#when I finally completed the quest i was happy until I realised my other characters will hear her again

[sangoqueenkoko]

NEUVILLETTE

final verdict

angst

MAIN MASTERLIST | HYDRO MASTERLIST

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part 1 | part 2 (you are here!)

If both parts do well, I’ll write an alternate ending!

Summary: You were falsely accused of a horrific crime, and the verdict is announced... you do not take it well. And neither does Neuvillette. But you both have to accept the fate chosen. Set before the 4.2 archon quest.

Warnings? Inspired by the 4.2 Archon quest, so be cautious if you haven't completed it yet! This is rusty because I haven't written in so long. I am so so so so so so sorry! I'm trying my best! (L/N) means Last Name!

MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH‼️

Featuring Furina and Wriothesley!

So this was it.

You never would have guessed that your life would come to an end this early. Especially like this. When you were a young teenager, you always dreamed of finding the right person to spend the rest of your life with, having a family, travel around Teyvat. That dream stuck with you until your sentencing.

You now have no dreams. Apart from hoping to be realised as innocent before it is too late. That's what you hope for.

You were currently held in a cell by yourself with nothing to do, confined to what little space you had to roam in. You have no idea where this said cell is either.

You've asked the guards when you've had the chance, countless times to talk to the Iudex, aka Neuvillette. Because he surely must know what's going on and how to fix it. But they've ignored you every time, or just said no. You pray to Celestia whenever you can in hopes something goes in your favour.

If only you realised earlier on that that would never happen.

Meanwhile, outside of your imprisonment, Fontaine was in the midst of a storm, it has been raining on and off ever since your sentencing, there haven't been any trials since, and Neuvillette has either confined himself in his office or somewhere where no one thought to look for him, he could openly let his tears fall without being questioned.

Of all people, why you? he openly wept. What was never said during the trial was that you weren't by yourself when the crime was committed. You, in fact, were with Neuvillette himself.

The streets of the city were practically empty as it was dark out, the only sounds that could be heard were distant people closing up their shops, or animals roaming the streets, you two were taking a walk, catching up after not seeing each other for a little while as you both had other things to do.

If only they knew.

You are innocent.

Time past. The sky has been grey for a while now, and florists have had a decline in sales since the sun has been hidden behind the clouds and nothing will grow correctly or as strongly as it should.

Soon enough. The time had come.

And the whole city already knew. It was in the tabloids straight away and it was days before.

You knew that many people would see this and put it in the papers, Neuvillette and your family would see it too.

You had handcuffs on your wrist behind your back, head down as you walked, Wriothesley was walking by you, looking forward, not turning to speak or look in your general direction, he was tasked to guide you in case you were to suddenly attack for whatever reason, it was hard for him, as you have met him a few times too. He was basically turned against you, against your will.

Furina was somewhere. She had to be. She would have wanted to see this, even if it's such a sick thought, wanting to watch someone die right in front of them.

Sick.

Before you knew it, you were shackled. If you wanted to run, you couldn't.

You hadn't seen Neuvillette or heard of him recently. You wonder how he's doing, how he's doing with the news and recent events.

You heard someone talk once you were in place. But you couldn't hear nor register who it was or what they were saying.

You were in some sort of glass chamber with a set of pipes from above. People were gathered to watch. Most of the people that were gathered were the people who thought that you deserved it, they were happy about the current position you were in.

People of authority were there.

Furina, Wriothesley,...

Neuvillette.

The both of you made eye contact, he saw the tears in your eyes and the fear on your face. He just wanted to freeze time and save you, keep you safe and clear your name.

If only that was possible.

There were more lines spoken by... someone before your attention was drawn to the sounds from the pipes above you.

You really hoped for someone to run into the room and stop what was going on, proving your innocence.

But that never came.

Everything that happened next went by so fast that it made everything seem so... quiet.

The pipes burst open.

You were so scared you couldn't move or scream.

You and Neuvillette made eye contact for one last time.

The water raged through the pipes, spraying everywhere inside the chamber, engulfing you.

You felt numb. You could no longer feel anything. Physically nor emotionally.

You felt yourself begin to fade away in more ways than once.

A wave splashed over your head, Neuvillette looked away as it happened, and he closed his eyes, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

Who knows how long this storm in Fontaine will go on for.

The chamber soon drained of the seawater, and nothing was in it.

And seeing as you were from Fontaine,

you had been dissolved.

...and the people cheered. They thought the criminal had been dealt with. But only some knew the truth.

Days later.

More rain.

Neuvillette was in the middle of a trail when someone barged into the court. All eyes were on them. They were asked what their business was doing here.

They found out you were innocent.

If only they knew.

You were always innocent.

[jupitermelichios]

So I’ve been playing a lot of skyrim lately, because it’s video game comfort food, and I decided it was time for my Redguard Dovahkiin to settle down. (Actually I specifically just wanted to be able to adopt some of the random orphans you meet because I felt guilty about them, but you need to be married before you can do that so that there’s someone at home to take care of the kids while you’re off galivanting).

So I travelled around a bit, chatting up likely looking npcs until I found one I both liked and didn’t feel guilty about marrying (I feel bad if I marry one of the warrior adventurer types, making them be a stay at home mum) and settled on an obnoxiously cheerful argonian called Shavee because her life was frankly shit, and I thought she’d probably be good with kids.

So off I go to Riften to the Temple of Mara to arrange the wedding. I book it in for the next day, realise I didn’t bring anything nice to wear, and spend the night before the wedding robbing every house in the city in the search for something to wear. Eventually decide everyone in Riften has terrible fashion sense and break down everything I stole into raw materials and use them to craft myself an outfit and some jewellery that i’m pretty happy with. I even carefully pick out my fanciest looking sword to wear.

(don’t know why I bothered, frankly, shavee turned up wearing a shirt covered in suspicious stains and weilding a pickaxe, it’s like she doesn’t even care about this marriage)

(also for comedy purposes, bear in mind I play with survival mods that mean my character needs to eat and sleep to live, and I literally spent the entire ingame night on this and forgot to eat and drink anything either and then just downed four bowls of wolf stew right before entering the temple so I didn’t starve during the ceremony. also I discovered during the wedding that I am dying of rockjoint, which I contracted from sleeping in a pile of hay on the floor of a skeever infested cave, so even being six foot tall and jacked can’t make up for the fact that I am exhausted, running a fever, and probably covered in wolf which I spilled because my joints are slowly atrophying, and even the fanciest clothes in the world aren’t going to cover that up)

so I enter the temple, and my finance is there, and Lydia my housecarl, and some random NPCs the game thinks are my friends because I did fetch quests for them

One of the random NPCs is Lisbet. Atfter I did her fetch quest, I then did another quest in which I discovered Lisbet is secretly a cannibal and part of a demonic cult that worships the daedric prince of decay by kidnapping priests, sacrificing them, and then eating their corpses. Raw. I think the raw meat is the sticking point for me here honestly.

I ultimately decided not to sacrifice the random priest to a daedric prince in exchange for one magic ring and all the raw human I could eat, because frankly, that doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me. I was expecting there to be some kind of dialogue choice where I could nope out at the last minute, but it turns out there isn’t one, so after they drugged the priest and tied him to the altar, I just got out my sword and started swinging.

I killed most of the cult (including the town butcher, because I had brought meat from him before and was extremely pissed off that he might have been secretly feeding me humans) but a couple of them got away, which I figured was fine because they weren’t trying to kill me.

Except it turns out, if any of them escape, then every time you see them in the future there’s a random chance that they’ll fly into a violent rage and try and murder you.

Lisbet is at my wedding. Lisbet decides that clearly me marrying this random argonian woman with two lines of dialogue is the happiest day of my life, and she cannot allow me that happiness, when I’ve taken so much from her.

So she tries to kill me. Only she can’t, because I’m stuck in a pre-rendered wedding animation, and also she’s sitting next to Lydia, my faithful retainer and owner of a really big axe.

It also turns out that Lisbet is essential, meaning she can be knocked unconcious but not actually killed because she’s needed for some quest or other. And the minute she wakes up from unconciousness, she tries to kill me again, so Lydia knocks her unconcious again, and I’m stuck, I can’t move, because I’m supposed to be in the wedding animation.

Except Shavee has, not unreasonably, see all this and decided that she doesn’t like me enough to risk getting murdered, and has done a runner, leaving me at the altar, but more importantly, leaving me trapped in a broken pre-rendered animation, so all I can do is stand there at the altar, staring at the space where my fiance was supposed to be, listening to the sounds of Lydia trying and failing to beat a cannibal to death behind me.

Okay, I think, clearly this wedding isn’t going to happen, I’m going to go for the registry office option and complete the wedding using the dev commands. I do this. The priest gives me a wedding ring, and I can finally move again. I chase after Shavee, who has an impressive turn of speed on her, and eventually catch up right by the city gates. I try to talk to her.

Apparently using the console has completed the wedding for me, but not for her, because she still only has the same 2 lines of dialogue she usually has.

Clearly this is working, I can’t leave my kids with someone who can only say 2 things and doesn’t even know she’s their mum, that’s irresponsible.

I try loading from inside the temple. I get the same problem.

Eventually I figure out that I need to use the dev controls to disable Lisbet’s entire existence in the universe.

Shavee and me get married. As the priest reads the vows, I stare at Shavee and wonder why she couldn’t even be bothered to put on a clean shirt. I wonder what kind of mother she’ll be.

Once the ceremony is over, and I’m happily married to the dirty green lizard of my dreams, and we’ve agreed that until I can make her recognise my extremely nice modded house exists I will share her single bed in the unheated flophouse in Windhelm she calls home, I re-enable Lisbet, because I’m worried I’ll forget if I leave it too long.

Fun fact about skyrim, it loads in quite a lot of npcs and objects by dropping them from the sky. I have no idea why this is the case, but it’s objectively the funniest way to load in objects.

I re-enable Lisbet. She falls from the sky, clips through the roof of the temple, and lands in the pew beside Lydia, stands up, draws a knife, and is immedately beaten unconcious.

I no longer care, because Shavee now has all the exciting new spouse-only romantic dialogue options like “Could you cook something for me” and “have you made any money lately”, and I know she’ll be a great mother.

I limp to the door of the temple, while around me the guests not involved in the Lydia-Lisbet murder cycle scream and duck for cover.

I open the door to the temple, immediately collapse and ragdoll down the steps, which is how I discover I am dying of rockjoint.

I limp to the orphanage down the street, adopt two kids, and then finally remember that I’m carrying garlic bread, which as we all know, cures all known illnesses.

When I emerge back into the street, full of the joys of motherhood and garlic bread, I find the town in disaray. Lydia is chasing Lisbet through the streets with an axe and a dragon is circling overhead, burning npcs to death. People are running for shelter, screaming, while the guards try to take down an entire dragon using only the worst bows and arrows in the game.

I decide that as a parent, I have to think of my own safety first and leave them to it.

I head out of the city, intent on returning home and figuring out why Shavee refuses to move in with me. A man hanging around the stables challenges me to a boxing match. For want of anything better to do, I agree.

Halfway through the fight he dodges at the wrong moment and I punch one of his horses in the head.

Two guards attack me while I desperately try to surrender. My kids will miss me, but I’m prepared to go to jail for my horse crimes, I’m an honest citizen. Also my horse crimes seem somewhat less important than the dragon.

The guards refuse to accept my surrender. I am stabbed to death. As I collapse in front of the indifferent horse, Lisbet exits the city, followed by Lydia. The last thing I see before I die is Lydia swinging her axe at Lisbet’s face.

[oswinsdolma]

Yes, it's nearly 2.00am (because that's apparently the only time I have inspiration to write essays) but I've been thinking a lot about this lately and wanted to get it off my chest, so here you go:

The main goal of Merlin becomes disturbingly fractured along the way, which opens up the gaps for the prophecy to seep through instead of following the expected channels, but it can essentially be boiled down to three key elements 1) build albion; 2) decriminalise magic and 3) save Arthur, but when all is said and done, we never really see any of those objectives achieved.

Now, there are a few reasons for this, both from a writing perspective and a plot perspective. The first, and one of the most obvious, is that this show loves irony. I won't go into a lot of detail here because I've already written a whole ass essay in this very subject, but in a nutshell, you can look at this from two perspectives: firstly, it's important to establish that this technique is purely about the angst: it's the writers' way of provoking a reaction from an anguished audience, but it's foreshadowed just enough to make it more painful than it is shocking. Alternatively, there is the more plot motivated irony in that it genuinely makes a good story. Irony is a technique that has been used for thousands of years, not just because it provokes a reaction from the audience, but because it allows you to explore your characters in greater detail than before, riddling them with hidden juxtapositions and internal conflicts that are never resolved quite in the way you expect. The irony in Merlin is the epitome of this, with the whole motif of Arthur needing to die for his reign to begin. It is a classic example of the simultaneous despair and hope that mocks you from the shadows.

Following this, there is another force at play that deals with half truths and seemingly imperfect contradictions, and that's prophecy. It's not really a secret that I have very strong feelings about prophecy and its effects on all the characters, Merlin in particular, and the fact that fate and destiny are such key themes in Merlin both makes perfect sense and wants me to smash my head into a brick wall. Prophecies are another common trope that often go hand in hand with irony (think Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, The Iliad, all that doomed hero shit that I inexplicably adore), the key to their influence over the plot often lying in how they usually come true in the most unexpected of ways. This links back to that initial theme of irony, but this isn't what makes me angry: what is infuriating is that prophecies tend to come true, no matter what, and most of the characters seem not only to know this, but to let it take their autonomy over their respective fates, driving them to disaster.

Let me elaborate: especially in season five (I'm assuming just for the added fall at the end), Merlin talks a lot about how "one day, things will be different". He tells sorcerers that one day they won't have to hide. That one day, they won't have to live in fear of who they are and what others think of them. And Merlin is right: while it is not explicitly stated, it's generally established that this is one of the things Merlin should actively be working towards. But here's the kick: except for a few specific circumstances, when has Merlin ever actively tried to change Arthur's mind about magic? Yes, he has taken a few opportunities, like with Dragoon saving Uther's life, or with the Dolma's final request, where he has encouraged Arthur to rethink his choices, but otherwise, his support has been lukewarm at best. Instead, his primary concern was always saving Arthur, so he can become the king the magical world hoped he'd be, but he left out a crucial part, trusting in the prophecy to fill in the gaps. He knew it would come true, but it was, almost predictably, in the one way he never dared to expect.

And in a twisted way, there's that thread of irony again: Merlin thought he was saving Arthur so he could one day become the king who would see magic as a force for good, but instead, he created someone who was merely a survivor. It was Kilgharrah who said it first, and he who would mention it last: they are two sides of the same coin. But as willing as Merlin was to give his life for Arthur, and vice versa, he was never really ready to give him his mind.

Another interesting thing to note is Merlin's fixation on the "Saving Arthur" lens of the prophecy over the "Restoring Magic" part. Now, there are a ton of ways you can look at this, depending on how far along the scale of Queer Analysis you are, so I'm going to try and address a couple. At one end of the scale, you have the fairly simple and very believable "merthur" take. This basically boils down to the fact that Merlin and Arthur may or may not be deeply in love with one another, and that drowns out any voice of reason that may unfold. This is actually fairly canon compliant, particularly looking at incidents such as the Disir, when Merlin chooses Arthur over his and his people's freedom, though that choice was clearly, in hindsight, misadvised.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the idea that it is the work of Kilgharrah, Gaius and other responsible figures in Merlin's life when he was new to his role in destiny, who reiterated at every occasion that Arthur must be protected at all costs. This may have ingrained into Merlin's thoughts and influenced his decisions from here on out.

