have actually played Mother 3 (or, let's be honest, will ever play Mother 3). 

This is why I freely mentioned Porky earlier, because if anyone knows anything about Mother 3 at this point, it's that Porky is the primary villain. The same goes for New Pork City, which was a prominent arena in Smash Bros.

In a roundabout way, Smash Bros. was also responsible for the other major Mother 3 spoiler I bore witness to; Mother 3 pixel artwork ended up being used in other Smash Bros. games over the years, including artwork of other characters with secret identities. That hasn't stopped a number of Smash Bros. fans from casually name-dropping the true, unmasked identity of this character online. I may have avoided conversations about Mother 3, but the tendrils of these spoilers extended far beyond its humble borders. Sometimes, you just can't escape it.

This is not me drumming up any sort of "woe is me" sympathy, mind you. But ultimately, it did have an effect on me. In most of Mother 3's cutscenes, I was waiting for the big reveals I knew were coming. Expectation is everything, and when you're watching every cutscene through a microscope, it changes how you see things. There's the old adage about being so focused on one tree that you miss seeing the rest of the forest, but imagine you're so zoomed in you can't even see the one tree, and you're just kind of... stuck there.

I often wondered if my general frustration with Mother 3's aggressive tone was related to the fact I knew some of its biggest late game emotional beats 30 hours in advance. 

Would its numerous Earthbound references still feel so patronizing if I didn't know what was coming? Or would all of its cute little surprises and shocking revelations make for a more enjoyable game over the long term?

Maybe the whole thing started off on the wrong foot in general. It's definitely a choice to play a game about characters processing the death of their mother while you yourself are processing the death of your mother. Characters in the game itself get bitter about this, so doesn't it make sense that I would be, too? Again, expectation is everything, and sometimes you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It could have just been a bad time in my life to experience this story.

And to some degree that's true, because the thing about Mother 3 is that I just didn't get it for the longest time.

Despite a big rant about spoiler culture just now, I can't talk about this without spoiling Mother 3's last big secret, because it turns out to be central to the game's entire theme. However, in my defense, I am giving you a big warning: If you've somehow read this far and still care about preserving the game's final mystery (and parts of the ending to Earthbound, too), this is your signal to turn back now. 

Okay. Ready?

So while the people of Tazmily are comfortable and protective of their newly developed suburban lifestyle, past the game's halfway point they all start talking about a far off land: the big city. It's a place where dreams are made, or so they're told. And as Mother 3 starts down its home stretch, Lucas and friends return to find Tazmily deserted. Everyone who's anyone has left for New Pork City. 

The reality of New Pork City is a lot more depressing than the dream, but then it always would be. The residents of Tazmily find it more trashy than cool. A lot of the theme park rides are broken, and those that still function are kind of dangerous. There's even open sewer vents leaking noxious gasses. And at the center of it all stands the massive Empire Porky Building.

Lucas and his friends are only allowed into the building when the time is right. Until then, you have to wander around New Pork City and explore. 

Those open vents turn out to be an invitation to enter the sewer when Lucas's dog, Boney, becomes lost. Reuniting with Boney leads you to discover a secret entrance to the less glamorous parts of New Pork City, and you find yourself in an old, run down apartment complex. Though the hall is strewn with trash and grime, at the very end you find an apartment belonging to a strange man named Leder. 

You initially meet Leder very early in the game. He's an older resident of Tazmily known for being unnaturally tall -- well over four times taller than most characters in the game. And to most people living in Tazmily, Leder is known to never speak. His only job is acting as a human watch tower, armed with a bell to be rung when there is danger. 

Leder's apartment in New Pork City is reasonably sized for a single person, with two floors, but for a man of his stature, Leder makes the space look tiny. However, by climbing up to the second floor, Lucas can now finally talk to Leder face to face for the first time. As it turns out, Leder can talk, but by being so tall, most people couldn't hear him. Not that it mattered much, given Leder had taken a vow of silence in order to protect the true origin of Tazmily Village. Given the circumstances, and considering Lucas is old enough now, Leder believes it is finally time to learn the truth.

The truth being that despite Mother 3's outward appearance of taking place in a fantasy land full of dragons and chimera, it is in fact a distant future earth. Or, well... what's left of it. 

According to Leder's retelling, after bracing itself for the apocalypse, humanity finally found itself at the end of the world as we know it. Facing mutually assured extinction, a select group of individuals boarded something known as "The White Ship" and traveled to the furthest, most secretive location on earth in order to escape destruction. Once they arrived at this mysterious island, those people used a device to erase the memories of their past lives. 

The idea was to start over from scratch, free from the bonds that lead to the destruction of the old world. And so, the simple farming village of Tazmily was born. It is very likely that Lucas is one of the first generation of people born and raised in Tazmily.

For years, Leder not only kept watch over Tazmily Village, but over its people, as well. Entrusted as one of the only people who knew the truth.

Tazmily Village was a success. Its people lived in peace and prosperity, free from greed and power. However, one day, a man named Porky appeared. Porky was not from this world -- not from the old world, and not a part of this new one, either. Using the Phase Distortion machine from the end of Earthbound, Porky had been carving a swath of chaos through all of time and space. Having been defeated and ejected from pretty much every other reality, Porky eventually found himself here: the last, most defenseless place on the timeline. 

With nobody around to tell him no, Porky set about treating the island like his own personal playground. He used the Phase Distortion Machine to pull in creatures from alternate dimensions, he used forbidden science to establish an army and build factories. And, once Porky became aware of Tazmily and the truth of "The White Ship", he made it one of his goals to restore their memories and further exploit their desires.

Leder's story recontextualizes all of Mother 3. It's not a game about people being corrupted by modern society; instead, it's a game about people being unable to escape it. That, despite their best efforts to run away from it, forget about it, and start over, who they are still catches up to them. When the residents of Tazmily brand Lucas as a traitor, they aren't doing it drunk on their shiny new toys, it's more that their old habits are re-asserting themselves. Not a people being corrupted, but a people who simply had their existing nature freed. Human beings acting like human beings.

This recontextualizes Porky's role in the story, too. More than being the harbinger of nostalgia, Porky takes advantage of Tazmily's amnesia to rewrite history to his benefit. His shrines to Earthbound memorabilia are less about making us remember what happened in the previous game and more about establishing his version of events, where he can refer to Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo as his "precious friends" instead of what they actually were: the band of kids that stopped him from bringing about the eradication of the known universe. 

Instead of shunning the past, Mother 3 is telling us that not only is running away from our history impossible, but in trying to do so, we open ourselves up to an even worse and easily exploitable weakness where guys like Porky get to catalyze their twisted version of history. Only by moving forward, unafraid, with courage and the full knowledge of where we came from, can we create a truly better world. We cannot bury who we used to be; we must accept and grow beyond it. 

There is no stronger denouement to this ideal than the game's very, very end. 

All throughout the game, Lucas has dealt with two of Porky's highest ranking officers. The first one being Fassad, who brings commerce and greed to the people of Tazmily. The other one, someone I haven't really mentioned until now, is only known as "The Masked Man." Mother 3 pits The Masked Man against Lucas as sort of a rival -- he's one of the small handful of humans you meet able to use PSI abilities, and most of them are identical to what Lucas can do.

In the lead up to actually meeting Porky in the flesh for the first time, Lucas finally catches up with his dad, Flint. Lucas hasn't seen his father in years, not since the incident after their mother's funeral that broke up their family. And yet Mother 3 treats his reappearance as strangely casual. There's no big, emotional reunion. Flint and Lucas barely even acknowledge it. Flint is just here now, another NPC milling about with the residents of Tazmily.

On the way to the final showdown, Flint will suddenly ask you to stay behind. He plans to face Porky alone. 

And this is probably supposed to raise all kinds of strange questions. Could Flint be the Masked Man? After all, if Lucas has PSI abilities, maybe that's a trait that runs in the family. Maybe he inherited it from Flint, and that's why The Masked Man has all the same abilities. 

But just one or two rooms later, you find Flint completely laid out. He faced Porky and The Masked Man and came away defeated. It now falls on Lucas and his friends to stop them. Before Lucas leaves, Flint offers one more piece of information for us: The Masked Man, the rival Lucas has faced almost the entire game, is actually his twin brother, Claus. 

Once Porky is successfully dealt with, the final battle of Mother 3 comes down to brother versus brother. Claus, the boy who ran from his tragedy, and Lucas, the hero, the boy who became a stronger person by overcoming that tragedy.

That's it. That's everything Mother 3 is trying to say. It doesn't get much clearer than that.

Watching the credits roll, I couldn't help but think back to earlier in the game. There I was, having just arrived in New Pork City, and I was talking to my friends about how it had taken me close to three years to finish Mother 3. I'd only play the game in fits and starts because I didn't really like it, but I was forcing myself through it anyway. 

One friend told me, "If you haven't enjoyed the first 25 hours, then it's not like the last five or ten is going to change your mind." 

It really cannot be understated how talking to Leder completely rewrote my entire perspective on this game. But then you also have to wonder: how many more people were in the same boat I was and didn't keep going? People who got fed up with feeling like the game was bitter and patronizing and just gave up? 

I knew there must have been something special in this game. You have to figure that, given the circumstances (sequel to a 10+ year old RPG, only released in Japan), total lifetime sales figures for Mother 3 are probably under five million copies. Probably under two million, if I'm being honest. That's still in the realm of success, especially for 2006, but Nintendo is also a company that deals in games with 20 million, 40 million, even 60 and 80 million plus sales. Mother 3 is some very small potatoes for them. 

Despite such a comparatively modest success, Mother 3's influence feels hard to ignore. From fueling skits on Robot Chicken to Adventure Time and Undertale's whole... everything, Mother 3 (and the wider franchise as a whole) is extremely beloved by many, even if it doesn't do record breaking sales numbers. 

And that's before you figure in the whole fan translation angle, too. Everything about Mother 3 screams something that should be niche, and yet it's downright prolific.

It demanded more respect than giving up before seeing the credits roll. If I had quit upon reaching New Pork City, I would have missed this game's whole redemption arc. 

I suppose, then, that just makes this the chronicle of a long, difficult, emotional journey. One I originally felt like I needed to do more than I actually wanted to. That in itself is just another one of those many things adults just have to deal with, right? That's in keeping with the themes of the game.

And, ultimately, there is light at the end of this tunnel. I guess it's not really about charging forward with courage, it's more that as long as you hold on to yourself, everything will be okay. Everyone has their tragedies. But closing yourself off from tragedy or running away from it isn't going to fix you. Your love is what will save you. 

The love you share with family. The love you share with friends. The love you share with the world. 

Love meant Flint never gave up trying to save Claus, even as that same boy tried to kill him. 

