#what does this mean for the future of tower emblem

[egophiliac]

the lovers, reversed

(aka I'm still freaking out about Jou)

[juliaswickcrs]

HIRAETH

rating: 14+

relationship: robb stark/oc

AO3

summary: Emma Hightower wakes in a land that is not her own with knowledge of a future that does not belong to her. But as she learned from watching Game of Thrones, knowledge is power, and despite warnings about fate and defying the will of the gods, Emma refuses to let any Starks, Tyrells, or Targaryens die at the hands of Lannisters, even if it means throwing herself in their line of sight. Even if it means throwing herself into war. {modern character in westeros, time travel fix it au}

a/n: this has been on ao3 for a while now, but @bisexualterror convinced me to post it on here! please reblog or comment if you enjoyed it!

CHAPTER ONE :: OLDTOWN

She awoke on a soft patch of grass, sunlight streaming through stained glass, crafting a kaleidoscope of colors which danced across her exposed skin. 

Her dress held tight to her frame, skirt flaring out at the waist as it gathers around her thighs. 

It is exactly what she was wearing when she touched the white bark of the tree in the center of the castle. 

Her flannel shirt dangled lazily from her shoulder as she pulls herself up, spandex peeking through the short hem of the white sundress. 

The grass refused to stay grasped in her palms, sliding through her fingers like silk. 

It seemed to be the only patch of grass in this place, the surrounding areas decorated with black marble that covered the area except for a small hole near the top.

The stained glass depicts figures Emma has never seen, and she finds herself staring at a long-haired woman grasping a bouquet of flowers with her head down. 

Besides her stands a broad shouldered man on his knees, sword in hand. 

Despite how little Emma knows, something deep in her head rings familiar, the weight of her bag dragging her shoulder down as she moves closer to the windows. 

She glances behind her for a brief moment and freezes. 

The white tree stands behind her, although it is much smaller than she remembers. 

There is no face carved into it, but the white bark and red leaves are unmistakable. 

It is nearly the exact tree Emma remembers touching after hearing the screams and yells of Cassie and Alec. 

Her leather boots clicked against the beautifully crafted floors of the Cathedral. 

That is the best approximation she can give for the place she woke up in and for all her hatred of it, Emma cannot undo the religious knowledge she grew up with. 

Stained glass, black and white marble, the sounds of choirs in the distance…it’s all horribly familiar to her and yet unknown at the same time. 

The sweet smell of incense caused her to wrinkle her nose as she continued down the narrow halls, religious imagery and icons plastered upon the walls.

It does little to quell the rising nausea in her stomach. 

She hates the smell of churches, the close walls and hymns that accompany the wide-eyed stares and whispered prayers.

“Excuse me, miss” a deep voice rumbles behind her and she whips around, hair nearly slapping the man in the face. 

He’s tall and bearded, with wide eyes resembling her own staring down at her. 

The clothes he’s dressed in are of fine fabrics with gold threaded through the deep forest green of his tunic. 

The sword that swings by his side is certainly not something Emma would see back home, but maybe people in Ireland take live action roleplay more seriously?

That was the only alternative that didn’t have Emma questioning her own sanity. 

“Are you lost?” 

His tone was one she’d heard many times, where an adult would ask a question that was clearly meant to be rhetorical. But Emma had never been good at answering those. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Her eyes fell to the grey tower and golden flames emblazoned on his doublet, the emblem feeling unmistakably familiar “I don’t know where I am, I believe—“ 

“You don’t know where you are?” The man scoffed incredulously, crossing his arms and shaking his head as if she were a child, “I’ve heard many excuses from whores, but I do believe that is a new one.”

Emma’s chest burned at the insult, “I beg your pardon?”

“Come now brother,” A melodic voice interrupted her attempt to defend herself, “Is that any way to talk to one of our own?”

A pair of long nails attached to spindly fingers landed on Emma’s shoulder, cold to the touch and causing her to tense up. 

The man sighed, “Malora, I do not have time for your antics today, surely father—“

“Father has sent me to retrieve your issue,” The woman behind her spoke pointedly, eyes staring down the man, before lowering her voice, “Or at least, that’s who he believes has shown up in the garden of the Starry Sept.”

The man shook his head again, “You and I both know Father had gone quite mad these days, surely he does not believe—“

“You don’t know what he believes anymore, brother,” the woman, Malora, spoke with a sharp tone, “You are not the one he asks to join him in the High Tower. You have not seen him of late. He is filled with dreams, ideas that no other lord would dare speak aloud, and when he asks his children to perform an errand, he expects it to be done quickly and discreetly.”

Malora’s brother tightened his grip on his sword, jaw clenching as his eyes wandered over Emma’s frame once more. 

She tried to ignore the ridiculous thoughts filling her head as the conversation took place. 

With words like Starry Sept, and High Tower standing out and joining the emblem in familiarity. 

The woman who saved her from the insult steers her past the bearded man and Emma finally catches a glimpse of her. 

She is tall and willowy, with long dark hair that seemed to match the imagery of the stained glass Emma saw earlier. Her skirts fell to the floor, causing Emma to tug on the hem of her sundress. 

They were made of a dark velvet the color of the night sky, dotted with flecks of gold and seemed to move when Malora moved. 

As they passed the bearded man, Emma stopped and stared up at him, gathering every bit of vitriol she could muster, “I’m not a whore,” She spat, “And even if I was, you could not afford me.”

The man’s face turned red and Malora’s lips tilted upward into a smirk. 

The older woman unclasped the cloak around her shoulders, “Here,” she handed it to Emma, “Unless you wish to be mistaken for a whore again, I would advise you keep that on you until we reach my father.”

Emma stared at the deep violet color for a moment before dropping her gaze toward her short hem. 

She wanted to say no, to protest against the ridiculous standards they were enforcing on her. But she had questions, and she needed to know if all of this was as impossible as she believed it to be. 

The golden strings tied neatly around her neck and Emma pulled the thick hood over her long dark hair.

She did not know where Malora was taking her, nor why the bearded man seemed intent on following them through the winding passageways and sweltering heat of what was clearly a bustling city. 

As she held tight to Malora’s hand, a series of possibilities floated through her mind. 

The first was that she’d been dragged into the middle of a very elaborate LARP scenario. 

The swords, the fancy accents, the beautiful Cathedral.

It all made sense. 

After all, Ireland was famous for their beautiful churches and…unique characters but Emma had never heard of people being this committed to the bit before. 

The second was she’d accidentally stumbled onto the set of a fantasy show for Netflix. Ireland was a popular filming place after all, and it would explain why everyone was dressed in similar silhouttes and spoke as if following a script. 

But that would not explain how she fit into this whole thing. Unless it was like that one show where everyone else was an actor except for the lone person out of the loop. 

The third was something too impossible for her to contemplate. 

But it explained more than the first two options ever could. 

The strange dialect, the clothes and belief she was a whore, the fact that the city she was now weaving through resembling nothing of the Irish countryside she’d been given a tour of before with her friends.

It all made too much sense and yet none at the same time. 

“Look out!” Malora yelled and Emma turned just in time to see a wide-eyed man with crooked teeth and a knife fall to the ground with a groan.

Blood spilled out of his mouth and onto her dress as a steel blade punctured his throat.

The bearded man stood before her with a look of disdain, but all Emma could feel the warmth of the blood spattering her face and chest, staining her dress crimson as the life left the man’s eyes. 

And suddenly the impossible became reality. 

If it was a movie, a director would have yelled cut. If it was a show, special effects would have taken place. And if it was a LARPing session, there would be no need for live steel. 

She could taste the iron.

This was real. 

The blood was real. 

Emma knelt down and grasped the knife in her hand. It was crudely made, with a misshapen wooden handle and a flimsy blade.

It punctured the tip of her finger and she winced.

The knife was real. 

This was no longer a dream, nor an impossible option. 

“Holy shit,” She whispered. 

Malora grasped her hand and quickened her pace, the bearded man falling back into place as they continued downriver.

The water rushed beside them as whispers turned to bustling conversations.

Survival instinct kicked in and Emma ran alongside the woman, still not knowing where she was headed or what her fate would be when they got there. 

A white marble bridge arched across the mouth of the rushing river toward the jagged bluffs overlooking the sea. 

The waves crashed against the obsidian fortress which lay atop the cliffs and if Emma forced herself to listen, it almost sounded like the whispers of a thousand voices every time the water hit the brick. 

It was only when a door closed behind her that Emma returned to reality, gauging her surroundings once more. 

If this really was the truth, then she would need every bit of cleverness and wit she possessed. 

She would not win battles with swords or bows or strength, only what was in her mind. 

“Are you alright?” The bearded man seemed genuinely concerned, a far cry from his behavior before, and Emma forgot that she was now covered in someone else’s blood. 

She nodded briskly, certain that her fear was written all over her face. 

The bearded man shot a look at Malora, who was already talking with two men in silver armor with more swords at their sides. 

Both of them held the same emblem on their armor the bearded man did on his doublet. 

God, why couldn’t she remember what it was?

The armored men nodded and disappeared down one of the many hallways.

Several entrances poured out into the foyer, a large spiral staircase reaching up into the endless expanse above her, carved out of the same white marble the bridge was made of. 

“Father will be expecting her,” Malora spoke in hushed tones, the woman’s lips tugging themself into a frown, “And seeing as she clearly has nowhere else to go—“

“I will bring her to Father,” The bearded man spoke, eyes darting Emma’s direction. They lingered on the blood coating her face and something akin to regret crossed his face, “The least we can do is provide her with a place to stay if he decides otherwise.”

Malora sighed and squeezed the man’s shoulder, “Thank you Bael.”

Emma tensed as Malora turned her gaze her direction, only relaxing once the woman gently pressed her hands onto her shoulders once more, “You will be safe here. I do not know what my father intends to do with you, but we will not leave you to your own devices, I will ensure it."

Emma nodded, “Thank you,” She breathed out, barely able to comprehend the woman’s words. 

They filled her with relief, and even though something seemed to dance behind the woman’s emerald gaze. 

Emma blinked, and Malora was gone. 

Her skirts swished up the endless marble staircase, and she silently wondered how the woman held the stamina to ascend the staircase without so much as blinking. 

A moment passed, and the bearded man entered her vision. 

She caught a much better look at him this time around.

Auburn hair hung neatly to his shoulders and his beard was well trimmed. The man was probably in his forties or fifties if she had to guess, close in age to Malora.

In fact, the two seemed to share the same eyes, except the man’s were a much more muted color, resembling waves of grass instead of the cut of emeralds. 

The man seemed to be waiting for something, and it wasn’t until his lips moved again that Emma realized he was asking her a question.

“Your name,” He spoke softly, as if suddenly realizing his mistake from earlier, “What is your name?”

“Emma,” She muttered, still in shock, “My name is Emma.”

“Very well, Emma.” The man spoke, offering his arm, “Follow me, I’ll take you to meet my father.”

His father. 

Of course it was his father. He was a wealthy man, probably a lord of some kind. A deep groaning sound pulled her back into the moment and she found herself staring at a very unstable, very crude elevator. 

The man walked in like he did this every day, staring at Emma for a moment before gesturing for her to follow, “Well, Lady Emma, shall I inform my father you are here or do you plan to stand there all day?”

Gulping down the bundle of nerves in the back of her throat, Emma winced as she stepped onto the wooden floor of the fragile contraption, closing her eyes as the cage shut and began creaking toward the top. 

A tough grip wrapped around her shoulders, but she dare not open her eyes for fear of seeing just how high she was dangling. 

It was worse than rides up the tall skyscrapers back home and she silently waited for a cable to break and send her plummeting like the Tower of Terror. 

The cage shrieked to a stop and she waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

But the sound of a cable snapping never came, and when she opened her eyes, the cage door was open with the bearded man offering his hand to her. 

She stepped off without taking it, balancing delicately on the balls of her feet as she pushed herself through the frame. 

“I see you still take offense to my earlier remarks, my lady,” The bearded man dropped his hand while Emma attempted to stabilize herself using the stone railing.

“Women typically aren’t fans of being called whores” Emma shot back, unsure where her voice had come from.  The man arched an eyebrow and Emma gulped, forgetting where she was for a moment, “…Sir.” She tacked on carelessly, “The only reason you’re treating me differently is because your sister and father say you should, otherwise you’d still assume I’m selling myself, right?”

The man dropped his head in shame and that was all the answer she needed. 

Now that she was behind high walls and Malora had promised her safety, her boldness returned in spades, anger rumbling in her stomach at the earlier insult. The short hem and lack of sleeves was all he had to go off of and he’d decided she must have been a prostitute. 

After all, what other option was there for a woman in these times?

She wasn’t dressed like the others around her, and she held no emblem to distinguish her as the daughter of a lord or lady. 

“And even if I was selling myself, perhaps I had no other choice,” She continued to ramble, the words coming to her as the wheels in her head turned, “Perhaps I was abandoned and left in a whorehouse, or disowned and forced to find my own way. I would hope the gods would see that and forgive me.”

The words were too honest for the world she lived in now, but she might as well take one last moment of truth before being forced to lie for however long she remained here.

With her luck, it would be the rest of her life. 

“Well said, my lady.” The man nodded, gesturing toward a magnificent gilded door with the same emblem of a tower aflame carved into the mahogany doors.

It was obviously a symbol of great importance, and Emma wished she could remember what it was. 

“With a temper and a wit like that, I can see why my father is eager to meet you.”

He lifted the bronze knocker three times, the echoing sound followed by a muffled voice of similar cadence to the man beside her. 

“Enter.” It ordered, the door swinging open. 

Anxiety clawed at Emma’s stomach as she stared into the darkness before her, the only light coming from the flame of a candle burning in the middle of the room and the sunlight from outside.

She swallowed the lump building in the back of her throat and shuffled forward, the door slamming shut behind her. 

An older man stared up at her, silvery blonde hair illuminated by the flickering flames of the lit candles surrounding a desk in the middle of the room. 

Scrolls and parchment lay scattered about the room with books open to specific pages stacked on top of one another. 

Many were scrawled in languages Emma didn’t recognize, with drawings of scales and equations written in the margins. 

Behind the man lay a stained glass window with a seven pointed star, the ledge underneath it decorated with bunsen burners and beakers and lumps of coal under magnifying glasses. 

In the shadows lay a green powder Emma had no desire to touch and she tried to memorize as much as she could to see if it jogged her memory in any capacity. 

“Ah, the Lady Emma,” The man’s eyes twinkled as if with knowledge no one else possessed, “How wonderful to receive you. I am Leyton Hightower of Oldtown, Lord of the Hightower and Beacon of the South.”

It all clicked into place. 

“I see you’ve already met my eldest daughter Malora and my heir, Baelor.” He gestured toward the bearded man behind her and the shadow beside a bookcase. 

Malora stepped out of the shadows with a comforting look, and Emma’s stomach sank further, grasping tightly to the strap of her bag.

“Now that we have all become acquainted,” Leyton continued nonchalantly, looking unbothered as Emma’s eyes darted around the room putting the pieces into place, “Perhaps you would like to tell me exactly how you ended up in Westeros.”

She gulped. 

hiraeth taglist: @bisexualterror (lmk if you wanna be added)

[luigiblood]

Some thoughts about Nintendo Switch Online retro games since last time

This is essentially going to be not much of a post but I guess I could talk about a few things about its future since with all the updates that we got since last time.

We'll talk about UI code, Pokémon, NES, Fire Emblem and N64.

UI code upgrade

Literally the next day since my last post about it, on March 16th, Nintendo added new NES, SNES and GB titles. Under the hood, they did do a massive change to the user interface programming, bringing pretty much every NSO app to the latest user interface codebase that GB and GBA NSO had.

That said it brings absolutely no visible changes, NERD has just made sure to bring everything up-to-date. This is just more stable and probably easier to program and manage UI code.

Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2

On April 12th, Nintendo released Pokémon Stadium to NSO + Expansion Pack, and with no Transfer Pak support.

Of course, what did I even expect since there's no old mainline Pokémon titles yet (if ever?).

My opinion about Pokémon on NSO is that it will get stuck to only spinoffs. My worst case realistic scenario (aside from no rerelease) is Pokémon Company selling the old gens at $15 piecemeal (yes, $5 more than on 3DS Virtual Console).

Personally I expect Pokémon Company to be very strict about Pokémon management, and those games are highly abusable with glitches, honestly and are kind of region locked, too to some extent especially between japanese and international players, but they still bothered to rerelease them and supporting them with a way to transfer your Pokémons out of the games. It's also abusable if you supported the Transfer Pak in Pokémon Stadium titles since they also work like extra boxes for your Pokémons and those support save states, which was explicitly removed out of the 3DS Virtual Console release...

They did also release Pokémon Stadium 2 this week, also without Transfer Pak support.

I did look at the emulator really quick and did find that they added new functions for Lua script hacking for the games, and it does kinda look like they rebuilt the entire thing from a new version at least.

I'll speak more about N64 emulation later.

Mystery Tower

Fast forwarding a bit, on June 6th, Nintendo added more NES, SNES and GB titles. One of them was Mystery Tower by Namco.

This bothered me, because I knew what this game was, but the title did absolutely not sound right. Turns out this title is actually brand new, they had this title in their collection, the original title was "BABEL" which is interesting since this means it is a first case of title change hacks on NSO. That said I did eventually find out that Japan also had a title change to "The Tower of Babel", which was also done in collections, but also the Wii U Virtual Console release!

Anyway please try this puzzle game, just keep in mind the direction and how you can turn around stuff based on how you face it.

Fire Emblem

On June 23rd, Nintendo released Fire Emblem for the GBA NSO app. But Japan also had Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, the actual first GBA Fire Emblem title, as we only started to get these games since the second GBA title.

I'll refer to them as FE6 (The Binding Blade) and FE7 (Fire Emblem) from now on.

This update was interesting for a couple reasons.

It just so happens that the japanese version of FE7 can link to FE6's completed save files to unlock a couple things in the game.

So now, when you go into multiplayer, after the first player selects FE7, the second player is allowed to select either FE7, or FE6 for "Link Cleared Save Data" (official english text). Another player can simply share their save files to another player.

This also means that the GBA app now has the ability to load different games for each player depending on the choice of the first player who serves as the host.