Between those two points, there is a grey area, and I am of the personal opinion that neither extreme entirely satisfies the situation. For me, I think the characters in question are far too complex to have such simple motivations, and that the true reason lies somewhere between the two: Merlin undoubtedly cares for Arthur, and while at the start, his actions in protacting Arthur may have been driven by other (largely superficial) motives, over time, their mutual affection blossomed to the point where certainly the more personal quests were motivated not by need, but by love. However, there is a divide here, and while the line in the sand smudges from time to time, it never really disappears: a lot of instances in which Merlin is trying to help Arthur are entirely overshadowed by destiny, and in time, Merlin comes to accept that Arthur and Destiny are, in fact, one and the same, and this is where that ever-present tragedy lies. For all he truth in here, Merlin doesn't get everything quite right: he sees Arthur as a balance that needs to be protected, without fully realising that he doesn't just have to keep the sides of his equation in equilibrium, but he actually has to start solving them if he wants them to endure.

Having just said all that, sometimes I decide to fuck over complexity for a few hours purely because I am a shameless merthur hoe.

Also, can you take a moment to please note that this last section is highly subjective and it is completely up to you as to what you decide!! This is just my opinion and you're welcome to agree or disagree at any point.

So, aside from the Angst Factor™ and twisted character development, why was the main goal never fulfilled? Unfortunately, that is a question far cleverer people than me can only speculate, as the writers alone know the answers, but I'm going to give my opinion a shot. Honestly, there is something beautifullly poetic about something that never ends, or ends when there could be something more. Humanity has struggled with endings-and beginnings- since it learned truly how to think, because that kind of finality, that inkling that there might have been nothing before and after something else is incomprehensible. In leaving Merlin in a place where the next point was uncertain, the writers left the story open for us. In depriving us of that catharsis, they effectively made sure that the story would never be over, not until we want it to be. And yes, it was painful. I can't think of an ending that was more heartbreaking than that curious mixture of closures and openings all at the same time (hell, I could write a whole essay based on this concept alone!), but it was also a gift, ironically like that of the prophecy itself in that we can choose what we want to do with it, safe in the knowledge that there will be a happy ending again, one day.

In summary, we might not be left with catharsis in the way we wanted. We might not have got the happy ending that could also have stretched on and on indefinitely. But we were left with something else, something equally beautiful as closure, but in the complete opposite way. Amongst the remains of allwe had hoped to build, Merlin left us hope.

[hawkeish]

Those prompts are so hard to choose from! But how about "We were dancing but all of a sudden it’s a slow song and we’re standing here awkwardly staring at each other" for whoever you feel like writing?

I am SO sorry it's taken me an entire month to finish this (writer’s block is the worst am I right ladies!). But I love this prompt - although I took a few liberties - and it screamed Carver/Merrill, so here you go...

Rated T, CWs for implied character death, death mention

1.9k (I have no restraint)

Read on AO3 // Read my other Carver/Merrill fic (it’s referenced a couple of times)

Carver’s perfectly happy where he is.

Leaning against the rough stone wall with a drink in hand, that is. Watching Ri make a tit out of herself, as usual.

The Hanged Man’s packed, warm as a funeral pyre and smelling almost as ripe. Word obviously got round that it was the night before the big expedition: half of Lowtown must be squeezed in here. They’re all eager to toast with Kirkwall’s most eminent storyteller and his new, stabby, impulse-control-free muse, before they set off on their quest for riches and honour and whatever other noble shite lies abandoned beneath the surface.

At least, that’s how Varric’s telling it. Carver’s not sure exactly what’s noble about plundering some dead dwarves’ abandoned thaig. But if it makes his mother happy and his sister finally proud—and if it means his longbar blade can taste the innards of as many darkspawn as he could dream of, for Beth—he’s not going to argue.

Strange to think this is his last night on the surface for a while. And that he’s spending it here, of all places. Something in him flutters with worry at the thought as he tries to tune out the musicians from over in the corner, who’ve kindly decided to abuse some lutes and fiddles. Could this be his last ale? The last full moon he’ll ever see? The last chance he’ll get to be with all these irritating people in one room, together?

But worry’s for bairns and people who can’t hit hard enough to knock teeth out. So Carver buries his nerves with another swig of his drink, then settles back against the wall and does what he likes to do best: observes.

Like some silver-tongued dragon lazed upon a wordhord, Varric’s planted himself on the tallest stool at the bar, surrounded by the usual mob of ruddy cheeked patrons eating up his every word. Half of which will be lies, but that’s good for business; the Hawkes wouldn’t be in on this trip if Varric had a predilection for honesty, after all. Beside him, Isabela’s flashing a grin sharper than her knives and adding flowery embellishment any time Varric pauses for effect. Across from her, Aveline’s desperately trying to counter whatever salacious gossip the pirate’s spreading. Judging by the look on the warrior’s face, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Meanwhile, Ri’s by the fire with Anders, unsurprisingly. She’s tipsy, attempting to flirt by playing demon’s advocate; he’s taking her bait and gesticulating wildly, like usual. They’ve been spending a strange amount of time together recently. Debating—mage this, mage that, freedom, whatever. Carver wouldn’t normally care, only these arguments leave them both blushing and breathless and grinning like fools, and the whole thing’s slightly sickening. Of course Marian would be interested in the possessed apostate. Reckless infatuation is a Hawke family trait.

Whatever they’re banging on about now, it’s drowned out by the music, thank the Maker. If Fenris could hear, the mood wouldn’t be half as merry. But, Carver realises, as his eyes dart around the bustling room in search of that familiar flash of white hair, Fenris is occupied.

In the middle of the tavern, they’ve haphazardly shoved the tables and benches to the side, to make a little space. And in the centre of that dusty, empty floor, as the music gets much faster and much worse, Fenris is dancing.

With Merrill. Who’s got hold of the other elf by the wrists and is whirling him around in a mad circle, looking delighted—maybe more delighted than Carver thinks he’s ever seen her. Eyes wide as moons, smile wild and even wider. And Maker, she looks lovely, too. Cast in a hazy golden glow by the torch-flame, she moves so easily that all Carver can think of is sunlight…

Andraste’s flaming ass. Carver pulls his gaze away, forces himself to gulp some beer, tries to ignore the weird feeling wriggling around his ribcage. Don’t do this, he thinks. Since the moment by the vhenadahl, he told himself he wouldn’t think about Merrill this way. Merrill, his sister’s friend. Merrill, the blood mage. She’s not sunlight. She’s—

“Merrill!” Fenris squawks. The sound knocks Carver from his fluster; he’s not sure he’s ever heard Fenris squawk before. But the warrior looks almost panicked, and very much as though he wishes that he could melt into the floor. “Can you please let me—”

“Not like that!” She’s saying excitedly, pulling at Fenris’ arm, nudging him with her knee and the pointed tips of her toes as he tries, desperately, to wriggle out of her grip. As if egged on, the musicians suddenly strike up a different—but in no way better— jig. “Left foot first, remember, then you hop back a bit, then clap! Oh, you’re like a toddler! Or a little halla foal…”

Fenris makes a strangled noise of protest. “I am not! And I do not wish to hop, Merrill—”

Merrill laughs: the sound’s like chimes, floating over the new reel, and it makes Carver’s skin prickle and flush in that weird, horrible, lovely way. “You have the rhythm, Fenris! Just follow what I do!”

Fenris does have the rhythm. The exact moves, no—although whatever the exact moves are, Carver can’t work out: there’s a lot of spinning and and whirling and jumping and, on Fenris’ part, flailing in many directions. But at least Fenris is doing all the wrong actions at all the right times. There’s something almost hypnotic about it, almost graceful. Between the two elves, Carver doesn’t know where to look.

Knowing where he wants to look is a different matter. Even with Fenris as distraction, Carver’s gaze can’t help but drift past him, to Merrill. She has her eyes half-closed and her head tilted to the sky, a perfect smile on her face—

“Carver!”

And then her head’s whipped around, her eyes are open and locked right on him, and her smile’s so bright and so caught-off-guard that it’s making Carver feel slightly lightheaded. Because Fenris has finally managed to slip out of her hold, has called Carver’s name loud enough to wake the dead—or the very drunk—and is charging towards him like a man possessed.

“Oh no,” Fenris declares drily, as he bridges the gap and pulls Carver’s near full-to-the-brim mug of ale from the warrior’s hands in one, smooth movement. “Just as I thought! It looks like Carver needs another drink.”

He does? Carver blinks down at his empty hands, then up at the elf. “I do?”

Looking him dead in the eye, Fenris smiles wickedly and proceeds to tip most of Carver’s beer onto the straw-covered floor.

“How clumsy of me!” Fenris declares drily. “It appears I owe you some of…” He wrinkles his nose at the damp straw. “Whatever that was.” Then, he claps Carver on the shoulder, the grin returning. “Well, what a shame I can’t return to Merrill. Enjoy your dance!”

Fenris’ friendly shove is hard enough to almost throw a man to the floor: Carver stumbles forward, almost toppling over, knocking into sweaty bodies. A mess of people has started to pack the dance-floor, merry and boisterous; they jostle Carver as he steadies himself, red-cheeked and mumbling apologies. Embarrassment fizzes in his stomach—pressed so close to strangers, he’s suddenly even more aware of his height and...well, brawn. Where Fenris was graceful and lithe, Carver’s a lump, taking up too much space. Although he can dance, kind of. He used to dance for Bethy, didn’t he? To make her laugh when she was upset. Carver’s special jig, she called it.

He hasn’t danced in a long time. Even when he’s been rat-arsed, or when Ri’s needed cheering up. Since Beth died, really. He’s not done a lot of things since she died. Perhaps, he thinks, a part of him went with her. Perhaps, he thinks, if he meets his own end in the Deep Roads, it wouldn’t be so bad—

“Carver!” comes a voice, cutting past the singing and the music and the thud of dozens of feet moving as one. “Carver, are you all right?”

And then Carver realises that he’s stood stock-still in the middle of a whirling mass, thinking of a dead girl, staring at nothing.

No. Not staring at nothing. Staring, he realises, as his vision focuses, directly at Merrill. Who’s stopped dancing, a frown clouding her features: she weaves past revellers, slipping through a gap in the crowd in front of him, until there’s barely a whisper of space between them.

A knot of nerves coils in Carver’s gut. The air’s warm as sin, but there’s gooseflesh prickling across his arms, and a weird chill running down his spine. The last time they were this close was beneath the sprawling branches of the vhenadahl. And look how that went.

“Me?” he answers, not sure where to look again. She’s all red-cheeked and breathless from dancing, and her eyes are sparkling, and Maker, he needs to stop. “Fine. I’m fine! I’m just…”

“Stood completely still,” Merrill notes. “In the middle of a… what was it?” Dodging a rogue elbow, she edges closer to him; somehow, even the smallest of her movements flow in time with the music swelling around them. “A ceilidh? We have a different name for dances like this. I’m not sure one of the moves we have is standing still, though. But you do it well. Very pensive. You’d make a fine statue.”

Is she taking the piss? Is she flirting? Carver’s muscles tighten as he becomes even more horribly aware of her presence. Slowly, palms clammy, he nods. “A ceilidh, yeah.”

“And you’re meant to have a partner for this kind of thing, no?” Merrill asks. “At least, that’s what I thought, although Fenris seemed a bit less…enthusiastic.”

Partners. Two people, dancing. Could he ask...

No. She wouldn’t want to. Not with him. The kid brother. The layabout. Why would she agree? Probably just to be polite, right? She’s always polite. And kind, and warm, and clever—

“Partner? I—yeah,” Carver mumbles again, trying to compose himself. Maker, why does she make him feel so muddled? So much for being less of a wet blanket. “I think.”

“Well.” She gestures to the other revellers, who’ve now started actively dancing around them, shooting them glares vicious enough to wilt flowers. “We look slightly silly, don’t we? Did you maybe…want to dance? With me, I mean. Although of course I meant that. Creators, listen to me.”

Dance. Does Carver want to dance, with Merrill?

No, he tells himself. Not at all. Not in front of everyone. Not front of his sister, who’ll never fucking shut up about it for the rest of her days.

Yes, everything else in him hollers. For they must look a bit ridiculous. And it is his last night up here. And, most of all, because Merrill’s looking at him in a way that makes him feel dizzy. The music’s suddenly slowing, softening, and for some reason, everything feels right.

A heartbeat passes.

Carver nods.

Merril doesn’t say anything, just smiles—a bright and blinding smile, one that makes everything around them fade to grey. Then, gently, she reaches out to take his hands, turns them over, and rests her palms on top of his.

“Follow what I do,” she murmurs, drawing her gaze up from their hands to him.

As the music slips away, and he can feel Merrill’s soft fingertips balanced light as air on his upturned wrists, Carver is perfectly happy where he is.

[whirlwott]

linking back to what i last said....

( quick summary: huey getting bullied & that possibly being a episode plot with della or boyd or someone )

i’ve been trying to think about what the arcs could be for huey, dewey & louie in season 3 and maybe this is hueys? maybe it’s too early to tell, but huey feeling left out and alone could be a very crucial factor of his character development this season. obviously, as seen in astro boyd, it’s clear that huey isn’t exactly popular and is bullied for his love for the junior woodchucks and everything being perfect. maybe his arc in season 3 could be to do with him being left out and needing to realise he’s perfect the way he is.

it’s also kind of shown in challenge of the senior junior woodchucks that huey wants to prove himself and be successful at something. because he doesn’t have a lot of friends / sometimes is made fun of, he feels the need to be the best at something to prove he’s not a loser. he’s desperate to beat violet, even going out of his way to disregard the woodchuck rules, something he lives his life around, to finally get people to see he’s talented and worth appreciating. it’s also seen slightly in the internal internship of mark beaks as huey competes against dewey for the spot as an intern with mark beaks. he so desperately wants this internship, to show he’s successful and worth sometimes and when dewey comes along and manages to do better than him without trying, he feels sad and unwanted - like what he’s doing is pointless and that the situation is unfair.

being in a family, especially one like his, when there’s so many of them, it’s got to be so hard for him to get attention. for example, look at dewey. dewey is easily the most alike the rest of his family, besides donald, scrooge, della & dewey all crave adventure. dewey loves to explore and go on daring quests and would do anything to go on them. he tries to find an adventure in everything he does and because of his talkative and outgoing personality, he gets attention. huey, as much as he adores adventure, doesn’t get the exact same thrill from it. he likes the adventures bc he can use his junior woodchuck skills on them and he likes a challenge and none of his family are exactly like him like dewey is della & scrooge. now, while louie doesn’t exactly enjoy adventuring and would much rather stay at home, he wants to be rich like scrooge. his adventure is wanting to become as successful as scrooge so they both relate to each on that part. and louie got the attention from della at the end of season 2 when he went back in time. della now understands how louie acts even though he doesn’t exactly relate to the family. whilst scrooge is smart and della was a junior woodchuck, they don’t share the same love that huey does for the group & book. huey is also the eldest sibling, which means that he feels he has to be the responsible one and lead for dewey & louie, this is a normal older sibling trait. but it’s especially seen in huey because of all the personality in his family so he feels he has to show he’s the elder sibling, he just wants to be appreciated. so because huey feels like he can’t relate as much to his family, he really likes hanging out with fenton at the lab, they relate to each other; they’re both under appreciated, fenton by gyro and huey by his family.