Love led Kumatora, Duster and Boney to stay with Lucas no matter how strange or frightening things became. Together, they faced deadly mutants, the darkest hallucinations, and even had to contend with the possibility that all human life on their planet might cease to exist.

Love was Lucas never abandoning the people of Tazmily, even as they shunned him. 

Love will provide you with a strength beyond anything else in this universe. No matter how much adult life beats you down, love will always be the single greatest and most simple thing we all have. Rich or poor, old or young, love is the power that binds us all. It deserves to be cultivated, protected, and celebrated. Love heals all. Without it, we cease to be human. And believing in love is what takes the most courage.

But only through love can we find the way forward.

[sky-scribbles]

It is such a Sam Riegel thing to do, keeping his friends and the entire fandom waiting on his new character for so long. I personally think this is iconic. And while we wait, I had a Think about what kind of character I'd like to see introduced:

(Disclaimer that this is based less on what I think Sam would be likely to create, or what I think he specifically would do well; it's entirely based on what I think would be fun, or would add something to the party. If anyone has more thoughts based on Sam as a player specifically, please do add them!)

A reilora, or any Ruidian. I talked about this a bit already, but now the Hells are going to be off Ruidus for a chunk of time, this would be such a great way to bring in new Ruidus lore in a way that would feel personal to the players and characters. It would give both the characters and fandom even more reason to care about the fate of the Ruidians. There could be some exploration of what it could be like for the Ruidians if they do get to come to Exandria. And Matt has definitely had time to brew up the stats for reilora PCs by now.

A character with a positive, healthy relationship with an Exandrian god. Now that FCG is dead, the rest of Bell's Hells are aggressively neutral toward the gods, or negative toward them; the other cleric PC we had, Deanna, loathed her god. Team Issylra encountered some of the worst aspects of Exandrian faith on their vacation from hell. I'm not saying any of those attitudes are bad or unjustified! But this campaign has been an examination of the gods' impact on Exandria, and by the coincidence of what characters everyone has rolled up, we've largely only seen one side of it. Even FCG was very new to their faith and the other characters... didn't always take it all that seriously. It would be fascinating to have a character thrown into the mix at this stage who's more akin to Caduceus or Pike, in that their faith is a positive, integral part of their life. It could be an interesting shake-up to the conversations the Hells have had so far.

A paladin. Just... any paladin. It's the only class that has never been used for a main campaign character's base class, with Vax and Fjord multiclassing into it later in their arcs. I want to see a paladin who's always been a paladin! Paladins are fun! And from a mechanical standpoint, FCG's loss leaves a space open for a general healer/tank/support character, all of which paladins can cover.

An Aeorian who's been freed from their bubble. Look, I love Aeor. I want the Aeor lore. And seeing an Aeorian, someone who has lost everyone and everything they knew at the hands of the gods, but also as a direct result of what happened last time someone tried to kill the gods... would be interesting. (Also make them have known Bolo)

Again, would any of these be Sam's vibe? I have no idea, and I trust that whatever he does will be amazing! But if he rocks up with a reilora paladin, at least I'll know that I have the gift of prophecy.

[antianakin]

There is exactly one criticism that I agree with my, very anti-Jedi, cousin on and that's the Jedi were TERRIBLE Generals. Generals may TRY to make sure their men mostly come back. But useless sacrifices are not only acceptable, but expected, the men are mostly expandable in war. The Jedi did not consider sacrifices like that acceptable or expected. Sure it did happen. It was WAR. But they tried their best to make sure it DIDN'T. The Jedi were terrible Generals. But they were the teachers and Leaders the CLONES NEEDED.

I'm not sure I'd ENTIRELY agree with that. I think I'd be willing to agree that the Jedi were perhaps less CONVENTIONAL Generals, and they definitely do seem to at least TRY to place the lives of their men above just tossing them away for an easy victory, but you can just as easily claim that keeping the men alive to keep fighting is a good strategy in and of itself.

The biggest piece of evidence I'd point to that the Jedi were actually perfectly good Generals is the Citadel arc and Tarkin's criticisms. The one real criticism he makes of the Jedi as military leaders is that they're occasionally too soft and will abandon a mission if it looks impossible to win without near total casualties (on either side). But he's generally fairly positive about the Jedi and if they were truly awful at their jobs, I don't think TARKIN of all people would hold back on saying so, even to the Jedi's faces.

And we DO see the Jedi willing to make sacrifices and accepting that this is a necessary part of war. The Citadel arc is, again, a perfectly good example of this. Obi-Wan and Anakin go in with like 3-4 men each I think and they come back with a grand total of 3 (Rex, Cody, and Fives). A LOT of clones die on this mission that they all KNEW was basically a suicide mission because the Jedi themselves decided that getting the information about the hyperspace lanes was vital enough to the war that it was worth losing multiple lives over (including their own).

So it's not that the Jedi don't understand that sacrifices are necessary in war or even that they avoid it entirely, they just avoid what they see as UNNECESSARY sacrifice for what might amount to a fairly minor victory. Keeping more of their men alive might, in the long run, be a better strategic choice than losing all of them on one campaign, especially if it's over like one uninhabited moon or something like that. There's nothing to say that the losses the Jedi deem acceptable are things that would've changed the entire tide of the war had they chosen to push forward instead.

The other good evidence that the Jedi acting this way would've been the WORSE choice is the Umbara arc. We are told and then see that Krell IS the kind of General who is willing to lose a lot of clones in order to gain victories in battle, and the clones do recognize that he has a lot of victories under his belt. But never once do they discuss whether those victories really MEANT anything or had a large impact on the war effort. It certainly never seems that the Republic is majorly pushing back the Separatists because of Krell's victories, nobody ever mentions that Krell gained them a major advantage with those victories or took out anyone of any consequence on the Separatist side with his strategies. And by the time he gets to Umbara, he's explicitly using this strategy to WEAKEN the Republic side and cause a loss. Several of his strategies WOULD'VE meant the Republic lost on Umbara and it's only the clones utilizing different strategies that put fewer of them at risk that they actually end up continuing to HAVE victories at all.

I'll also point out that the Jedi continuously getting their men killed en masse would've bankrupted the Republic a LOT earlier because they'd have to be paying for more clones a LOT more often than they did in canon and I can't imagine anyone would've considered that a particularly sound strategy and at some point I'm sure the Senate would've felt obligated to put a stop to it anyway and insisted on strategies that kept more clones alive for longer. So I'm not sure it's fair to claim the Jedi were utilizing BAD strategy by not just exclusively using tactics that meant most of their men were killed for every single victory.

So the ONLY criticism we EVER see of the Jedi's ability as military leaders is Tarkin claiming they're "too soft" and Tarkin is the kind of person who would likely say that until the Jedi started carpet bombing entire Separatist planets. Would it give them a victory? Yeah, sure, maybe, but that's the exact same strategy the Separatists are using and look how well that works out for THEM. Everything else we ever see seems to showcase that the Jedi are in fact perfectly good Generals, not just in that they're kind to the clones and are unwilling to carpet bomb Separatist planets, but also because they're just... good at this. They CAN be strategic, they CAN run wars if they want to. And I think that's the whole point of the Jedi in some ways is that yes, they CAN make war when they need to, they just actively choose NOT TO every time they can. THIS is why Qui-Gon tells Padme that he and Obi-Wan are there to protect her but that they can't win this war for her and they end up going off to fight off a Sith while Padme has to actually win the war with her own people and the Gungans instead. The Jedi don't WANT to be in the position of doing nothing but fighting, but they're absolutely capable of this kind of work.

That's the tragedy of the war in some ways, the Jedi ARE good at this no matter how much they wish they weren't sometimes. But being good at it means they can actually protect the Republic, their own men, and even the Separatist civilians better, so they're not going to just sit there and do things that will screw over a bunch of people. Yes, they're going to fight the war in such a way that they reduce casualties as much as possible, but reducing casualties also requires doing enough to not LOSE the damn war, too. It's a delicate balance they're trying to hold on to and I'd argue they manage it better than anybody else would've ever done in their position.

[discet]

I read your post arguing that Marcy in Amphibia having a poor homelife is 'key to making her compelling and sympathetic as a protagonist.' But wouldn't it weaken Marcy's arc if that was the case?

I know you're positioning the argument from the angle of Marcy as a protagonist and not a supporting character as she was in canon, but Marcy having bad parents...kind of diminishes the dramatic impact of her decision to steal the box. Because it was Marcy's choice to steal the box and trick her friends. Having her actions be rationalized with 'actually, she wouldn't have done that if she wasn't living with crappy parents' cheapens that. It becomes less about Marcy making a selfish choice born out of understandable fear, and more about making excuses for her.

Marcy wasn't exactly conspiring to make her situation in Amphibia 'permanent', either. Judging by the wording in True Colors, what Marcy wanted was for her friends keep using the box to go on adventures throughout the multiverse. She seemed okay charging the box to return to Earth, so long as she knew she had an 'out' from having to actually deal with being physically distant from Anne and Sasha. Her overriding fear, at all times, was losing her best and only friends, and that alone is a totally sympathetic and understandable motivation.

I know you acknowledged having bad parents doesn't make Marcy's actions justified, and I understand why Marcy's homelife came off as poor to you, given the almost non-existent details we get from canon about Marcy's parents. But honestly, I think it makes for a stronger arc if, rather than somebody's bad choices stemming from being a victim of somebody else, said someone has to accept the fact that they alone are responsible for what they do. To quote another blogger on this site, being the sole person responsible for your shortcomings also means that you are the only one to blame for your gains, too.

Eh, agree to disagree Anon.

wouldn't it[making Marcy's homelife bad] weaken Marcy's arc if that was the case?

No, not really. I think that it along with her codependency with her friends provides a clear motivation for her actions. It provides a great deal of contrast to explore against Anne and Sasha's home lives. It also gives a different approach to explore in an Isekai protagonist.

Often Isekai either has a focus on returning to the original world (Anne for example) or has no way home and the protagonist is forced to embrace their new world. I wanted to explore a protagonist who has the option and wants to make the choice to stay in their new world without it being an escapist power fantasy.

Another big part of her arc in AWIW is breaking her out of her escapist mindset by mid season 1.

I won't disagree that it gives her a different character arc, but I don't think it weakens it.

Marcy having bad parents...kind of diminishes the dramatic impact of her decision to steal the box.(...)It becomes less about Marcy making a selfish choice born out of understandable fear, and more about making excuses for her.

Disagree. I think that it complicates it. It gives Marcy the justification to run from her home, but in no way justifies her tricking Anne or Sasha into coming with her.

Marcy wasn't exactly conspiring to make her situation in Amphibia 'permanent', either.