(This screenshot is me messing around with the functionality.)

However this is not the only noteworthy thing to happen, because it wouldn't feel fair for a single player to not being able to transfer their own FE6 saves to FE7. Well, they did actually implement a hack for single player too!

They actually reimplemented the linking process inside the emulator just to avoid emulating a second GBA for it, and it would seamlessly transfer the save data just fine.

If you're wondering about what it unlocks, a quick read made me figure out that it skips Lyn's story, and add new scenes to the epilogue and other small additions as well. Those new epilogue scenes are available in the US version by default, but not in the EU versions for some reason. They can also be accessed in the JP version without a save transfer by finishing the game 9 to 11 times (what the heck).

This functionality working as it is really cool, honestly, and it makes a process less painful to do like it was back then, and it did make me feel confident in the transfer of data between games like with Golden Sun & Golden Sun: The Lost Age or the Zelda Oracle games... speaking of...

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons

Those two games ended up randomly coming at the end of July this year. They are known for being two parts of a fuller story if you link each of them from whatever order you start them with.

And that's where my disappointment came in to remind me of the terrible reality that is Nintendo Switch Online.

It is doable for two players to share their save files to each other through multiplayer, but if you wanna do the games yourself on your own in single player, you'll have to input the password you get from the other game.

That is kinda sad considering it's the first player who selects the save file from the other player, it could have been very easy to setup in a way that's easy to use without needing to implement any specific user interface, but that didn't quite happen.

I hope they'll bother for Golden Sun considering the tiers of password this game can have with Golden Sun: The Lost Age, but I am starting to think if the game does offer a way to transfer without needing any additional work, they wouldn't do it. In the case of Fire Emblem, this way of save transfer was the only way to do it.

I did not mention much about this, but Oracle of Ages/Seasons are also known for having exclusive content if you play those games on a Game Boy Advance. After looking into it though, it does not seem like we're missing much, but it's kinda sad that they're not really in their most definitive way to play them.

Pokémon Trading Card Game

Two weeks after those last two games, Pokémon Trading Card Game and Pokémon Stadium 2 were released.

The cool thing about this game, is that they emulated the infrared communications.

At least, Card Pop does work, for sure, which does require emulation of the IR communcation... or does it?

Upon a quick inspection of the emulator code, I found out that the emulator does indeed patch the game ROM's functions, and thanks to the disassembled Pokémon Trading Card Game offering me a lot of information, I found out that they absolutely don't emulate the IR communications at all and outright replace the IR functions to point to a invalid 0xDD opcode (opcodes are small commands that CPU executes)... which probably points to a function in the emulator to specifically manage this. Ain't that funny? In any case though, they do at least let all IR communications work just fine, and that's what matters.

(For the nerds who wants to look this up, the emulator keeps SHA1 hashes of the ROM you can easily search for, then points to a struct of 100 bytes original to compare, 100 bytes to patch, address, size, and something else I don't get.)

I ended up looking this up as someone pointed me to this video:

It turns out in the original game, one of the cards, the Phantom Venusaur, is impossible to obtain due to a mistake in the calculations of the odds, on which this video explains very well in detail.

This is the reason that motivated me to look at how the emulator might patch the game, and see if they fixed this issue: They did not fix this problem, I see no patch for any of the relevant code for this.

So, NERD, if you're reading this, look at 06:5D92, you can definitely fix this in one way or another.

N64 emulation

So... the Pokémon Stadium 2 release at least updated the emulator in some way, because they added new functions for the Lua scripting for N64 game hacks, and some of the UI engine stuff got shuffled around.

Then I tried some of the games, to see if some things got fixed:

F-Zero X did NOT get its framerate drop fixed.

Goldeneye's Dam level has texture tiling fixed. Interesting.

Since I noticed this last thing, it was pointed to Graslu00 who knows the game in and out and already compared the emulation of the game on NSO and Xbox... to a disappointing degree.

Here's his thread about the fixes... or rather the lack of: https://twitter.com/Graslu00/status/1688994099477528576

The update did also some additional fixes to Pokémon Stadium 1, though I don't really know much about it other than it relates to rendering and soft reset in some way.

Unfortunately the N64 emulator is still not up to snuff, but I think the most annoying thing is still the controls. The default controls suck, let us change them in the emulator, per game! Offer also better stick emulation!

It still pains me to rely on the Switch OS remap feature, it's not good for this, it messes too much with some of the macros, it sucks!

It annoys me when I see the text "Change Control Method" in the emulator files too, you guys clearly thought about it! Why isn't it a feature after months with nothing?

Future releases

There's still a couple N64 games left that were explicitly announced for 2023, such as 1080° Snowboarding, Excitebike 64 and Mario Party 3.

That said Japan also had plans for release of Harvest Moon 64 (which I see no reason why we can't get it now that Harvest Moon SNES got released since), but also Goldeneye 007, on which Japan has it on the highest age rating (CERO Z).

Considering how the plans are going and how lazy everything is (sorry devs, I'm sure you guys know already, but most of the results of this just don't impress me and don't fill me with confidence aside from GB/GBA somehow), I just think N64 NSO will randomly get a 18+ rating and put every N64 game under parental control bullshit out of nowhere with no warning for Japan.

Also, where's the alternate languages for NES and SNES games?

[deepseacolors]

@spr-ingo May, Day... 3??: Alternator/X-ING

...I'm not great at, uh. Time management. Whoops!

Even though it's late, I still wanted to get this out before the last event day of the last event month. I have a couple other incomplete pieces from earlier days that I might like to polish up and post sometime, but this one is the MOST complete of the batch. (And, at over 3,000 words, it is without contest the longest thing I have EVER written at this point. Fun fact!)

This one is, um. A little strange. After playing the Alone inthe Dark remake, I just got a hankering for a survival/psychological/cosmic horror AU. Emmet was originally going to be the protag of this AU, but isn't it this Ingo's event? He should get the dubious honor of survival horror protag status. I think he wears it pretty well, personally.

Warnings: Some unreliable narrator, memory issues, something approaching a panic attack toward the end. Things lurking in the dark.

While nothing bad really happens in this one, it does very vaguely reference bad things (parental death, familial estrangement) happening in the past. Additionally, it takes a pretty sharp tonal shift about halfway through.

I personally don't think it's all that bad, but if you're not good with spooky stuff, best be cautious.

--

The river sparkles cheerfully in the bright midday sun, and Ingo has half a mind to curse it.

There’s no way he can cross this unaided. Even if Ingo were able to swim, and even if he didn’t already know for certain that some of the—creatures residing in this place could swim like Sharpedo, the river is much too wide. Ingo would exhaust himself before making it halfway.

And he is already much too familiar with the sensation of drowning.

When he gets his brother out of this place and brings him home, Ingo vows that he’ll never step foot near another body of water deeper than a bathtub for as long as he lives.

But for now… Ingo eyes that incongruent tower looming over the trees past the river.

Specifically, he examines the great emblem carved on it’s wall, glittering like gold against bright marble finish.

Digging through his coat pocket, Ingo pulls his brother’s notebook from the leather satchel he procured to try and protect it from the elements. Despite his best efforts, however, the pages are already becoming warped and filthy from the damp conditions and constant handling.

As delicately as he can, Ingo flips through the pages, searching for something he had seen during a previous examination, and… ah, there.

It’s not a perfect replica—Emmet, for all his attention to detail, has apparently never seen fit to hone the delicate hand needed for artistry—but it is close enough that Ingo can tell that this is a sketch of the selfsame sigil that stares at him from atop that bizarre, lopsided structure.

Has Emmet been there? Or has he simply seen this mark elsewhere, and recorded it for future reference?

...Is he there now?

Ingo scans the rest of the page in case there are further clues, but he knows better by now than to get his hopes up. Indeed, the only writing that seems to pertain specifically to that mark is a single word in Emmet’s even writing:

‘Pale’

He stoppers the groan before it can leave his chest, and instead pinches the bridge of his nose.

Inscrutable as always, brother.

(“I took these notes for myself,” Emmet had said once upon a time, years and forever ago. “They do not need more detail. I know what they mean.”

Ingo had draped himself partway over the edge of his bed, putting his head level with his brother’s. Emmet himself had his back propped against the foot of the bed, and leaned back enough to meet his eyes.

They had been nothing more than schoolchildren discussing their studies, not aware of the tragedies looming in their near future, and Ingo had taken flipping through Emmet’s school notes while Emmet played with Litwick.

“I know, Emmet,” Ingo had sighed, allowing Tynamo to gently press against his cheek. The offered comfort was appreciated, even if the uncontrolled static would wind up making his hair stand on end again. “I was simply hoping that your notes might elucidate the subject better than our instructor, is all.”

Emmet took the book from his brother, but didn’t put it away. Instead, he opened it to his notes from the lesson earlier that day and holds it up so they both could see.

“So show me what you do not know,” he said, grinning. “I will help you understand. Because we are--”)

“--a two-car train,” Ingo murmurs.

In the present, Ingo blinks away the memory and shakes his head. Disorienting as they are, he’s starting to get used to these flashbacks. He’s still on the fence as to whether that’s a good thing or not.

(It’s normal to forget portions of your childhood as you age. The way the human brain develops makes it inevitable. This world, bordering dreams and reality, just seem to draw those forgotten things out.

...So why does it still feel like he’s missing too much?)

Exhaling slowly from his nose, he takes a moment to recenter himself. Inscrutable or not, the emblem on that tower is the closest thing he has to a clue at this juncture, and he means to pursue it.

Which means he must reroute until he finds the line that will take him there.

--

The stairs groan and creak ominously with every step downward.

There are no lights in the stairwell; no candles, no lamps, and certainly no light bulbs (though the small boathouse is so old and unmaintained that Ingo doubts any of the wiring would have survived anyhow). The gloom is suffocating; the darkness almost a solid thing, boring down on him.

Ingo is grateful, then, for the lantern he found earlier today. Rusted and damaged it may be, the lilac flame flickering inside the faded bulb remind him that he is not alone here. Even if his trusted Lampent can’t physically follow him through the doorways leading to this world, the pale light she granted still continues to guide him.

Water suddenly trickles down from the ceiling, and he jerks the lantern away from it.

...Still, strong as she is, Lampent can’t keep a damp wick lit. Even in this odd dreamworld, that law of physics remains intact.

They’ve learned that the hard way already.

Bringing the lantern closer to himself, he continues his trek down.

In any other circumstance, Ingo is sure that would not be here. He would have taken one look at the rickety, broken-down stone-and-wood boathouse, with it’s unserviced motorboat and the crooked, oddly-placed basement door, and he surely would have turned around and gone home. It spits in the face of every safety standard he’s ever held himself to.

Nothing in this world is safe. Hostile creatures—neither human nor Pokemon, but something altogether alien—stalk him at every turn. The architecture is incomprehensible and prone to unexpected failure. Every time Ingo feels he can relax, something terrible springs from the shadows, claws aimed for his throat.

But Emmet is here, somewhere. His notes, otherwise sparse or filled with shorthand Ingo cannot understand, are meticulously dated. And they indicate that he has been coming to and from this world for nearly a year.

(Ingo never knew. Emmet never mentioned it. There was never even a hint in the letters he sent, until the one that incited Ingo’s sudden visit.

Did he think Ingo wouldn’t have believed him?)

(Would Ingo have believed him?)

A stair creaks sharply in protest, and he startles so badly that he almost loses balance.

Focus. This is no place to get lost in thoughts.

Any questions he has can be saved for if—for when he finds Emmet and convinces him to leave this wretched place.

And to do that, he needs to get the boat operational.

And for that, he needs gasoline.

Or an oar, at least.

The basement should hold something of use.

--

After five minutes of descent, Ingo decides it might be better to simply try and steer the boat with a large branch or something. He turns around and begins to climb up the way he came.

--

After ten minutes of ascent, Ingo’s lungs start to burn. The stale air here is near-suffocating.

He is not going to reach the top, it seems. Not yet, at any rate.

He tamps down the anxiety bubbling in his chest, turns around, and descends again.

The stairs creak and groan.

--

After an unknown amount of time descending, Ingo’s mind starts to wander.

Whatever could Emmet want in this wretched place? Ingo knows better than to assume that his brother is able to move easily through this world; though he had fewer scrapes and bruises than Ingo surely sports, there were plenty enough the last time they’d met to indicate that Emmet hasn’t exactly been waltzing through unhindered.

But every time Ingo tried reason with him, it was the same:

“Go home, Ingo.”

“Everything will be fine, Ingo.”

“Hurry and go home.”

“I have to do something first. And then I will write you. Okay? So you can leave. I will see you later.”

But even if his memories have faded, rusted away, Ingo can still tell when his brother is lying to him.

Ingo had begged, demanded, pleaded for Emmet to just speak to him. Let him help, if nothing else, so they can go home together.

And Emmet had hesitated, long enough that Ingo started to think that he had finally talked sense into his wayward twin.

But instead he had turned away. “It is better that you do not know,” he had said, so softly that Ingo could barely hear him.

He had looked exhausted, bone-weary. Like he’d lived a thousand lives in the decade they’d been apart.

And that…

(“Sometimes,” Mother’s voice sounds tired, heavy, “not knowing is better.”

He remembers, suddenly, sitting one the large old couch in the drawing room with Mother and Emmet; Ingo cuddled up to her left side, Emmet leaning against her right.

It had been a stormy summer day, the rain splattering loudly against the windows and the wind howling like a thing bereaved, but Ingo paid it little mind. He was simply thrilled that his mother was not only in high enough spirits to entertain them, but had sought them out for play multiple times that week.

Perhaps, he thought, this meant that Mother’s health was improving! She had promised ages ago that she would take him and Emmet on a train to see the countryside someday, but her weak heart kept her housebound anymore. The only time she left the house these days was to see some doctor or another. It must have been very dull for her, but she never complained. At least, never in earshot of the twins.

Looking back on it in the present, Ingo will also recall the way she would furtively glance at the doors and windows and sometimes speak in hushed voices, as if she feared being caught doing something bad and getting reprimanded.

By who, Ingo could not guess. Father had been away on business for much of the month, and was not due to return for another week. Though there was a nurse who stopped by to help Mother with her medicine, it was only for a half-hour during the morning. For much of the day, the three of them and their were alone in the house.

Certainly, it was only the three of them.

There were creaking floorboards and doors that opened by themselves, inexplicable chills and strange whispering noises from just outside the door; but it was just the old house settling. Father said It had been in his family for generations, and thus wear and tear is only natural.

And when one feels eyes watching unseen, or an ice-cold hand gripping one’s shoulder when there was no one else around, well, it was only childish imagination running wild. One must be mature about these things, Ingo.

Certainly.

At Mother’s words, both Ingo and Emmet had frowned.

“… I do not understand, Mother,” Ingo had said. “In what situation would having less knowledge be beneficial? That sounds counterproductive.”

Across Mother’s lap, Emmet nodded emphatically.

From what little he remembers of their childhood, Ingo knows that both he and Emmet had been what one might describe as precocious. No problem can remain unsolved if one used proper application of strategy, and the twins excelled at sussing out and utilizing all knowledge at their disposal for creative problem solving. Though there had been times where Father or their instructors became irritated with where their wits took them, their intelligence had always been highly praised.

It seemed odd for an adult to advocate for less education.

Mother herself seemed to tense for a moment, before plastering on her practiced smile.

“Well…” she said slowly, “sometimes things are—scary. Or sad.” She hesitates, as if struggling to articulate her thoughts. “Or… perhaps, too much. Too—big.”

Her hand combed through Ingo’s hair, working out the tangles, and Ingo almost wanted to stop discussing this. To just quietly agree and move on to talk about better things, like the books he and Emmet got for their birthday, or the Cottonee they had found in the garden earlier that week.

But it sat wrong with Ingo. A look over at Emmet, with his furrowed brow, told him that his twin felt the same.

Mother seemed to realize this. With a sigh, she leaned backward, bringing the twins with her.

“You’re right, Deerling,” she said slowly. “Most of the time, it’s good to study up and be smart about things. But…”

She started scratching lightly at Emmet’s head as she thought, and he relaxed further in her hold.

“… Sometimes, things just aren’t our business,” she settles on. “Sometimes… looking too hard at something will—will make it know you’re there. Looking at it.” She failed to suppress a shudder. “And then it will…” her voice becomes a haunted whisper, “it will start looking at you. And then it won’t ever stop.”

Ingo’s voice wavered in his attempt to match her low tone, “Do you mean… something bad?”

She tightens her hold on the twins. “Something dangerous,” she hissed.

And he didn’t understand. Father had said that Mother sometimes got dreams and reality confused, but she sounded so certain of what she ways saying. More certain than anyone had ever been of anything.

Ingo glanced again over at Emmet. His brother seemed to be thinking very hard.

After another heavy silence, Mother spoke again. “That’s why you need to be careful, okay? Our family… It’s easier for us to—to see dangerous things. And to be seen by them.”

She sat up, tapping her boys cheeks to make sure they are looking at her. Her face was like stone.

“So promise Mama, okay? Promise me that if you—if you see something that feels dangerous and scary,” her hands start to tremble, “promise me that you’ll close your eyes. Don’t look.” She grips their shoulders. “Whatever happens, just walk away and don’t think about it. Okay?”

And her gaze was heavy, and it felt like this was the most important promise he’d ever make to her, so he nodded. “I promise, Mother,” he said, voice barely audible for once.

She nods in approval, and turns her stony gaze to her youngest. “Emmet?”

Emmet hesitated.

She shook his shoulder. “Emmet,” she said, her voice low; and in that moment she was almost scarier than their Uncle’s dragons.

After a few long, tense moments, Emmet looked up at mother.

He said: “But why?”)

----

Ingo misses the next step.

Falls.

He curls up, trying to protect his head and neck with his unoccupied arm. Tries to get his legs under him, tries to break his fall—this stairwell has already gone on endlessly, the longer he falls the more at risk he is of further injury, he can’t—

He hits the water at the bottom with a splash.

For a split second, he panics, only barely able to keep himself from gasping in the stale, stagnant water covering his head. He holds the lantern above him, can’t let her go out, he can’t function in the pitch-black nothing of this pit alone without a light--

And then he pushes himself up, sitting in a soaked heap in a pool of water less than two feet deep.