after we have seen astro boyd, we’ve seen how huey truly feels. huey clearly isn’t popular amongst his other junior woodchucks and doesn’t have a lot of friends. but now, we’ve got boyd. when huey meets boyd, he’s excited to finally have someone who understands him - boyd is the friend who huey has been waiting for. boyd likes to follow along with the guidebook and boys likes to show he’s smart, even though he’s a robot and just comes smart. throughout the episode, we see huey going out of his way to prove that boyd isn’t evil. he constantly is trying to tell and show gyro that boyd is good because he’s just so happy to finally find someone like him. when they both go on their little adventure together, it’s clear huey is having more fun than he has had in a long time, finally with someone who enjoys all the same things as him.

here’s a quote from astro boyd between boyd and huey:

huey: are you sure you’re not bored? my brothers are usually begging me to stop. boyd: are you kidding? i’m having so much fun!

huey is so insecure about what everyone thinks and says that he feels like he’s making boyd annoyed too. he’s so used to everyone disregarding what he says that he doesn’t believe that boyd is actually having fun. he’s become accustomed to him not being important and everyone finding him irritatating that when boyd says he’s enjoying himself, huey is elated. he even goes and sticks the photo of him and boyd into his junior woodchuck guide, the one thing he would never tamper with. he values and appreciates his friendship with boyd so so much that he spends the entire episode proving he’s good. he’s so happy when he’s finally fully good at the end, showing he was right all along and his friendship with boyd is here to stay.

so huey’s arc, where from here? i’d definitely love to see more of his friendship with boyd and then getting to make more amazing memories together. his arc could be him figuring out that he’s perfect the way he is. as sad as it’s gonna be, possibly seeing huey being bullied more may be a good thing for his character. in an episode, he could maybe be bullied so much that he completely disses the idea of being a junior woodchuck completely. he changes himself and tries to be more “normal”. obviously, his family will be very confused and wonder what’s up with him. boyd could also be featured in this episode and maybe even huey gets mad at him? like boyd continuously tries to talk to him about what’s going on until suddenly huey just shouts at him and tells him being a woodchuck and following rules is stupid. this episode could also be a good chance to see della’s maternal instincts kick in. she’s going to want to sort out what’s wrong with huey and she could be pestering him and suddenly he just snaps and cries. this is a whole new field of experience for della and as much as she’s going to want to beat those kids up, she’s going to have be mature and comfort huey. we could get such a heart warming scene and i’m honestly tearing up just thinking about it. maybe even dewey & louie could step in an comfort huey, telling him that they love him just the way he is and they could apologise for “always begging” huey to stop. PLUS i would very much like to see them and webby destroy the bullies like yes :)

at the end of the season, we could finally see huey being happy with himself and much less insecure. maybe his woodchuck skills could be the way f.o.w.l is stopped??? 🤔🤔

idk these are just some ideas whirring in my head but i just hope that huey gets the best arc possible

anyways,,,, i love huey duck the end 🥺

[laureviewer]

Dragons Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age—A Review

WARNING: (not full) spoilers below.

‘We did it darliiiings!’

That’s what I cried, a-la the Great Sylvando, once I finished this game. 112 hours in, and all the way through it showed no signs of slowing. Which, for a shameless JRPG-lover like myself, is exactly what I want in a game. Hours and hours of combat, exploration through stunning scenery, empathetic and deep characters and, most importantly, a completely immersive and entertaining story that I can’t wait to see the climax—but, crucially, I can.

The Chosen One

The story begins in Erdrea, where monsters have invaded the fantastical world—why, we’re not quite sure. All we know, as the infant protagonist, is that we are found washed up on the riverbank by a kindly old man named Chalky, who takes us to his village and gives us to our adoptive mother, Amber.

And, guess what? He’s the Chosen One—the Luminary. You’d have thought our hero would have realised something was different about him with the presence of a very specific birthmark tattooed on the back of his hand, but he and his childhood friend Gemma do come from a sheltered town with very little knowledge of the outside world, after all. True to form for a lot of adventure games, he’s the only one who can save the world. After finding this out in a coming-of-age ceremony a few years later, Amber tells him to go to King Carnelian of Heliodor, who is sure to help him understand what all this means. Right?

If our silent protagonist could talk, this is where he would be screaming, ‘I’m not the Darkspawn!’ as King Carnelian throws him in the dungeon. But thank Yggdrasil he did, or we wouldn’t meet our first companion in our band of loveable misfits.

The Power of Friendship

I’m still unsure why, after so many hours of gameplay, why Erik endears himself the most to me, but he does. Sure, he’s the first one you meet, and you team up to escape the dungeon (running from a giant dragon along the way!), but he’s also a dishonest thief. Throughout the game, you never quite know if he’s in it for himself or to help you save the world. I’ve concluded that he’s actually doing it for you, and your budding bromance…or, at least, that’s my own head cannon. He’s misunderstood. His cutting sarcasm is welcome in a story of overly keen optimists (see: Sylvando). And he’s who the hero seems to look at whenever there’s a sweet, sentimental moment in the story, cementing their true friendship.

Or, maybe it’s because Akira Toriyama drew these characters, and his colourful hair and spunky attitude remind me of my childhood DBZ crush, Trunks. Either way, I’m Team Erik, with his knife-wielding, quick-thinking style of fighting, all the way. My only gripe is that his damage wasn’t that great for me until endgame, unfortunately.

Even though we don’t meet Sylvando until later, it seems that my mind demands he be the next to discuss—much like Sylvando demands much of the attention within the game. We first meet him at the circus, where he is a beloved performer. His quest is to make the people of the world smile—a noble endeavour in a world where the Dark One is coming to rid the world of happiness for good. He is the absolute epitome of flamboyance: he calls your band of companions ‘darlings’; he has a half-naked ship captain with bulging muscles and a pink face mask called Dave, of all things; and he even leads a peacock-feathered parade at a certain point in the game, which the hero must cheerily join in, feathers and sassy sway absolutely necessary.

And yet, he doesn’t simply function as comic relief. He is brave, charming, sympathetic, and quite often the heart of the group. He is always the one to ask if a character is okay, or if they need help, and has conviction that only Henrik, our resident knight in shining armour, would rival. Plus, he’s fantastic with a whip (because of course he is) and has some fabulous healing moves that have saved me more than once in a tough fight. The group would be nothing without Sylvando—and he absolutely knows it!

Veronica & Serena serve as our other characters who are bound by destiny. They are Keepers, born to protect aid the Luminary on his quest. As twins, you’d expect them to look the same…but, after an encounter with monsters, Veronica was turned into a child, and is stuck that way. As an offensive mage who hates being treated like a child, she serves as the brash one of the group, quick to anger, much like her fiery spells.

Serena, on the other hand, serves as the yin to Veronica’s yang. She is temperate and always willing to help, if somewhat hapless. The primary healer of the group, she excels in restorative and defensive magic, and has a harp to while away the less hopeful days. As a pair, these two are steadfast, loyal, and…to be honest, aren’t much more interesting than that, unless Veronica is being goaded into an argument.

Until the later game, anyway. I won’t spoil that here, but will just say I underestimated both their spell casting abilities and their importance in the story. 

You know how the hero is the Chosen One, the Luminary and the absolute saviour of the world? Well, he also happens to be a Prince of Dundrasil. Had the fates been kinder, he might have been brought up in a huge castle, with loving royal family around to raise and guide him.

Rab, a fierce, playful and wise old man (with a banging Scottish accent) is ready to heal, attack with offensive magic, and guide our hero around the expansive world. And, as we find out after defeating him and his sexy companion in a battle competition in Octagonia (see: Jade), he is also grandfather to our hero, and thus a Lord of Dundrasil himself. He may seem old, but not only does he have royal blood, but he is a capable spell-caster and martial artist, making it apparent that he is one of the most capable companions in the game. If I were to ask anyone for advice, knowing that he would neither mince his words nor omit anything important, I would go to Rab.

You know what any game directed at kids needs? That’s right, a sexy warrior princess that you can stick in a bunny costume for most of the game. Even if you choose not to do that, her combat outfit doesn’t leave much to the imagination.

Thankfully, Jade isn’t just eye-candy. She has far more going for her. She’s a Princess of Heliodor, the hero’s childhood companion who lost him as a baby. She just wants to find him, her younger brother figure (sadly), and help him fulfil his destiny. Plus, as a battle and spear fighter, she has some of the strongest moves in the game—albeit mostly from her sexy, love-based moves such as ‘Hip Thrust’ and ‘Sexy Beam’, only comparable with Sylvando’s equally as sexy and flamboyant ‘Lashings of Love’ and ‘That’s Amore’ moves. She’s a badass bitch who takes no crap from lovestruck men or monsters.

Though, she has her very own Princess Leia moment, where she is captured by a horrific, giant, evil and ugly monster and made to wear a sexy outfit (hey, there’s that bunny girl outfit again). It is heavily implied she has been under his mind control, and that he’s been having his ‘wicked way’ with her. Good thing she comes out of it with sexy vampire powers, isn’t it?

HEAVY SPOILERS NOW. I warn you, don’t go any further if you care about that kind of thing.

Our final companion is one who doesn’t show up until late game. Sir Henrik, a Knight of Heliodor, is the hero we all need. He defends his ruler to the last (which, spoiler alert, nearly ended up being his fatal flaw), is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all, and defends the weak: a true knight, with chivalry, bravery, and total care for all others. It’s a shame he hated the hero for the first half of the game, really.

But do I care about that? No, I care that his greatsword abilities make him an absolute tank. On a one-on-one fight, I needed him front and centre of every battle just for his incredible damage output. Against multiple enemies, he is less useful, but with his supplementary healing and defence skills, he isn’t just an attacker, but a true defender of the people to the last.  

Calm it with the Combat

My god, this game has a lot of battles. While that’s expected for a turn-based JRPG, and there were a lot, unlike others such as Pokémon, you can choose which battles to avoid as the figures traverse the overworld. This is useful in such a slow-burning game, and also helps you find the monsters you want—again, a definite improvement on the way Pokémon works, as it saves you having to fight hundreds of creatures you don’t want to find the ones with the best EXP.

A notable exception to this is when you have to find and defeat a rare monster for a quest, which don’t traverse the overworld. This means you have to fight potentially hundreds of more common monsters to find the one you want, which can be frustrating, especially as it is all done on chance and not on how many you have defeated. While you can increase your chances with various items or equipment, it still adds a frustrating amount of time to an already long game.

Another vague annoyance is how much harder the game gets post-game. I actually did not have an issue with this, as a friend told me how to farm the elusive and high-EXP metal slimes using a particular Hero-Erik-Jade Pep Power and so I could use this ability throughout post-game. However, for those not in the know, the potentially grinding at the end of the game may put some people off finishing an already saturated game.

What I loved about the combat was how it kept getting harder and harder. I never worried about over-levelling (as said above, I was more worried about being under levelled) and that meant I could do what I do best: do all side-quests before the end of the main story. In other JRPGs, the completionist in me has always made me want to do all side-quests, but this has meant the final boss has been underwhelming and easier than it should be.

The variation of powers and attacks was also really interesting. You can spec into different forms of fighting for each character—I went for Swords with the hero, Whips for Sylvando, Boomerangs with Erik (after using Daggers for most of the game), Heavy Wands for Rab and Veronica, Wands for Serena, Spears for Jade, and Greatswords for Henrik—and this makes all the combinations of them in the party very cool. I normally just controlled the hero during the fights and let the others fight wisely, unless there was a specific quest to fulfil or a particularly hard boss. Not only did this speed up combat, but it also helped me to learn which of their moves were the most effective against which monsters automatically and quickly, which was easier than picking moves and trying them out myself. It’s easy, with enough gold, to respec if you like, and this I’m sure could make the game fee different every time if you wanted to play with different specs.

Pep powers were also a lot of fun. While it was sometimes annoying waiting for some or all of the characters to pep up and therefore use these moves that combine different characters’ moves for ‘Ultimate’ attacks, they provided fun cutscenes and made the battles more interesting. Plus, they reminded me a lot of DBZ moves, especially the epic ones with the hero and Rab!

Top tip: you can swap out characters and they will keep their pepped-up status. I wish I’d known about that a lot earlier!

The monster designs are great, as per usual Akira Toriyama style. There are lots of different kinds, from slimes, to mechs, to really weird ones like the kissy lip monster and the Bongo Drongos. The bosses are also amazing. Just all the character designs, from human to monster, to anything else. I see a lot of DBZ in all of them, which is fantastic.

You know what? Here’s some pictures. You’re welcome.

Mini Games & Challenges: Hey, I actually want to do these!

I often have issues with mini games, as sometimes they are so different from the main game that I just don’t want to spend time playing them. Gwent in another of my favourite games, The Witcher 3 is a good example: I never really learnt the rules, which I’m sure would have helped, but it was so detached from the main game I just didn’t care. Plus, it had no effect on the story or game at large, so what was the point?

In DQ11, sure, you don’t need to rack up 500,000 casino tokens in poker or the slots to buy better gear. You don’t have to finish first in all five Gallopolis horse races. Forging items isn’t totally needed to advance the game. It’s not necessary to win all five rounds of the Wheel of Harma in a certain number of moves (though this is much more like the rest of the game than the other mini games). But I did all of these, and it was great fun. It’s what’s helped make the game such a time suck (especially the casino) but I never felt like they were a chore.

Apart from the crossbow bullseyes. I did none of them as apparently I only noticed about three out of however many there are. They can suck my Sword of Light.  

 What’s a good JRPG without me questioning the point of life after it’s over?

JRPGs do it best—fight me.

The story of DQ11 is immersive, interesting, intricate and, at times, incredibly heart-breaking. Following the hero and his friends for over 100 hours really means you get to dive into their adventure, and more so, their relationships. You truly believe why they have chosen to follow each other into danger, to protect each other as well as the world. Sure, he’s the Luminary, so Serena & Veronica, the Luminary’s guides, at least have a reason to follow him to the end. The fact he’s the Luminary at may mean the characters have more faith in him than they would anyone else without lightning powers. But, even without that, you get the impression that they trust him for his innocent and yet resolute determination to do the right thing, whatever the cost.

The NPCs in the game also provide variety and are a lot of fun. There’s a lovesick mermaid, a brilliantly incompetent prince, two brothers in Laguna di Gondolia who are trying to sell the same things to you for different prices, and Silvando’s Smile Brigade, to name just a few. Their backstories, personalities and current stories all bring life to a game already chock full of it, and makes even simple fetch quests interesting and well worth doing, if you value a good story like I do. These little touches explain why the game clocks in at well over 100+ hours, but at the same time gives true justification to why that is. It’s the difference between a boring game, and one I loved to turn on and just relax of an evening. I might not have done all that much in three hours, but I still enjoyed every minute.

With everything considered, I will remember DQ11 fondly as one of my favourite JRPGs to date. The storyline, characters, combat and score are all fantastic and makes me wish I played the older games. Thank you, Dragon Quest, for giving me 112 hours of fun. 

[buffyversefanfiction]

Tristan Tormented

Fanfiction Series to “Buffy the vampire Slayer” series, “Angel” series and the Buffyverse continuation in the “Dark Horse Comics” series. Warning: I do not own the rights to the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off series Angel, its dark horse comics continuation series, or any of the characters created by Joss Whedon and others in the Buffyverse. 15 years +, Mild to Strong Violence, Sexual References F/F, F/M, M/M, Other +

Volume 3 - Able Angel

Vampire Tristan Summers had a mission on his mind and he was not going to stop until he achieved said mission, the mission being destroying anyone who could remotely bring out the man inside his monster and although the list was not long it was still a hefty task after all he had almost died several times before when trying to take out some of them and did die with one of them.