I mean, always adventuring is not functionally different from being in Amphibia permanently. And the True Colors page in the journal makes it pretty clear that she had no intention of ever going home. IIRC in pages she also implies that she didn't intent to have Anne or Sasha go home either, she wanted them all to stay together. So I think this is kind of a semantic argument

But honestly, I think it makes for a stronger arc if, rather than somebody's bad choices stemming from being a victim of somebody else, said someone has to accept the fact that they alone are responsible for what they do.

I mean, motivations do not happen in a vacuum. Anne having good parents isn't any more of default position that shapes her world view. One in four children in the US experience neglect or abuse in their lifetime. I don't think positioning character as having a motivation coming from that background suddenly makes their whole arc weaker.

The context of Marcy's parents being bad contextualizes Marcy's actions in AWIW, but does not excuse them. It makes both her decision to run away and desperation to protect her friendship with Anne and Sasha make sense.

I came from a good family, and like Marcy, had a lot of trouble making friends growing up. I had one really good friend outside my family who was a fairly popular extrovert. If I would have had to move, I would have been heartbroken to leave my friend, but I wouldn't have run away cause I also loved my family and would be just as hurt to leave them as my friend.

The idea that I would sooner runaway, kidnap my friend, and then half a year later would double down on that decision and conspire to permanently separate from my family is completely unrelatable to me. I would have missed my family terribly, like I did my first year of college.

IMO Marcy's character kind of breaks down if her homelife isn't at least a little complicated. Her actions just don't match up with it.

I read your post arguing that Marcy in Amphibia having a poor homelife is 'key to making her compelling and sympathetic as a protagonist.'

I would agree that this was an overstatement though. There can obviously be a lot of ways to interpret a character and make a compelling story with them. It was an essential component for me personally to build the most compelling story I could, but others mileage may vary.

[nocreativityfornames]

The timing and occasion on which MC made the pacts with Lucifer and Belphegor should've been switched and here's why:

SPOILERS FROM LESSON 16 TO 20-14!!

I don't know if anyone has ever posted something similar to this but it's something I've been thinking about it for a while. I've never quite liked the way these two pacts were formed and to me, they were both timed weirdly and overall had little to no weight on the story, which sort of irritates me in a way.

I think our pact with Lucifer should've taken place at the party where MC was celebrated instead of the end of the season, it would've been much more meaningful that way and left way more impact than the disaster of a scene that lesson 20-14 was in my opinion. Because here's the thing:

Lucifer is the Avatar of Pride, one of the most powerful beings in all three realms, someone who's led an entire army through war and was maybe the first of his kind to rebel against its own creator. It's not easy to gain his respect, much less his trust, so for him to put his pride aside and offer a human the power to control his entire being, it's much more than a simple "possessive and horny confession", t's him placing his ultimate trust in someone, it's him showing just how much he's grown to care for you.

Because you deserve it. You were the human who put his dear family back together, who willingly ran head first into danger more than once just for the sake of protecting his brothers, who gave your life trying to help fix what he broke. You were much more than a simple exchange student, you were someone he had slowly come to cherish, who so gradually approached his heart that he didn't even notice you come in and before he knew it, all the irritation and distrust he felt towards you had turned into love and admiration. You were a precious presence in his life that he felt the need to protect but failed to do so.

So Lucifer offering to make a pact with you just shortly after all you had gone through was a way to let you know just how immensely grateful he was for all you had done for him and his family, to show you that you had not only earned his respect and trust but also his love. It was an apology for every time he had put you in harm's way and for not being there for you when you needed him the most. Lucifer offering you a pact it's him letting you know that he will never ever let anyone hurt you again and that he'll always be there for you from now on, it's him saying that you can lean on him as much as you need because you're now part of his family — the one thing he puts above all others and will do anything for.

Lucifer asking to make a pact with you it's him showing you mean the world to him while having no qualms about letting the whole three realms know you were remarkable enough to make the prideful Morning Star let go of his sin and give you all of him.

-

Now, let's talk about Belphegor. As I've seen many point out, the reaction to MC's death after lesson 16 as whole was terrible. There was barely any acknowledgment of what happened, no apology coming from Belphegor, and the weirdest thing of all: MC was not only completely okay with being close to Belphegor but also the only one trying to help him when all the brothers were more than rightfully being awkward around him. So let's just put it this way: the whole situation was beyond bizarre and we all like to pretend it wasn't canon.

But back to the matter at hand: Canonically, MC's pact with Belphegor is formed at Diavolo's birthday party. After he disappears from the main hall where everyone is and MC goes to find him on their own. That itself already seems wrong, I mean, I don't know about you personally but if I had just been murdered by someone a few days/weeks ago, I definitely wouldn't want to leave the side of those I'm safe with to go find that person alone. But Canon!MC is very dumb and we can't do anything about it so our only choice is to follow him.

We are also not given the choice to refuse the pact when it's proposed nor MC has the chance to speak a word about it. Now the way I see this, it's a clear sign that MC doesn't want a pact with him. They are scared and pressured into making a pact with Belphegor because they're not sure what could happen if they refused. Because then again, this is the guy that murdered them not that long ago and laughed at their dead body like he was having the time of his life. And the last time MC refused to make a pact didn't exactly go well either, with Satan shoving them into a bookshelf and threatening the hell out of them.

And if Satan reacted like that, imagine Belphegor. And there was no one around either, Canon!MC had made the stupid decision to go find Belphegor on their own and had no one to protect them at the moment. So they have no choice, they are frozen with fear and are ""forced"" to make a pact with him even though they dread the idea. It's just awful and I hate that scene so much I can't even put it into words.

MC's pact with Belphegor shouldn't have been formed so early. They should've had the time to heal from all the trauma, time to distance themselves from Belphegor, and to process everything they had been through. And then only later they would slowly start to warm up to him again, after they know for a fact he's truly sorry for what he did and deeply regrets it. After they are ready to face him.

And for Belphegor's pact with MC to be formed on their last day in the Devildom, it would've simply been beautiful. Because then Belphegor would've also had the time to learn to appreciate MC, to realize how special they truly were, for what he did to become one of the biggest regrets he's ever carried. Belphegor would've had the time to see right in front of him how you treated those you had a pact with, time to realize that to you, a pact wasn't about gaining power and status, but about forming a deeper connection with someone.

The pacts you shared were proof of your strong bond with his brothers and all the love you had for them. And honestly, it broke his heart to be the only one in the family who didn't have that kind of connection with you. But he wouldn't dare ask for it, he couldn't ask for it. He didn't have the right, not after what he did to you that day. You were nice enough to forgive him, to treat him with kindness when all he deserved was your hate and loathing. He couldn't ask for more, no matter much he wished to.

So when you come around and ask him for a pact on your last night in the Devildom, he couldn't have felt happier. To know that you had come to trust him like that again even after all he did, for you to love him enough to want his pact mark on you for the rest of your life, it felt nothing short of incredible. He wondered what he had done to deserve you, because someone as caring and sweet as you should have no business staying close to someone as rotten as him. But he gladly accepts the pact after you confirm to him that's truly what you want. Belphegor then hugs you as tight as he can, sobbing in your embrace as he is filled with both the happiness of your newly formed pact and the sadness that you have to leave.

MC being the one to ask for a pact with Belphegor shows that they've come to trust him just as much as his brothers. And the pact itself is a sign that they've both come to overcome their past traumas and now feel more than comfortable with each other. It's proof of the strong and unbreakable bond they have.

[angstylittleguy]

Dalton's Drawings

An important bonding opportunity for Bennett and Dalton, though neither leave feeling any better.

tw: mentions of suicide

character context: Dalton is a size-shifter whose height is affected by his emotions. Bennett frequently gets stuck in time loops and the only way to get the loop to end is for him to survive the day.

word count: 2.5k

-> In Which Everything Goes Wonderfully Wrong masterpost link: Here

-> character introductions and moodboards: Here

Bennett stalked down the hallway, humming lightly to himself as he pulled his Air Pods from his ears and shoved them in his hoodie pocket, the music ceasing suddenly. He knocked on Dalton's closed door. "Yo, Dalton. You ready to go, man?"

When no response came, Bennett creaked open the door, peeking his head in. "Hey man, are you in here?"

The silence lingered as Bennett scanned the room. Dalton's bed was unmade, something that he never allowed to happen. The guy was a neat freak, never wanting anything in his space to be out of place. It made Bennett quirk a brow for sure. The second red flag was that Dalton's phone was laying on the floor, screen faced up and still playing music from the earbuds that were attached by a thin white cord. Next to it, a fancy crayon that had been snapped in half from the impact of it hitting the hardwood floor.

Bennett stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. "Dalton?" He called, his voice much lower now. He picked up the phone and paused the music, placing it on Dalton's desk. 

"Are you...?" Bennett got on his knees and peered under the bed. "Ah."

In the far corner of the room, pressed against the wall and almost totally concealed by the shadows of the bed, was Dalton, about the size of Bennett's hand. 

Dalton glanced up miserably at Bennett, his heart pounding in his chest because of the massive eyes watching his pitiful form. He buried his head in his knees. 

"Hey," Bennett murmured, trying to keep his voice low because he knew how much loud sounds affected him at this size. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, you know." The brunette dryly laughed, his voice betraying the humor he was attempting. "The usual."

Dalton tried to make a joke to lighten the mood, to make the fact that his friend found him sulking under his bed the size of a bug less pathetic, but it didn't help any. 

"You're pretty small, did something happen?"

Bennett was aware of Dalton's abilities, they all were. But they didn't see it often— not the extremes, anyway— Dalton would always hide away in his room until the size-changing spell ended. They all knew he hated his abilities, just as much as Bennett hated his. Dalton found it humiliating, and they all agreed to give him privacy when things like this happened. It always felt wrong to Bennett to leave him be when he was going through one of his spells, however. They occurred because of how he was feeling, and to leave him alone felt like Bennett was abandoning him. Maybe when he needed them most.

When Dalton was this small, it meant he had a lot on his mind. 

"Just thinking," Dalton said, his voice so small that Bennett had to strain to hear him. 

Bennett laid down on his stomach, resting his chin on his folded arms as to not tower over Dalton as much as he could. It had to be frightening to just see a giant head watching him from a crack under the bed. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" 

He already knew the answer, but he figured he might as well ask anyway. 

Dalton shook his head. "Not really."

Bennett extended a careful hand, outstretching his arm across the length of the bed so that it almost brushed against Dalton's tiny form that seemed to shift deeper into the shadows. "Do you wanna come out? We can watch a movie or something until you're feeling better?" 

He looked at Bennett's hand, it larger than life itself and he so impossibly small. Dalton was on high alert, worried that with one twitch of Bennett’s fingers he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from scurrying down the length of the wall and disappearing into the darkness. 