But why, but why, but why? What could be worse than this? Than not knowing?

Floundering in the dark, with a light that struggles to shine more than a few feet ahead, violence and cruelty biting his heels at all times.

His heart is pounding, beating at his eardrums as he trembles and shakes with force from the ice still rushing through his veins. His arm still stiffly holds the lantern above his head because he cannot risk losing her light to the dirty water surrounding him.

It’s better not to know, they say, but all Ingo wants is to know, why? What did mother see? What does Emmet know?

The still silence of the room he landed in is broken by small splashes of water and ragged gasps that Ingo cannot control.

What makes Emmet so afraid that he cannot bear to even imagine sharing his burden with his own twin? The one who was once his closest friend, his most trusted confidant? What could be so terrible?

What is he missing--?

A dozen steps up the stairway behind him, the stairs groan and creak.

Ingo freezes. Holds his breath. Listens.

Footsteps, so delicate and light that they are almost drowned out by the protesting wood, are getting closer. A fluttering buzz, like an insect’s wings, drift down from the dark.

Those are not the even, measured steps of his brother. They are not the calculated, cautious steps of the detective that accompanied him here.

Ingo stands, slowly, holding his lantern toward the stairs. It rattles with the force of his shaking.

He knows those steps.

He does not know those steps.

But he knows them. He knows them, and he needs to go, to go, to go, before--

Just outside the range of the lantern, a shadow flickers in the stairwell.

And Ingo suddenly believes that, if he stays, if he waits for that entity reach the landing, he can know.

He can know what it was that crushed his mother under it’s weight until she could live with it no longer. He can know what it is that changed his brother so drastically after her death, that wore him down to the thin specter that greeted him in that dismal study just this morning.

But what would it cost?

A small polished shoe breaches the light. The buzzing vibrates against his eardrums.

(He needs to find Emmet. Nothing else matters.)

Ingo stumbles backwards, the water hindering his movement, before turning and running the opposite direction.

He has no way of quantifying the amount of time he spends running other than the burning of his lungs and the weakness of his legs, but some indeterminable time later, he bursts through a door and is immediately blinded by a searing light.

It catches him off guard, and he trips, scraping his hand and knees against wet stones and sand. The lantern clatters against the ground.

He has the presence of mind, still, to reach behind him and slam the door closed. Scooting back until his back is pressed against it, holding it shut, he tries utilize his hearing while his eyes adjust.

Running water. Wind blowing and rustling… leaves?

Ingo blinks his eyes open.

Though he has no memory climbing any stairs in his mad escape, he has somehow made it back to surface level. He is sitting next to the river that started this whole mess.

Across the river from where he sits stands a rickety stone-and-wood boathouse, an unmaintained motor boat tied to it’s dock.

Behind the small shack he rests against, there is a thick and uninviting forest.

And, less than a mile deep into those woods… a marble and gold tower looms over the treeline, bearing a familiar emblem.

… One small blessing, at least: he won’t have to put his faith in that rotted little boat.

Still breathing heavy, Ingo slumps against the door and covers his eyes.

A brief layover. That’s all he needs. Just… a few moments.

Then it will be time to depart once again.

[fishy-xp]

do you ever think that if the major and minor family weren't constantly at odds with each other, then there is a future out there where vegas runs the family business and kinn is out there free to do as he wishes.

to me, vegas seems like someone, who at his core, revels in power and violence, enjoys it actually. but the way he was brought up has turned his relationship with his anger into something toxic and unhealthy. he cannot control it and who he takes it out on. he's constantly beaten and belittled and he keeps all this rage and hatred inside until it bursts like a hailstorm of fury, leaving nothing alive in its wake. but imagine a vegas who was nurtured by his father, wasn't constantly compared to his cousin and has a brick-solid sense of self-esteem. a vegas who doesn't torture and use violence as a means to overcompensate, but simply because he can. a ruthless, sadistic little man who was truly worthy of running the thai underground. the devil on his throne where he rightfully belonged. the devil carrying all these tortured souls with no soul of his own but only a satisfied smile.

kinn on the other hand, was never meant to be the heir. he was meant to be the invisible middle child, the one who can branch out and do as he wished because he didn't have the responsibility of his entire family resting on his shoulders. kinn doesn't have the inherent ruthlessness vegas does. he kills because he has to, he doesn't enjoy it the way vegas does. we can see throughout the series kinn's personality is actually quite passive and shy, like when he confesses to tankhun and korn he loves porsche. or when porsche teaches him how to fish (pure baby behaviour), or when he pleads with kan that the major/minor family are equals. kinn is not a violent person, but his position as heir forces him to be. kinn doesn't have that affinity for violence like tankhun does, the eldest who is quick to demand retribution and shoot now, ask questions later or kim, who tries his best to hide this part of him by leaving behind the family business, but he enjoyed beating the shit out of the goons at the bar and leaving dead bodies as a caveat to his former lover. but kinn knows that in this world, the only thing that garnered respect and power was being able to bring about death at the pull of a trigger. if things were different, kinn would be free.

there was a time when a younger vegas would look forward to coming to the major family compound to play with his p'kinn. he would open the door of the car before a bodyguard could and his short little legs would run across the driveway as he excitedly leaped into kinn's arms and ask what they would be doing today. there was a time when a younger vegas told kinn he was so excited to have a little brother soon and he will take care of him as well as kinn took care of vegas. the sense of pride that swelled inside a younger kinn because vegas thought of him as a brother and a good role model filled his little body with so much joy and happiness. there was a time when a younger kinn and a younger vegas stared up at the towering shelves of liquor after they've climbed up the barstools, kinn helping to hoist vegas up before jumping up himself. there was a particular shiny looking bottle, covered in gold foil and engraved with some fancy emblem sitting on the top shelf that caught their attention. there was a time when a younger kinn promised a younger vegas that when they were older they would share that bottle as they celebrated becoming the heirs to the family business.

[roamingpoffin]

Mr. Genova: Instructions for Use

Hello there! I recently got to re-read Hetalia’s story about Napoleon in occasion of a trip in Corsica, and suddently remembered this adorable little guy. While there are a lot of wonderful people that took the mantle and tried to give character and story to what are actually just 2 sketches from 3y ago, I also noticed some disappointment (understandable) and…. misinformation from lack of context and historical knowledge about the topic. I know that seeing the 4th italian brother when maybe your country isn’t in yet can be frustrating, but trust me when I say that Genova is a very important character for many of the events that occurred between the middle-ages and WWII (does Colombo ring a bell?).

With that said let’s try to discover together who actually was is Mr.Genova!

Why Genova and not Genoa? Genova is the correct italian name of the republic/city while Genoa is it's english version and, incidentally, the name of Genova's most renowed football team. So just like for Venezia and Roma we'll keep the original pronunciation.

In this first part we’ll talk about Genova design

[Original sketch by Hima, I just polished and colored it to better convey my ideas about his design.]

I’ve heard people complaining that “he just seems like a fusion of Romano and France”, funnily enough not only the comparison is quite on point, but it’s coherent with Genova’s history and probably intentional on Hima’s side.

To understand what I mean let’s look at a little map of modern Italy

We can immediatly notice some things ->

1) Liguria (the name given to Genova’s historical territories after the city became “capoluogo di regione” in 1948) borders with France and Monaco. For all it’s life Genova had to fend against France and would often end under it’s dominion for brief periods; at the same time their vicinity favored a similar culture and language (with one BIG exeption we'll see another time): Monaco and Corsica, previously territories of Genova, retain a great resemblance with Ligurian when speaking their actual language, aka Corso and Monegasco. At the same time Ligurian presents some elements common in french that are actually absent in standard italian.

2) Genova is situated in front of the Ligurian sea and has open access to all of west-Mediterraneum, becoming the most important harbor in north-west Italy since it gained his autonomy from the HRE around 1096 A.D. Due to Liguria peculiar geografical conformation (no plains and the Alps-Appenines isolating Genova from the rest of north Italy, favoring a climatic bubble that makes the region a greener version of the south) our republic decided to limit it's expansion towards northen countries and instead focus on the Mediterraneum sea, becoming Spain and by proxy South Italy best commercial/political buddy till (almost) the end of it’s indipendent life.

3bonus) Yes guys Seborga is a little town in the Ligurian hinterland and was part of the Genovese republic. While Seborga's story is really interesting (might do a focus in the future) the general history and culture of the 2 is the same.

NOTE: every time I use the term “Italy” during any period pre 1861 consider it only as the geographical meaning of the peninsula (Italy as a country wasn't a thing till then).

PALETTE AND DESIGN

With this introduction in mind it makes sense for little Genova to have his hair styled similar to France and a darker shade compared to Veneziano. While the dark gray used by Hima could hint at both black and dark brown, the latter is by far the most common color in Liguria so I decided to go with that.

His eyes are anybody’s game to be fair, but I decided to be as faithful as possible to the average ligurian so, just like Feli and Lovi when Hima decides that his eyes aren’t olive anymore, brown/light brown is the most common color in Italy (+ we already have Seborga as the random flashy neighbouring brother).

To end our palette the skin tone could be an in between: probably darker that a Northener but lighter than a Southener (no mayor arabic nor germanic influences here)

CLOTHES AND ACCESSORIES

clothes -> nothing too important to say, the clothes are fit for the XVIII sec., they shows Genova���s status as a wealthy commercial republic and unofficial bank of Europe (yup, before Switzerland Genova had that role and it’s banks are considered the oldest in Europe). As long as the colors used aren’t too flashy everything is fine.

crown thingy(?) -> now this is where things become interesting. There are 3 possible options I could think as of why Genova, of all the possible accessories, has a crown when it wasn’t even a monarchy. Pick what you prefer or feel free to add your personal interpretation if you want.

1) money and superbia: as written before, during it's prime Genova was a wealthy republic, lending money to half of Europe and being the indiscussed queen of west-Mediterraneum (ofc Venezia was the queen of east-Mediterraneum, but that’s another story for another post). The city even got the nickname “Superba” to enanche the grandiosity and way too much pride of it’s people. A crown would be a fitting choice for someone who is probably a bit narcisist.

2) city status: in ancient paintings the personifications of countries and cities were made recognizable by the presence of a little crown on their head. Adding to that, in Italy to be a full fledged town or city you must receive a crown symbol to put on your emblem, maybe Hima is hinting at Genova actual predicament.

3) the Lanterna: I’ll admit the first thing I tought while looking at Genova was “that looks like a little tower”. A bit strange, but actually not farfetched; if you have ever visited Genova you’ll know what I mean when I say this city has a lot, and I say A LOT of towers positioned trough the historical center. The reason? To protect themselves from the French/Ottomans/eventual pirates, in the XVI sec. Genova decided to build a massive system of walls and towers that surrounded the city. There is also a specific tower that is considered the symbol of Genova itself “la Lanterna”. The Lanterna is the oldest Lighthouse still in function trough Europe; maybe if you glance at its modern look it doesn’t scream “tower”, but before it was semi-destroyed by the French army in 1513 A.D. Lanterna beared a striking resemblance to what Mr.Genova is wearing.

“MUGUGNO LIBERO”

Last but not least, the infamous pout that gave Genova the label of “Romano 2.0”. It’s not random, it’s not wrong, it’s such a toughtful and unexpected touch that Hima would be declared honored guest by any Genovese (and made me personally laugh like an idiot for an hour).

What Genova is doing here has a specific term in the local language, mugugnare!

What is “mugugnare”? Mugugnare is a peculiar way of complaining and rambling specific of the Ligurians. This act is soo ingraned into the culture of the region that it’s considered an art and will take a good part of any conversation you’ll have with a local.

I’ll be more specific when we’ll touch Genova possible characterization, just you know that where Romano is loud, pretty offensive and direct the mugugno is more subtle and passive-aggressive. It can and WILL BE directed at anything, from the weather to jobs to Venezia and the rest of the north.

This finally brings us in what defines most of the characters of Hetalia, the wonderful land of stereotypes.

See you in the next part where we’ll talk about the temperament and culture of what is often considered the “black sheep” of north Italy!

[philliamwrites]

The Dawn Will Come [Chpt.1]

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Dimitri x Reader, Claude x Reader, Edelgard x Reader, Yuri x Reader, Edelgard x Byleth, lots of minor pairings

Tags: #gn reader, # platonic love byleth & reader, #reader is a tactical unit, #angst, #slow burn, #subplots, #unreliable narrator, #pining, #remporary amnesia, #reluctant herp, #canon divergence, #lost twin au, #many chapters, #original content

Words: 5.2k

Summary: Waking up in a forest without any knowledge of your past and who you are, you join the house leaders of the Officers Academy to search for a way to return your memories. Unfortunately, the church has different plans for you, and Fate places you in the centre of a cruel game with deadly stakes. It certainly doesn't help to fall in love with a house leader who is doomed to be your demise.

Notes: Chapter 2 There’s also a playlist for this story that you can find here and here.

Chapter 01: A High Destiny

A high destiny seemed to bear me on until I fell, never, never again to rise.

[Mary W. Shelley, Frankenstein]

    It starts as it will end: in darkness.

    Black dots dance in front of your eyes, merging into dark shadows clawing at your consciousness. A dull throb pounds in your temple, a steady rhythm that speaks of life but isn’t enough to allow awareness of your surroundings. Memory is a foreign word you can’t explain, and trying to think of the past 24 hours is an unachievable task. Every glimpse slips through your fingers like sand, and the only steady reference point is the solid ground pressing into your hands and back.

    Slowly, you open your eyes. Treetops dance in the wind, towering above you like silent guardians of ancient times. The sun winks at you through thick branchesa and dancing green crowns, indicating it’s long past daybreak—but how do you know? Your memory is still a vast pool with no bottom and no means to dive into, and yet you think there’s a voice calling out to you, a heart-wrenching young, boyish voice—no, those are real voices ringing through the woods, appearing close to you. Alarmingly close.

    “You’re awake,” a woman’s voice starts, moments later followed by a corresponding face. Round, lavender eyes surrounded by thick, white lashes peak from above at you, blinking curiously. It’s an expression far from friendly, but not exactly hostile either, and of all the things you can think of at this moment, it is how strikingly beautiful she is. But before you can say anything, another person joins, leaning too close in for comfort.

    “You got us worried there, stranger,” a young man chimes in, squatting down beside you. His uniform isn’t exactly what you’d call fit for travelling through the woods. A heavy yellow cape falls over his shoulder, more fanciful display than practical use. But something in his posture seems very attentive, his broad shoulders taut like a drawn bowstring that won’t miss its target. “Weird place to take a nap, but hey, I’m not judging.”

    “I wasn’t—” you start, immediately struck by a throbbing pain behind your right eye that reverberates through your skull and wretches a groan from you.

    “Take it easy,” another voice joins, and panic spreads through you because of the amount of people surrounding you. Where the first man is a picture of warm colours—gold and sun kissed skin nourished on warm summer days, the other man observing you with a worried expression is clad in blue and black, blond hair falling into a pale face that carries the most striking blue eyes you’ve ever seen. Or so you think, because surely a colour like this, a blue stolen right out of the sky, wouldn’t be easily forgotten.

    More movement and rustling of fabric, and a chill settles in your bones as you begin to fear that you’ve run into a bunch of ruffians who’ve only kept you alive for so long because they’re hoping for valuable information. More people emerge from the underbrush, carrying large sacks and backpacks with billycans dangling at their sides. Among them, a tall man with a beard, clad in robust mercenary’s gear, steps forward, concealing another young woman with sharp features and unusual greenish blue hair.

    The sight of her strikes you like a bolt. It tastes like familiarity and the relief of being reunited with a long lost friend. But that is impossible. This is the first time you meet her.

    Is it?

    “You brats, I told you not to head off too far,” the older man bellows, crossing logs for arms in front of his broad chest. The first three take one big, polite step away from you, but don’t look apologetic at all.

    “I’m sorry for our hastiness, Captain Jeralt,” the girl says, her eyes darting from you still sitting on the ground to him towering in his full height above them. “But it seems we would have otherwise not found this person.”

    “This person who wasn’t really much conscious a couple of minutes ago,” the boy in yellow adds with a crooked grin. “How bad would it have been if someone else would have beaten us to it?”

    “No need to make me look like the bad guy,” Captain Jeralt interrupts with a raised hand before the boy in blue can join his friends' justifications. Instead, he turns to you and regards you with a scrutinising look.

    “What are you doing out here?” he demands. “Where’s your family? Friends?”

    “Uhm, they’re—” you start, but nothing comes to your mind. Not only that. You don’t know why you’re out here, where you are exactly … and basically anything that should come to you about your own person remains shrouded in darkness. “I don’t know.”

    Jeralt nods like that explains the very reason you’re still sitting on the ground like a misplaced cargo of cabbage. He kneads the nape of his neck, his face softening the tiniest bit. “And what’s your name?”

    Unable to hold his piercing eyes, you drop your gaze to the ground, curling your trembling fingers into the fabric of your wool jacket. “I, uh… don’t know.”

    If you thought you didn’t have their attention before, now their eyes are glued on your face in different levels of shock and disbelief.

    “A case of amnesia?” the blond male says, not quite managing to achieve the right balance between blatant curiosity and polite worry. “Does this mean you have nowhere to go? Don’tknow where to go?”

    “Goddess help you, Dimitri,” the other boy groans, running a hand through his short, brown hair. “Be any more tactless, will ya?”

    “He isn’t wrong,” the girl says, observing you like you’re a fascinating new specimen in her collection of strange things. “You need a place to stay. And help until your memories return.”

    If they return, you don’t dare to say because despite all things, hope still clings to you in the deepest corner of your heart, not allowing you to follow that train of thought and what it will mean for your future.

    “Then by all means, if you want to join,” Jeralt says, waving a dismissive hand in your direction. “I don’t think you kids accept a No, so I’m going to save my breath.” He turns around with a grunt. “Get them your horse, Byleth. We’re late as it is, and another night of Alois talking my ears off will make me do something I’ll regret.”

    The woman called Byleth keeps staring at you even as Jeralt walks past her and gives her shoulder a solid clap. You can’t say if she’s mute or just speechless because she’s filled with the same strange overflowing sensation like you: like a basin filling with water but unable to drain off. It appears you’re the same age, a couple of years older than the other three but still much younger than Jeralt, and yet the moment your eyes lock, it feels like there is something far older than any of you together passing between you. Something ancient.