Angel was never meant to be a father mostly due to his undead status so when he did father his first child Connor he found himself feeling an unconditional love like no other only to lose him to another world and although over the years they had made major progress their bond was still nowhere near as great as Angel hoped it would be and now he was facing all that pain again with Tristan Summers only this time it was worse because sooner or later Angel’s second son would have to be stopped and his biggest fear had become the idea that he might just have to be the one that does the stopping. “You have to forgive me someday Angel,” Faith told him as she walked through the front doors of the abandoned looking Hyperion Hotel, chasing after her vampire friend, pleading with him to forgive her for past mistakes. “This is not just some mistake Faith; you kept my son from me and then you stopped me from killing him so now he is out there killing people and that is on you!” Angel argued. “He was killing people long before he was a vamp and if we give up on him now, he will be long after.” Faith replied, eager to make Angel side with her on her quest to save Tristan’s soul. “He was coming off less evil not a lot less evil but still less and I just know if we get Willow to ram a soul down his throat or however that goes then you may finally get to have some kind of relationship with him.” “Do not think I do not want to be a father to him, of course I do but you and Buffy made it impossible and now the next time I see him I am going to have to kill him!” Angel admitted to the redeemed slayer. “He has no soul and even when he did, he was evil.” “We both took walks on the dark side and we had each other’s backs why can’t we have his too?” Faith asked him, reminding them both of their dark pasts. “It’s not as black and white as that.” Angel reluctantly replied, once again facing the fact he may have to kill his own child. “Then let us dive straight into the grey and save your son.” Faith responded, making her determination clear to Angel. “On this particularly rare occasion I happen to agree with Faith.” Giles announced as he walked through the front doors shocking both Angel and Faith by his presence. “After my failed attempt to rehabilitate him I have been working hard to find a way to make things right.” “Failed attempt?” Faith scoffed at the former watcher, “That is like me saying oops my stake slipped when I killed a guy, somehow I do not think that response would have went down that well, nor is yours.” “It would have been more believable than trying to pin the crime on Buffy.” Giles replied to the troubled slayer. “Look I am here to make things right!” “Trust me when I say your nowhere near the top of the list of people who need to make things right for me, even if you did almost kill my son, Dru actually did so she’s ahead of you in that department.” Angel explained to Giles, making it clear no ill will was held between the two of them. “Thank you, Angel,” Giles responded to the vampire with a soul before walking over to him and Faith. “I’ve been referring with some old friends about the impossibility of Tristan Summers as well as doing some digging on my own and the information I have found was…well rather astonishing really! The boy really is one of a kind.” “Something tells me this is going to be one big watcher talk when I would rather just be out there doing what needs done.” Faith chimed in, making it clear she wanted Giles to get his point across quickly. “I stumbled upon a prophecy of a human who was born of both vampire and slayer origins yet somehow remained human and as I continued to read the text in which is was written it only grew more fascinating. The prophecy spoke of the human becoming a slayer by his own means, then later a vampire by another’s hands and yes I know that already sums up what has happened but it was the next part that really blew my mind, so to speak.” Giles informed them both. “You see it said the boy would change before becoming a slayer in his own right but he would not change after becoming a vampire, it spoke of how all that was remained unlike any vampire before him and how it would lead to the beginning of the demonic slayer…a being possible of both great things and terrible evils but a being needed in an upcoming apocalypse nonetheless.” Angel and Faith remained stood in shock by Giles’ revelation that Tristan was still the man he was before a monster and while that idea did not surprise Faith entirely due to her strong belief in the rogue slayer turned vampire it did surprise her hearing it was possible for Tristan to do some good, as Angel remained shocked by every word, knowing Giles would not lie to them but not wanting to admit there was hope for his son until he saw it for himself, having lost his sons one too many times before.

After throwing his latest victim’s body to the ground, having drained the woman completely of her blood, a full vamp face Tristan wiped the blood off his face before return to his human form which was when he realized the alleyway he had found himself was very familiar to him being too hungry and focused on the hunt before too realise where he was going but now he was fed and his victim was dead he realized his hunt had taken him home. Memories of his beloved Dante began charging through his mind as he felt all the pain of losing him once more while continuing to walk down the alleyway until Tristan stopped outside of the boarded up building he and Dante once called their home, the deadly demonic dive bar where he had last experienced any kind of happiness with his now fully dusted vampire lover. Tristan could swear just by standing outside the building itself that he could smell Dante but he knew that was his mind playing tricks on him, wanting to undo what could not be undone but still feeling Dante once more was what he needed in that moment as he began tearing down the planks of wood boarding up the door to his home before kicking the door open and walking in. “Did he know about Drusilla?” He wondered about Dante as he stood in the middle of the barely standing demonic dive bar, once again taking in the ruins of what used to be. “Did he help kill my parents? No, he would not do that to me…he loved me…but he did not love me then.” He had never doubted Dante’s love for him for one second and felt bad for doubting it now he was gone but with Drusilla having lied to him all these years he couldn’t help but wonder if any of his time spent with Dante was true or was he playing a role just like his sire Drusilla. “Did anybody ever really love me?” He asked himself, fearing the answer was no. “Could anybody really love a monster like me?” Tristan quickly realized he was not alone to his thoughts when he heard footsteps coming from the front door and like a knee jerk reaction he quickly picked up a piece of broken wood from the ground ready to slay whoever dared come into his home only to be left completely stunned when none other than Spike walked in. “I guess you never got far from those woods, but I guess why would you when this place was your home.” Spike said as he held his hands up to show he had no weapons and had no plans to fight Tristan, “I only want to talk to you kid.” “Why would I want to talk to my mother’s pet?” Tristan asked his fellow vampire, while clutching the wooden stake in his hand tighter. “You see I do not feel like talking but I am always down for killing.” “I want to help you and I know somewhere in there you want to be helped.” Spike told him. “You really are desperate to get Buffy to look at you again.” Tristan laughed cruelly, amused by Spike’s words. “Hate to break it to you but me bad you good we do not talk we just fight to the death.” “The hatred you had for Drusilla remained after turning didn’t it? And that hatred comes from a place of love, the love you had for your adoptive parents, the love I am going to guess you still have for them?” Spike questioned the slayer turned vampire, already knowing he was right. “Wow, of all the pep talkers I did not take you for one but then again you are Buffy’s pet after all.” Tristan replied, eager to antagonize Spike. “I barely had feelings when I was alive and I sure as hell do not have any now.” “Would you stop with the bloody pet talk?” Spike groaned as he walked closer to Tristan. “If you stop calling me kid,” Tristan responded before throwing a right punch across Spike’s face. “because this kid has gone pro now!” Spike wasted no time in replying to Tristan’s violence with some more violence as he punched the former slayer across the face leading to Tristan headbutting Spike in the face before kicking him to the ground. “I guess the slayer strength stuck around after death.” Spike replied as he quickly rose back on his feet, before his face turned into full vamp mode and he charged towards Tristan ready for a brutal fight with the son of the woman he loved.

Meanwhile back in Los Angeles, Angel sat behind his desk within his office at the Hyperion Hotel reading from the books that Giles, fact checking what Giles had already informed of about his son Tristan, realizing that his son did somehow still have his soul despite becoming undead making Tristan more like his father than Angel ever expected him to be. He must have re-read the text within those ancient and mystical books a hundred times not believing the truth to what he was reading as he struggled to come to terms with not only his sons seemingly indestructible soul but the importance he would have in an upcoming apocalypse, not even wanting to think about the likelihood of Tristan being on the team of evil rather than good. “You know you can keep reading it forever and it is not going to change, trust me I read it about a million times before I even began to consider it being true.” Giles told Angel as he walked into the vampire’s office. “Then went the excruciating research, the endless pleading of former colleagues to decipher it differently or at the very least some definition of whether he was fighting for good or evil.” “I get the demonic part of being a slayer I mean I feel the demon inside of me every day but I do not understand how it is even possible for him to still have a soul.” Angel answered as he closed the books and stood up to stand face to face with Giles. “You are a vampire with a soul the very definition of impossible clearly your son takes after you in that sense. I cannot begin to try and explain how he is possible let alone how his soul is still intact, but I do believe this means there’s something inside of your son that is salvageable.” Giles attempted to explain, revealing his newfound optimism towards helping Tristan find redemption. “Why not go straight to Buffy?” Angel wondered, “I am glad you came to me with this but why not her?” “I am not exactly on speaking terms with Buffy or Willow for a matter of fact after almost killing your child, besides I truly believe if it comes past the point of redemption that you will do what you have to do…so would Buffy of course but I would rather spare her from that pain.” Giles admitted to the dark-haired vampire. “I guess this means it is time for a father son reunion.” Angel declared, terrified to how this intervention for his second child would end, hoping beyond hope it would not end in him having to kill his son. “Count me in!” Faith chimed in as she walked into the room, making it clear she was eavesdropping the entire time and she was more than eager to take part in another round of team twisted. Giles had convinced Angel that his claims were real and even convinced him to take part in his redemption rescue mission but one person who never needed any convincing was Faith who had been backing Tristan from the beginning despite his endless evil deeds. A part of Faith connected with Tristan or at least her former self anyway, a part of her that was still in there deep down but had been controlled for a long time now and she believed she could help the slayer turned vampire into controlling his dark side too. Faith Lehane was never the saving souls type until she found her own saved and although she did not make a case of going out on a limb for most if any people she was determined to get Tristan Summers on the right side, partly because of seeing herself in him, partly to do something good for Buffy to make up for all the bad and to make up for straining her relationship with Angel. The funny thing about the path to redemption is the person seeking it for themselves tend to pick up a lot of others along the way, believing deep down that if they can help as many people as possible down that path then they would ultimately be helping themselves too.

“Yeah funny thing about Tristan…let me just say I have him secured already!” Spike said down the phone to Faith while standing in Tristan’s former demonic bar, bloody and bruised from his fight with the demonic slayer which he had eventually grown the upper hand in as a passed out Tristan lay on the floor beneath Spike’s feet.

[palettepainter]

(IMPORTANT UPDATES) Look back at 2019

Big changes for 2020! Hey there everyone! 2019 has come and gone, another year passed and a new chance for me to try and improve myself when the new year starts! As far as I know me and my family don’t have plans to celebrate New Years other then of course spending time together, but I want to post this now just so that it’s out of the way it’s posted and I won’t have to worry about. If I can be honest, 2019 towards the last few months of the year has been a real punch in the face..multiple punches. I’ve broken off connections with people who treated me wrongly in the past, had random breakdowns at school (don’t worry they weren’t seriously bad), had trouble with siblings - it’s been overall, a very up and down year for me, but sadly towards the end and in the running up to Christmas, it was mostly down. But hey, 2020 means the start of a new year and a new chance to grow stronger as a person and an artist!..Seriously though 2020, please be kind to me- As you can probably from what’s in the title, there are going to be a few big changes to my characters and stories going into 2020. I’ve been thinking about this stuff a lot ever since mid August, it’s been something I’ve mentioned to one or two people, but ultimately I had to make the choice. And now with 2019 gone and done and 2020 being the opportunity to start fresh, I think it’s a good time to make these announcements. I understand that this may upset a few of you and yes it is going to make things a bit confusing for my NGAU, but this is my choice and I’m confident that making this choice will lead to me being much more happier with what I make. 🔸I will not be continuing my Zoophobia: Next Generation book series To anyone new who doesn’t know what I mean, Zoophobia: Next Generation was a book series I started back in December 2018, which included my own NG’s and one or two OC’s from the fandoms Zoophobia and Hazbin Hotel. Since the first book the series has since gained a lot of attention on Wattpad, and believe me when I say that I am truly grateful for how much positive attention the series got! It was my first time ever writing something on my own and it felt really special to know so many of you liked what I was doing! But as the series went on, I slowly began to loose my drive to continue writing. This is something I’ve admitted to close friends, but now that I’m older and I’m more aware of errors in writing and certain ways in which writing can be written to be better, I realise that the series isn’t up to my current standards. The story itself isn’t one that I’m proud of, and as my first book series, I feel like I was biting off more then I could chew when I first started writing this series. Ive realised that the story line I had in mind would be too hard to work into both Zoophobia and Hazbin Hotel without me having to make very big changes to either of those fandoms current stories and/or certain characters personalities, and though yes it is my own AU so if I wanted I could change the characters to fit better with my story, but honestly, I don’t want to change the characters. The characters from Zoophobia and HH I absolutely adore and there isn’t much I want changed about them, so I don’t want to alter the characters drastically to the point where they become an entirely different character. The main drive of the story with the main characters didn’t pick up till around the second book, and when I first started writing, the story line wasn’t even finished, I was just going with the flow and linking one thing to the other, hoping people would like it just as much as I did at the time. And lastly, this is probably the biggest reason why I’m no longer going to be continuing the series, but the first couple of chapters of the first book where too heavily inspired by another book series: I don’t want to continue to create something, when I feel as if it’s been too heavily based around someone else’s work. I want to create my own stuff and I feel as though the first book just isn’t that, it’s not my own work, and that’s leaded to me viewing the first book as my least favourite. This means that from now going forward, any events that took place in the book series is now no longer cannon. Some headcannons will be changed and altered due to this, for one Eve’s Headcannon will be changing as she will now most likely be alive in my NGAU now, so the stories I had planned for her such and the stories I already posted are no longer cannon either: I will say also that this also counts for my Eve X Hatchet NG Diego, he will remain cannon and will most likely be alive also. As for the characters that where involved in the books such as Lucy, Maggot and Bumbuss, I’ll figure out what to do with them. I defiantly want to keep Lucy as she was the very first OC I ever made for the Zoophobia fandom that wasn’t a NG, but I’m unsure on what to do with Maggot and Bumbuss. As much as I now don’t enjoy the series, it was fun to write while it lasted, and I cannot stress enough how grateful I am too everyone who ever read, liked, or commented on the series! But from now on, I won’t be returning to the series. I held off on announcing this and the reason it took me so long to decide this was because I didn’t want to leave you guys without a conclusion to the story, the series was only one book away from completion and I didn’t want to cut off the series so close to it being finished. But again, the book series isn’t something I enjoy anymore, so I hope all of you can understand and will hopefully look forward to the further projects I have planned 🔸New books to come Though my main book series will now be ending, I have a lot of ideas for new book series. Since the second and third book I had been having ideas for stories that could take place after the series, and the reason I kept doing the series for as long as I did was because I really wanted to start work on the stories that would take place after the series was finished. One of my goals for the new year is to try and push out more stories and book series for you guys, I feel like I’ve defiantly been lacking in the story department, mostly because I couldn’t find any ideas for illustrations to go with the story, and because I always felt too tired to ever finish any stories or illustrations. None of these story ideas yet have fully scripted out story lines, so far they’re just ideas and until I can get a script done for them, I won’t be starting work on them. I want these books to be as great and they can be, and not only do I want to make something that I can be proud of, but something that you guys will enjoy as much as I do. These ideas are in no particular order, and I haven’t decided if I’ll defiantly be doing all of these just yet, but here are some ideas I’ve had for books/book series for the future: -A book with my NG Box explaining her past before she came to live with Ribbon -A book with my OC Willem and how he discovers another hybrid like himself -Nidra’s story as she grows up to accept a new family, while letting a beloved friend go to persue their own life -Junior reapers: a story/series of stories involving Lotus, Charcoal, Parfait and Rae as they go on a quest to become junior reapers Maybe a MHA + Dragonous story *Dragonous is a Villainous dragon AU created by shabiest (Instagram), I will need to get permission from them if I want to write a book with this AU* Recently I got into My Hero Academia, and you can all blame that on my cousin When I first saw the series I kinda rolled my eyes at it, I’ve never really been a big anime fan the style never grabbed me when I was younger: and all I can say is that I should defiantly have given the series a try sooner MHA is a series I’ve come too really enjoy and love, I love the characters the story the dialogue, everything about this show! I’ve said this before but what I love about the show is how it’s great at showing us a large range of characters without straying too far from the main plot, and how this show makes me feel: there have been times where this show has had me emotionally frustrated, sad and happy, and if a show or a movie can make me feel a powerful emotion (angry sad or other), then I’m down for it. I’ve since made a few OC’s for the fandom, and I’ve been thinking about making a book about it. It’s not scripted out yet, and some of my ideas play into some events in season 4 - but if you guys enjoy MHA and you enjoy my OC’s, please let me know your thoughts! And Dragonous, a Villanious AU I’ve come to adore! I’ve always been a big fan of dragons, they where my favourite mythical creature growing up! (And still are to this day), with the creators permission I’d like to create a book with the few OC’s I’ve made, this one may not happen because again I need permission, but tell me your thoughts! Merch Again, something I’ve mentioned before, and something I’ve been really wanting to do! Me and my dad have made a shirt design with one of my OC’s, so far it’s only black and white (we’ve decided to go simple black and white since it’s my first time making merch), and hopefully if all goes well we can start to make more colourful merch However this all depends on you guys: I may be opening up commissions in the future, though I can’t say when, but this will depend on you: I have a PayPal and a KoFi if you guys wish to support me and my work (no pressure though!), every little bit counts and it would mean so much to me if you guys would consider supporting me and my work, even if it’s something as small as a pound! 🔸Collabs/art trades/design trades/RP’s There’s nothing really big to say about these things, but I have decided that from now on that I will only do these kinds of things with close friends.