"Listen, dude." Bennett interrupted his inner monologue with a frown. "It's totally okay to be scared right now. Hell, I would be freaking the fuck out if I were you. But you don't have to do anything you don't want to. We can stay in here and hang out, or I can go, you just say the word."

Dalton wiped frustratingly at his eyes, tearing his gaze away from Bennett's hand to look at him. "You don't have to go," he said numbly. "Can we just... stay like this?"

"Of course, man. I don't wanna do anything to make you uncomfortable."

He pulled his hand back to rest under his chin, causing Dalton to flinch with the unexpected movement. Bennett tilted his head to the side with a sad smile, watching his tiny friend wipe at his eyes as his ears flushed red.

"Ugh, this is so embarrassing." Dalton pulled down the beanie he wore so it covered his ears and nearly his eyes. "I hate this so much."

Bennett chose not to speak, and so Dalton continued. "I'm not scared of you, for the record. Just... uneasy, is all."

"That's totally fair, bro. It would we weird if you weren't." 

Bennett tried to shift again, adjusting his position on the floor as Dalton watched him with a careful gaze. Finally, he pressed himself up into a sitting position with his hands, Dalton's vision no longer filled with Bennett's face, but rather his legs. He felt his heartbeat increase as the wooden floor creaked beneath the shift in weight. 

"Sorry," Bennett chuckled, his voice now coming from high up and out of sight. "Uncomfortable on your hard ass floor." 

He sat with his back against the bed now, his legs outstretched on the floor and facing the closed door. Dalton swallowed the lump in his throat as he forced himself to a stand, his entire body trembling as he walked out of the shadows on shaky legs. 

(It’s fine. This is Bennett. You trust Bennett. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.)

Dalton bit the inside of his cheek. 

(Not on purpose, at least.)

He paused just at the edge of Bennett's line of vision, staring up at his friend's mop of messy blond hair from his position on the floor. He was fidgeting with his hands, opening his mouth to say something but being unable to find the words. 

From Dalton's perspective, Bennett was colossal. He was a massive force that could do with him as he pleased and there would be nothing Dalton could do until he managed to shift back to his normal size. And even with this major power imbalance, Bennett was patient and trying his best to look out for Dalton, never doing something that he wouldn't want him to. 

Dalton walked out from under the bed, doing his best to mask his uneasiness. "Tell me about it," he said, voice slightly wavering. "I've been stuck down here for the past two hours." 

Bennett's eyes widened and he quickly snapped his gaze down to Dalton, causing him to nearly jump out of his skin from the movement. "You've been like this for two hours?" 

Dalton nodded sheepishly, craning his neck to meet his eyes.

"Dude, I'm so sorry. If I had known I would have come to check on you sooner."

"Ah, no it's okay." Dalton waved his hands in front of him awkwardly as if he were swatting away the idea. "It's better this way, anyway." 

Bennett's frown never shifted from his expression, but his eyes softened just enough for Dalton to notice. 

Dalton looked down at his feet.

"So," Bennett said, but his voice trailed off and he never finished his thought aloud. His gaze shifted to Dalton's desk, and he was able to see whatever he was working on from his spot on the floor. 

"May I?" He asked Dalton, finger pointed at the desk. 

Dalton shrugged, and Bennett shifted a little to grab the unfinished drawing. 

It was of Meiling, her smiling complexion colored with oil pastels that showed off her warm skin tone. Half of her shoulder-length black hair was colored as well, but the color abruptly ends and a single black line trails to the edge of the paper, even staining the desk as it was dragged towards the floor. 

"This is really good, dude," Bennett told Dalton, looking down at his small form that watched him examine the drawing with cautious eyes.

"But," Bennett said, "I don't think she's into guys."

Dalton flushed red. "Ah! No! That's not why I was drawing her!"

"Dude, it's okay. I'm not judging. I just wanted to tell you you probably don't have a chance with her before you get your hopes up."

Dalton buried his face in his hands and threw his head back. "Noooooo, it's not like that! I just— inspiration struck, okay?"

"Yeah, man. I get it, she's pretty—"

"Oh my god, Bennett. No. Okay, look in my sketchbook at one of the last few pages."

Bennett stood, his height making Dalton dizzy. He stepped closer to the desk, running a finger along the rows of sketchbooks that lined the shelf. "Which one is it?" 

"The black one."

"Like, ninety percent of them are black."

Dalton groaned. "Just— put me on the desk."

Bennett's head whipped downwards to stare at Dalton who stood uncomfortably close to his socked feet. "What?"

"Put me on the desk."

"You want me to put you...?"

"On the desk, yes."

"You want me to pick you up and—?"

"And put me on the desk."

"You want me to—?"

"OhmygodBennettjustdoitalready."

Bennett awkwardly squatted, laying his hand flat on the floor next to where Dalton stood. The brunette stared at it for a moment, before glancing up at Bennett's lingering gaze, and climbing on. 

The moment Bennett's hand was in motion, Dalton fell to his knees, the uncomfortable feeling of skin surrounding him. He held on to Bennett's thumb for balance, knowing that a fall from this height would surely kill him. 

Dalton was deposited on the desk in a matter of seconds, but his legs were weak as he struggled to force himself to a stand. 

He trekked across the wooden surface, stopping when he reached the markings from the oil pastel that he was using when he shrunk. He rubbed at it, staining his hands black as he tried to wipe away the marking. Dalton pointed up at the shelf with a newly black finger. "It's that one." 

Bennett grabbed the sketchbook, laying it down next to Dalton as he wiped his hands on his pants. 

He flipped through the pages, finally landing on a self-portrait in the same oil pastels. 

"What do you notice about mine compared to hers?"

Bennett hummed as he stared at the two drawings. "Well, one is obviously of you…" 

"Yes, that's true. But what about our faces?"

"You have pale, pasty skin?"

Dalton pressed a hand to his cheek. "No, dumbass. She's smiling."

Bennett looked back to the drawings, seeing the one of Dalton expressing a deep frown, with the most defeated eyes Bennett had ever seen on a person. His face was somewhat red, especially around the eyes and the tip of his nose as if he had been crying just moments before. Compared to the drawing of Meiling, whose eyes were bright and full of life, her smile brighter than lightning, Dalton's self-portrait was depressing. 

"Why... why did you draw them like this?"

The brunette blew air out of his nose, glancing down at his feet before looking back up at Bennett's massive form. "I'm sure you've noticed it too," he said, peeking over his shoulder to the drawing of Meiling that laid idly on the desk. Her smile seemed just as big as he was right now. "She's always so... happy."

Bennett cocked his head sideways. "And you're not?"

"How can I be?" 

Dalton threw his hands up miserably, gesturing to himself. "I mean, just look at me. I am four inches tall right now. And for what? Because I'm a little sad? I'm a little sad all the time, so this is just my life now! And Meiling? She didn't get stuck with some shitty superpower that affects her everyday life. She's never been happier, and I'm—"

"Jealous?" Bennett finished for him. 

"Yeah. I'm jealous."

Dalton sat down on the desk, propping his chin up in his hand. "I used to draw as a way to express how I'm feeling. It normally helps— or it used to— didn't matter if I was sad or angry or happy or whatever. But I can't do that anymore, because, well..." 

He gestured half-heartedly to himself again, frown coating his lips. "I guess you wouldn't get it, though. You got pretty lucky—”

"Lucky?" Bennett almost laughed, shifting his position so he stood on his knees and rested his folded arms on top of the desk next to Dalton. "I would not describe my situation as lucky."

Dalton's expression seemed to say, 'then what?' so Bennett continued. "I would describe it as 'The Fucking Worst.' Do you understand how many times I've died? Like, actually, physically died? More than I would have wanted, which means more than once."

Bennett talked with his hands, and with each wild gesture thrown in Dalton's direction, he flinched, debating standing up and moving back further on the desk. If Bennett noticed, he didn't do anything to show it. 

"And yeah, it could be useful if I needed a do-over or something, but like, to get that do-over I'd literally have to die. And that's so scary, dude. Like, I can't—"

His words fell short as he wasn't sure what to say next. He glanced down at Dalton who stared at him with big eyes. 

"I'm sorry," Dalton said. "That does suck." 

"I feel like it happens to me more often than others. Like, normal people only die once." Bennett paused for a moment. "Well, yes, duh, of course people only die once. That's not what I meant. I'm saying, if a guy somehow survives a terrible accident, what are the odds he's going to get into another one a week later? And then in another one two weeks later? Probably not likely, you know?”

Dalton nodded silently. 

"But for me, it is likely. I'm like… cursed to die. I think it's the universe's way of forcing me to use my ability. I mean, Rory uses hers all the time. Josiah ends up invisible almost once a week. You use yours pretty often. When do I have a chance to use mine? Dying doesn't happen to someone that often, but the universe needs me to use my ability. So, things happen that force me to use it." 

Dalton wasn't quite sure what to say, and Bennett dryly chuckled. "Didn't mean to ramble," he said. "Can we just agree that both of our abilities suck?" 

"Yeah," Dalton nodded. "Our abilities suck."

[thrilling-oneway]

i'm not sure if this is me overthinking things or my media gcse is actually paying off but i wanted to talk about this detail from pandemonium that i haven't seen anyone else point out.

(this kinda unravels into a character study halfway through don't question it)

in chapter 5 (subs here), Shizuku talks about a childhood memory where Tsukasa intervened in an argument her friend group was having. She adds that this interaction made her realise that Tsukasa is the kind of person who really values his friends. Fast forward a second and Shizuku has complimented Tsukasa to the point of embarrassment, Rui teases him over it and Tsukasa gets annoyed and asks what kind of person he takes him for.

Specifically what I want to talk about is Rui's response to that, or lack of response, since he never gets the opportunity before the group moves on to their next tour spot. Internally we see that he agrees with Shizuku's take that Tsukasa is the kind of person who loves his friends a lot, remembering that Tsukasa had been looking out for him and encouraging him to make friends during the trip. He ends up coming to the conclusion that Tsukasa's happiness comes from seeing his friends happy, which makes sense, since we already knew it works the same with Saki. As I said though, he never gets to actually say that out loud.

Kind of.

While I wouldn't question it if only Shizuku had mentioned this detail about Tsukasa and the scene had moved on, the fact that they added that little bit on the end with Rui realising that statement is true makes me go into delusional media student mode.

Point #1: HOLY SHIT the Rui character development in this event was insane. That deserves its own post which I will write some other time but I was genuinely not expecting this to be the end of his first character arc. I mean, we still haven't got the last WxS event of the season yet so they might throw in an epilogue, but this felt like a proper conclusion to his character arc. Rui started out as someone who didn't have any close friends, he was lonely, and in this event he's finally starting to make friends outside of other MCs and actually coming to terms with the fact that, yes, his friends do care about him and his wellbeing. To put it shortly, he feels loved.