    “Well, first off, on your feet, little one.” Strong hands curl around your elbows, hoisting you up in one swift movement. A wave of dizziness hits you like an unavoidable spell, and the pounding from before settles back behind your right eye.

    “Amazing, Claude,” the girl hisses, and quickly steps forward to steady you, pressing one hand against the small of your back where her strong fingers curl against the curve of your spine. Her other hand gently holds yours as she helps you regain your balance. “Excuse his manners. I promise not everyone from the Officers Academy behaves like a brute.”

    “The what now?” you ask, hit by another wave of dizziness that might originate more from the girl’s soft lavender fragrance rather than the world spinning around you.

    “The Officers Academy at Garreg Mach Monastery,” Dimitri provides this time. His posture is straight like an arrow, the stance of a soldier speaking to his officer. “That is where we attend as students and hence are going right now.”

    “And you want me to come with you?” you ask like you have the option to refuse and go somewhere else. Strangely, the thought of joining a group of armed knights and mercenaries doesn’t fill you with fear or anxiety. You’re about to tread into foreign waters, and yet your heart is calm like a still compass guiding you in the right direction.

    Claude clasps his hands behind his head like he’s got nothing to do with you feeling unwell at the moment. “Unless you have another place to be?”

    Luckily, your head does come clear and breathing becomes a little easier. You nod to the girl and she holds you a second longer before she nods back and lets go. “I guess not,” you mumble, looking at each one of them. Byleth still hasn’t moved. By now you can’t really tell if she’s looking at you or through you. Surely, she would have said something by now if she thought you were familiar, right?

    “Then it’s settled.” The girl nods solemnly, throwing her silky, white hair over her shoulder. “We welcome you in our company. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir to the Adrestian Empire.” Edelgard gives you a tight-lipped smile that quickly thins into a white line when the other two introduce themselves as Claude von Riegan, grandson of the Sovereign Duke of the Leicester Alliance and Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, future king to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. None of these names ring a bell to you, but you nod, pretending to know exactly what they're talking about.

    “Okay, we need a name for you as well,” Claude proposes, tapping a slender finger against his chin. He has a strikingly sharp jaw that looks fit to cut stone. “Can’t have everyone call you stranger or little one now, can we?”

    “No,” you say. “Especially since we’re about the same height.”

    Claude laughs like you just told him the best joke he’s heard in years. “Soo, since we found you here … how about Glade? Or Woody?”

    “How about no,” you say with furrowed eyebrows.

    “Apologies.” Edeglard sighs and shakes her head, her expression a mix between disappointment and annoyance. “Claude isn’t much accustomed to the notion of consideration.”

    Claude rolls his eyes. “Then you come up with something, princess. Or is it impossible because you can’t take out the stick up your—”

    “Claude,” Dimitri half shrieks, his pale cheeks splotched with red dots. As he stumbles over his own words trying to apologise for Claude’s behaviour, Edelgard simply deadpans, “Bold words for someone in stabbing range.”

    The fourth in this round of strange people considers you with a blank expression, her steady gaze like a solid touch on your skin. Before a greater argument can break free between the students, Byleth says a name with a surety like she’s never said anything else in her life, and hearing it, this barely whispered word immediately lost to the wind, you just know it’s your name.

    “Yes, much better than what Claude proposed.” Dimitri nods, regaining his composure even though he’s still staring daggers at Claude. “It sounds more civilised as well.”

    “You didn’t even suggest anything,” Claude remarks, but the huff of annoyance quickly dissipates from his voice when he jerks a thumb towards Byleth. “That’s Byleth, by the way. Funny story is, we met her just a couple of hours ago as well.”

    “Fate must have brought us together here today,” Dimitri agrees with a solemn nod. “I swear on my honour as a noble knight from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus that I will see you safe to the Monastery. Lady Rhea will surely be able to help you there.”

    “Okay. Thank you,” you manage, unable to connect a face to this name in your head that feels like it’s about to burst any second anyway. The only course of action lies within those strangers who are so willingly offering help that you can’t stop worrying it’s a ruse. But without anything to offer them except your life, there’s little coming to your mind that they can anticipate in taking you with them. Tthe fact that Byleth knew your name doesn’t sit right with you as well. There’s something waiting to be grasped at the tips of your fingers, and yet you lack the strength to embrace it.

    Following the little group of soldiers and students through the woods, you remain silent on the journey, only answering questions with approving or denying hums. How did you end up in this particular forest? According to Jeralt, you’re currently moving away from a village called Remire and towards the mountains to the northeast where the monastery lies tucked away between two mountains. Judging from the clothes you’re wearing, you’re a commoner, and when Edelgard pushed a slim dagger in your hand, nothing rung in intuitive knowledge about how to handle a weapon. Your mind remained silent, like an untouched chord.

    There’s little you can say about the first impression those people left on you. There seems to be a unanimous dispute between the three students, hanging palpable in the air whenever an argument starts that’s pregnant with implied insults or passive-aggressive comments. From that you gather there’s tension between the governing fractions in Fódlan, something else you’ve learnt from listening to them squabbling.

    Byleth and Jeralt acknowledge their bickering as if it was flies buzzing around their heads. They keep more to themselves and their mercenary comrades, indicating they’re really as much of strangers to the students as you. Their conversations are a lot quieter as well, their heads leaning close together for the illusion of privacy. More than once you notice Byleth sneaking glances in your direction, and every time you lock eyes, there’s something close to comprehension when she looks at you. The further you march through the woods, the less you try to meet her gaze. Reaching the monastery is the first step to regain who you are, or so you hope, because the opposite would mean you’ll continue stumbling through the darkness with no lead to your past or why you’re in this particular part of Fódlan, and you can only hope that this Rhea person really will be able to help you.

    A sound from the underbrush cuts through your thoughts.

    Thinking it might be an animal, you don’t let it bother you too much. No one else seems to have heard it, so maybe it was just your imagination. But your brain refuses to let it rest, and fails to push it away from your mind because something about the sound doesn’t seem to be right. The more you try to focus on it though, the blurrier it gets; the less you understand its origin.

    Then, you hear a voice from within the woods. It sounds like a slurred whisper.

    “What was that?” You stop in the middle of the road, looking around the thick trees. Claude barely manages to avoid walking into you. “What was what?”

    “There’s something here.” Unable to explain further, you wave your hand around for emphasis. He looks at your hand, incomprehension written all over his face. “And that something is what exactly?” he asks.

    “I don’t know.” You wave your hand wilder. “But I don’t have a good feeling venturing further.”

    “You may be still tired,” Edelgard offers, not hiding her irritation that the journey stopped. “It won’t be long until we reach Garreg Mach. You can rest however long you need inside the monastery’s infirmary.”

    “I’m not tired,” you hiss, hand falling back to your side where it clenches into a fist. “I just really don’t think we should go further for now.”

    “And why is that?” Dimitri inquirers. He raises a hand and the soldiers following them come to a halt, a murmur of unrest breathing through their lines, and it’s just enough that you question if it would be better to play if off and admit your mind is playing tricks on you due to exhaustion.

    But whenever you blink, a red veil falls over your right eye, blurring your surroundings. Little red dots move slowly in the distance through the forest. If you didn’t know better, you’d say it’s some sort of life form far away, slowly advancing on your position. “Because someone is coming,” you finally manage, scratching the thin skin below your irritated eye that’s started twitching slightly. “Someone is coming towards us from southwest. And I can’t say if they’re friendly or not.”

    Three pairs of eyes consider you like you’ve grown a second head. Only Byleth stares into the woods like she might find the strangers you’re talking about waiting behind the trees if she just looks hard enough.

    “Little one, are you sure this isn’t just an aftereffect from you hitting your head?” Claude offers, squinting into the woods. You’re pretty sure he’s staring directly at the moving dots but for whatever reason can’t see them.

    “Unless amnesia is suddenly another term for going crazy, I don’t think so,” you snap, unable to hold back the irritation raising to the surface.

    A whistle echoes through the tree crowns. Byleth snaps her head in the direction of the sound, growing all tense. She raises her hand into a tight fist, and all movement stills behind you. When you turn around, you see the mercenaries waiting in the underbrush like a flock of crows ready to swipe down on their prey. Jeralt breaks away from them and approaches Byleth, a frown cutting a deep wrinkle into his forehead.

    “Bandits,” he says, and quickly signs a hand gesture to the nearest bowman. He nods and disappears between trees. “Another mile away. If we stay on this road, we’ll walk right into them.”

    “Seven hundred feet, actually,” you blurt. Jeralt looks at you like you’re a cockroach under his boot. Another whistle cuts through the woods, one long followed quickly by two short. Byleth exhales audibly, and only now you notice she’s moved to stand beside you. “Seven hundred feet,” she mutters, her eyes fixed on you.

    Jeralt tenses. “How do you know, kid?”

    “I don’t know,” you mumble towards your boots. “I just see.”

    There’s an uncomfortable silence falling around you, and you’re too afraid to look up and read distrust in their eyes.

    “Does it matter?” Claude finally breaks the silence, sliding his bow from his shoulder. “They won’t be a problem with the knights and mercenaries on our side.” He jerks his chin towards Byleth, already plugging an arrow from his quiver. “You should really see her fight.”

    “Wait,” you say, reflexively reaching for the hem of his cape. “Don’t engage them yet.”

    Claude stops, one eyebrow arched up in a curve. “Beg your pardon?”

    “They come from the woods. Which means this is their hunting ground and they have the advantage. They have dozens of archers. I think they’re waiting until you reach a glade. And then open fire.”

    “Which means we’ll end up as skewers.” Claude scratches his chin and twirls the arrow between his slender fingers. “I can think of better ways to shuffle off this mortal coil.”

    Dimitri perks up. “You’ve read the Tale of Hamelot I gave you?”

    “I’ll give it a six out of ten. His soliloquies were awful.”

    “Boys.” Edelgard snaps her fingers impatiently as Dimitri opens his mouth to protest. “Not the time.” She takes your wrist and pulls it away from Claude’s cape, her hard gaze like a sharp knife. “Are we simply ignoring the fact that we have someone in our midst knowing the enemies’ movement and deployment?” she cuts in harshly. “Is this a plan to lure us into an ambush?”

    “You think someone would give away their comrades’ position just like that?” Claude eyes her wearily. “Don’t be so suspicious of everyone.”

    She glares at him. “I rather be suspicious than dead.”

    Which is a valid point and a trait you willingly admit to share with her, but that doesn’t really solve the problem at hand. Luckily, Dimitri seems to think the same. He doesn’t unfasten the spear on his back yet, but his fingers dance swiftly over the handle, immediately resting on where he can easily pull it from the straps if needed to strike down an enemy. “Fact is enemies are approaching,” he concludes, looking at his fellow students in search for a consensual ceasefire. “We must put an end to them before they target defenceless travellers on their way out of the forest.”

    “Spoken like a true crowd-pleaser,” Claude says, either unable or not caring to hide the mock in his voice. “We can resolve our new friend’s condition after we take down the enemy.”

    “I don’t agree with this,” Edelgard declares, but nonetheless unclasps the double-bit axe from her back and swings it on her shoulder like it weighs nothing. “But I accept that this is a more pressing issue.” The easiness in the movement robs your lungs of air, and even though there are more important matters to focus on, you wonder how her muscles play under her black uniform swinging around a thing like that. Your admiration comes to a quick end when Jeralt and Byleth close the circle. Her hand rests on the hilt of a short blade as she scans the underbrush, her body rigid with battle anticipation.

    “Let them come to us,” Jeralt announces. “Let them think they have the advantage.”

    “Your knigths over there move slow through the woods,” you say, gesturing at the waiting man clad in heavy armour and armed with shields. “But their amour can resist some stray arrows coming down on us. It’s the rearguard that will take them by surprise from another direction and—”

    “And charge their flank or rear to finish them off,” Jeralt ends with a crude nod. “Indirect approach. I thought of that as well.”

    Your mouth goes dry. The idea plopped seemingly out of nowhere in your mind, but yes, now that you think about it, that is the indirect approach tactic, first recorded after the Battle of Nicaea in … Faerghus? Or was it Adrestia? The picture in your mind is still blurry, but now you can make out definite lines of objects: Books with drawn pictures of pointing arrows and coloured lines, each lettered with a name or an approach in a neat handwriting that isn’t yours. The picture triggers another wave of dizziness, disappearing as fast as it appeared.

    “They’re going to faint in three, two, one…” Claude’s voice rips you back to the present. You glare at him and raise a fist to show how close to fainting you really are. He only laughs at the tiny fist in front of his face.

    “Enough brats, get into position,” Jeralt bellows, and the students scatter with a bouncing step in all their strides as they take the lead of a small unit.

    You’re about to retreat to the furthest point away from battle when Jeralt blocks the way. “Not you. You’re going with Byleth.”

    “I’m what?”

    “Byleth,” Jeralt nods to the young woman ahead of you, “will be the commanding unit and you’ll help her.”

    The world tilts a little as panic takes hold of you. “I can’t. I don’t know how to fight.”

    “You seem to know enough to plan a counterattack.”

    “That doesn’t mean anything.” Your voice sounds horribly piercing even to your own ears. “It was just a lucky guess.”

    “I don’t know what’s the deal with you,” Jeralt says with a finality to his voice that doesn’t allow objection, and this time you clearly see the head of a mercenary guild, one that gives commands with every breath. “But that wasn’t a lucky guess. You see what it needs to win a battle. So you guide them.”

    He turns around sharply and leaves, not bothering to check if you plan to abandon them. It’s madness. You should abandon these people, should flee from the fight that will demand blood and death. One, two, three … six steps and you’re standing beside Byleth, taking deep breaths. It doesn’t help. She eyes you sideways with a raised brow, and you flinch at the metallic rasping sound as she draws her sword.

    “I shouldn’t be here,” you mumble, staring into the woods. The red dots are approaching faster, forming into more recognisable features of humans. “I’m going to die. Without knowing who I am or why I’m here. This is the worst day of my life. I think. I don’t know. It has to be.”

    Byleth hums beside you. You can’t tell if it’s a thoughtful or an affirmative hum. “This might sound crazy, but I do trust you.”

    “Maybe you shouldn’t,” you say, struck by a sudden fear that this all is a fever dream and you're about to lead them into ruin. It’s enough that you don’t even notice this is the first time you two are talking to each other since your meeting.

    Byleth studies you out of the corner of her eyes, then says, “A very persistent voice inside me tells me I shouldn’t.”

    “That’s your survival instinct. Listen to it.”

    “Yeah,” Byleth says, and there’s something like a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips. You blink and it's gone. “I might do that.”

    You don’t really understand what’s there to smile about, but the moment quickly disappears as silence settles, only occasionally disturbed by a bird sitting in the trees above you.

    “So what exactly do you see?” Byleth whispers after a moment, barely shifting in her crouching position. You on the other hand really want to move your legs before they go numb.

    “I don’t know why you guys even believe me,” you mumble, and pinch the bridge of your nose with your fingers, trying to stave off another rush of dizziness. “And I don’t understand it myself. It’s the opponent, in a way. I see their strengths and weaknesses, their amour and weapons. It’s like … it’s like the flow of battle is displayed in front of me.”

    Byleth hesitates a moment, then nods like everything is pretty much self-explanatory. You wonder if to her it really does sound plausible, as she is someone who is practically born in battle, a daughter to a mercenary who breathes battle and fighting. Before you can explain anything further, she ducks more into the bushes and silences you with a sharp hush, her body tensed. The first bandits approach the glade, their bows and arrows ready to strike as the Academy’s knights engage them. Swords and axes clash against each other, battle cries ring through the woods. Byleth gestures you to follow her, and out of the corner of your eyes you see the students do the same, moving around the bandits. From the distance, you notice Claude gesturing wildly. It’s a mix between pointing at himself and then at the space a couple of feet away from his unit, and though you’re unable to fully comprehend it, you shake your head. He gives a thumbs up and slows down until he halts inside the thick cover of ferns.

    Just when you reach the right angle, Byleth looks back at you, waiting for your approval, and after briefly hesitating, you signal with a short nod to attack. Edelgard is the first to emerge from the underbrush. She has a dancer’s grace and a seemingly unerring instinct for what her opponent will do next. Her axe cuts through the first bandits who are too surprised to regroup in time. Dimitri and Claude are quickly to follow her. The crown prince of Faerghus wields his weapon of choice like he’s never done anything else in his entire life. The spear is the instrument to a deadly song they know by heart, and whoever stands in the way of their melody is cut down swiftly. Claude doesn’t disappoint with his steady aim either, his eyes sharper than an eagle’s. He nocks his bow, draws and impales a bandit that’s been running toward a mercenary with a crooked nose and eye patch. The mercenary gives him an offhand salute and goes back to fighting a thug twice his size.

    And then there’s Byleth. At first you don’t see her as the battle’s chaos swallows her and she disappears between moving bodies. But once your eyes catch up to her again, it’s hard to look away. Byleth moves through the enemies’ lines like an avenging angel on a mission. Her sword arm causes havoc as it conducts the tact of death’s complicated choreography and one by one the bandits fall to her deadly dance. Strangely, what describes it the best, you think, is divine.

    The battle is almost over. The last bandits fall or flee back into the woods as they abandon their comrades who lay down their weapons and yield. A miserable sound of relief escapes you when you see the end nearing with little casualties on your side, thanking whoever watches over you and guides your weapons in victory.

    That is until you see something, and at first you aren’t really sure you see it. Veiled by a red haze, a gruesome scene unfolds before you: As Byleth is focused on helping a soldier back up on his feet, a bandit strikes her from behind, wedging a dagger through her spine and into her heart. When you blink, the scene is gone and with it the red veil covering your surroundings.

    You don’t think twice. Jumping out of your hiding spot, you quickly recognise what will be Byleth’s murderer. Only he never gets the chance to approach her. With everything you’ve got, you charge into him and send him flying on the ground, you on top of him. The bandit groans, groggily turning on his back to see what struck him, and before you can start to fear for your own dear life, Byleth is beside you and rams her sword into his throat, silencing him forever.