Finally, I want to say a big BIG thank you to everyone who has stuck around on this crazy train ride to support me. This year as I said at the beginning, has not been the best for me towards the end, and I am so grateful to all the support you guys gave me. I know that I'm not very good with replying to comments/messages, and I'm so sorry if I never got round to replying to your message or comment, but I do read the comments, I do see the wonderful things you guys say, and it's absolutely delightful to see the nice things you guys say!  I want to give a big big BIG thank you to these wonderful people who have been there for me, whether it was to geek out over a show to if they where there for me when I needed support: @hazbinextgeneration​   - You've been an amazing pal right from the beginning, you where one of the very first people I met when I first got into the Zoophobia and HH fandom and you've been an absolute gem! You've been there for me when I was down and you've listened through out all of my nerd outs about characters and shows, and to have someone listen to me meant so much! You comment on nearly every piece of my work and you're always so kind and giving! Not only to me but to so many others! You've made me a lot and fanart and I'm sorry I don't nearly do enough for you in return, going into 2020, I want to change that!  @cosmic-artzz​   - If you hadn't been there to listen to me and help me out, I honestly don't know what kind of situation I would be in now. You helped me cut off ties with people I honestly wasn't happy talking with, and despite being dragged into my drama over and over again, you where still there to listen to both sides of the argument and give advice on how I could make things better. You've always been a delight to talk to and I'm so happy we had the chance to become friends! I'm so sorry you get dragged into my troubles as much as you did dude! Going into 2020, I promise you I'll be more confident in putting my foot down when I feel as though I'm not being treated fairly! And lastly, I want to thank all of you! For sticking with me on this crazy journey! Here's to 2020 and hoping its a wonderful year!!

[tsarisfanfiction]

Splatter

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Virgil, Gordon, Scott, John, Jeff, Lucille

And another fic for @gumnut-logic‘s #irrelief!  Two prompts for this one: “Little Virgil & Gordon” from @weirdburketeer and “Virgil trying to teach a brother how to art” from @melmac78

Scott was going to regret leaving him to handle Gordon alone, especially when paint got involved.

Nine year old Virgil eyed the paper in front of him critically.  It was almost done, almost perfect.  Just one more dab of paint… there.  His hand retreated and he nodded, satisfied, before movement caught his eye and reflexes honed by necessity caught questing, paint-covered, fingers as his menace of a younger brother reached out to deface his newly completed art.

“Gordon!” he complained at the five year old, who grinned back at him mischievously.  “What are you doing?”

“Painting!” he said gleefully, holding up two hands covered completely in a rainbow of colours.  With some despair, Virgil could see that damage had already been done – unsupervised, Gordon had managed quite an impressive array of handprints along the furniture and newly wallpapered walls.

Why was their demon brother unsupervised?

“Scott!” he hollered up at the ceiling.

“Scott’s busy!” Gordon chirped, smearing his paint-smothered hands on the table and narrowly missing Virgil’s completed artwork.  It was still too wet to move, and Virgil’s own fingers were paint-smeared and needed a wash before he touched it again anyway, therefore it was – somewhat – simpler to instead relocate the slippery creature he was apparently related to.

“Why is Scott busy?” he asked, hoping said brother would appear and take the five year old away before any more paint ended up where it shouldn’t.

“Homework!” Gordon grinned, flailing his hands around.  Globs of paint flew through the air, one landing squarely on Virgil’s nose.  He swiped it away irritably, only for Gordon to point and laugh.

He still had paint on his fingers.  And now on his face.

“SCOTT!” he yelled, as Gordon giggled insistently.  “JOHN!”

“What?” Scott’s voice finally floated down to him, sounding distracted.  John, predictably, didn’t answer.  His nose was probably buried in a book, rendering him deaf to the world. It wouldn’t be unusual.

“Gordon’s being a pain!” he complained.  With Mom and Dad taking Alan for a check-up, Scott had been left temporarily in charge and, in Virgil’s opinion, was doing a thoroughly poor job by shutting himself up in his room and letting Gordon run wild.

“I’m doing homework!” Scott shouted back.  “You play with him!”

A door shut upstairs, signalling the end of the conversation.  Virgil fumed silently at him for a moment, before realising that Gordon wasn’t giggling any more.  He looked around frantically, and found him raising a single, colourful, finger immediately above his finished artwork.

“No!” he snapped, leaping at his brother and forcefully dragging him away.  Brown eyes looked up at him hopefully.

“I want to paint!” he declared, emphasising his demand with a sticky finger jabbing at Virgil’s cheek. “Let’s paint!”

Virgil looked at his already paint-covered brother, glared up at the ceiling where his elder brothers had both willingly abandoned him to this fate, and then grinned.

If Scott wanted him to play with Gordon, he would play with Gordon.  After all, Scott was in charge and he was just doing as he was told.

“Okay,” he agreed, picking up his paints and taking them over to the kitchen floor, along with some vaguely paint-free paper.  “I’ll show you how to finger paint.”  Gordon’s ever-present devil’s grin was out in full force.

“I already know how to finger paint!” he declared, splatting his hand down in the vague vicinity of the paper, leaving another colourful mess on the floor.  “See!”

“No,” Virgil corrected him, leading him to the sink and washing the worst of the paint off of his hands as best he could.  Gordon wriggled, not unhappy with the water, but disappointed to see swirls of colour running down the drain.  “First, we need clean hands.”  He washed his own as well, using his bigger size to keep Gordon pinned in place until his hands were also acceptable.  “And dry ones, otherwise the paint will get too runny.”

The towel was accepted with poor grace, Gordon more interested in slapping wet hands on Virgil’s clothes instead.  Virgil persevered, however, and soon had Gordon sat cross legged on the floor, in front of the paper and paint, with clean, dry hands.  He sat down next to him, keeping most of the paint out of reach.

Gordon lunged for the paint in reach, dabbing his fingers in with precision until each finger (and thumb) had a different colour on, before he lurched for the paper and slammed them all down at the same time.  Virgil winced.

“That’s how babies finger paint,” he protested, looking at the hand prints rapidly forming as Gordon mixed the colours on the paper with abandon.  “I’ll show you how to do it properly.”

Gordon looked at the mess on the paper – a purple-brown concoction, for the most part – and then at his fingers.

“Clean your hands again,” Virgil told him, picking up another bit of paper.  Gordon wiped his hands vigorously on his clothes – freshly applied, the paint transferred readily to the fabric.  “Properly, Gordon.  Or no more painting.”  The blond menace pouted, but dutifully scrambled onto the stool to reach the sink again.

As the water gushed out of the taps, Virgil placed his clean paper over the mess Gordon had made, pressing down on it carefully and holding it there until he was satisfied the paint had stained it before pulling it away.

The water was still running.

“Gordon,” he said, and with a giggle the boy finally shut off the tap and hurriedly wiped his hands on the towel again before skidding back to his side on his knees.  “Look.”  He carefully dipped a single finger in the green, before dabbing towards the top of the area.  “Leaves!” Gordon’s eyes brightened, and he jabbed a finger in the blue before making swirls at the bottom of the paper.

“Water!” he said.  “Look.”  A wonky circle took up a hand’s-width of the paper, before a single skinny finger trailed a blue line from it all the way to the edge of the paper, and onto the floor. “A lake with a river!”

Virgil grinned.

“You do the water, I’ll do the plants,” he said, and Gordon nodded enthusiastically.  “Look, if you use darker and lighter colours, it looks better.”  Finding a dark green and a yellow paint, he dabbed at his green splotches.  Gordon watched with wide eyes before smearing a finger with the darker blue and slapping it in the middle of his lake.

“It’s deeper in the middle!” he declared.  “Where the fish swim.”

“And brighter at the top, where it sees the sun,” Virgil added, using his yellow to give little highlights to the top of each leaf.  Gordon frowned, looking at the paint colours, before taking a little bit of blue and adding some white to mix it together for a pale blue.  Virgil added a little more, for better contrast, even though his interference was met with blue paint on his shirt as Gordon pouted, and once the blond was satisfied he added the lighter colour to one edge of his lake.

Then he smeared yellow on his finger and added in small blobs with spikes to both the lake and the river.

“Lots of fish!” he said proudly, before using the orange unbidden to give the spikey blobs darker patches, and then the white for whiter patches “on top!”

Virgil laughed and let him be as he focused on his own leaves, adding in a bright red caterpillar to offset all the greens and blues.  Gordon also stole some red for more fish, and green for a frog, and by the time a car could be heard in the driveway, their woodland lake was full of creatures.

At the sound of the car, Gordon froze and looked around, as did Virgil.

The kitchen was a mess, large parts of the floor covered in paint.  It was going to take a lot to clean, and Mom and Dad would not be happy. A lithe, paint-covered hand, found the plastic palette of paint and with a Cheshire cat grin, Gordon flipped it face down.

“Whoops,” he said, gleefully.  Virgil stared at him in horror, knowing that was one more thing that would upset their parents, before remembering why he’d ended up painting with Gordon, of all the messy creatures.

He grinned back at Gordon and gestured up the stairs.  Brown eyes met brown eyes, and a matching look of mischief came over his own face.

“Not our fault,” he whispered.  A devious trouble maker already, it didn’t take Gordon long to catch on.

“Scott!” he giggled quietly, and as voices sounded outside the house, Mom and Dad getting out of the car, they crept upstairs and into their bedroom. ��Paint-covered hands muffled giggles as they sat on the floor and waited.

They didn’t have to wait long.

“SCOTT CARPENTER TRACY!” Dad’s voice boomed out.  “GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!”  There was a sudden scuffling from the room next door, sounding suspiciously like a chair falling over, before the door opened.

“What is it, Dad?” Scott called.

“I said GET DOWN HERE!” Dad repeated, and Virgil and Gordon had to hold their breath not to be overheard as their eldest brother tramped down the stairs loudly – before the noise stopped suddenly.

“What-” Scott started, only to be cut off.

“Your mother and I were gone two hours, Scott.  You promised you didn’t need the neighbours to watch you, so why is the house covered in paint?”

“Virgil was the one painting!” Scott protested.  “It’s got nothing to do with me!”

“Not just Virgil, judging by the amount of blue and yellow on the kitchen floor,” Mom interjected.  “You were supposed to keep an eye on your brothers, Scott, not hide from them in your room.”

“I was doing my homework!” Scott protested.

“The same homework you told me you didn’t have so you could definitely watch your brothers?” Mom replied, and there was silence.  Virgil and Gordon stared at each other, wide-eyed, then jumped as their bedroom door opened.

John slipped in, rolled his eyes at the pair of them, then settled on the floor by the window with his book.

“Get paint on me or the book and I will kill you,” he said firmly.  “I am not dealing with Storm Scott.”

Virgil nodded, although wondered why John would come here to escape, then turned his attention back to the altercation downstairs.

“Now, you are going to go upstairs, change into your painting clothes, and then clean this up,” Dad was saying firmly.

“But I didn’t do it!” Scott protested, loudly and furiously.

“Your responsible brothers will be helping you, don’t worry,” Mom told him.

“But why do I have to clean up their mess?” Scott demanded.

“Because this happened while you were supposed to be supervising them,” Dad said.  “If you want us to leave you without bringing in the neighbours, you need to start taking responsibility.  Now get moving – I can’t start dinner until this kitchen is spotless.”

Heavy footsteps stomped their way up the stairs, and Virgil and Gordon both flinched as their bedroom door slammed open, irate brother glowering at them through puffy red eyes.

Instantly, some of Virgil’s glee at payback for Scott abandoning him to Gordon faded.  Even Gordon seemed a little subdued.

“Sorry, Scott,” Virgil said before his brother could start shouting at them.  “I didn’t think they’d be that mad at you.”

“Have you seen the state you left it in?” Scott demanded furiously.  “I trusted you to keep Gordon busy just while I finished my homework, and then you go and do this?  Mom and Dad will never trust me again!”  The rest of Virgil’s satisfaction fled, and he looked down at his bedroom floor – and the paint that marred it.

“Sorry, Scott,” Gordon echoed, standing and giving his brother a hug, puppy dog eyes in full force. Scott glared down at him, and Gordon started to sniffle, eyes welling with water.

“Well we’re not getting dinner until it’s cleaned up,” John sighed, slotting a bookmark into his book and laying it on the windowsill.  “Yell later, clean now.  I’ll help.” So much for not dealing with Storm Scott, Virgil thought.

Scott snapped from wavering at Gordon’s tears, and shooting death glares at Virgil, to fix John with a surprised look.

“You are my favourite brother,” he said, whole-heartedly.  “Why did Mom and Dad ever give me more?”

That stung, a little, but then Scott ruffled Gordon’s hair, shook his head at Virgil with a small smile, and headed out the door with the blond boy still attached.

Hoping that meant Scott wasn’t too mad, after all, Virgil followed, finding a smile of his own as Scott realised Gordon was still covered in paint… which meant his own clothes were now covered in paint.

[tigerlover16-uk-2]

Pokemon Secret Journeys Snippet: “I have a sister now?”

So, here’s something different. I mentioned a few times before I published a fanfiction recently, it’s on FF.net and AO3. And I thought just for fun, and hopefully to get a bit more traffic slowing, I might post a few scenes from it here on Tumblr for people to read.

Here’s the general summary of the story:

An interdimensional being called The Beyonder has taken over the World of Pokemon, altering it to suit his whims. So naturally, it's up to Ash Ketchum to do something about that. Sent back in time on a quest to redo his journey in this radically altered world, Ash and friends are in for their greatest, most dangerous adventure of all.

.