Point #2 slash Point #1.5: I said kind of. Does he answer Tsukasa's question out loud at the time? No. It was kinda rhetorical anyway but shhhh. But. Does he answer it later? Yes absolutely. Chapter 8 specifically (no fan TL yet so I'm running off DeepL and wiktionary as normal). You see what I said above, about how they could've just left it with Shizuku saying that Tsukasa is someone who cares about his friends and then just moved on? Yeah this is what I mean. The whole event still works if you remove the part with Rui. But including it does add a little set up for chapter 8. What kind of person does Rui think Tsukasa is?

Chapter 8 is where Rui outright admits that Tsukasa changed his life. Without Tsukasa inviting him to join WxS, he never would've gotten close with Nene again, never would've met Emu, never would've had friends. And thanks to that, he's now able to keep making new friends. He's happy. Thanks to Tsukasa, he can be happy now. Ship or not, Tsukasa impacted Rui's life a lot. Going back to chapter 5 of the event, that's where Rui realises that his friends, or Tsukasa specifically, actually cares about his wellbeing and his happiness, something which he wouldn't have been able to say a few months prior in-universe. Again, ship or not, Tsukasa is like. the most important person in his life right now.

Point #3 slash 2 / 1.5 part 2: This one's less media student and more overthinking it but still a media student. But whatever. Anyway, maybe I'm thinking too hard about the fact that Rui specifically outlines that Tsukasa's happiness comes from seeing his friends happy, but like. I wonder if that realisation is part of the reason why he even told Tsukasa all of that. Like. He's not normally very honest about his feelings, hell he doesn't even realise them half of the time. Even in his last WxS event, he never told the other members about the job offer Asahi gave him, he doesn't even realise how much the prospect of leaving WxS was hurting him until Asahi had to take back the offer for him because of how sad and pained he looked when he accepted it. So the fact that he's fully aware that yes, Tsukasa had an impact on his life, yes, he feels like he's loved and cared for by the people around him, yes, he actually wants to make friends, yes, he's truly happy - it really sticks out, the fact that for like the first time, someone didn't have to tell him this to his face. It sticks out that he even admitted it out loud to the person his feelings revolve around.

But trail back up again to where I mentioned chapter 5. Tsukasa's happiness comes from his friends' happiness. Rui is a much kinder character than people give him credit for. I don't think it would be out of the question for him to want to give back some of the genuine happiness Tsukasa gave him. I mean he says it, right? He thanks Tsukasa for giving him the chance to change his life. And it does make Tsukasa happy to hear that Rui is happy; he says he's welcome, but still points out that Rui came to this point by his own will as well. He's happy that Rui was able to turn his life around.

Like literally the very last thing said in the event. Rui finally has friends, people who love and care for him. He's finally genuinely happy.

Fufu. I'm sorry Tsukasa-kun, but …… this is also going to be a fun memory for me! You really make me smile a lot, Tsukasa-kun! And with those smiles, I will make new friends and new relationships.

Bye I'm gonna go cry in a corner I love this event sm.

[biillys]

uhhh yo i'm thinkin about. tommy and eddie not Getting each other but Dealing with each other becos of billy. but then somehow without even realising, they actually become pals too. hashtag billy's impact.

then ofc billy + eddie + tommy bestie-ism. becos i want it.

anyway. rewind becos we need to talk about billy + tommy and billy + eddie first before we slap tommy + eddie together

billy initially hating tommy when he first rolled into town, thinking he was kind of pathetic for how he was acting about harrington ditching him, and thinking he was just genuinely like. trying too fucking hard. trying to hard to be liked, to get attention, to get his fucking peers approval. billy already knew. high school didn't fucking matter. other kids approval and opinions didn't mean shit. everyone was fake as fuck. he just had to make it ‘til graduation, then he'd be fucking gone.

but then. he somehow ends up getting roped into joining tommy and his family for dinner one night, becos he's unable to say no to tommy's mom who asked him, and suddenly, he's seeing tommy in a whole new light.

he didn't know that tommy had a fucking baseball teams worth of siblings, and was the 3rd eldest. he watches as tommy cuts up his baby sisters dinner, pulling faces at his little brother next to her the entire time to make him laugh. listens as the entire table actually talks and interacts with each other, how his twin little sisters ask about when carol's coming over next, and how his mom cuts in and asks if carol's appointment went okay the other day and if she was feeling better. watches as him and his older brother clear the table without even being asked, their mom moving to start bath time for the kids under six. can't remember the last time he sat at a dinner table with an entire family and felt warm. like what dinner's look like they feel like in the movies.

after, when he's walking down the hallway to tommy's room, he sees all the pictures of him and harrington. they're all over the the wall, some not even having tommy in them, just steve and other members of the family cheesing at the camera from basically fucking diapers all the way up til last year. that's when he realises. tommy and steve weren't just school friends. steve was fucking family. and he left. over a fucking girl.

suddenly, billy gets it. he fucking Gets it. gets what it's like to have a family member walk out, with little to no explanation or reason, or for the worst fucking reason of all. to have everyone in the world expect you to just be fucking okay with it, like your entire world hasn't just changed, like you aren't eating dinner with one less plate setting now, like birthdays aren't suddenly forevermore gonna be one person short. he fucking gets it.

tommy looks embarrassed, though, when he catches billy eyeing the pictures, the red so obvious on his cheeks, and it feels like this is the first time billy's seen him without the act he puts on at school. billy just gives him a slight nod, then walks past the bathroom and flirts with his mom, feeling good about the way tommy groans behind him.

billy makes more of an effort after that, and tommy stops trying so hard.

maybe one night, after a slightly wild party at some cheerleader's house, him and tommy split to get some food from benny's, walking the whole way cos they're both not in any condition to drive, and tommy ends up spilling the details of what actually happened between him and steve. not just the shit that's been spreading around school, either. the real shit.

billy listens, still slightly drunk and definitely fucking high, and ends up vaguely mentioning his mom. he cuts himself off quickly though, cos even when he's wasted he knows not to expose himself like that. but tommy looks at him, and he nods, and he moves the conversation along.

they get close, after that.

they don't cling to each other at school, with tommy usually floating between anyone and everyone, carol leading the way, and billy only gracing the basketball table with his presence maybe once a week, the other days ditching to his car or hiding out under bleachers becos he’s sick and tired of people, but out of school, they're a bit more attached. 

tommy's mom loves billy, and apparently, so do his siblings. well–the younger ones do, at least. the teens and the two older two seem unfazed by him at best, and wary of him at worst. that's probably fair though, considering his reputation. 

it takes less than a month for billy to clock the fact that tommy doesn’t seem to “get” music. tommy says he considers it something you put on in the background while you do shit, just to have some noise, and billy pulls the car over immediately and gives him a wild look. he pulls out a mixed cd from the glovebox that has a decent chunk of his favourite songs, and when tommy says he's never heard a single one, billy loses his fucking mind for fifteen minutes straight before promising him that before the years out, tommy will understand music. 

tommy just agrees, having learnt early on that billy's gonna billy, and he's expressive and passionate about so fucking little, so seeing him get so worked up about something tommy considers so small is like. kind of fucking adorable. he sits there and listens as billy explains the difference between one band and the next and thinks–he's never actually heard billy sound so genuinely happy to be talking about something before, like his love for it is roots deep.

and then–there's eddie. 

he fucking hates billy on principal alone, at first. heard the talk and rumours about him from day one, his name even being whispered about by hellfire members, and instantly judged and stereotyped the fuck out of him. knows it's pretty pot, kettle–the whole hating each other becos stereotypes etc but like. no way this new california basketball guy isn't gonna tear eddie to shreds. there's no way.

so, he doesn't wait to see how billy treats him, just expects that he's gonna fuck with him the same way all the other assholes do, and writes him off as a waste of time, just like all the other jocks are.

gets the surprise of his life when billy not only acknowledges him publicly at a party, but also knows him by name and talks to him at school. usually, his crowd treats him like his social status is contagious, and keeps any interaction to a quick and private arrangement. except then he's walking down the corridor at school and his name is being yelled across the hall, and suddenly billy hargrove's standing in front of him, a kind of terrifying look on his face.

eddie rolls with it though, figures his buddies will catch him up to speed and explain the rules that keep things flowing around here, and billy'll never speak to him again.

that's not what happens, though. what happens is one of jason's dipshit besties throws an arm over billy's shoulder and laughs, calls eddie a freak like it's the funniest and most original insult to ever exist, and tells billy that they don't actually have to talk to him, that they can get anything they want from samson's older brother who's back from college.

billy shrugs the guy off, "you mean that shit that you were sharing around at patrick's last week? yeah, fuck that. at least munson's shit is good."

eddie watches the scene unfold with slight interest, but writes billy off again when he walks away with the crowd, having gotten the information he needed.

charges him double and a half when billy eventually tracks him down behind the school, and billy gives him a flat look but still hands over the money.

"that the standard price, or you just being a little bitch about it?"

"whatever you wanna tell yourself, short guy."

billy rolls his eyes, but takes the baggie eddie hands him and walks away, flipping him the bird over his shoulder as he goes.

eddie watches him leave and shakes his head. thinks, at least that'll be the last of it.

feels his eyes widen slightly the next week when billy rocks up again, money already in hand.

"price has actually went up this week, sorry man. must've forgot to send you the newsletter," eddie shrugs, walking straight past him and dumping his bag on the table.

"fuckin–seriously? you seriously pulling this shit?"

eddie gets his little tin lunch box out of his bag, not even sparing him a glance.

"supply and demand, gotta make a buck, you know how it is," eddie shrugs again and waits to hear billy's footsteps walk away. that doesn't happen. instead, he hears billy take a deep breath, mutter a fucksake under his breath, then hears his footsteps approach.

"well, how much is it this week, then?"

eddie looks at him over his shoulder, then turns around fully, a slow grin growing on his face. "how much you got?"

watches the flash of anger and frustration cross over billy's face before he seems to reign himself in.

"just–just give me my fucking shit, munson, i swear to god."

eddie just watches him and waits, letting him sweat a bit, before grinning at him, all teeth, then turns back around.

he grabs some things from his little stash then slaps three baggies in billy's hand.

billy clenches his fist around it, before taking another calming breath, then nods.

"how much?"

"same as last week."

billy gives him a look, and eddie snorts.