    She looks down at you and you feel like she knows what just happened. Why you jumped in. It’s in those keen, piercing eyes that speak of a unimaginable wisdom. She reaches a hand out to help you up, and when you stand, the last bandits have been secured and the chaos finally settles. That is when the throbbing pain in your right eye doubles you ever, the pain akin to a pinprick of ice hammering into your skull. The pain makes you sick as stars explode behind your closed eyes, and the more they dance in feverish circles, the harder you press your hands against your eyelids, trying to smother the pain by pressure. It doesn’t work.

    Unable to breathe properly, your stumble, and when you move your hands, your fingers smear something warm and wet across your cheeks.

    Someone takes in a sharp breath. “Your eye,” Byleth breathes, a hand raised but remaining hanging in the air like she’s unsure if it’s okay to touch you. In the background you hear someone calling out you’re bleeding, and it takes a few seconds to understand where you’re bleeding from. Your right eye cries blood when the pain finally knocks you out, darkness falling onto everything.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Today in Tolkien - February 14th

February 14th is the day when Gandalf returns to life on the peak of Zirak-zigil, and Frodo and Sam look in the Mirror of Galadriel in the evening.

First, Gandalf, from his account to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in The Two Towers:

“Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay on the mountain-top. The tower behind was crumbled into dust, the window gone; the ruined stair was choked with burned and broken stone. I was alone, forgotten, without escape upon the hard horn of the world. There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth. Faint to my ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone.”

It’s not entirely clear whether by “naked” he means “lacking physical form” - which is how the Maiar would understand nakedness - or “lacking clothes,” or both. It’s not clear why his robes wouldn’t have stayed on the mountain when he died. At any rate, I do think the latter meaning is part of it - that taking physical form again is a process that occurs over time - since when Gwaihir finds him a few days later the eagle observes that Gandalf is practically weightless.

(I apologize profusely for spoiling your Valentine’s Day with naked Gandalf? Tolkien wrote it, not me!)

Returning to the hobbits - on the evening of the 14th Frodo has a premonition that they will need to leave Lothlórien soon:

One evening Frodo and Sam were walking together in the cool twilight. Both of them felt restless again. On Frodo suddenly the shadow of parting had fallen: he knew somehow that the time was very near when he must leave Lothlórien.

Frodo and Sam discuss elves and ‘elf-magic’. Frodo wishes to see Galadriel again before they leave Lothlórien, and as if she was already aware of their conversation they see her immediately as he voices this wish.

Turning aside, she led them toward the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon, and passing through a hugh green hedge they came into an enclosed garden. No trees grew there, and it lay open to the sky. The evening star had risen and was shining with a white fire above the western woods. Down a long flight of steps the Lady went into a deep green hollow, through which ran murmuring the silver stream that issued from a fountain on the hill. At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree, stood a basin of silver, wide and shallow, and beside it stood a silver ewer.

Galadriel’s ‘elf-magic’ seems to involve at least some of the same kind of sympathetic magic that Lúthien used: Lúthien’s sleep-spell that she cast on her hair also involved water drawn in a silver container at night-time. The effect of the magic is very different from Lúthien’s, though: the mirtor shows the past, the present, and future possibilities. This is in line with Galadriel’s gift of foresight (which her brother Finrod and her cousin-once-removed Idril also had).

Sam, with some prompting from Galadriel, chooses to look in the Mirror, and mentions to Frodo that he’d like “a glimpse of what’s going on at home.” Frodo looks in the Mirror after after him. I’ll try to make a list of what each of them say, with guesses about the meaning.

Sam sees:

“There was sun shining, and the branches of trees were heaving and tossing in the wind.” These are implied or outright stated to be the same trees he sees again later.

“He thought he saw Frodo with a pale face lying fast asleep under a great dark cliff. Then he seemed to see himself going along a dim passage, and climbing an endless winding stair. It came to him suddenly that he was looking urgently for something, but what it was he did not know.” This is Cirith Ungol, after Frodo has been poisoned by Shelob, and Sam searching for him in the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

The Mirror then returns to the trees, and Sam sees that the trees are near Hobbiton and Ted Sandyman is cutting them down. The Old Mill has been replaced by a new red-brick one that is putting out black smoke. And Bagshot Row, where Sam’s father lives, has been dug up and his father is leaving with all his remaining posessions in a wheelbarrow. This distresses Sam to the point where he wants to return home immediately, but Galadriel reminds him that he has no ability to do so and that the mirror does not show certain futures, but only possibilities.

In point of fact, it’s not clear whether the mirror is showing the future, the present, or the recent past in that last scene - in “The Scouring of the Shire”, Bagshot Row has been dug up and Sam’s father has been put into one of the new, low-quality houses that Lotho had his men build; and Lotho’s men came into the Shire in the late fall or early winter and imprisoned Mayor Will Whitfoot soon after New Year’s, effectively making Lotho the Shire’s dictator.

What the mirror shows Sam here is fairly simple - he is being shown a similar choice as when he first met Galadriel, between a dangerous journey (and he is shown the moment where he will become absolutely essential to the Quest’s success) and returning home to see to the well-being of others whom he loves. With difficulty, he chooses to go on.

Frodo’s vision is more complex:

“At once the Mirror cleared and he saw a twilit land. Mountains loomed dark in the distance against a pale sky. A long grey road wound back out of sight. Far away a figure came down the road, faint and small at first, but growing larger and clearer as it approached. Suddenly Frodo realized that it reminded him of Gandalf...[but] then he saw that the figure was clothed not in grey but in white, in a white that shone faintly in the dusk; and in its hand there was a white staff. The head was so bowed that he could see no face, and presently the figure turned aside round a bend in the road and went out of the Mirror’s view. Doubt came into Frodo’s mind: was this a vision of Gandalf on one of his lonely journeys long ago, or was it Saruman.” I think that here the Mirror is dealing in metaphor, and what Frodo sees is symbolic of Gandalf the White’s return from death.

“Brief and small but very vivid he caught a glimpse of Bilbo walking restlessly about his room. The table was littered with disordered papers; rain was beating on the windows.” A fairly mundane vision, showing him - like Sam - what is going on with his loved ones back home.

Then “many swift scenes that Frodo in some way knew to be parts of a great history in which he had become involved”:

“Darkness fell. The sea rose and raged in a great storm. Then he saw against the Sun, sinking blood-red into a wrack of clouds, the black outline of a tall ship with torn sails riding up out of the West.” This is the downfall of Númenor, and the ships of Elendil being preserved from its ruin.

“A wide ruver flowing through a populous city.” Osgiliath.

“A white fortress with seven towers.” Minas Tirith.

“Again a ship with black sails, but now it was morning again, and the water ripped with light, and a banner bearing the emblem of a white tree shone in the sun. A smoke as of fire and battle arose, and again the sun went dow into a burning red...” Aragorn at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

“...that faded into a grey mist; and into the mist a small ship passed away, twinkling with lights. It vanished.” Frodo departing from Middle-earth for Eressëa.

And lastly Frodo sees the Eye of Sauron searching for him, but Frodo knows “it could not see him unless he willed it .” Galadriel tells Frodo that she sees the sane, and that Sauron seeks to know her thoughts but cannot, whereas she can read Sauron’s mind, “or all of his mind that concerns the Elves.” She shows Frodo her ring, Nenya, the Ring of Adamant. (I always felt that Elrond should have Nenya, Ring of Water, since the Fords of Bruinen protect Rivendell and Elrond can command the waters; and Galadriel should have Vilya, the Ring of Air, since Lothlórien’s protections are something more like an aerial boundary around the entire land.)

Frodo offers Galadriel the Ring, and she (with some difficulty) refuses it. This has gotten very long, but I do still feel the need to note that when she is considering accepting the Ring, her words “Beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow Upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning!” appear to reference - as peers/comparators of the imagined Ringlord Galadriel - Manwë, Varda, Ulmo, and Aulë. The mention of Taniquetil at least is unmistakeable. The lady’s ambitions are not small. This is the moment where we see most clearly the truth of the statement that Galadriel is both similar to Fëanor in the scope of her power and ambition, and wiser than him in rejecting it.

As a Silmarillion fan, I also continue to find it meaningful that Elrond is the only one of the bearers of the Three Rings who does not appear to find the One Ring tempting at all.

[satoshi-mochida]

Some thoughts on my last Gamefly rental, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

*Though most people are familiar with DBZ, especially the three main Sagas in this game, given how often they’re played out in games, I’ll put a spoiler warning here just in case. Also, I didn’t try out the DLC stories, yet, so this will just be about the base PS4 game with it’s current updates. I may buy the game and try those out in the future. I also say a lot about the game.

The game spans from the Saiyan Saga to the end of the Buu Saga(not counting DLC). Pretty much every important scene is played through, though a few parts are skimmed over or skipped, like:

Goku traveling Snake Way, his brief fall into Hell, and training with King Kai(shown a bit and mentioned but not playable) 

Piccolo using Hellzone Grenade against Android 17(you can have him learn the move and do it yourself, though).

Future Trunks’ battle with Cell where he found out the speed-loss disadvantages of Super Saiyan Third Grade(that moment isn’t shown or mentioned, though he does still fight Cell in that form)

Vegito still attacking Super Buu after being turned into candy(which means we don’t get to see him beating Super Buu up as a high-speed jawbreaker). Also, Goku and Vegeta freeing everyone trapped inside Super Buu happens offscreen.

And possibly a few smaller moments. They aren’t too important in the long run, though, plus some were probably for better pacing or something.

There was some added stuff, too:

Several times, you’ll be able to meet, and occasionally do sidequests for, several older Dragon Ball characters, like Nam, Eighter and Launch.

A new fight for Goku against Kid Buu to end the main story before he launches the Super Spirit Bomb at him.

There's a fairly small amount of playable characters(who can also be put in a party as Support Members): 

Goku

Gohan

Vegeta

Piccolo

Future Trunks(Android/Cell Saga and Epilogue, only)

Gotenks(only in two battles against Super Buu)

Vegito(in one battle against Super Buu, which, considering how powerful Vegito is, is more of an epic beatdown than a fight)

And a few characters that are support only:

Krillin

Tien

Yamcha

Chiaotzu

Goten

Kid Trunks

Android 18

All characters, Main and Support Only, have a ‘Super Attack Skill Tree’ that you can use Z Orbs that you find/earn to give them new skills and attacks. What you can get increases based on the character’s level and story progress(example, you can’t get Super Saiyan 2 for Gohan until he unlocks it during the fight with Perfect Cell).

Throughout the game, you’ll collect ‘Soul Emblems’ to place onto several ‘Community Boards’ to increase various ingame bonuses, like more EXP or cooking benefits. You get Soul Emblems both from the main story and side quests. They can be leveled up with Gifts to increase the Community Level, giving more bonuses. This seems to be the best setup for all of the emblems that I found.

At campfires and at Goku’s House, you can make food from items/materials you have to give yourself a stat boost. And Chi-Chi can be asked to make the party Full Course Meals at her home, which also increase the Base Stats of whoever eats them.

A certain filler episode from the original series where Goku and Piccolo are forced to get a Driver's License also happens in this game(though unfortunately without the outfits they wore in said episode). After doing so, you unlock the ability to make cars and battle walkers from Bulma, as well as Time Attacks for both types of vehicles(which I didn’t do much of).

Like the first Budokai game, this one has story’s events shown in cutscenes, which the later ones just had them happen in dialogue to speed things along, probably. And they did a really good job of animated said scenes, matching the look and feel of the series VERY closely.

The flying also feels well done, and true to the series. Aside from flying normally, which is fairly slow, you can hit L3 to start flying faster, at the cost of your Ki slowly going down and not being able to sense Ki with R1. This is the best way to travel the the large maps. Goku and Gohan can also use the Flying Nimbus, though you can’t pick up items that you need to hit Circle while doing so. Also, ramming into weaker enemies while flying will defeat them instantly and give you EXP. It’s a bit hard to aim yourself at enemies correctly, sometimes, though. 

Going underwater functions the same as flying, except with an air meter to keep an eye on. If it runs out, you get kicked back above where you entered the water as the only penalty. Take a peek down under whatever bodies of water you find; there’s always stuff to see and collect, depending on the map, especially on maps with oceans.

You can also dash on the ground by hitting L3, and unlike when flying, you can still sense Ki while doing so. 

I feel like this game’s flying controls are about what it should feel like for a Superman game. Probably might need a few tweaks to fit more with that series, but this feels like a good base for that kind of game.

The game’s many maps are pretty large, with lots to see and explore, including towns, caves that you need to be a certain level to enter, materials to gather, fishing spots, and more. They include plenty of well known DBZ locations, insulting Kame House(and the ocean around it), West City and Capsule Corp., Korin’s Tower and Kami’s Lookout, and so on.

Floating around these maps are enemies you can fight. They grow in strength as you do/the story progresses. If you’re strong enough and are fast-flying when running into an enemy, you’ll defeat it and gain EXP right away.

Speaking of Korin’s Tower, you can eventually unlock the ability to grow Senzu Beans there, which fully heal you. Once they’re unlocked, they will gradually grow and can be collected from Korin, with a Senzu Bean icon appearing next to it on the World Map if there’s any available. He will hold up to 9 at once, so check back once in a while.

Fishing is pretty easy to do; just hit one of the face buttons(X, Triangle, Square and Circle) when the marker is in a marked area, then hot one again when the closing circle is within another marked circle(this might make more sense when you see it yourself). You’ll get items for cooking from fishing, and some sidequests need them, or just certain types of fish, to clear. An amusing detail when fishing is that Goku and Gohan, even when he’s a teenager, use a fake tail as a lure while Vegeta and Piccolo fish like normal people(I forgot to check and see what Future Trunks does, but probably the latter).

After clearing the Frieza Saga, you can collect the Dragon Balls on Earth during Intermissions. They give off a small orange slow when sensing for Ki, and you’ll hear a low humming sound when you’re close to one. You can get several different wishes from them, with three of them always being for Z Orbs, Zeni or Rare Material Items. Other wishes are reviving certain dead characters to fight them again, and can only be done once, unlike the three listed above. At first, you can only make 1 wish at a time, but as the game goes on, it gets upgraded to 2 then 3 wishes at once. After making a wish(s), you ‘ll need to wait 20 ingame minutes before the Dragon Balls can be found and used again. They seems to have a couple set locations on whatever map they end up on(two locations are west of Orange/Satan City, for example).

Speaking of Mr. Satan...I know that his actually Japanese stage name, but I always end up calling him Hercule due to hearing that for so many years(and just liking how that sounds better). Also, ‘Satan City’ just sounds really funny. XD

You probably won’t need to really grind in the base game; you should get enough experience from doing sidequests and story events to get by. Gohan especially; he ended up quite a few more levels than everyone else just from the story EXP alone, and his Unleashed Potential ‘form’ from Elder Kai makes him do quite a lot more damage. Also, gained experience is shared among all party members, even those not currently set to fight.

One of the sidequests you can do throughout the game is defeating ‘Villainous Enemies’, who are fairly strong, and are covered in a red aura. You should at least be at or around their level before fighting them, since you can’t run from fights in this game. It may be best to do them during Intermissions when you can select your party members, and bringing someone who can stun with Solar Flare(like Krillin), can be really helpful. 

In the epilogue/postgame, in addition to being able to play as Future Trunks(talk to him outside of Capsule Corp.), you can also use his time machine to redo Boss fights, and do any sidequests you may have missed.

The game’s opening has the old opening for the show, ‘Cha-La-Head-Cha-La”, and this is the first time I really listened to it. It’s really good, and kind of reminds me of the opening to Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, too, for some reason.

There’s a few parts where there’s some nice attention to the series’ details:

At several story points when Saiyan characters are healed, like with Senzu Beans or the healing pod on Namek, they gain experience, while others, like Krillin, don’t get that bonus, which does make them, admittedly accurately, start lagging behind in strength.

If you use Ki Sense on Androids, and a certain researcher in Capsule Corp., you won’t see anything emitting from them.

If you have Piccolo and/or Android 18 in your party while eating a Full Course Meal from Chi-Chi, they won’t eat any of it. Saiyan characters(again, forgot to check Future Trunks) eat it ravenously(even Vegeta), while human party members eat normally.

Only Goku and Gohan can use the Flying Numbus.

These aren’t really important observations, but some events in the game made me think:

Did Piccolo destroying the Moon to stop Gohan’s Great Ape form have any effects on Earth? Or did nothing really happen?

How in the world did Supreme Kai and Babidi survive being so close to Majin Vegeta when he used Final Explosion while Piccolo and Krillin hightailed it out of there with Goten and Kid Trunks? 

I noticed a possible(intentional) goof at the end. In the cutscene after beating Kid Buu and going back to Kami’s Lookout to reunite with everyone, Dende is a kid again for some reason. Apparently, both the original anime and manga made this goof too, so maybe it’s a nod to that? It is kind of jarring, though. XD

A couple technical issues I found were that sometimes when loading a map, and in some battles later on, the game would hang for a couple seconds, and one time it crashed while it was loading into an area after traveling to another. Thank goodness for autosave. Also, be careful using the stronger version of Goku’s Spirit Bomb attacks; it caused major lag for me a couple times.

This ended up being one of my favorite DBZ games that I’ve played, close runners up including 

Budokai 3

Budokai Tenkaichi 2(mainly for just how many characters that one has, including most of the movies from around that time, outmatched by Budokai Tenkaichi 3, which I didn’t play)

Legacy of Goku 2(I didn’t get the chance to play Buu’s Fury back then)

Next game being sent is: Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel

[kiryuchaan]

Shinra propaganda things

Let’s start with your traditional "join the army" above-plater poster.

Tbh that one is pretty basic— portrays Shinra’s army as a sole defense/safety necessity with all the honor that warrants, with solemn-and-dermined-looking officers superposed with the city lights (& Shinra’s logo obviously). It doesn’t get truly bothering until you notice Stamp in the bottom-left corner.

That cartoony dog living "adventures" where he saves his friends, all spelled out in goofy fonts, was clearly designed with children as a target-audience. Nice grooming going here, Shinra.