Below is the first scene of the first proper chapter after the prologue, Ash Ketchum’s first taste of the rebooted version of the Pokemon World he’s found himself in. Also featuring the character of Molly Hale, from Pokemon 3.

If anyone’s interested, feel free to give it a read.

*Ring! Ring! Ring!*

Smash!

"Gah!" Ash leapt up so suddenly he ended up falling out of bed, face-planting on the floor just a foot away from his oversized soft Snorlax plush. With a pained groan Ash pushed himself up, glancing in the direction of the shattered pokeball-clock.

Panic quickly overtook him.

"Ah crud, not again!" Ash yelled, hastily looking up at the wall clock above his TV "Wait… seven O'Clock?"

Ash blinked a few times before letting out a huge sigh of relief "Well, okay then" He laughed, scratching the back of his head impishly.

In the original timeline, Ash had somehow managed to sleep through his alarm, only finally waking up after smashing his alarm clock after subconsciously throwing it in his sleep. Ash arrived at Professor Oak's lab pretty late as a result, after all the other three new trainers leaving Pallet Town that day had already gotten their starter Pokemon and took off on their journeys. Well except Gary, he stuck around just long enough to be really smug to Ash about the whole thing and how he got the best Pokemon.

By some stroke of luck, Ash had managed to avoid a repeat of that embarrassing incident this time around.

And yet, his clock still wound up against the wall.

'I guess some things are just fate' Ash mused to himself, observing the broken scrap metal littering the other side of his room.

Wasting no time, Ash pushed himself up onto his feet, stumbling slightly as it suddenly occurred to him he was still very tired. He vaguely remembered the now shattered alarm clock reading 3.45am and realised he'd probably stayed up most of the night planning out his next few moves after he left for Oak's Lab.

What those plans were completely alluded Ash at the moment, but he figured they'd probably come back to him when he was a bit more awake.

After scooping up the scattered remains of the pokeball clock and dumping them into a nearby bin, Ash stumbled over to his wardrobe and pulled open the doors, being greeted by a mirror on the back of one of them. The dishevelled teenager narrowed his eyes at the short tuft of hair on his reflection's chin.

Glancing once more at the wall behind the desk with his TV, Ash double checked the date on the calendar. Still the same date on which he'd first set out on his Journey.

Ash sighed 'Guess there's no point hoping it was all just a weird dream, huh?' Ash stroked the hairs on his chin, frowning curiously 'Am I supposed to start shaving then, or are you supposed to wait until it gets longer and it starts growing under your nose too?'

A loud rumble suddenly filled his ears and made Ash clutch his stomach in discomfort. Shaking his head, Ash grabbed a pair of clothes-the same kind he'd worn for most of his travels in Kanto through Johto-and made his way out of the room and to the bathroom 'I'll worry about that later. Right now I'm staaaarviiiing'

After a quick shower and feeling more awake, Ash got dressed and made his way to the stairs.

"Mime-Mime" a familiar voice greeted.

"Oh, hey Mimey" Ash responded as he passed his mother's Mr Mime on the landing before making for the stairs. About halfway down he suddenly stopped, his face going blank as Ash stood silently for a moment. Then with a sharp "Gah!" Ash leapt up, losing his footing on the step as he landed and tumbling the rest of the way down the stairs, his head becoming acquainted with an umbrella stand as he landed.

"Oww" Ash groaned, rubbing the fresh bruise on his forehead.

"Mr Mime?"

Ash glanced up the stairs and saw Mr Mime looking down at him with concern. As Ash began to get up, Mimey rushed down the stairs and offered him a hand, which Ash graciously accepted.

"Thanks" Ash said, momentarily forgetting the reason why he'd just tumbled down the stairs. It quickly came back to him after standing up "Wait-Mr Mime?! What are you doing here?"

Ash's first thought was to wonder why Mimey would be at his house instead of the Cerise Laboratory where he'd been staying with Ash. Then he remembered that he was sent back in time, so why would Mimey be at the Lab now instead of at home with his mother. And then Ash realised-hey, wait. He and his mother hadn't met Mimey until after he'd won all 8 of his Kanto badges, so what was he doing here at all?

"Mr Mime?" Mimey looked equally as confused as Ash did right now. He placed a hand over the bruise on Ash's head, leaned in close and began examining Ash's face with some concern. Ash just stared back at him awkwardly before eventually swatting the hand away and leaning away from the Psychic-type.

"I'm fine, I'm fine" Ash chuckled nervously, which just made Mimey look at him oddly. Ash scratched his head "I just-um… I was a bit dizzy, that's all. I, uh… didn't get much sleep-but I'm fine! Everything's good, Mimey, thanks. Ha ha"

Mimey eyed Ash suspiciously for a long moment, which made the teen a bit nervous. But eventually the mime's face lit up with a satisfied smile.

"Mime-mime" Mimey said while giving Ash a thumbs up. Ash mentally sighed and waved at the Mr Mime as he began climbing back up the stairs, picking up a stack of freshly-folded towels when he got to the top.

'Okay, so mom and I already have Mimey in this timeline' Ash thought to himself, scratching his chin 'Well, I guess that's not the most surprising thing that could happen. But now I wonder if mom's a blonde or something now?"

A quick trip to the kitchen proved that wasn't the case. At most his mother's hair was just slightly longer than it had been the last he'd seen of her.

"Oh, hey honey, glad you got up on time. What was that big thump just now?" Delia asked while washing the dishes.

"Thump?" Ash frowned "… Oh. Um, I fell down the stairs"

Delia put down the plate she was washing and looked at Ash with some concern, noticing the bruise on his head.

"Oh my gosh, Ash! Are you alright?" Delia squealed, rushing over to her son who quickly threw up his hands in a 'Stop' motion.

"It's fine mom, I'm alright" Ash insisted "You know me, I've been hurt way worse than this"

Delia stared at Ash contemplatively for a long moment before her expression relaxed and she sighed.

"Yeah, that's true" She said with some amusement "Honestly, I'd hoped you'd be over that clumsy streak by the time you set off on a journey, but I guess that's just who you are. Oh, by the way, breakfast is on the table for you sweetie"

With a relieved sigh Ash took his seat at the table and examined the contents of the plate his mother had laid out. Toast, bacon, fried eggs, and a croquette sandwich. Simple breakfast, but Ash was happy to dig in.

As he made a start on the toast, Ash looked over at his mother, watching her finish washing the remaining dishes. After the shock of everything he'd been through the previous evening and being told the entire universe had been torn apart, it was a welcome relief to see his mother again, just carrying on with her life as normal.

'Now how the heck am I supposed to explain all of that to her?' Ash asked himself, scratching his head. He then noticed the black mark on the back of his hand that read "20" and Arceus's advice on how to "Remind" people repeated in his head.

Ash noticed his mother turn her head to look at him again, and he quickly hid his right hand under the table. He silently cursed himself for not putting on his old gloves with the rest of his clothes, he'd better make sure neither she or Mimey noticed the mark just yet.

"Those are some pretty big bags under your eyes. I did tell you you'd regret it if you didn't get enough sleep" Delia lectured. Ash scratched the bottom of his nose with his left index finger.

"Hehe. I tried, but you know, I just had so much on my mind I couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard I tried" Ash replied. It was the truth of course, but just not for the reasons Delia assumed.

"Oh, Ash… well, I guess I can't blame you. This IS a pretty exciting day for any young man. Just promise me you'll try and sleep better the next couple of days. You may be 16 now, but you're still a growing boy" Delia said, finishing up with the dishes and going to make herself a cup of tea.

"I'll… try. I promise" Ash replied. Delia shot him a warm smile at that, and Ash suddenly felt the most at ease he'd been since before the world ended. His mother could be strict, embarrassing and overbearing from time to time. But she was still a wonderful, loving person with a big heart, and she always knew how to cheer him up.

He was so grateful she wasn't lost forever.

As Ash finished his toast and started on the bacon and eggs, a loud yawn caught his attention. He turned to the door that led to the living room to see a little brown-haired girl in blue pyjamas and a bow in her hair wander into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and looking very sleepy. Ash could only blink at her, thinking she looked very familiar.

"Molly, dear, what's got you up so early" Asked Delia with mild concern.

Ash blinked harder. Molly? Taking a closer look at the girl as her eyes drifted open, it suddenly clicked why he recognised her. She was Molly Hale, the daughter of a family friend that he'd met in Johto once on his journeys.

"I wa-" Molly yawned again, shaking her head and suddenly looking a little more awake "I wanted to be awake to see Ash before he left"

"He doesn't have to be at Oak's lab until ten, sweetie. You didn't have to get up straight away" Delia said, setting aside her unfinished cup of tea and pulling out a chair for Molly to sit on. The little one smiled and bowed graciously to her before she sat.

'Ten?' Ash pondered. He could have sworn he had to be at Oak's lab a lot sooner than that originally? Or had he really overslept that badly? Why hadn't his mother woken him up, then?

"But I won't get to see Ash for a really, really long time after today. So I wanted to make sure" Molly insisted. Delia giggled and ruffled Molly's hair.

"Aww, sweetie" Delia cooed.

Ash was just really confused by all this.

Molly noticed Ash staring at her and flashed him a sweet smile "Good morning Ash. Ready to be a Pokemon Master?"

"I… sure, I always am" Ash replied, glancing sideways at his mother "What's Molly doing here?"

Ash mentally winced slightly at the look of shock and concern on Molly's face when he said that. Delia looked at her son like he'd asked why water was wet "She's been here a whole week! Her dad's on a research trip with Professor Rowan, remember?"

"Professor Row-" Ash began, but then suddenly it hit him how what he'd just said was probably pretty dumb from his mother's perspective and changed direction "Oh-oh, right, research trip. I um, forgot? Ha ha"

Now Delia and Molly were both looking at him with a bit of concern. Delia heaved a frustrated sigh.

"This is why I don't want you staying up all night, mister. Lack of sleep really messes with your head" Delia mused.

"Is Ash going to be alright?" Molly asked tenderly.

"Oh, don't worry, Mr sleepy head will be fine once he's woken up some more" Delia said with a laugh. Molly giggled, though still looking worried.

Ash continued staring at Molly for a moment. In the old timeline, Ash apparently knew Molly when she was a few years younger than when they'd met again in Johto, but could barely remember much about her or her family before they'd moved away.

Evidently they hadn't moved this time around, and Ash figured from the looks of things he and his mother were a lot closer to Molly because of it.

But there was another bit of information that really caught his interest. Apparently Molly's father was doing research with Professor Rowan? He was the Pokemon Professor in Sinnoh, who Ash had met a bunch of times. It was at his Summer Camp he'd first met Angie, in fact. And Ash also vaguely recalled an encounter with a certain type of Pokemon in Sinnoh on another occasion…

"Are they looking for the Unown?" Ash asked.

"I don't think Spencer's been researching anything else for the last 10 years" Delia chuckled. Ash suddenly felt a bit uneasy, remembering the circumstances in which he'd originally met with Molly in Johto. And then another thought suddenly popped into his mind.

"Is Molly's mom with them?"

Ash regretted the question as soon as he blurted it out, and the looks on Delia and Molly's faces when he said it only reinforced that. Delia gaped at him in disbelief, then swiftly turned to face Molly, who was suddenly staring silently at her feet.

Ash gulped.

"I'm… I'm sorry. I… don't know why I asked that" Was all Ash could say. Delia shot him another disapproving look before kneeling down and putting a hand on Molly's shoulder, whispering something soothing into her ear. Ash looked away in shame.

He suddenly remembered quite clearly that Molly's mother in the original timeline had disappeared quite some time before he got to Johto, apparently it had something to do with the Unown kidnapping her in a similar manner they later did Molly's father. Or, he assumed that's what happened, since apparently she'd been found shortly after Spencer Hale was returned after the whole Unown crisis at Greenfield was taken care of.

Losing her mother had filled Molly with a lot of grief and left her feeling very lonely in the old timeline. And clearly, the same held true for this one.

Not wanting to stick around in case he said anything else stupid, Ash hurriedly finished the rest of his bacon and eggs and scooped up the Croquette sandwich to take with him to his room.

"I, um... I think I need to take a quick nap. I'm not thinking straight" Ash said hastily "Could-could you wake me if I'm not up in time to get to the lab, mom?"

"Sure, honey. Sure" Delia said, still looking rather cross with him. Molly glanced up at Ash, but quickly looked away. Ash felt like his insides had briefly frozen seeing the hurt look on her face, and he wasted no time getting out of the kitchen, bumping into Mimey on his way out who had just entered the room and was watching everyone else with some confusion.

Ash rushed up the stairs, scarfing down his sandwich as he did so. Pushing open the door to his room, Ash shut the door behind him, made straight for his bed and plopped down on it, heaving an aggravated sigh.

"Well, that was awkward" Ash grumbled to himself. He flipped over onto his back and stared contemplatively at the ceiling. He knew he was going to have to apologize to Molly for that little slip-up, but he wasn't quite sure what to say.

'Sorry I brought up your missing mom when you're still torn up about it. Don't worry, she's just trapped in another dimension by floating alphabet soup, and she'll totally come back once you dream up an Entei to blast them back to their dimension and make the world stop turning into crystal'

...

'Yeah, no, definitely not' Ash slapped his forehead and closed his eyes, thinking carefully about how to sound comforting without giving too much away…

...

...

...

He and Molly were decorating a Christmas tree together. Ash was standing on a chair and holding Molly up, as the younger girl struggled to reach out and place a plastic Clefable on top of the tree. Molly and Ash both cheered when she finally got the Clefable to stick.

...

Ash's eyes shot open as he bolted upright. For a moment he had no reaction other than to stare blankly into the distance. Then his senses eventually returned to him and a bemused frown spread across his face.

"What the… what was-GAH!" Ash's eyes snapped shut again as his mind suddenly went fuzzy.

...

It was Molly's fourth birthday party. Ash, his mother, Professor Oak and both of Molly's parents were there. Molly was struggling to blow out the candles on a cake shaped like a Teddiursa's head, so when her eyes were shut during her 5th attempt Ash blew them out for her and pretended she had done it herself. Everyone cheered for Molly, who was laughing and looking very proud of herself.

Molly was four and a half. She and Ash were at the park. Molly had just fallen off the swings and scraped her knee. She cried for five minutes straight while Ash bandaged her leg and told her over and over in a gentle voice that everything would be okay, that she was a big girl and didn't need to cry. When he was done putting on the bandage Ash gave Molly a hug, which finally calmed her down enough to make the crying stop. Ash picked Molly up and took her to find her father. Molly thanked Ash. She said he was the bestest.

Molly was two years old. Mr Mime was making her laugh by floating spoons, forks and plates around and doing a weird tap dance. Ash thought it was kinda silly, but Molly was loving it. Ash then decided to impress her by juggling apples. He was doing pretty well with three, but when he tried juggling five he hit Mimey with one by mistake and made him drop the plates and cutlery he was floating. The plates smashed against the floor. Surprisingly, this made Molly laugh harder than anything else Ash or Mimey had done, but Ash wasn't sharing her amusement. He was panicking over how much his mother would yell at him over the smashed plates.

Molly was crying her eyes out. A few hours ago, Spencer had come home a nervous wreck and informed Delia and Ash that Molly's mother had gone missing. Molly was five years old. Ash was now cradling the distraught little girl in his arms, gently telling her everything would be okay and that they'd find her mom before long. He wasn't sure himself, he didn't understand what had happened very well either, but he had to try to ease her pain somehow. Molly hugged him tight, begging her momma to come back.