"supply and demand," he shrugs again, twirling his hair.

billy huffs, slapping the money down on the table.

eddie winks at him.

billy becomes a pretty regular customer after that, even though he looks at eddie like he thinks he’s batshit crazy most days. doesn't stop him from asking for his phone number though, complaining that sneaking notes in lockers is fucking corny. 

next thing eddie knows, billy’s rocking up at his trailer and banging on his door, inviting himself in. eddie would like to pretend to give more of a fuck, but honestly, billy isn't actually that bad. and uncle wayne fucking loves him for some reason.

billy clocks his guitar on his second visit, and sniffs out his fucking heart wide crush on chrissy cunningham on the fourth, and eddie never knows peace affer that. 

it’s a bright as fuck day when billy finally figures out a way to merge his two worlds and get both eddie and tommy into the same place at the same time, and it happens purely by his own intervention.

billy's driving tommy home when eddie’s van mysteriously breaks down, and he calls for a lift. billy eyes his glovebox, where he’s stashed a small but important part of eddies engine, and thinks hell fuckin’ yeah your van’s broke down.

he smirks into his phone as he listens to eddie stress, quickly checking on his passenger as he thinks about the way eddie’s face always screws up whenever he mentions him, and how tommy always looks downright uncomfortable every time he mentions spending time at munson’s trailer. 

but. here's the thing. he doesn't give a fuck. what he does give a fuck about is splitting his time between the two, like a fucking child of divorce, when he could simply just hang out with them both at once, them all chilling together. of course, that involes playing matchmaker. or just like. force them into getting stockholm syndrome about each other or some shit. but whatever. as long as something works. he’s not picky.

he flips his turn signal on and does a u-turn, shrugging when tommy asks where they’re going.

when he pulls up behind eddie’s van, tommy’s face does something complicated, and billy holds back a snort. he gives tommy one last sideway glance before climbing out and going to find eddie.

“what’s the damage?” he calls out, walking up to the front.

“fuck if i know, man. i look after her the best i can, but she’s old as shit and high maintenance, and i’m fucking broke,” eddie says from the front seat where he’s been waiting, looking at billy like maybe he’ll know the answer.

“just leave it. i’ll come back later and have a look. got a passenger though, so. we gotta go,” billy waves his hand dismissively before nodding his head towards his car.

“oh shit, little red’s here?” eddie asks, hopping out and walking alongside him.

billy snorts. “worse.”

eddie opens the back passenger door and ducks down to look before standing straight back up. 

“tell me you’re joking,” he says, sounding fucking pained.

billy laughs. “get in the fucking car, freak.”

it’s the most awkward and uncomfortable drive he’s had since he got his own car, and he spends most of the time trying to make fucking conversation with them both only for them to give him stilted and one word answers back.

“holy fuck,” billy breaks, pulling up in front of tommy’s house. he locks the car doors before anyone can split and turns in his seat. “what’s the big deal between you two? it can’t be that fucking bad. you’re both like–harmless. fucking bitchy, and definitely petty, and both fucking dramatic, but like. harmless. what’s the beef?”

tommy stays silent, making sure to look anywhere but them, while eddie leans forward to look between them. he looks from billy, to tommy, then back to billy.

“just–history,” eddie sighs, giving tommy a look.

billy stares blankly between them both. “history,” he deadpans back.

“well, we have went to school together for most of our lives, even been in most of the same classes in high school,” eddie reasons, sounding offended that billy’s not getting it.

“boo hoo, he stole your lunch money,” billy bitches back, giving eddie a bewildered look, “move past it. you’re like, 20, dude.”

eddie gives him an incredulous look right back, and billy shrugs, unlocking the car doors. tommy bolts.

“christ, man. you don’t get it,” eddie starts after he’s jumped in the front seat and they’ve started to drive away, “you haven't been at the bottom of the food chain.”

billy raises an eyebrow at him, ‘cause like fuck has he never been at the bottom of the food chain, and eddie fucking knows that. billy’s turned up at his trailer enough times now after a run in with his dad for eddie to have put the pieces together.

“that’s fucking different, don’t even try to compare,” eddie shoots back instantly, throwing his arms out.

“yeah, ‘cause one’s fucking high school bullshit, and one’s my fucking homelife. like, dude. come on, seriously? he bullied you? i fucking bully you.”

“yeah but you bully me because you want to fuck me, he bullied me for like–fucking everything. living in a trailer, hellfire club,” he starts listing, “my parents and all that bullshit–my fucking band–”

“yeah, and i tried to fuck your uncle last week,” billy cuts him off, sitting there and giving him a blank look. 

eddie looks scandalised before a smile starts to crack, a slight laugh coming out. “you are such a fucking asshole.”

billy laughs right back, making an illegal turn and flooring it, “fuck you, i’m your hottest fucking customer. now, let’s go fix your fucking van.”

“tommy ain’t that bad,” billy tries again as he puts eddies van back into working condition, pulling the piece he took out earlier from his jacket and putting it back in the engine, eddie none the wiser sitting in the driver's seat.

eddie raises his eyebrows at him when he pops up to look at him over the hood, “uh huh. sure. tommy hagen’s got a heart of gold.”

billy rolls his eyes then bends back over, fixing up the last few things before slamming the hood shut.

“seriously. he’s like, chill, once you get to know him. he pissed me off too when i first met him. then, i actually gave him the time of day, and now–” billy shrugs, wiping his hands and smearing some grease around, then walking around to eddie’s door.

“why the hell do you care so much–what? you want us to all share friendship bracelets? want us to jam together?” eddie questions, looking at billy through his rolled down window.

billy lets out a deep breath. “‘cause. we’re almost graduated, we’re basically fucking adults, and i don't want to spend my fucking summer having to divide my days going between you both because you guys can’t get over shit from middle school. we were all fuckin’ pricks when we were twelve. luckily, you two both grew out of it, but i sure as shit didn't. so, either learn to get along, or i’ll make you fucking get along.”

billy pulls out a pack of smokes, gets one out, gives eddie a salute, then lights up and walks away.

billy’s words bounce around in his head the following days, and when billy tells him to meet him at his car after school three days later and he rocks up to tommy and carol fucking perkins sitting in the back seat, eddie stops for a minute before standing tall, then throws himself into the front passenger seat.

billy smiles his most angelic smile at him, and when eddie turns around, tommy won’t meet his eye. carol smirks at him and pops her bubblegum. “‘sup, eddie.”

eddie didn't even know she knew his name. he lifts his hand in a weird little wave before turning back around and facing the road. “fuck you,” he mutters under his breath, sinking down in his seat.

billy laughs and drops his hand to rest on eddie’s knee, squeezing it. “we’re gonna have fun, baby,” he mumbles back.

after a few blocks, billy pulls up to benny’s diner and cuts the engine.

“you said ‘meet me at my car, it’s important’,” eddie deadpans, looking around the busy carpark in the peak of the after school rush, tommy and carol already getting out.

“yeah,” billy deadpans right back, eyes looking fucking gleeful, “after school milkshakes. most important part of the day.”

“you’re lactose intolerant,” eddie breathes out disbelievingly as they both reach for their car doors.

“i know,” billy grins, pushing his door open and stepping out, then turning around and leaning in, “now let’s go, hot stuff.”

and maybe one day i'll finish this. oops.

[michanvalentine]

I'll start by saying that canonically Hojo is Sephiroth's father. And I don't think that will change.

Nonetheless, Square Enix is playing with fans and their expectations. In fact, in the Rebirth Vincent is more centered on Sephiroth than on Hojo, as he was in the OG. However, we need to understand in what sense.

Vincent's statement "our bond is unique" is also very peculiar. It would have made more sense to me for him to say "my bond with Sephiroth is this or that", because "ours" sounds mutual. And as we know Sephiroth and Vincent in the OG never met.

However, if Vincent was Sephiroth's father, the statement would make more sense. Even if Sephiroth didn't know of Vincent's existence, theirs would indeed be a unique bond. As well as a mutual connection.

However, it could be a translation/adaptation inaccuracy.

In any case, such a statement would be at least bold on Vincent's part, because at most he could have the suspicion of being Sephiroth's father. No certainty. Unless they want to completely change the story of Vincent, Lucrecia and Hojo, of course. But I don't think that's the case.

Furthermore, if Vincent knew for sure that he was Sephiroth's father, this would imply that Lucrecia would also be perfectly aware of it. And that she nevertheless gave Vincent's son to science.

After everything that has happened between them and after everything that Vincent has suffered, I suppose this would really be too much for him, especially when in theory Lucrecia is supposed to love Vincent.

And if everything else she did can be explained by feelings of guilt and her desire to save his life, giving up her and Vincent's baby is not. There would be no excuse for this.

If this were the case Lucrecia would come out of this really badly and could only save herself if Hojo forced her to experiment in utero. But this would obviously completely change the story and the characters.

No, Lucrecia mentally conceived this child from the beginning as an experiment. Because she thought she was able to remain detached and not think of him as a baby. Her baby.

So I guess the "bond" Vincent talks about is actually related to his other statement "I've had many opportunities to purge him from this world. Unfortunately… I couldn't pull the trigger."

If we take it in a literal sense it means that they met on several occasions, even if we are not given to know what happened, if they spoke to each other and about what.

One of the most probable moments is of course the Nibelheim incident, when Sephiroth actually shows clear signs of madness that would justify Vincent pointing a weapon at him.

In any case, if Vincent was Sephiroth's father he couldn't know for sure. And even Lucrecia might believe he is Hojo's son.

In DoC the scientist had already proposed to her, in fact he was waiting for her with open arms the moment she left Vincent (the "so you've come to your senses and chosen me" moment). So no much time must have passed between the breakup with Vincent and the fateful "yes, doctor". And Lucrecia could easily have been unaware that she was already pregnant at the time.

In this scenario, perhaps only Hojo could know the truth, perhaps discovered by chance by carrying out tests on Sephiroth that include DNA analysis. Or Lucrecia realizing the truth only afterwards.

It would be a reverse twist if Hojo confessed on Sister Ray that Vincent is actually Sephiroth's father! Or it could be Lucrecia who directly reveals the truth to him during the meeting in the crystal cave.

A secret that for poor Vincent would have more or less the impact of a Meteor crashing directly into his heart. Poor guy, he's already been through a lot. This would certainly be the final blow.

If instead we leave the imagination completely free, then we can think of a scenario in which Vincent knows for sure that he is Sephiroth's father, which is why he was actually taken out of the way by Hojo with a gunshot.

In that case he would have had every right to interfere with the experiment and claim the child for himself.

His fate wouldn't change much, because he would still be shot down and experimented on. However, the character of Lucrecia would undergo a clear characterization for better or worse.

She would become either a poor woman forced by the evil Hojo to sacrifice her child on the altar of science or an unscrupulous scientist willing to do anything to achieve her goal exactly like Hojo. In this case I can't imagine a middle ground.