What I found particularly uneasy is how Stamp stands out so very brightly on the apron of both the women in charge of Sector 5’s orphanage. Because Stamp is a successful character amongst children? Because those women trust Shinra to the point that they choose to put Stamp under the kids’ noses all day long?

Ooooor although I’m going into headcanon territory here, but what if those aprons were provided by Shinra itself? It just feels too strange a work outfit choice to be fully spontaneous. Shinra gets itself good publicity for supporting an orphanage, and ensures one of their emblems is part of the kids’ day to day environment.

What’s sure is that those women, loving and well-meaning women that care for orphaned children, have assimilated Shinra’s propaganda enough that they don’t see a problem with wearing the company’s mascot around those kids. A mascot that vehiculates military values and that has 0 business being showed to kids tbh.

Also Stamp is literally everywhere

Anyway next

Shinra’s slogans — "Shinra: Merging Innovation with Creation. What we do, we do for Midgar. And for you." & "We work hard so you can live well"— speak for themselves. All the more when it’s combined with the perfect nuclear family superposed with the utopian city of the future itself.

Even more ironic: the family version can be found in several places, but this one specifically...

...is in a break room in the first underground lab the team uncovers. The part where they learn Shinra has been conducting human experiments. "What Shinra does for you," indeed.

Then there’s the fact that Shinra controls the news ofc, which the remake didn’t invent compared to the OG. But let’s mention it for the sake of thoroughness. And that may not be Shinra-executed (although why not), but holy giant screen Sector 5, I doubt anyone here could miss their daily dose of propaganda if they wanted.

Finally there’s the cult of personality around President Shinra. The Shinra tower & especially the museum were... grandly straightforward and would arguably deserve their own post, so have a little bonus instead:

Found in Sector 7. Shot taken from below, stern expression and pose/attitude, Shinra’s logo in the background, everything inspires power & presents the President as a true man of steel.

It would’ve been interesting to see more similar examples of that personality cult in the day-to-day lives of midgarians. The museum was great but the entire level felt so far removed from the rest. Maybe a speech or a TV appearance from the President would’ve been a great addition to flesh it all out? Or maybe he’s meant to be a voluntarily evasive-ish figure.

I’m really looking forward to see the remake’s take on Rufus’ parade in Junon.

I’m 100% sure I’ve missed some things so please feel free to add more!

[inventors-fair]

New Year’s Resolutions: Group commentary

Welcome to the group commentary! As I said in the winner’s post, there were a lot of white cards in the inbox, and that’s an obvious sign that white needs a small rework to keep up with its buffed up brothers.

@misterstingyjack​ White does lover its planeswalkers and tying card draw with a powerful card type could be reasonable since card draw is white’s main weakness. However I would like it more if this loyalty extension was offered by a creature, so at least you can keep the game rolling.

@askkrenko​ MaRo has mentioned the “elemental” supertype quite a few times in podcasts etc, but its really too late to add this element to the game. But we’re here to dream and create, and Strike Twice would be a sick card, if not a staple, in that parallel universe. Also this is the most badass a Pichu has ever been XD

@ignorantturtlegaming​ There were no additional notes other than this crazy card in the inbox, so I can only guess that the creator wants more group-hug effects in red. I want to say Fires of Renewal is on the expensive side, but the effects it offers unconditionally are all very impactful. The Melvin in me appreciates all the instances of “2″ in the card!

@wolkemesser​ gave life to an ancient mtg character from the Shattered Chains book and boy, she’s a truly solid card. Ordando has decent stats and gives some additional staying power to monowhite decks. I like the whole flavor that is so tough that she can protect others and come back again, but the execution feels a little off to me, as discard and mill decks can abuse her in non white ways. Since we’re going for the flavor win, I would like it more if in order to protect something she exiled herself with a promise counter (which in turn allows her to be cast from exile.)

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes​ A disgustingly evil win more card? Sign me up! The philosophy of the card plays very nicely in black, especially with low cost high stated creatures that ask for their tribute every upkeep! Counterspells in black are a big stretch in my opinion, but no one can’t deny this card is a big flavor win!

@col-seaker-of-the-memiest-legion Speaking of counterspells, here’s another suggestion for them being in white. Many protective cards can be treated as counterspells, so we could find a loophole and treat this as a very wide protective spell. I think we could have cards like this in the future, but it’s still treacherous terrain because they must be so efficient that might replace blue’s role in the game.

@naban-dean-of-irritation​ I have mixed feelings about Korair. Flavor text matches with the card’s name quite nicely but it doesn’t connect with the actual gameplay. Also venturing into the unexplored “emblems matter territory” is surely exciting, but I don’t like the fact that is creates emblems by itself, and with that ease to boot!

@mardu-lesbian​ Hindsight is pitched as the blue/red shared keyword ability. I view it in a positive light, meaning I think it’s both flavorful and makes sense for those two colors, but it’s a bit unexciting that it matters only once in the creature’s life on the battlefield, while other shared keywords are combat related and have a greater impact in the game.

@deafeningsandwichpeach​ Hexproof for player is a rare sight, usually preserved for white and green, but there’s also Leyline of Sanctity and Witchbane Orb and this changes things to the point I would even tell this card is overcosted. Cost aside, I really like Seal into Darkness!

@snugz​ I would really love blue getting a combat ability that’s not straight evasion, but going full throttle to lure all creatures is a bit much, given that existing cards are usually uncommon. It could be like old fashioned provoke ( forcing a one on one fight) or even a numbered mechanic, like lure 1 or 3 etc, forcing 1 or 3 creatures to block.

@hypexion​ ​  Lapse of Certainty is definitely  a card, but there’s a reason why it was not repeated. Here, Mean’s to Delay, like Unexpectedly Absent, is an X spell where usually the correct way to ply it is for X=0, turning it into a slightly better counterspell. Not against counterspells in white, but be cautious.

@deg99 With this Angrath design, deg wanted to build more on the Rakdos color combination, through caring about stolen creatures and you know accidentally sacrificing them before returning them to their rightful owners. The power level is quite high, but it’s so enticing that I would gladly playtest this card to enjoy the crazy ride!

@hiygamer​ Sooner or later, we will see this card printed, I’m sure! When that time comes, I hope it costs a little less, and also that it has an equally inspiring flavor text! Really nice design!

@thedirtside Our friendly snailbear wanted magic to be a little more weird, and what’s weirder than a procrastinating Eldrazi, looming over the battlefield, doing it’s own things. Given, its practically impossible to interact with it and this takes away a lot of points per say, but I love suspend and bizarre triggers that feel like a disturbance in the Force. But we must cling to simpler things to make it happen.

@stormtide-leviathan​ The proposal of this design is sponsored by “Horse United” inc and pushes WOTC to pass an errata to merge all Pegasi, Unicorn and Horses into one race XD On the actual design, Swifting Steed is a real treat for limited!

@teaxch​ here tacling on the big issues of mtg, the shared keyword for blue and black! Feint is surely flavorful and it would make combats really interesting, but the main requirement for a shared keyword is to be able to mix with the other established keywords of the color pair. Blue and black have a lot of evasive abilities so an ability that matters when you’re blocked might not get the green light. That said, I definitely want to see this ability here and there in sets. A little guile spices things up! Also, neat flavor text XD!

@dimestoretajic​ With a quick read I was quite thrilled, but then I realized that you had collective care about itself. That leads into being a bit clunky, and also it goes from 0 to 100 in 1 sec because it’s either you have not 3 collective so no draw for you, or you got 3 , which means 3 triggers and thus 3 cards!! With a small tweak, this brave insect could be holding the fair’s coveted trophy!

@corporalotherbear

​ It’s true that there are some dryads that care about multicolored shenanigans, and I really like Manatwist Dryad playing into this space and establishing this trend. Because if green can’t care about multicolors, who can?

@fractured-infinity​ Edit: I forgot the commentary for this entry last night. My sincere apologies! A new card type is always an exciting gift for our inbox! Strongholds can die from damage like planeswalker do. They make sense in white and I could see them secondary in blue as large structures are products of community and science.

Watcher’s tower has two passive abilities, the vigilance granting requires 0 effort, while the buff requires you to “man” the stronghold with the garrison activated ability. I wish phasing was still relevant so the creatures would phase out instead of exiling themselves, because things can quickly get out of hand with blink shenanigans.

The +2/+2 buff might be a bit much because it isn’t that hard to get it online on turn 3. But all in all, Watcher’s Tower is very interesting and I hope Wizards will explore this space in the future.

@partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff Sometimes you see a mechanic and it’s not in the color it deserves to be. Mentor in Green seems like a perfect fit, and the non human clause gives this Leonin a greater sense of camaraderie. All in all a good design and future proposal.

@gollumni​ I saw this card in a very positive light with the first read. I like investigate after all, and I had good memories of it pulling its weight in Shadows over Innistrad, giving White a taste of the forbidden fruit that is card draw. But with the second read, I feel the card is too efficient, taping two creatures and two lands for an instant speed draw is quite good, and adding the overrun option felt a bit too much. But other than power level concerns, I really dig this design.

@corillion​ This might seem like an everyday card without context, but the change suggested involves first strike and double strike being relevant in fights. I’m all for it, but I got a feeling that the closer we will get to this is like a first strike lord that allows only first strikers deal damage in fights.

@kytheon4-4 said let there be hatebears, but we got hatebirbs instead XD but instead of harassing your opponent, this feathered boi plainly protects your side of the board so you get to play uninterrupted, but only on your turn. Fair and square.

@reaperfromtheabyss​ Ending the same way we started, with planeswalker support, this time in Red, as it is proposed to be the secondary planeswalker matters color. I can get behind this idea, as red has a sense of wanderlust thematically, and in terms of game, it cares about noncreature spells so planeswalkers are game too. On the card itself, the etb trigger is quite nice, even dealing two damage is fine. About the alternative loyalty ability, a mere ping is something that you would encounter on a weaker planeswalker, so it could at least be a + 2 loyalty ability, to ensure the survival of your planeswalker, as red isn’t really good at defending.

[lunarianborn]

☾  @roseofbaron​:   aloe, belladonna, chrysanthemum, gladiolus, hydrangea, lavender, magnolia, oak, sage, zinnia  ☽  BOTANICAL HCS  :  accepting

aaahh a true bouquet !  watch me doing all of these I haven’t replied to yet because, one i’m thirsty for more chances to throw hcs at the dash, two the meme is good and all the questions are pretty interesting, tysm <3 

belladonna :   how does your muse respond to silence ?   do they take comfort in soundlessness ,   or seek to fill the void with noise ?  

He responds to silence quite well and always seemed to do as such, he enjoys peace and quiet and always did ever since he was a child. Having been raised inside a king’s castle must have been quite the experience for him, as a kid -- for it would rarely be completely silent and quiet as an ambience. Between meetings, feasts, banquets and all ceremonies and occasions pertaining to a monarch’s life, and Cecil growing up there from the very start, I can’t imagine him having the chance to enjoy silent spaces much; still -- !  his bedchambers reside on the west tower, the highest of the castle, away from sources of noise. It’s quite the solitary place too, away from the main halls, engulfed in silence basically all the time; having been its resident from childhood, Cecil grew to tolerate the tranquility it could offer him - while studying, while reading or thinking, or even practicing with his sword.

I’d call it comfort, simply because that’s the way he always lived. This doesn’t mean Cecil doesn’t enjoy the lively atmosphere a mundane / royal life could offer him, but being the reserved and quiet person himself, I see him enjoying peace more. 

chrysanthemum :   how does your muse express romantic love ?  how do they feel about love as a concept ?  

If Cecil represented a romantic concept, I’d say he could as well be courtly love personified. And I know it may sound boring and oh so called for, but I MEAN. He’s Cecil. A knight in a medieval setting who is feeling, at first, that he cannot be with the girl he loves for whatever reasons, that saves her life and rescues her from her kidnappers, to swear unending love by the end of the tale. A classic, Cecil would be a classic haha. So, I guess the term courtly love partly fits him.

By courtly love, though, I don’t refer to the literary or epic kind; he’d simply find love as a form of pure devotion, not assuming control of his heart in an impetuous or rebellious way -- which is nice regardless, he’s a kind type of lover, courteous indeed. For example, when he used to be a Dark Knight, he was not expected to stay with the one he loved; instead of rebelling against such rule, he simply accepted it, bowing his head for the ‘greater good’ and for peace and in the name of traditions; BU,T in his heart, he was still in love. And the feeling is there to stay...

Canonly, by what Kain says in the novel, actually, it seemed Rosa was the one to take the first step, when she started ‘looking at Cecil in a way she never did’, presumably when they were young teens. Cecil, at some point, with age, did come to realize he too felt something more for her; the curious thing, though, is that they never actually confessed. Maybe, true courtly love would have the knight confessing his passion, but Cecil doesn’t. He misses the chance and things get worse when he gets knighted a Dark Knight, at 15yos, the age where Baronian kids seem to reach adulthood officially. No, he kept the true nature of his feelings for himself, despite the truth being rumored and known. Kain knew it, Rosa’s mother suspected it, everyone could have seen it.

So, in these terms, it’s safe to assume Cecil keeps being the soft-spoken, tranquil lover. He doesn’t reveal his feelings if not at the very end, because he fears what it’d mean for the other’s reputation and honor -- those are pretty important things, for he would not tolerate himself or his love to be cause of pain or struggle. And so, being the reserved kind, he’d resort to subtle ways to express love, to court someone. Lingering gazes, gifts, to try and spend most of his spare time with them... you know he’d try to play or sing something, he’s no bard but he is the type.

Love is devotion and its shades and sides to permeate his life. Love for his partner, for his home, for his child, and for his brother too, nonetheless. He commits to it and seeks to protect it at all costs, sometimes even resulting as a bit oppressing -- but he’s on the purest and best intentions whenever that happens. Love is bliss. For someone who believed all his life to having been abandoned by his family, he finds the concept of love to be light incarnate too. After all, hadn’t his father loved him so, he wouldn’t have never become a paladin eheh

gladiolus :   describe a moment from your muse’s life that they will never forget.

One moment he’d never forget must definitely be the day when he officially went from being a squire to a knight. The same ancient trial all boys of Baron, while hoping to enlist into its military ranks, must partake at the coming of their 15th birthday - the same one Ceodore insists being part of, despite his title as prince. The task is not as simple as one would believe, especially for a kid so young and barely skilled with the true art of the sword: he must enter a cave, grab the so-called Emblem of Knighthood inside, defeat its guardian and emerge victorious, a true knight to Baron.

No child is told of said guardian though, it usually being a big sandworm trained to react and attack whenever anyone is about to pick the emblem. And, even better, no kid is told the famous emblem is nothing more than a mummified rat’s tail.

Eager to prove his worth, Cecil waited for the fated day with high expectations and premises, only to almost risk his life against the sandworm. He doesn’t remember much of that fight, but he does recall the final blow at the beast’s hellish muzzle and the initial disappointment in finding the tail; but the moment he returned home, to be officially and solemnly invested a knight by the King, -- ceremony followed by a banquet and feast, as tradition commands, especially for residents of the castle -- everything changed.

It was a big deal. The boy that always felt a foreigner, one of the very few lucky one to have been granted so much for so little in return, does finally feel part of the city, of its community and its military ranks. Plus, his adventure in the cave was a good story to tell companions and friends !

hydrangea :   how much does your muse value communication in their relationships with others ?  are they prone to being misunderstood ?

Quite a lot, but he wasn’t very skilled with words when very young. He got better as years passed, but his character too didn’t make things easier; he thinks communication is the basis of every sane and good relationships. Even in-game and ‘in-novel’, with Rydia, the first thing he does, when fleeing with her to Kaipo, is to try and communicate. To console her, to cheer her up the best he could -- despite the child’s reluctance and silence.

Even as king, he found the importance of communication to reign over mostly all of his relationships -- from work, to family. I’d say his toughest challenge on that front came from his son and his character, his ideas and projects for his own future; while on a side it makes him happy to see Ceodore growing up so sure of his own thoughts, despite his title and familiar ties, it also pains him to not being able to speak as much / of what he’d like to him (heart-to-heart types of conversations, I mean - in the novel, Ceodore admits he never saw his father weak or tired, and that they never talked much of very personal matters).

I don’t think he would be easily misunderstood though. He learnt how to act as a leader early on, and the role only got enforced once king. He is supposed to be clear, and he’s supposed to be listened to, especially when his role(s) demands him to be.

lavender :   how easy is it to gain your muse’s trust ?  once their trust is broken ,   how might one go about mending it ?  

It’s quite easy, honestly. He tends to see the brightness and positivity in everyone he comes to know - especially during his journey, and tends to form bonds of trust when felt or necessary. It’s not that rare, honestly, the only true exceptions come from individuals who are obviously ill-mannered or plain evil and suspicious !

And it takes a lot to break his trust. Overall, he’s a very pure man, trying to find light even when it is scarce indeed -- he’s a good man. When Kain does take the last Underworld’s Dark Crystal to give it to Golbez, everyone in the group starts doubting him again. And yet, Cecil doesn’t give up on him  (and remember it’s the second time he gets ‘betrayed’ -- although the novel explains what is really going on inside Kain’s head, and by that point, he was just acting as a bait...)  and tries to think of why Kain had “betrayed them again”. He even omits to tell Giott of it, in fear Kain would have been branded a traitor and sentenced.

“Cecil told him everything. Of how they had successfully reached it [the Crystal], and of how Golbez had appeared to rob it. He never mentioned Kain’s involvement. Although he had betrayed them, he still believed there was good in Kain’s heart. He considered him a friend nonetheless, and believed the darkness to have gained control of his mind, back in the cave. He didn’t wish for him to be called and considered a traitor.”

magnolia :   describe your muse’s relationship with nature   &   the natural world. 

It’s ironic, because Cecil -- hadn’t his parents died before having the chance to meet and raise him like they partly did for Theodor, would have grown up in a small woodcutters-like village amidst the forests next to Mysidia. Baron too is surrounded by green plains, lakes and rivers, it’s beautiful to see - truly, but he didn’t have much time or dedication to spare to the city’s surroundings. As a child, perhaps, he could have hoped to train or venture outside the city’s walls more often. Since a chocobo forest is nearby, I like to think Baron youth do actually learn to ride the birds out in the open, where there’s plenty of space and green to practice.