It was three weeks ago. Spencer was talking to Delia in her living room. Ash was looking at Molly, who was sulking in the corner of the room. Spencer was telling Delia about how he was going to be moving to Greenfield, his childhood home where his now deceased parents used to live. He and Molly would go there a few weeks after a trip to Sinnoh he had to go on with Professor Rowan to study some ruins in Solaceon Town. Ash noticed Molly was shaking, and suddenly she shot up and yelled at her father that she didn't want to leave and that she hated him for taking her away from home.

A few minutes later, Molly had locked herself in the wardrobe in Ash's room. Delia and Spencer were waiting outside of Ash's room as Ash tried to calm Molly down. It took half an hour, but Ash eventually managed to get her to come out. She cried when she saw her father and apologised for saying she hated him, saying she didn't mean it and she just wanted to stay home and be with everyone. Ash sighed as he watched Spencer hugging his daughter, apologising for needing to move and promising they'd come back eventually.

...

In the present, Ash gasped for breath. His eyes flickered open and he began looking around the room, getting a grip on his current surroundings. He leaned back against his pillow, his mind racing to process that sudden burst of information. Something Arceus had said the previous evening repeated clearly in his head.

"There's another thing you should know. The longer the two of you remain in this new timeline and your bodies and minds begin to acclimate to it, the more you should experience memories of the lives you should have lead in this new reality. Flashbacks, most likely, though a few of them might be subconscious recollections you won't even notice were not related to your past lives"

It all made sense now. Those were his new memories. He was recalling some of the times he and Molly had spent together in this new version of his life. How Ash had known her since she was a baby. How the Hale's were close family friends who hadn't yet moved away.

How Molly had been like a sister to Ash.

Ash rubbed his head, his eyes glazed over as he became lost in those thoughts. Consciously, he knew he had never really experienced any of those moments… and yet, for reasons he couldn't understand… he FELT like he'd lived them. Those memories FELT as real and personal to him as any from the life he actually had lived up to now.

Ash wasn't sure if he should be concerned about that or not. All he really knew right now was that he felt even more guilty for making Molly upset.

He glanced at the clock. 8.15am. What? How long had he been staring at the ceiling?

Slapping his head, Ash got up and opened the window, breathing in the breeze of fresh air and leaning against the windowsill. He looked out at the town of Pallet.

Everything seemed exactly the way he remembered it. Same buildings. Same sky. Same Professor Oak's ranch in the distance. He even noticed the Dodrio that usually woke everyone in the neighbourhood up waddling around. The place outside Ash's window seemed just like the same old world he'd grown up in.

But it wasn't. It was so very different.

'Boy, I'll be glad when this is all over and things go back to normal'

Taking another deep breath, Ash cast another glance out at Professor Oak's lab in the distance. Pikachu was in that building right now, waiting for Ash to pick him and start their journey together. Ash's lip quivered. He wanted to smile, but he was feeling uneasy at the prospect. So much else seemed different about this new world already: Would Pikachu even be the same Pokemon he remembered anymore?

That particular worry vanished when he glanced down at the mark on the back of his hand. He let out a quick sigh of relief. Maybe Pikachu would be a little different… but Ash could make it so he still remembered all the good times they'd had together in their old life.

They'd still be the best of friends. That much couldn't change.

Closing his window, Ash walked over to his wardrobe and pulled out the pair of gloves he'd forgotten to bring to the bathroom with him earlier. Checking his bag to make sure he really did have all the supplies he needed, he also pulled out the piece of paper with Angie's phone number and the jewel Arceus had given him.

Ash stared at the white gem. Supposedly it would glow when the time came for Arceus to contact him for an update on how he was getting along. Ash really wished it would glow now, he had so many questions he wanted to ask about this new life, and he was suddenly feeling a hundred times more resentful to the Beyonder than he already was for plunging him into this mess.

Shaking that thought from his head, Ash put the jewel and the paper with Angie's number back in his bag. He would have to call her once he got to Viridian. Hopefully she was adjusting to this whole situation better than he was so far.

Or rather, would be. With the time Zone she was probably asleep right now.

An hour passed as Ash sat on his bed, replaying the events that had happened in the Hall of Origins and everything that had been said in his head. When the clock reached 9.30, Ash got up, took a deep breath and clenched his fist with a fiery resolve. He picked up his backpack and flung it over his shoulders, then grabbed the cap sitting on the table next to his TV, putting it on as he left the room.

And then he saw that Molly was standing by the door, looking down at the ground and dressed in the same clothes Ash had seen her wear in their previous life. Ash blinked at the little girl as she looked up at him with an unreadable expression. A moment of silence passed before a sad frown suddenly spread across Molly's face as she turned away from Ash.

"Do you… would you be happier if I wasn't around, Ash?"

Ash's eyebrows rose. Where had that come from?

"What? Why would you think that, Molly?" Ash asked with genuine concern. Molly shuffled her feet, twirling a strand of her hair with her finger.

"Some… some girls in the park…" Molly's voice was shaky, and Ash thought she was trying not to cry "I mean… um… I was just wondering… you're going away for a really long time. On your journey. And… I was just wondering… I'll see you again, right?"

A sad smile appeared on Ash's face as he suddenly realised what Molly must be feeling. Her mother had disappeared just barely a year ago. She and her father were going to be moving away for a while… and Ash was setting out on a journey, so there was no guarantee he'd be here when or if she eventually moved back.

Acting on newfound instincts, Ash kneeled down and put a hand on Molly's shoulder, smiling softly at the girl as she turned to face him.

"I'm not going to disappear Molly. And I promise I'll keep in touch and come visit you when I can. You'll see me again" Ash said. Molly's eyes began to water. Ash ruffled her hair and smiled wider "After all… you're my little sister"

Inwardly Ash couldn't believe those words were leaving his lips. But what surprised him even more was how, deep down… he felt like he really meant it.

Molly let out a sob and turned away from Ash again. Ash gave her a moment to compose herself, and when she'd finally stopped sobbing he asked "Why would you think I wouldn't want you around?"

A moment of silence.

"The other day" Molly began, visibly nervous "I was playing in the park. Some older girls were talking with each other. The oldest one was complaining about her mom… said she was really bossy to her. I said… I said she shouldn't say mean things, and her mom was just trying to help her learn and be nicer to people. And then…"

Molly gripped the sides of her skirt, looking like she wanted to cry again. Ash put his hand back on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile, and after taking a deep breath Molly continued.

"She said… she said… she said the reason Momma went away… was because I-" Tears were most certainly welling up in Molly's eyes now, and Ash was bracing himself for what she was about to say "Because I was annoying and no one would want to have me as their daughter"

Ash's eyes widened as Molly let out an anguished wail and began crying for real this time. At first he felt too awkward to respond, but after getting a grip on himself he gave Molly a tender hug and let her cry into his shoulder.

Ash recalled his initial reaction to seeing Molly in the kitchen, and how hurt Molly had seemed when he asked why she was around. And it really hit him that she must have thought that maybe that cruel girl had been right. Maybe she was annoying. Maybe Ash didn't want her around, maybe he would be glad to be away from her. And then, what would that say about her mother and why she went away?

A fresh pan of guilt swept over Ash, and he hugged Molly harder.

What felt like a whole minute passed as Molly poured her heart out. When her sobs began to quiet down, Ash pulled Molly forward to look at her face to face again and gave her a firm look.

"Your mother loved you, Molly. I know that for sure, she didn't run away and leave you. I don't care what some jerk told you, you're not annoying. Don't ever let anyone make you think what happened was your fault, because it's not"

Molly sniffled "But-but then… why did she-"

"It isn't your fault! People just go missing sometimes, but we'll find her eventually. I guarantee you that" Ash said confidently. However different this timeline had to be, if the events behind Mrs Hale's disappearance were the same, then it was guaranteed she'd be found again just like last time. Right? "But more important than that, she loved you. And she would never choose to leave you. You're a good daughter, Molly"

More sniffles. Ash ruffled Molly hair again and gave her another smile.

"And just because I have to leave for a while, that doesn't mean I'm going to leave you forever either. Sometimes friends and family move away, or go different paths in life" Ash recalled the faces of many of his friends and Pokemon in quick succession as he said that "… But that doesn't mean we forget each other, or won't meet again. I promise you that"

More tears, and Molly wrapped Ash in another hug, though this time the tears faded pretty quickly.

"I'm sorry, Ash"

Ash looked down at Molly oddly "What for?" Molly pulled back a bit to talk to his face.

"For thinking you didn't care. I know you do. I just…" Molly hesitated "… I'm really going to miss seeing you all the time. I want everything to go back the way it was"

"I know the feeling" Ash said, thinking of the world the way it was before the Beyonder changed it. He frowned, knowing what he was about to say would probably be hypocritical coming from him, but Ash still felt it was what Molly needed to hear "… But that's just life. Change happens, and you just have to get used to it. Doesn't mean every change will be bad. You'll miss me for a while, but just try and think how happy you'll be when we see each other again. And how great you'll feel when your mom is found"

Molly looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled "That… that does sound nice"

"See, no need to be all doom and gloom" Ash chuckled. Molly wiped the remaining tears from her eyes and separated from Ash, looking a lot calmer now "So, feel better now?"

Molly nodded "Yeah… I'll be okay. You're a good brother, Ash"

Ash scratched his cheek, feeling pretty proud at that "Helps to have a great little sister"

Two hours ago, Ash barely knew Molly. She was just one of many friends that he only knew for a short time and then never saw again. But now, she felt like one of the most important people in his life. A part of Ash was really worried about that feeling. The world he was living in right now was a farce, something that had to be fixed and put back to the way it was. Surely it wasn't going to do him any good in the long run to start getting attached to this version of reality and the life he had here, right?

And yet… for the moment, seeing Molly's gracious smile and the sense of brotherly pride it inspired within him… Ash couldn't find it in him to worry too much about that just now.

"Ahem"

Ash and Molly turned to see Delia looking at them from the top of the stairs, a satisfied smile on her face.

"I really hate to interrupt this moment. But it's nine fourty five, Ash. You should probably be leaving soon if you want to get your first Pokemon" Said Delia. Ash suddenly turned frantic.

"I forgot!" Ash gasped. He turned to Molly quickly "Good talk, gotta go, I'll see you at the ranch later, bye!"

And with that Ash took off down the stairs, much to the bemusement of Delia.

"It only takes ten-" Delia was cut off by a loud thump. She sighed "Also, don't run down the stairs. Keep hitting your head like that, and you won't be in any condition to travel for another week"

"Right… sorry" Ash said, getting up and rubbing the fresh bruise on his forehead. His head was probably going to be purple all day if he kept falling like that.

A moment to let his senses come back later, Ash took off out the door, waving goodbye to Delia, Molly and Mimey who now stood in the frame to see him off as he ran down the path that would lead him to Oak's Laboratory.

"Is Ash going to be okay, miss Ketchum?" Asked Molly. Delia giggled and patted the girl on the head.

"Oh, don't worry. Our Ash can seem like a goof at times, but he's brave and resourceful and determined. He'll be fine"

"Mime, mime" Mimey chimed in agreement. Delia smiled, looking out at her son's shrinking figure in the distance. Her expression softened a little.

She had long prepared herself for this day, but she had to admit to herself she still was a bit worried for Ash's wellbeing. It was a big world out there, one that could be dangerous for inexperienced trainers. She was sure he could handle it, she'd raised him the best she could to be prepared for setting out on his own, but… well, she was a mother. Who could expect her to not have reservations?

Didn't help that she was also going to miss having him around the house almost as much as Molly would. She sighed "Although, I guess I should check to make sure he packed clean underwear before he leaves the ranch"

[theangrypokemaniac]

@nyarthsis

If Team Rocket 'always had a heart for unpopular Pokémon', that's an admission their Alola catches aren't particular loveable creatures, so I'm not thinking anything too controversial.

You're saying they take pity on the animals no one wants, as in it's normal for me not to find them adorable.

Some Pokémon, such as Lucario, become fan favourites without the advertisement of a regular role the anime. With Wobbuffet, Bewear, Stufful, Mareanie and Mimikyu, do people like them for themselves, or because of their association with Team Rocket?

I think its the latter. I can't imagine there would be such interest in them were they to be owned by a Twerp or appear as a one-off. Really then, it's not what or who they are, it's to whom they belong that matters.

Alola has really devalued catching. Rather than be true to the source material, so battering a Pokémon into submission, as Ash did with Bulbasaur, Primeape, Muk, and many others, now you have to ask their permission!

Bewear didn't even get that. She hung around for no reason, and her 'friend' Stufful was belatedly tacked on. I see why those two were left behind, as Team Rocket had no right to take them elsewhere.

In terms of welfare, Mimikyu and Mareanie are better off staying with them, free and safe, rather than locked in the insalubrious depths of H.Q., but then it never bothered the writers sending previous Pokémon into an uncertain future, so what difference does it make now?

It can only be that, like their predecessors, there is no intention to ever bring them back, but unlike the rest, the fans can't even be allowed the vain hope of a return, not with this rather awkward disposal.

It's feasible that Jessie and James could call their base and request old monsters to join them, but it's difficult to imagine they'd fly across the world to Alola, wander through the woods, pick 'em up and go all the way back again. Why make parting so final and irreversible?

It does imply that Game Freak don't like them, so why should I?

I keep noticing this fickle attitude. A new era starts, we're expected to fall instantaneously in love with every element, beg for more and yet more. Then, once the next region arrives, this adoration asked of us is meant to evaporate and immediately transfer to the next batch.

Well why start to like them, if eventually the makers don't care, to the extent you wouldn't even know previous Pokémon had ever been alive?

Have you heard one mention of Seviper, Yanmega, Dustox, Cacnea, Carnivine, and Mime Junior since they left?

Why were they happy to chuck Wobbuffet after Sinnoh, yet fetched for Kalos?

How could Team Rocket live without it for an entire generation but suddenly it's indispensable again? What do you imagine the rest of their Pokémon felt about that?

Have Jessie and James wondered allowed how Arbok, Weezing, Lickitung and Victreebel are doing?

What of the last two generations?

What is this nonsense where every character is so detached from the past?

Supposing I was to force myself to appreciate them: since they've gone, never to return, I'd be dissatisfied with the show, thus no better off than I am now.

My feelings don't run on a switch. I can't find myself besotted one minute then dump the object of affection without a second thought, just because Nintendo want it from me.

Even if I had a more positive opinion of the current interpretation, there's no benefit to becoming involved when it's all so fleeting.

Mareanie is ugly, with three teeth. I think he's a sea anenome, so ought to be more attractive, but it's covered in nipples instead!

It looks like a bonsai tree growing breasts, reminiscent of the hideous content lurking within an Hieronymous Bosch painting.

The idea that all Mimikyu copy Pikachu, the most famous Pokémon, when in their world it's nothing special, is too stupid for me to accept. How could that be coincidence?

It's referencing reality, acknowledging the real world's view of Pikachu as the star, so if it's breaking the fourth wall, it invites disbelief.

Wobbuffet does sod all. It's a complete dead weight and has no attacks. Yet it's the one to survive generation after generation. Where's the logic in that?

I suspect his popularity rests on being there so long he's considered part of the furniture, the sole catch in which you can invest an emotional connection whilst fairly certain he'll remain around.

By now it ought to have developed some semblance of a personality, but it's as faceless as ever. Other Pokémon that have been and gone had a bit more about them, but Wobba's so bland no one can summon the energy to write him out.

If he went, what would you miss? Breaking out of his ball and hissing 'WAAAAAHBUHFEH'? Is that so integral?