Vincent's statements in Rebirth would then acquire a completely different meaning because the "unique bond" would actually be that between father and son.

The most unique ever.

And as for "I couldn't pull the trigger," it's not hard to imagine this parent struggling to pull himself together after everything he's been through and searching for his son.

For short periods, given the physical and also psychological need to return to the oblivion of sleep. Not to mention that the monsters/demons inside him can be dangerous to others.

Perhaps he could only see him from afar, perhaps he met him briefly, since Sephiroth has always been under the watchful and merciless eye of Shinra.

Maybe he couldn't or wasn't able to tell him the truth for fear of making the situation worse (dredging up the past could bring to light uncomfortable details, such as the very fact that Sephiroth is an experiment); and deep inside him Vincent already felt that there was something wrong with that boy… until the fateful accident in Nibelheim, where all of Vincent's darkest fears finally took real shape.

Naturally and for obvious reasons, Vincent could not pull the trigger. Even though it might have been the right thing to do.

To conclude, the idea of Vincent as Sephiroth's father has always fascinated me.

I've also used it in some fanfiction, but to make it canon you'd have to fix a lot of situations and characters that I don't think they have any intention of fixing. But I also can't know how far the developers will go with the remake. We will see!

Meanwhile, what I like to fantasize about is that a Sephiroth born from the love of Lucrecia and Vincent would be a Sephiroth to whom part of his humanity would be returned. And I'd like to explore to what extent…

[mercurygray]

Blind Dates 2024: Capt. Marion Brennan, WAC

My second submission for this year's @blind-dates-fest! I'd love to introduce you all to Marion Brennan.

Fandom: Masters of the Air (2023) The waiting was the worst part.

She’d been overseas for nearly a year now, and she could take everything else that came with the job in stride - the bloody faces, the vomit, the smell of piss and fear seeping out of flight suits, the way a boy tried to steady his shaking hands so that his buddies wouldn’t see that he was still scared. But the waiting was always fresh, always raw - and the fear returned anew each time the planes went up, and each time they came back down.

And when they came back down, she went to work. Except for today.

Marion surveyed the names on the large blackboard on the other side of the Operations Room, reading each one over as though she didn’t already know them all by heart. Her boys, day in and day out. Move them around, re-assign and re-group them, but she would know them even when their own mothers wouldn’t. Because I see them when no mother should - and hear the things no mother should ever have to hear.

Did you take any flak? Did you see any chutes?

And was he on the radio? What heading was that? Tell me what the plane’s condition was.

What time was that?

"Why, it’s barbaric," one of the new women had said once, after watching a particularly grueling session in the interrogation rooms. (Marion had made the flight engineer tell his part of the story twice, blood already clotting his face from a wound under his helmet, his face white with exhaustion.) "Making them tell you all that all over again. Those boys have just been through hell and you make them do it twice?"

Out loud, she explained about accurate after-action reports, finding coordinates for downed airmen, establishing times of death and declaring Killed In Action status. But it was more than that. If I have to explain it, you’ll never understand, Marion wanted to say. They come in bloody and shaking and afraid, and when we are done they leave the mission with me, and my girls, and I let them return to the world unburdened.

And who will do that for them in Telergma?

She knew the whole base was on edge. It was one thing to send out a task force knowing that they would come back to you, that after eight hours inside the inferno there was something you could do to ease their way in the world by bandaging a wound or patching a wing or serving a cup of coffee. But this waiting? This was the worst sort of waiting imaginable, because no one knew what they would find there. Was there an ambulance? Hot coffee? A bed with clean sheets?

When you land there, who will count you in? Who is there to care?

“Captain Brennan.” Marion turned away from the ops board to see Colonel Harding standing in the doorway. He looked like he’d slept in his uniform - a first, for him. Army Air Corps COs didn’t just fall asleep on couches, and men from West Point even less so. “I didn’t think you took shifts in this room.”

It was a polite way of saying that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be - and he was right. Captains didn’t take night shifts in the ops room - even female captains, whom Man and the Army had decreed a somewhat lesser species. She tugged a little at her jacket. “I sent Sergeant Wilcox along to bed - the poor girl was nearly asleep in her chair and I didn’t think she was much use to anyone in that state. ”

Harding didn’t seem to think much of that. “That shift change was hours ago. Where was her relief?”

More bad news. Marion took a breath and braced for impact. “Sergeant Hastings has the flu, and Wilcox thought she could use the rest. She didn't want to leave the post unmanned. I told her to go to bed. I can answer a telephone as well as the next woman.”

She waited for the blow to fall, but it didn’t come. If anything, Harding looked...impressed. “That was kind of you, Captain.”

Kind! What a word. But Harding wasn’t made of stone. Everyone was worrying about this one, and he knew it. It was one of the things that made him a good leader - that he had his nose in the wind, as it were, instead of being unreachable in his office with his reports. Still. Kind wasn’t a word you were supposed to use for officers. “It was also against regulations,” Marion acknowledged, trying to be as matter-of fact about it as she could. “You can write me up for it tomorrow morning  if you feel it's appropriate.”

Harding actually laughed at that, and she realized, belatedly, that it wasn’t a sound she heard very often. (And why should she? Most of the time they spent together was reviewing debriefing reports.) “Do I already have a reputation for being that much of a hard-ass, Captain?” He winced and paused. “My apologies. My language.”

And just where do you think I’ve been the last twelve months, Colonel? Curse as much as you like - I won’t break for hearing it. “I've heard worse, sir,” she assured him. “Regulations exist for a reason, and as the CO you're responsible for maintaining order and making sure your instructions are followed. Including watch rotations. It might be good to set an example. ” He looked impressed by the answer - possibly more than he needed to be. “My father was a West-Pointer, sir. Career Army, too.”

That, at least, impressed him where it needed to. “Is that so?” He studied her for a moment, processing this new information. “I can see that, now that you've said it. Is that how you got here?”

She nodded. “We moved a lot as a kid, and when I turned 18...Army life was all I knew. I started as a clerk, and worked hard, got a few promotions here and there, and when they let us put in for overseas assignments...” She let that hang for a moment, smiling as she thought about what she’d been spared because she hadn’t gotten what she wanted all those years ago. “I never did make it to Manila, or Maui, but maybe that’s for the best. Hamilton Field was about as far West as I got.”

She wasn’t in the habit of giving her life story out around the base - her girls needed a leader more than they needed a friend, and the scant four or five years she had on most of them was only good for so much, where authority was concerned. But it felt right that Harding ought to know a little something. After all, wasn’t he the one coming in with a reputation behind him, and the shoes of the former CO to fill? Everyone knew that he’d been at West Point, that he’d coached football, that he’d come to Thorpe Abbotts by way of Palm Beach and Spokane, Washington.

“And you still like the work? Little bit different than what you’d be doing at home.”

“Free a man to fight” looks different from here, that’s for sure. After everything she’d seen, everything she’d heard, she could say that much. “I do, sir. It’s important - making sure that the facts are straight, that we’ve learned everything we can before it fades out.” She had another thought, and paused, considering whether or not she should share. “I think they tell things differently, to a woman. They used to try and be more precise - cut around the edges a little wide so I wouldn’t see the bad parts. I think they know that we’re all used to it, by now.” I’ve been in every single op this wing has flown - turret, tail, and cockpit. I fly them in my sleep.

Harding nodded, considering all of it in that thoughtful way of his - a coach reviewing game-day footage to look for his next play.

There was some movement, at the door of the ops room - a woman coming in and realizing, late, that the person she was looking for wasn’t there. Marion spoke up. “Lieutenant Callaway, can I help you with something?”

The lieutenant's face was plainly guilty - a daughter caught sneaking in the front door with her shoes off - but she was trying valiantly to play it cool. It almost made Marion smile. "I was just...wondering if there was any news yet, ma'am. My shift's just starting and I ...thought I'd tell the girls, if we’d heard. Sergeant Wilcox said she'd tell me, if she...got news."

"Sergeant Wilcox was sent to bed," Marion replied. (Was that why she’d stayed on duty past her time? Because she wanted to be there to report out to Callaway?) "There's been nothing so far. We'll send a runner to Tower if we hear anything."

Callway nodded, obviously disappointed by this news and more unnerved than she had a reason to be, and she left looking a little shaken. Marion looked over at the Colonel and saw he was studying the lieutenant's exit with mild interest.

"Something there you think I ought to know about, Captain?" He asked, his expression thoughtful and vague.

Marion knew what he meant. A total ban on fraternization was impossible, given the confines of the base, but there had to be some separation of church and state, and making girlfriends out of her officers was a good way to undermine productivity. Still, if Cordelia Callaway had a beau, Marion knew she also had enough brains to keep it to herself, and she wasn't about to go spoiling that for her. She was a good egg, at the end of the day - maybe just the thing one of those fly boys needed to keep himself on the straight and narrow. "They all care a little, Colonel. I think it's impossible to live like this and not to." That's the strange thing about the army, isn't it? You get assigned to a place and suddenly you've got a whole band of brothers you never asked for.

Brothers, husbands, sons. Everything to everyone - one big, mad, teeming family.

Another noise at the door - Sergeant Dacre, a tiny mouse of a woman, nearly squeaked when she saw her CO and her supervisor in deep conversation, the lights half-off and the day just beginning.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir, I thought Sergeant Wilcox...”

“Captain Brennan was just leaving, Sergeant,” Harding said with a knowledgeable smile. (They were starting to teach that earlier - how to be a softer touch with the women. Marion could remember officers who would have shouted at Dacre to get her ass inside and moved her to tears.) “I don’t think we’ll need to do anything in the way of reprimands, Captain Brennan - for any of the business,” he added, being intentionally vague while Dacre readied her station. “But tell that Hastings girl she ought to get herself on the sick list, if she’s thinking she can just get out of work for a cold.”

“It’ll be the first thing I do, Colonel.”

The phone buzzed, and Harding swooped to answer it before Dacre could get her hand in. “Yes? Yes.” A visible sign of relief crossed his face, and she saw his shoulders relax. “Yes, very glad to hear it. We’ll look for those directly. Yes, thank you. Good-bye.” He put the phone back in its cradle and beamed. “Ground Control has them at Telergma. No details yet but - someone made it through.” He took a deep breath, still smiling. “I’ll get it out on the PA but you’d better tell Callaway out at Tower first. An officer doesn’t break her word.”

She almost smiled at him for that. The worst part, over. Now the details would come, but she could face that like she always did. “Of course, sir.' A pause, and - "I hope you have a good morning, sir.”

“And you, Brennan.”

Someone appeared with coffee, the room whirring into life as the day rotation came on board, and Marion took her leave, pausing at the door to look back at Harding, now studying the map with renewed enthusiasm.