Being son of Kluya, the very Lunarian who introduced magic to humans, I think Cecil was born with a natural aptitude for magic; his legacy as a knight didn’t allow him to put those hidden qualities into any practical use, and the few white magic spells he knows as a Paladin are, also, rather weak (which is, ironically, the complete opposite of Golbez’s case). To hone one’s own magic, the user has to have a connection with the natural world, which is the primary source of energy needed to cast spells. This is why I think, albeit having little chances and few true opportunities to venture outside for leisure - Cecil has a subtle, inborn link with nature (as many mages do too) and would find great pleasure in nature and its joys.

oak :  who would your muse consider the strongest person they know ?

I believe he’d see Cid as one of the strongest people he’s ever known, even before the whole ordeal narrated through the game and his ‘sacrifice’ could be the nail sealing the whole deal, here. Having been raised without true parental figure, it is easy to understand why a child like him could have found comfort and warmth in such the extrovert man -- Cid acted like a father to him and never truly stopped, haha, he’s even there offering moral support (and some doses of panic too) when Cecil is literally becoming a father. Despite Cid having a family of his own, and a daughter too, he showered Cecil with attention and affection, like a true father would have...

I could argue Cecil did see a rather strong presence and soul in the late King of Baron, for very similar reasons. Minus the affection part (due to maybe king’s duties, prejudices, Cecil being a ward and not the UMM probably-long-lost-son-of-the-king’s-teen-crush, not officially at least) I believe, the two men are seen both in the highest regards from the man, he would manage to choose one between them. They both possess a spirit of sacrifice for the greater good, admirable values (till Cagnazzo enters the stage, at least) and morale, and both served as cardinal points for Cecil’s growth and childhood.

sage :   what is your muse’s legacy ?   what do they want to be remembered for   &   what might they actually be remembered for ?

Cecil is such a humble man, I doubt he would ever think stuff like ‘ah yes, and I’ll do this so that everyone will remember me for it’. But for everything he has accomplished and done for Baron, for the one he loved and from himself too, it is inevitable his name will long keep ringing in bards’ songs and in his people’s tales long after his life is spent. His legacy is Baron itself. The restored town, with its ancient monarchy and the promise of the star not being threatened anymore by the ambitions of a wicked Lunarian. His is a legacy of bountiful peace and prosperity, worthy of his courage and of all the pain he had to endure because of it.

Cecil also carries the hopes and dreams of his other people, the Lunarians. He incarnate all that is good and hopeful in such a difference race, not to mention - with hi brother, he is in fact the incarnation of their union (after all, Lunarians saw humans were still developing and growing, and felt their technological prowess and knowledge could have altered their natural evolution and development if forced upon them through cohabitation -- so they never truly invaded Gaia and remained on the artificial second moon, promising to find a way to coexist together only when humans would have reached their same intellectual level.)

He wouldn’t want to be remembered anyway else. He’s a brave knight, a loyal friend and a just king. It may not seem as much, but it is plenty enough for one of the savior of the star, haha! Which is also the cause of such big expectations being placed on Ceodore’s shoulders so early on too... it’s sad to think about, actually.

zinnia :   how has the loss of fallen comrades and/or loved ones affected your muse ?  has it taught them anything or given them any new perspectives ?

I think the losses made him more aware of the big role he had to, willingly or not, play for the salvation of what he held dear, and of the star. From the King being made puppet of a hellish demon, his body tossed unceremoniously in a hidden room on a mocking fake throne... to Yang and Cid temporarily disappearing and being believed dead... the twins turning into stone to save the other’s life... Tellah, but also the found truth about his father and mother’s deaths (novel explains that, for the longest time, Cecil believed to have been abandoned in the woods as an unwanted child... it’s heartbreaking, really, for he is sure of it and even says he doesn’t blame his mother for it. When he finds out she died of childbirth he is devastated also for having thought such a thing about her...) all shaped him into the rather firm young man he is by the end of the story.

And while not a loss per se, Golbez leaving the star to join Lunarians in the sleep and Kain disappearing for almost 15 years after the events of the game also happen to be strong moments for Cecil as well -- yes, almost as strong as true deaths would impact him and his psyche.

The sheer fear of losing his family and friends shapes him to the point he straight up refused at first to have the girls, especially Rosa, follow him back on the moon. The love for what he cannot ever afford to lose is what brings the light in his empty husk, during After Years, to defend Rosa and Ceodore before his ‘shadow-dark-knight self’. The tragedies, the scares and the moments of grief he lived through did make him a more responsible individual, a better fighter and even a more devoted man than he who was already; simply because that’s his entire world, and to know of his loved ones being safe is his true main concern...

[carolyncaves]

Day five of the Spring Fest is Fresh, and I decided to use it in the context of Jiang Cheng being grouchy, because I’m always trying to be too clever.

1323 words, Jiang Cheng. Post-CQL. Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang aren’t literally in the scene but they’re effectively present by way of their antics. Aroace!Jiang Cheng vs ‘The Bachelor’ (figuratively)

It was a beautiful evening at Lotus Pier. The sun was setting at the water’s edge, casting the low-sprawling clouds dusty with pale orange and periwinkle glowing in the spaces between them. The air was cool and pleasing on Jiang Cheng’s face. His head of household and principal advisor was walking toward him along the boardwalk bearing a letter sealed with Nie Huaisang’s personal emblem. Jiang Cheng scowled and said, “What fresh hell is this?”

“A message has arrived from Sect Leader Nie,” she said placidly, as if Jiang Cheng had asked his question in the same fashion. “It was delivered by courier, flown promptly from Unclean Realm via sword, so I thought Sect Leader should receive it immediately instead of in the morning.”

Jiang Cheng somewhat begrudgingly allowed her hand it to him. He cracked the charcoal-colored wax. He read the message. He got about three sentences in before he felt the fires of fury start to rise up in him. He had to slow down and read carefully to make it to the end. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded of her, because his mind was throwing the pieces together in various ways, and he despised them all.

“I have not read the message myself, Sect Leader.”

“It’s about a matchmaking arrangement for me, which Nie Huasiang has apparently already planned in its entirety to take place in three days’ time, and it says ‘with the indispensable help of your loyal staff’!”

Jiang Cheng had actually been relieved when the ninth matchmaker refused to work with him six years ago – though it had taken him over a year after that to properly examine why. He eventually concluded that the woman he was looking for didn’t exist because he wasn’t actually looking for a woman. Not because he was looking for a man instead – there was more than enough of that between Wei Wuxian and his precious Hanguang Jun. No, it was that when he really concentrated on it, the thought of taking some woman into his life and his bed and doing to her the things a man did to his wife … Jiang Cheng found the idea … not exactly repulsive, not most of the time. More like bizarre. He wasn’t interested in sharing quite that much space with another human, much less regularly. Much less to have them expect it and want it, and for Jiang Cheng to have a duty to provide it well.

In hindsight it was easy to see why he’d given the matchmakers such demands. Now he was blackballed, and he growled at anyone who so much as thought about bringing it up. They assumed it was because he was sore, and he was – just not the way they thought. He didn’t want anyone continuing to pursue it. He would have no heir by blood, but there were several promising disciples of the Jiang clan, and one of them would have to do. As for family, Jin Ling was as much his son as any natural child, and half the work now that he spent most of his time at Carp Tower. Jiang Cheng considered the matter settled.

His brave head of household, apparently, had other plans.

“Ah,” she said, not even pretending to be surprised. “When last we were at Unclean Realm, for Sect Leader Nie’s wedding, several of us were engaged in conversation by the Sect Leader and Senior Wei …”

“Who?!” Zidian crackled at Jiang Cheng’s side, and if his advisor swallowed hard in sudden fear, she deserved it. Betraying her own sect leader to parlay with those two malicious conniving …

“Sect Leader Nie and Senior Wei Wuxian,” she said again, and to her credit, it was almost as confidently as she’d said it before. “They told me they’d heard of talk among the people of Yunmeng about how you were alone so often now, with Sect Leader Jin spending so much more of his time in Lanling, and they commented on how admired you are and how compassionate your people must be to think of you, and then one of them suggested that perhaps a matchmaking event could be arranged in which suitors were carefully selected in advance and came to Lotus Pier to meet you in the grand and beautiful setting of your home …”

“And you helped!” Jiang Cheng should dismiss her for this. He should banish her from Yunmeng altogether.

He himself had been accosted by Nie Huaisang on the same subject at the same event, he now had unpleasant reason to recall. Nie Huaisang had said, “There’s something out there for everyone, Jiang-xiong. Just look at me and Meihua. Don’t you know companionship can take all kinds of shapes?” He’d been acting stupid behind his fan, as if Jiang Cheng didn’t know better now, but he was serious. Like he was insightfully asking if Jiang Cheng was just a repressed cut-sleeve who needed to get a grip. Like he thought he really knew something about Jiang Cheng.

“Sect Leader,” Jiang Cheng’s advisor said lightly, in a way that would have disconcertingly reminded him of Jin Guangyao if she hadn’t been so steadfast of heart and he hadn’t been such a disaster of a human being. “It so happens that the senior and the Sect Leader put to words something I and many of your most faithful servants had already been worrying about in our hearts. It is our desire for Sect Leader to know the peace and fulfillment of a comforting household.”

“My household is perfectly comforting,” Jiang Cheng snapped. “I am comforted a great deal by my privacy.”

“Perhaps, Sect Leader. Still, it is undeniable that the Sect Leader is even more comforted by Sect Leader Jin’s presence, when he is here. And now he will not be here very often.”

“So what?”

“So this humble advisor should report that there has been talk of various measures to handle this change among the Sect Leader’s faithful staff. Measures which include hiring concubines to, well, comfort you at regular intervals, and … medicated tea.”

Jiang Cheng could feel his teeth grinding together. His servants were so oppressed and terrorized, were they? They were driven by him to conspire and connive? He would show them ‘terrorized’ if they wanted to see it!

“Esteemed Sect Leader,” his advisor said, interrupting his internal tirade with a low bow, “please at least consider it. I did not sense any reason to doubt the good faith of Sect Leader Nie’s intentions.” She wisely left any mention of Wei Wuxian’s intentions out entirely. “I’m sure each of these suitors will have fine qualities, and they have each agreed to travel all this way and present themselves to you, despite the past.” Your past, she said without saying – she really had a lace tongue. She’d been in her post longer than all her incompetent predecessors combined because of it. “If the Sect Leader does not make a selection or at least entertain his suitors seriously, I cannot imagine the difficulty there would be trying to make any similar arrangement in the future.” This was Jiang Cheng’s last chance, she meant, because if he petulantly threw them all out after they had been assured this time would be different, there would really be no one under any heaven-forsaken rock in the entire cultivation world who would take him seriously as a match.

That wasn’t a bad thought.

There was the matter of the medicated tea and concubines, though.

“Bah,” Jiang Cheng said, storming around her and shoving the letter back into her hands. She would understand this as a ‘maybe’.

They were already coming, so he could receive them at least. Tiresome as it sounded, it would be uncivil to do otherwise, too much so even for him. Jiang Cheng would strangle Wei Wuxian if he ever saw him again. He would stuff Nie Huaisang’s latest precious fan down his precious throat.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Code of Brawl

Man... remind me to never talk about having a future Rambling in the works, it’ll instantly fall into draft-hell. But anyway, I’ve been meaning to talk about Arknights in depth for a while now, but I’ve never had much drive to actually finish the damn draft of my initial thoughts a few months ago. I couldn’t tell you why, I just lost the drive to finish the thing. However, with Code of Brawl coming to a close and my thoughts on the event still lingering I think I can use it as jumping off point to actually talk about the game. 

That said, here’s the synopsis.

Arknights is a Tower Defense game for the PC mobile devices placed in the world of Terra, where an infectious disease known as Oripathy ravages the land, slowly turning people to minerals in a slow and painful process. You play as the Doctor, an amnesiac military commander of the Rhodes Island pharmaceutical company who fights against the Infected radicals known as the Reunion. 

That’s about as far as I can go in a single paragraph for main story, but Code of Brawl instead focuses on the eccentric adventures of Pengiun Logistics, side faction of the game that’s a seemingly innocent delivery company with quite the ragtag group in it, consisting of the happy-go-lucky gunner Exusiai, the cold and dismissive swordswoman Texas, the excitable and energetic Sora, and the business-savvy Croissant. All led by the charismatic and multi-talented Emperor. However, as their new intern Bison comes into the fold the group is caught in a series of gang wars and organized crime trying to snuff out the company.

And unlike Fire Emblem Three Houses, that really is the basic plot without me sarcastically building anything up. With that all said, I think I can move on and talk about... 

The Story

The story of Code of Brawl honestly has the best and worst of Arknights writing. I think having a story that focused on a group outside of Rhodes Island was for the better. For all the lore blurbs and archive notes we get, I think Code of Brawl proves just how little Rhodes Island is involved with the world of Terra at large despite it’s apparent reputation as a weird and quirky company with some terrifyingly powerful Operators and lofty ambitions. And while I’m still only on Chapter 4 since I’m grinding out some E2 before moving on, Rhodes Island really does more reacting to random Reunion plans than anything proactive with their goals of curing Oripathy. They feel more like a counter military force to Reunion, and a barely effective on at that given the point of the story I’m at. Code of Brawl, being focused on another group with a more direct conflict and villains, feels a lot more cohesive and interesting, as Penguin Logistics’s goal is to just get Bison through his first day and take out whatever force is harassing them this week. 

Penguin Logistics as a whole is a rather interesting bunch of ruffians and seeing them is gallivant around Lungmen trading blows and bullets with gangsters is a joy to read and see. Seeing some of the inner workings of Lungmen society, seeing a bit of the underbelly, as well as getting to see the cast just have more casual interactions with each other is great. We learn that Sora really is just gay for Texas, and the all of Penguin Logistics has only 3 function braincells with Texas having one and Mostima having the other two.  We get to see that Sora has probably beaten someone to death with her microphone at some point given how willing she is to bar fight. A lot of fun stuff.

And then... there’s Mostima. 

Look, I like this story, I really do, but Mostima really didn’t need to be here as far as the story is concerned. All she does plot-wise is rile up Exusiai, drop some cryptic advice for Bison, shows she knows more powerful than she leads on, and is a bit of a deus ex machina for the end of the plot, and not even by that much. You could had replaced her with Chen, Swire, Hoshigumi, ShiraYuki, or anyone else that would logically be in Lungmen at the time. Hell, ShiraYuki knowing everything a being cryptic about it would at least be in character for her. 

And that’s not to knock Mostima. I actually pulled her in my last ten-pull (didn’t get Waii Fu though, and I’m still salty about that), she’s a pretty good and damn near god-tier once you get her to E2 if some of the guides on her are to be believed, though her kit is a little niche for an AoE caster of her cost. However, as far as the story is concerned she shows a serious issue with Arknights as a whole. That’s its constant need to have half of their characters be mysterious.

Mysterious Characters

So, just to give an example, here is a list of characters in Arknights with a Mysterious Past™. These are characters that either have their archive notes explicitly state their past is unknown, or characters who’s past is implied but but deliberately kept unconfirmed.

With that said...

Mostima

Myrtle

Cuora

Skadi

Specter

Shining

Siege

Projekt Red

Specter

Blue Poison

Lappland

Texas (?)

ShiraYuki

AMIYA

Okay, I’m cheating a little with Texas since she has enough of her past implied, but it’s still technically a mystery as far as the specifics go. But you see my point, right? A lot of characters have a Mysterious Past™, which is a nice shorthand to not go into depth about writing their background. Now, you don’t need to give twenty paragraphs on their backstory, but something would be nice. Keeping things a mystery might be nice for the theory-crafters, but for me it’s annoy as hell to see so many character, so many high-rated that really just have their skills and design to go off of, especially with most the cast overall having a pretty simple background to them that are interesting when you read through the lore blurbs and think about it. Breeze is a former noble that wanted to do more good in the world than throwing money at a problem. Liskarm is a protective friend that joined Rhodes Island to make sure the problematic Franka integrated without problems. Frostleaf is a child soldier that wants to do some good in the world after becoming Infected. Kroos, Beagle, and Fang joined Rhodes Island after getting kicked out of their old jobs. You don’t need to be flashy, but giving answers isn’t an admission of lacking creativity. The hints might be nice for the analysts, but the fans would likely want some answers.

Again, Mostima isn’t a problem, and a lot characters in that list do have some concrete hints about their past. Texas and Lappland are likely a former mafia heiresses and old rivals. Shining was likely a highly skilled mercenary before realizing she could do more good in the world with a healing staff instead of a sword. Siege is likely apart of Londinium royalty, but was either exiled or ran due to political turmoil. But that’s the issue, likely isn’t confirmed. Mostima being a powerful character with a mysterious past just feels like a cop out to me. It’s not bad, but she’s a symptom of what some of the issues of Arknights story is. I’m not asking for AFK Arena-levels of lore, just... an explanation here or there would be nice. 

But anyway that’s my main issue, moving on.

General Gushing

Despite that large critique I have, there’s a lot I love about this story. For simplicity sake, because I’m tired of all the editing, I’ll put it into list form:

Penguin Logistics in general was just a joy to see. Watching them in action and just how laissez-faire they are is hilarious, especially when paired with the straightforward and reserved Bison freaking out over the wackiness. 

Speaking of, Bison made for a very good straight man to balance out all the wild antics of PL. He really kept things from getting too crazy by at least questioning the zaniness, and the point when he finally stops caring and just charges in with a crazy plan of his own just gave me the giddiest of smiles.

Given how they discuss it, PL apparently trade blows with criminals and thugs on a daily basis, and since they’re just a delivery company this implies they likely deliver drugs or other hot cargo the mafia and gangs want... and given Emperor’s personality, that wouldn’t shock me.

Emperor in general is a delight of a character. He’s about as charismatic and wild as his aesthetic makes him look. I would legit whale for him if he ever become an operator.

Learning a little bit about Lungmen culture was fun as well, as little of it as we see. It’s my personal headcanon now that the mafia and general thugs of Lungmen don’t mess with civilians because they’re either a sleeper agent under the Rat King’s protection or they might be a kung fu master in plain clothes like Waai Fu.

Waai Fu and Texas fist fighting in the streets of Lungmen is just hilarious and awesome. I honestly don’t know what that says about either of them. Texas is holding her own against a martial artist with over 10 years of experience barehanded, meanwhile Waai Fu is holding her own against what lore blurbs have implied is the former heiress/hitman of a mafia. All the while drunkards and Texas’s coworkers are egging them on. This is the dumb content I live for.

Save for some of the absolute bullshit of the challenge maps, I found the actual game content to be pretty fair and interesting. The Bullies required good defender placement, a lot of the ranged units focused on targeting the helpful buildings that buffed your characters and increased the operator deployment count, and maps themselves had a few clever chokepoints to work with... At least until they started spamming Fanatics.

Bison actually has a pretty solid kit for a free Operator. He buffs a lot of adjacent units, has a no real weakness, his tools don’t feel niche like Grani or Celycon, overall a great unit. Once I finish E2-ing all my main Operators I might build him next. 

While I have issues with her as a story element, Mostima is a 6-star that has instant utility once you promote her to E2, much like Chen and Siege. This is something I’m relieved to say as a lot of my 6-stars aren’t worth much until you E2 them and I’m still trying to E2 some of my easier units like Cuora and Gavial for Chapter 5 and CC.

That’s really all I have to say on that front. So to close things off...

For the Future

Like I always say in these Ramblings, I don’t like the idea of people prattling on about being able to “fix” or “rewrite” something has already been made. It always comes across as both arrogant and ignorant to me. However, I think it’s completely fair to make requests and suggestions for the future. ‘

That said, I'd like to continue seeing side stories without Rhodes Island’s involvement. Both to see other factions in their natural element and because, frankly, Rhodes Island always feels a little out of place when involved in other stories, or at least more of a distraction than a good element if chapter 2 and 3 are anything to go by. I think a Black Steel side story would be nice. Jessica, Franka, Liskarm, and Vanille getting into shenanigans in Columbia or something sounds like a fun time. Maybe have the leader/high commander of the organization as a new operator and they’re a really powerful Supporter than can buff the party, like a 6-star version of Sora or something that gives operators insane ASPD buffs... I don’t know, something like that anyway. Ideally something a little less wordy than Code of Brawl at least.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say. Next time... I’ll talk about something else. Maybe discuss a manga or something. 

See you all later.

[zeravmeta]

“…Communications have been lost. I’m sorry, Master, but we are stranded in this strange new territory.”

Gudako was used to having the odds against her, but this time felt more desperate. Almost wrong, somehow. It would be one thing to simply just not be able contact Chaldea; it’s definitely happened before and the nagging voice in the back of her head tells her it will in the future as well.

It would be a second, more annoying thing if their current location was unknown: the Rayshift System was at whim to whatever Panhuman History or the Lostbelts decided to do out of nowhere and Da Vinci had even warned her that the Alien Gods reach was unknown and to prepare for the worst because they could very well drop them in the middle of nowhere.

The third and most troublesome thing about this was that the previous two conditions had been met but within what was possibly another universe entirely.

Gudako was beginning to regret getting out of bed this morning.

“Master….I’m sorry…If I wasn’t here then maybe…” Abigail whispered sadly as she held her torso, hiding her face.

“Oh come on, tears are unfair! You know I’m weak to your widdle cutie-pie face!” Gudako said as she leaned down to pinch her cheeks, trying to lighten the mood. Sure, maybe telling the eldritch horror within the 12 year old whose emotions could influence a reality bending god that they could be her appetizer in a ratty sushi restaurant wasn’t the best of ideas, but who cares. Her life was already one chaotic mess so another spill in an ocean of madness wouldn’t matter.

What does matter however is figuring out where the hell they are.

“Alright everyone, form up! We need to weigh our options and try to find out where we are.” Gudako rounded up her servants.

Babbage, Edmond, Abigail, Danzou, Mecha Eli-Chan, and Hijikata. Not exactly the most balanced composition in her opinion but there were worse options.

“Master, I’ve run a quick perimeter check of the area: wherever we are is completely made of metal. There’s no wildlife, running water, anything. I couldn’t even sense any wind currents here which makes me wonder how you can even breathe with no atmosphere.” Danzou reported.

“I believe we have the young Mash Kyrielight to thank for that. My readings do indicate an existing oxygen level, albeit low. Such things wouldn’t affect Servants, so we haven’t noticed it ourselves, but it is very possible that Mash’s class skill as a Shielder apply even for conditions such as these.” Babbage added.

“It’s strange,” Edmond began, “But I cannot ‘escape’ from this place. We haven’t been confined to a cage, it’s almost like…we are off-world somehow.”

“Off-world? Like, not on Earth anymore?” Gudako couldn’t help but feel shocked at this revelation. They’d gone to so many places in the past but an alien world was something entirely new. She felt Abigail’s fists tighten on her skirt and placed a reassuring hand on them, squeezing them gently.

“It is strange, but I also agree with the ratty convict.” Mecha Eli expanded, ignoring Edmond’s sputtering. “Servants are connected to the Throne, which is situated on Earth. Concepts like Humanity’s collective unconscious, the Root, they’re all unique to Earth itself, and we as Servants are affected by and can sense that. It feels…out of place. Like the Earth is nearby and yet, not really?”

A loud grunt drew their attention to Hijikata, who was looking up into the sky.

“That answer your questions?”

Seeing Earth in the sky as if it was a moon certainly did not answer their questions. And made them panic, naturally.

“This is…troubling. Though there are records that indicate our moon may be or have been some type of computer, there’s nothing on a planetoid of this composition orbiting Earth.”

“Babbage, do you have any way to re-establish contact? Even if she’s fine now there’s no telling how the distance from Mash may affect our Master. She could be running on borrowed time.”

“Master could die?”

“No! No one is dying today, Abbey. None of this is your fault, alright?”

“Do not worry. After all, among our group, you aren’t the only one who can break the laws of physics at a whim. It’s just as likely that that chronic smoker is responsible for this.”

“Just what is your problem with me today?”

“Can we please-”

“WOULD ALL OF YOU SHUT UP!? WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES!” Hijikata boomed, drawing their attention.

“Wh-What’s happening!?” Gudako snapped at attention.

“For the love of- Listen!” He placed a hand over her mouth and glared at the others to do the same.

…Very distantly, they heard the sound of shouting, metal scraping and weapons being fired.

“Wherever we are, we aren’t alone.” Hijikata stood ready to attack. “Master, your orders?”

The familiar fear of the unknown made itself known to her once again as it had many times before, and like always she pushed it down.

“Danzou, scout ahead and find a suitable meeting spot. Babbage, assist her. The rest of us will follow behind and meet you there. Whatever you find, do not engage.” 

“Acknowledged.” 

Gudako saw her disappear in a blur, with Babbage flying behind her. Sighing, she began her trek with her Servants following.

-

The scene before them was…new, to say the least. Even with all her adventures pitting her against all manner of enemies, she never expected to be taking fire from giant alien robots. They had met up as planned, but when they arrived, Danzou and Babbage were under heavy fire from a large gray robot with an arm cannon. They were situated near a cliff side.

“From what I gather, we are indeed off world, though they refuse to say where we are and simply reference Earth. Apparently, these beings seem to want to drain the Earth of it’s various natural resources in order to assimilate it into their own planet.” Danzou explained as she kept sending pressurized air blasts from her arm into the opposition. “There seems to be some type of schism with these robots, however. While this group is indeed trying to kill us, they made mention of others who protect humans.” 

“Apologies, Master. It appears they had some type of censor that tracked us here as far back as when we initially arrived. For now, let us eliminate them!” Babbage exclaimed before jumping back into the fray. 

Gudako took in the sight before her. To her side was Danzou offering ranged support and Abigail using her powers to make sure none of the robots got too close. Babbage was currently in a fierce duel with the gray arm cannon robot who towered over him and kept exclaiming something about absolute victory. It tried to pin Babbage down and shoot him but a bash from Babbage’s club held him back. It then summoned a glowing purple flail to try and smash Babbage before an intervening rocket punch from MechaEli knocked it aside, leaving them 2 on 1. 

On the other side of the battlefield, Hijikata and Edmond were a whirlwind of fire, lightning, and laughter, knocking over the robots as they tried to mob them. Gudako kept hearing their screams and confusion as to how these humans were so powerful and couldn’t help but empathize with them: Servants were unfairly strong sometimes. 

“This is pointless…Let us retreat!” A nasally robotic voice broke out of the group before jumping into the air and flying off, taking potshots at their group. Shortly, a few others followed.

The gray robots scratchy voice broke out as it knocked over Babbage and Mecha Eli. “You cowards! You dare abandon your leader!?” It turned to the group and regarded them with a scowl. 

“Enjoy your victory while you can, humans. Soon I will figure out the secret behind your strength, and then I will conquer the universe!”

Hijikata and Edmond ran over and tried to rush the robot, but it punched the ground and made a large chasm separating them. Despite their speed, they wouldn’t make it in time to get to her.

“A little going away present! I’m sure our enemies will LOVE to see this!” The robot exclaimed one final time and began shooting at the cliff side near them while flying off. 

“Master, get back!” Abigail exclaimed as she summoned more tentacles to catch and divert the metal chunks as they fell. Danzou had suffered a shot and was missing an arm, meaning she could only barely support herself, leaving Gudako to support her.

“Master, please leave me behind-”

“Are we seriously gonna go through this song and dance? Let’s just hurry!” Gudako shouted over the racket of the avalanche as she carried Danzou. 

A large crash suddenly sounded out, and she looked up to see a large gray gun transform back into the gray robot before flying off. Its shot hit true and sent a large metal chunk their way, casting an ominous shadow over them. 

They would have been crushed, but they were picked up by…a yellow mini car? Gudako and Danzou were standing one moment and riding this car the next. 

“Are you two alright!? Your metal friend out there took some major damage, though it’s not anything Ratchet can’t fix!” The….car seemed to reassure them?

“Umm…y-yeah, we’re fine.” Gudako tentatively responded. Ratchet?

“That’s good to hear! Teletraan picked up a cosmic rift and suddenly detected humans with strange energy signatures! You guys got some serious guts to take on Megatron and his group of Decepticons on your own, not to mention how ya sent him packing!”

Teletraan? Megatron? Decepticons? This got more confusing as it went on.

“Could…you explain what exactly is going on here? Me and my friends have no idea where we are or what’s happening.” She decided being frank may be best here.

“Don’t sweat it! I’ll take you to my leader! He’ll explain everything!” The car chimed in, speeding up and approaching a tall red and blue robot before morphing out of its car form and having her look up at it. Him.

He was a friendly looking robot with yellow accents and blue eyes. Gudako noted that the emblem on their chests were different than the robots they had been fighting.

“Master! Are you alright!?” Edmond had called out from behind, Hijikata, Abigail and Mecha-Eli following. Babbage was behind them as well, but heavily damaged with burn marks and a crushed arm, being supported by a taller robot with an ambulance design. Her servants rushed and formed a protective perimeter around her, glaring at the robot.

The tall red and blue robot looked at them closely…almost sadly. He then bent down gently to try and get them to eye level, despite still towering over them.

“Please, calm yourselves. My name is Optimus Prime. Are you all right? Bumblebee tells me you have no idea where you are or what’s happening. Though I assume you’re from another reality of sorts?” He spoke gently.

Gudako didn’t know why, but something about his voice felt…soothing. Like she was talking to a natural born leader.

“…Yeah. We’re from an organization called Chaldea, tasked with protecting Humanity and we travel through time and space to prevent people from messing up our history. Our Rayshift…messed up and we landed here. Where are we?”

Optimus looked contemplative for a second before nodding to himself. “You are on the planet Cybertron, which is in orbit of the planet Earth after Megatron teleported it here.”

Welp. That confirmed her worst fears. They were in another dimension with a second metal planet orbiting Earth full of transforming robots who either wanted to kill them or be as helpful as they possibly could. Though she would be lying if a small part of her mecha nerd heart wasn’t excited to be on a planet of fighting robots straight out of her dreams.

Her worry must have been present on her face because she felt a large metal hand try to ease itself on her shoulder and gently pat it. She didn’t have the heart to tell him it was painful.

“To see such a young hero fills my heart with both sadness and hope. However, for your help against the Decepticons today, let’s go back to our base. I’m sure we can figure out how to get you home. Autobots! Transform and roll out!” Optimus exclaimed before transforming into a large truck and carrying her and her friends in various vehicles.

She was right. She should not have gotten out of bed today.

[johannstutt413]

The Doctor pounded twice on the door to Vulcan’s forge as he walked in. “You’ve got a customer!” He shouted above the din of whirring machines and hammer striking metal.

“Doctor?” She walked out, her usual attire replaced with a heavy-duty apron. “What do you need?”

“A weapon.”

A nod. “Of course. For who?”

“For me.” He reached into his pocket and unfolded a sheet of wrinkled paper. “I was going through my old files and found this. Apparently I used to carry one with me everywhere I went, but I lost it along with my memories. I was wondering if you would remake it for me.”

“I’ll let you know.” Vulcan took the paper and put it in a pocket of her own.

The Doctor glanced around the forge. “I heard your hammer going; I know it’s more of a tradition than an actual part of the craft nowadays, but I’m curious - what do you make when you do that?”

“You want to see for yourself?” She walked back towards the anvil and furnace, and he followed her. “Put on your visor. Sparks’ll be flying.”

“Right.” He made sure his usual protections were in place, and he watched with great interest as she resumed the piece she’d been working on. It was surprisingly delicate; considering her usual work, he’d expected something utilitarian, but this was art, pure and simple. Several straight beams were brought together to create something like a tower, and as she added details, the Doctor realized what she was creating with a smile.

 When it was finally done - a multi-hour process the Doctor had arrived in the middle of - and cooling, Vulcan took off her gloves and face protection and addressed her audience. “Satisfied?”

“It’s fantastic,” he replied, “but do you always make Rhodes Island emblems?”

“No - usually, I make ornamental weapons or solid attachments, but the company anniversary party will be happening soon, and I don’t plan on attending in person.”

The Doctor frowned. “You aren’t?”

“The Penguin team needs their gear worked on, as does the Lungmen squad, and I want to have your weapon done before too long.” She shrugged. “Not a good time for downtime.”

“Damn...Weapon maintenance is crucial, but missing out on the anniversary is...I’d wanted to take you as my date, but-”

Vulcan.exe stopped responding. “What?”

“Your commitment is incredible, your craftsmanship is impeccable, and your record, as well as that of almost every Operator here, is to your credit. We don’t stop to appreciate you often enough, in my opinion.” He sighed. “But, if you’re busy, I suppose it can’t be helped-”

“When do you want this weapon of yours finished?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “I’d like to be able to start training with it again as soon as possible, but if you have other work that needs to be done-”

“I’ll have you your weapon before you come to get me for the party.”

“You mean you’ll come to the celebration after all?” He smiled. “What changed?”

Despite all the time spent around hot metal, Vulcan wasn’t incapable of blushing. “I...want you to know I appreciate what you’re trying to do.”

“Ah. Well, I’ll leave you to it - have some work of my own to get done, after all. I’ll see you in a few days, then? If you get a chance, you know where to find me.”

“Right...Hey.” As he left, she called out to him. “Formal or casual?”

The Doctor looked back over his shoulder and smiled warmly. “Whichever you can dance best in.”

-

Vulcan spend the next not-quite week working on the Doctor’s weapon; it was a tricky thing, relying on a series of moving parts that had to be crafted with absolutely hair-pulling levels of precision to ensure the weapon’s function didn’t degrade over time, and anyone less enthused with the task would quit while they were ahead. For her, however, this wasn’t just a project her boss had given her - this was a commission from someone who appreciated her work, who appreciated...her, as difficult to comprehend as that was, and besides, she was always looking for new ways to challenge herself. If only he’d asked her to design something for him herself…

The Doctor, as promised, was at her forge about two hours before the party; he’d wanted to give her time to show off her work and not have her feel rushed. Honestly, it had been a work of willpower to not visit her sooner, but seeing his gift before it was completed seemed wrong somehow, so he’d bided his time. Now was the moment of truth.

“Vulcan?” He knocked on the door; the machines weren’t on, so there was no need to be as loud as before. “Are you back there?”

“One minute, Doctor!” She called from somewhere deeper in the space. There was a bathroom behind all this, and a little farther back was the closet she called her bedroom.

The Doctor found a place to sit and made himself comfortable; a few minutes later, and Vulcan emerged from her corner...and he found himself in awe. “Wow.”

“I clean up nicely?” The hesitant smile on her face only amplified the effect of seeing her in a black dress that seemed to be woven from carbon-fiber. “I finished your weapon, like I promised.”

“Two gifts in one evening. Tonight’s already looking to be amazing.”

She picked up something from a hidden part of the forge and walked over to him; in her hand was what looked like for all intents and purposes a walking stick with a curved handle. “The blade comes out of the bottom when you press this.”

“Amazing...I had every confidence in you, and you still exceeded my expectations.” He accepted in from her as she held out her hands, and the weight balance was exquisite. “It feels like it was made for my hands and mine alone.”

“It was, Doctor.” Vulcan smiled at her matter-of-fact response.

He blushed. “Right, I guess it was...I should take this up to my room before we go to the party.”

“I’ll go with you,” she offered, “if you don’t mind.”

“No, feel free, but...why?”

They were stepping out into the hall at this point, and both checked to see if it was empty before Vulcan continued. “I was thinking of other ways I could thank you for, well...being you.”

“I would be me even if the world hated me,” the Doctor shrugged.

“Maybe,” she admitted, “but that wouldn’t change how you make me feel. To think that someone values what I do the way you do...I wonder if I’ve found my soulmate.”

At this point, there were tomatoes less vibrantly red than the Doctor. “I didn’t realize how powerful a thank-you could be.”

“It’s a little more than a thank-you, Doctor.”

“True...” He took a steadying breath. “How serious were you about me being your soulmate?”

Vulcan’s smile grew. “How seriously are you thinking about it?”

“Enough to be willing to give it a shot. We can call tonight our first date.”

“I like the sound of that...” She nodded, one of her hands brushing against his. “To our first date.”

The Doctor took hold of the errant hand, already picturing their potential future in his mind. “The first of many.”