Hughlin never made much of a father, she thought. All that waiting nearly did him in. But I think you’ll do just fine.

--

So that's Marion! She and the version of MOTA she inhabits can be perceived as being adjacent to the alternate history in my fic The Darkening Sky.

If you'd like to meet Cordelia Callaway, you can read more of my writing for her here at her tag on tumblr.

[carica-ficus]

"Harrow the Ninth"

21/02/2024

Reading progress: 507/507 (100%)

Read through since last update: 157

Didn't think I'd cram the last part into one post, but here we are anyway. These last 150ish pages were... All over the place. In a good way!

Final notes:

Oh, there she is!!! Talk about a monster under the bed.

Ok, but how casual is that scene? I know something like that was coming (I've seen some fanart, but knew too little to know who it was about, just that Harrow and Ianthe would be peeking under the bed), but it's just so normal. I like it. Kinda eerie because it's not presented as scary.

Of course Ianthe didn't see it. Don't worry Harrow, I believe you.

Yeah, ok. It makes sense that Ortus was just fulfilling other to kill Harrow. His reasoning for it just wasn't strong enough. "You're a liability." Just like everyone else.

Oho! Here we go! Epiparodos! (Whatever that means.)

NUNLET??? 🥺🥺 That's such a cute word.

Ok, the lobotomy. Right. Also saw a fanart spoiler for it, totally forgot it was coming. I thought it was gonna happen later on? In any case. Ok. Yup. This happened.

Harrow NOVA. There we go. The other Harrow finally revealed by her full name. Though I applaud Muir, I haven't even noticed we never got her last name. Gorgeous and genius writing, through and through.

HAHAHAHAHAHA love how Harrow did the typical "I am small. Therefore, I will be a quick and murderous machine" but Muir decided to break up the cliché by saying she discovered that at the ripe age of 5. Man, I love this book. And I love Harrow as a character.

"What's that, you egg?"

Dying. 😂

Ok, gotta say, chapter 40 lost me.

I think... I got it? I might need to read the remaining pages for all of this to settle down, but this is much less complicated that I thought it would be.

What is the meaning of love if not sacrificing every single memory of a person in order to save them? 😭

Of course, it was not a dream. That would be too easy. The bubbles make perfect sense.

I know I said Ortus was annoying when quoting the Noniad, but I really like him as a character. And by that I mean how Muir has given him more depth and allowed him to grow. Which also made the scene where he hugs Harrow so impactful. 🖤

Ok, the Ortus thing was unexpected. And I'm excited to learn what it's all about.

But first. The Sleeper.

UGH! I love how considerate Gideon is with Harrow's body. Sure, she's a little awkward in it and puts out a dirty joke or two, but she's just trying to be respectful and useful. Also the way she's so worried over any and all her injuries, even though she knows they'll all heal? So fucking cute.

Protesilaus took Dulcinea in his care when she fell ill. That's so cute. 🥺

Oh, hell yes! Gideon stepped the fuck up. Time for Ianthe to meet her fucking match.

(I love how protective Gideon is ggghhhgghggh)

Man, I missed Gideon so much.

MATTHIAS NONIUS!!!!!!! :O

(Such a cool scene!!!!!)

You know what? After everything that happened, my reaction to finding out Gideon is God's daughter was just "Ok. Cool."

Cue John's corny dad joke. Love it.

Also I wouldn't have guessed they were related based on their eyes. Sure, John's eyes were mentioned multiple times, but they're silver and Gideon's are gold, so I wouldn't have put two and two together just by that. But! It fits. It's foreshadowed. It works. So yeah. Sure. Love it.

I knew it! I knew that he had a cavalier! I knew that he was a Lyctor! Hell yeah!

So much stuff happens at the end. I just kept on reading, without spending much time on commentating. I needed to know what happens and tbh, I have no idea what I just read. But that's okay! It was fun!

Ok, all in all, the book was spectacular. I liked it even more than I did Gideon. I liked how Muir handled Harrow's grief. I liked the reveals, the mysteries, the tension and the stakes. I liked the characters and I liked how Abigail got a lot more page time. I didn't even care about her in the first book, but now I really like her. I liked Ortus too!

Now, I'm still confused... About a few things. Primarily Harrow Nona. So I'll have to read an explanation or teo about it (or you can comment on the post if you'd like to help me out). Did... Harrow Nonangesimus kept watch and narrated over what Nona was doing? As in, she was dissociating from her body after the lobotomy and experiencing everything from a distance? Or was that all Gideon? Because I feel like it wasn't. Gideon's narration style is totally different and clearly comes out at the very end, but idk. I feel like I'm missing something here or that I'm not grasping something ridiculously simple.

Anyway, I'll be reading a little more about it, but yeah. "Harrow" is done, so I'll have to get my hands on Nona! In the meantime I'll be writing out my review. 🖤

[septembersghost]

my queue was supposed to run out tonight (11/19) - i'm nothing if not someone who clings to dates and anniversaries, and exactly a month ago, i realized i had enough posts stowed in it to last until today. of all the days. kismet. you know when it's time to go. but i ended up adding some posts from my (still copious) drafts, and no matter how i finagled it, it was impossible to make them all fit by the time today ended. so it gets a little bit of extra time. maybe, in honor of this blog's existence, that's fitting.

you all know this, i've said it, typically in gratitude, many times already. this blog was never meant to last. i came back in november 2020 expecting a couple of months, maybe to be here until the new year. i told very few people, anticipating the goodbye, not wanting to cause anyone undue anguish when i had to vanish again. something i didn't expect was the sheer (admittedly devasting) emotion that would tie itself to those two weeks when i started interacting again, nor that it would have any outreach or impact, but somehow it did. then time kept spinning on, extending itself, gossamer threads unfurling each day. my following kept growing, far beyond what i could have anticipated, greater than i'd ever established on any of my previous blogs. moving around is unfortunately a pattern at this point, every time for reasons that felt quietly catastrophic. not being able to pay bills for a while. angel's death and the ensuing difficult circumstances. so here, i kept anxiously imagining why i'd eventually have to leave, how to plan for it. poverty issues. the homelessness we were facing through the entirety of a couple of years until last august (and my dad having to be the saving grace). worsening health issues. i never knew, i couldn't predict it, i just worried about it. often tried to brace for it. maybe i got too comfortable this year, because this was when i started to think it wouldn't happen, that i really could stay. little did i know. and the reasons...are not reasons i ever fathomed, why would i have? how could i have? i wish it weren't so. (i wish a lot of things.)

i thought sometimes about the words i would leave you with, none of which are suitable now. i almost wrote nothing, yet found that feeling wrong, couldn't leave without something about parting.

thus it turns out i'm leaving before it's strictly necessary, before it's the fear of personal catastrophe coming to fruition, not knowing what i'll do or where i'll metaphorically go, as that is the downside of chronic illness and isolation narrowing this to my sole outlet. (lyrics keep running through my mind, there are always lyrics stuck in my head. no matter where i go, there'll be memories that tug at my sleeve, but there will also be more to question, yet more to believe...teach me to be more adaptive...help me say goodbye). my body is in such a fragile state right now (my mind not far behind) that maybe what i need to do is rest. just rest for a while.

this blog was never meant to grow the way it did, to take asks and have conversations like i did, that was a somewhat new (sometimes scary! often fun) experience for me. it's one that will never be replicated. to my loyal and lovely anons, i'm so sorry that i had to cut you off unexpectedly and couldn't reinstate communication - i know that you weren't able to reach out to me as soon as i did that, and that certainly wasn't your fault, it was a response to the tenor of this website. i apologize for the hundreds of messages i never had the chance to answer. i'm appreciative of the things you shared with me and all the times we got to talk.

i sincerely hope some of you learn to be kinder and wiser and less reactionary and more willing to learn and to listen rather than to attack those who have never wronged you and who do not deserve that. i'm being too nice, but i hope you learn that misusing your supposed social justice to do harm and foment hatred and stew in ignorant cruelty makes any principles you purport to have utterly void. my hope for that is low at the moment, but it's still got to be there. waiting to be found.

to those of you who have never been anything but kind, you are true treasures, the lights in the darkness, the loving and compassionate embodiment of human spirit. some of you have (quite literally) helped keep my mom and me alive, and i can never repay that or do enough in this life to quantify it. some of you have been here for me every single day, to listen and laugh and cry and understand. i don't think i would've bothered to fight through these past three years had i not had your presences in my life. i wouldn't have had as much of a reason. there are times when i still haven't felt like i had a reason, i struggle through so many varied griefs, but then i continued to wake up, and would come on here and find something joyful or beautiful or affirming that someone had sent or posted, and it gave me an anchor. there are passions and interests i shared or discovered here that were so uplifting and enlightening, and i will carry them in my heart always. being here to find those was such a blessing. being here with you to indulge in them was such a blessing. thank you. i pray your continued paths have more of that ahead. look at all the things you've done for me. there are certain things that once you have no time can wear away.

you know that line from the wizard of oz?: hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable. maybe that isn't true, maybe our hearts being broken is proof of something. there are people who hurt me on such a profound level who i know weren't affected by it at all, but i refuse to define my sensitivity as a negative. my softness (too soft for all of it, indeed) does not quite provide me with a weapon, but it doesn't crumple. hearts can be broken repeatedly and still beat, which i've thought about a lot lately. shattered souls just make a new mosaic. it's a different picture than it was before, but the color and light persists. and in the remains of that, a handful of people have shown me depths of caring and resilience that i wouldn't have gotten to hold onto otherwise, which is an extraordinary thing. the precious rarities have to mean something more, don't they? i would think so. i believe it. or i'm trying. i keep trying with all my might.

maybe i stayed too long at the fair. maybe this is a consequence of overplaying my hand, gambling a little too much with time to where it had to teach me something. maybe i needed the reminder that sometimes we have to fight to retain our spirits, and other times we have to retreat. maybe i needed a reminder that all that extra time was a miracle. i don't take it for granted.

whether we've spoken directly, be that consistently or in scattered flurries, whether we've interacted in very personal ways or simply in liked hearts on the dash, i hope there was goodness and light in it. i hope there's a memory i leave here that's sweet. (as long as i'm borrowing phrases, i hope you'll think of me fondly sometimes.) i hope there was something warm and enriching here. i hope you know what you've been and meant to me. i said so many times that this blog was my cozy haunted house - the ghosts will linger here forever, and i know they'll never mind if you want to step in and visit.

with all my heart, i love so many of you so dearly. i am so lucky to have your friendships. please move gently through life. please hold onto the things that illuminate it for you, and provide that where you can. please do your best to repair even the smallest of tears in the world. you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

there must be lights burning brighter somewhere.

something yet remains. i remain. and i do my best to be brave.