I have several objections:

What is it meant to be?

Why does its tail have eyes?

Why is that never mentioned?

Is it a sort of quadruped, or has it only one foot with four toes, arranged like the bottom of a medical walking stick?

A lot of my reactions to Pokémon are influenced by encountering them in the games. With Wobbuffet, I remember first coming across it in the cave near Blackthorn City, and just as you're winning the fight, it pulls out Destiny Bond and suddenly you're both down.

When you finally get one, it's tricky to train. You have no choice but to guess whether the opposition will launch a physical or special move, and mostly you get it wrong. He never learns anything else and doesn't evolve, so it's that forever.

Persevering with Magikarp is worthwhile, but what's to be gained from taking any time out to fight with Wobbuffet?

The anime eliminates this problem. You're aware of the nature of the approaching onslaught because you can see it coming, and the opponent said it aloud.

In this context Wobbuffet should be the most powerful Pokémon in the universe. Come on, it can deflect every attack!

Is it? No. It has a successful defence about once a generation, and still loses the battle. I can't say if it's worse to be utterly pointless, or to not fulfil one's potential.

I resent it muscling in on the motto, as if it's considers itself of equal rank to Meowth. No it's not!

When I was young, there was a tendency for magazines to refer to Team Rocket as a duo. Meowth was judged to be in the same position as Pikachu: a main character yes, and valuable enough to be accorded the privilege of liberty, but still very much owned by people.

You would see references to Jessie and James as his Trainers, though how they assumed this worked went unexplained. Even if shared, one had to have to caught him, thus be his proper owner.

Later on this developed into them being three equal members, and the term 'TRio' emerged, but now, although perhaps not officially recognised, there's an attitude of treating them as a quartet.

It's just wrong! Wobbuffet's not been around since day one. He didn't join Team Rocket voluntarily because he had nowhere else to go. It was a choice made for him by his original Trainer, so out of his hands, or rather his flippers.

If he was an independent Pokémon who just tagged along one day, that would be different, but it belongs to Jessie. Promoting one of hers means James is lesser, and no longer equal.

In each generation Team Rocket catch at least one local Pokémon, but as Wobbuffet's there, it ends up with Jessie having more on her side than James, and I dislike the imbalance. Plus the one he does get is violent.

It can't be solved by giving him another new one, as then he's captured two in the region, and she has only one, so again it's skewed.

Whilst Wobbuffet does count in numbers, he's not on the level of the rest, who fight regularly. He's both there and not simultaneously.

I'm still irked the way Lickitung was ejected to make room.

It was the best Pokémon they ever had! It took out Pikachu, Vulpix and Bulbasaur with one move! It would've won those Princess Dolls for Jessie if the writers hadn't changed the rules so that Lick only affects those of sound mind!

It was as if they realised their mistake too late, and so Lickitung was featured less and less to avoid it dominating a fight, then hurriedly traded away for something reliably feeble.

The following analogy you may not understand, but I think it fits rather aptly:

There's a game called Final Fantasy VIII. One of the side quests involves you racing through a castle under a time limit. If successful, you are rewarded with Odin as a Guardian Force, which is a deity that will provide a defence.

Unlike others, he is out of your control, but every so often, as you enter battle, he turns up and annihilates your opponents. It's very welcome.

Unfortunately this game was programmed by bunyips, who clearly didn't want the last section of the game to be accidently easier for you. Oh no. If you're progressing, it ain't gonna be through luck, or turning the console on and off until he arises.

Therefore, towards the close, you come up against ex-friend Seifer. Odin is fixed to rush to your aid, but when he does, bloody Seifer slices him in half, horse and all!

He killed Odin, the ancient King of the North! The Lord of Valhallah! The Father of the Vikings!

It's not normal fighting death, it's irreversible. He's gone for good.

After this Gilgamesh introduces himself as a replacement. He too will randomly appear and set about the enemy.

The problem is that whilst Odin destroyed monsters unfailingly, with Gilgamesh it's a rarity.

He uses four swords, and which you get is also a lottery.

One is the same as Odin's, two deal average damage, but not death, and the worst one depletes 1 HP, so it might as well not have bothered.

Not only does it arrive but a fraction of the time, but it's in a fraction of those times that it's of any assistance, which is something of a comedown.

Lickitung is Odin: didn't see it often, but it tore the place apart!

Wobbuffet is Gilgamesh: once in a blue moon it provides rescue, but it's on a lot lower percentage than it's predecessor.

It's difficult not to be disappointed.

[thewriterlyowl]

Thoughts on ToG

 OK, so @nickjgoodsell asked me why I don’t like this series anymore, and I promised I would write a post because how I feel about it is pretty complicated. I used to wholeheartedly love this series - I read Sarah’s blog religiously and even met her a couple of times (I think, I don’t remember, but it was at least once). However, some time after I read QoS, I stopped liking these books, for a multitude of reasons:

So basically, I thought that ToG was just OK. I liked Celaena well enough even though I didn’t think much of her assassin skills, but I liked the mystery parts. Nehemia and Dorian were my favourites, but I though Chaol was kind of dull, but I didn’t like Celaena with Dorian because it kind of felt like she was stringing him along and looked down on him throughout the first book and the second.

I thought CoM was way, way better - at first, which I’ll get into - because I thought the writing and plot was better, and the world was opening up. But I hated the way Chaol and Celaena treated Dorian, and I was devastated that Nehemia died because 1) Badass, magical, female character of colour that tricked all the other people into thinking she was an idiot while secretly spying on them and she’s the one who died? 2) Dorian/Nehemia would have been far superior to those other two. Imagine if they had killed King Haviliard and then just went around restoring magic and looking fine af.

But, whatever, I was intrigued enough to read the next too, and I loved HoF.  Before I read that I read TAB, which I thought was a brilliant way to explore Celaena’s backstory. When I read QoS, I was still excited about it - or so I thought. When EoS came out, I read the first couple of pages and was inexplicably bored. Whatever. I thought maybe it was exam stress preventing me from concentrating. But then over the next few months it kept happening, until suddenly ToD was coming out and I still hadn’t finished it. Then KoA came out and I still hadn’t read it, so I decided to reread QoS again so that I could sail smoothly back into it. So I did. And then I realised that even though I thought I’d enjoyed QoS, rereading it made me realise that something in that book killed all my desire to read the next one. Which I will explain when I outline my reasons in detail:

1) Story

OK so remember when you read Prisoner of Azkaban, and Sirius turns out not to be a fink and the whole mystery surrounding the Potters’ deaths gets turned on its head and you realised that JK Rowling was a genius who put her all into her story? I originally thought that about Sarah, because you could see that she was thinking about her story from the very first story in TAB (obviously because she wrote this story when she was sixteen and then split it). From TAB to HOF, I could clearly see that she was building Celaena/Aelin into an epic hero/Chosen One, who had to go on this quest of discovery and accepting her past mistakes, before picking up allies and defeating the evil whatever it was. Right?

Except, when you get to QoS, it’s like the entire thing gets derailed. Arobynn Hamel, after being built up to me one of Celaena’s most complicated adversaries, is dispatched offscreen by a character that we’re not even introduced to in the main series (Lysandra). Instead of a clear goal and obstacles that derail them, the story is just a series of plans that Celaena/Aelin is keeping us in the dark about, so we don’t know until she’s won. The sense that we’re building to something is kind of lost, because we pick up new objectives every few chapters. What felt like an epic journey sort of tapered off into a bunch of scenes where everyone was up against it...until Celaena revealed that she’d been planning this all along.

Also, the retcons that apparently happened. Elena sent Aelin to Rowan for “happiness”. Maeve tricked Rowan into thinking Lyria being his mate because reasons. Elena and the gods have been manipulating everything because they had a spat a few hundred years ago.

I think that the reveal that Celaena was Aelin was planned from the beginning, but I think QoS was almost the start of a new series - and not just because of the name change. It’s like she just took the story in a completely different direction. I remember in an interview Sarah mentioned that she likes to see where the story takes her as opposed to planning, and even though I still haven’t read past EoS, what I’ve heard, the story ended up in a completely different place than where it was going.

2) Characters

Like I said, there was no one I hated - at first. In fact, by the time HoF was over, I was loving all the characters. I thought Sarah had rendered them so well that I couldn’t wait for all the different personalities to meet and all the banter that would ensue when they all realised they were working at cross purposes.

But then QoS happened.

Celaena, who underwent some incredible character development in HoF, turned into an absolutely horrible character in QoS. She was arrogant, violent, impatient, cruel, and selfish - with none of the redeeming qualities.  She detested her old self even though that self got her where she is today. She treated her so-called allies like idiots or like downright enemies. She threatened to kill everyone who didn’t agree with her.

Rowan, who went from a misanthropic douche to loyal friend to Celaena, spent QoS completely obsessed with her and with growling at every man (sorry, male) who gets within spitting distance of her. I hear he got worse.

Chaol went from a well-meaning if not naive guy who loved his friends to an unrelenting douche who argued with Celaena for reasons, and then apparently disappeared.

I’m not even going to talk about what happened to Dorian and Manon.

And therein lies the reason I didn’t want to read EoS - because QoS had effectively made me hate all the characters. Not only that, but it starts with Celaena hanging out with Rowan, Aedion, Lysandra and Evangeline - four characters who were only introduced the book before, and who spent so long either basking in their own brilliance or being territorial over Celaena that they never got to form meaningful bonds with any of the characters that we did know before then. I couldn’t get through the first chapter because I literally couldn’t give a shit about a bunch of people I just met.

And then there’s the Chaolaena thing. I didn’t particularly care for them one way or another. I thought they were a well-written and well-matched couple, but I personally found Dorian way more interesting. And they were written like they were destined to be together. Even when they were talking about the fact that Celaena might not pick him when she became Aelin, there was none of the vicious antagonism in their relationship when they met again. OK, I expected her to be mad at Chaol for leaving Dorian, but to drag it out so long? And every other argument they had was artificially lengthened to justify them never getting back together so she was free to get with Rowan, where the two people from the last book would have worked it out like adults.

And this takes us right back to the retcon thing. I specifically remember an interview right before QoS came out where I noticed that Sarah was talking about Rowan a lot. So much so that he almost felt like a deuteragonist. When I read the book, I realised it was because she’d decided to torpedo Celaena/Chaol in favour of Rowan/Aelin - which I have no problem with. I just wish it had been done with more grace. Aelin and Rowan went from having a great platonic bond to suddenly wanting to rip each other’s clothes of whenever they saw each other. Aelin went from accepting that Chaol and her were over to wanting to kill him whenever she saw him. Rowan basically wanted to lick her whenever they shared a room, and turned into a giant baby when another guy got near her. The emphasis that their platonic bond was given was traded for them lusting after each other like horny teenagers.

3) Writing

Look, I’m just going to say it - QoS felt like fanfiction. There was just an abundance of similes and metaphors, and her writing got to be so overblown and dramatic that it was eyeroll-inducing to read. But that’s not even the worst of it.

I read ACOTAR when it came out. I liked it, but I really hate Fae/Faeries, so I wasn’t going to continue. Then when I read QoS I realised that all the guys in that and all the guys in ACOTAR are essentially the same character - territorial Fae males who constantly thought about the main female character, sex, or sex with the main female character. Aedion and Rowan were the same character in different colours. And all the girls were the same too - badass but vulnerable and always ready with a snarky comment. The similarities between the two were just too much.

Then there’s the actual structure of the book - like I said, it felt like fanfiction, and like a series of events strung together rather than a book. There wasn’t really any clear structure to speak of, which is why it felt so odd. There was no clear goal at the beginning, so there was no inciting incident, no first plot point etc. It felt like set up for the next book.

And finally, the style. HoF, QoS, and the little chapter of EoS are all completely different. One of the opening chapters has s Fae warrior (I forget which one and also I don’t care) trying to figure out whether a girl with big breasts is a virgin. I think it’s supposed it’s supposed to sound like high fantasy like GRRM, but it just sounds predatory and weird.

There’s actually way more that I now dislike about this series, but I’ve spent too much time on it. I’ll always love the first four (I include TAB) and parts of QoS (”Witchkiller is still the best thing ever), but I’ll never finish it.

[blueoswin]

Let’s make him jealous!

Summary: Eliott went back to Lucille. However Lucas can't forget him. For now he just has to try to get over him, even if the boys want to push them back together. They all come up with an awesome plan ( their words) in order to do so. Well Emma does : making Eliott jealous. How ? By hiting on  Lucas obnoxiously. Too much for his taste. And for Eliott's as well. Or : Eliott is sad raccoon pining from afar. Lucas is grumpy, Emma is a snake and the boys are elu stans #1.

                                                        Chapter 2

Saying Eliott is looking forward to the end of this week would be a big  understatement. He can't stop thinking about Lucas, every waking hour of his day and since he hasn't been able to sleep more than a couple of hours each night lately, let's say he's been thinking way too much about the other boy. Perhaps that's why his friends think he's been more distant the previous days, or the dark circles under his eyes gave his nightime activities away, go figure. He wants so badly to get up from the bench he's sitting on to go talk to Lucas, tell him every thoughts weighing his heart down that it physically hurts. If he's lucky, maybe Lucas will listen.

But he can't, wouldn't even dare coming in close proximity with the boy. Partly because he's ashamed, he knows pertinently he's the only one to blame for this hell of a situation; he cowardly chose to ruin the beginning of a beautiful blossoming relationship to go back to his previous one, easy but loveless.  Only for him to realise his mistake a few days later and break up with Lucille. Again. It wasn't his proudest moment. The other reason is that Lucas is never alone . Back in the days too, obviously but now everyone seems to  gravitate towards him. When he isn't with the boys, he is always accompanied by a bunch of girls, overly tactile. Every touch leave a bitter taste in Eliott's mouth.  Although he can't blame them, Lucas is the sun luring every planets in his orbit. It doesn't mean he has to like it though, quite the contrary in fact.

Those girls are always touching him, his arms, his shoulders, his cheeks, his thighs... Emma touched his thigh! The audacity! The worst thing though, Lucas let her do it, he even seemed to find it completely normal. Eliott didn't appreciate it. Not at all. His hand should have been on Lucas's thigh, his Lucas, his hedgehog.

Stop it Eliott, Lucas isn't your property. He chastises himself.

Although his only desire is to take the place of any of these girls as soon as he sees them swooning over Lucas. Or kill all of them one by one, slowly, to enjoy watching them squirm. Every single girls are hitting on Lucas which pisses Eliott  more than he'd like to admit, mostly because Lucas enjoys the attention. He often flirts back,  leaving a kiss on their cheek, throwing his arm around their shoulders, sometimes holding their hands... In short, Eliott  has to find a way to talk to him before drowning in his jealousy. It's not like he hasn't tried before, he spent all his breaks the past two weeks trying to catch a glimpse of his boy in the hallways so that he could explain his actions. However he never caught sight of him, he knew Lucas has been avoiding him. He had to, it was the only logical explanation because Eliott had explored every dark corners of the school in his desperate quest, even the boiler room. Yet, no traces of Lucas. Until a little over a week ago, when suddenly Lucas was everywhere, always in good company too. Each corner Eliott turned he saw him, a girl hanging off his arm, his bright laugh echoing in the hallways. At least he seemed alright, it was the only thing Eliott cared about at this point. Well, that and maybe getting the girls away from Lucas. He's selfish he knows that.

In the cafeteria at lunch break, he can't help shamelessly devouring him with his eyes. He doesn't even try to hide it anymore, the others might as well think what they want, Eliott couldn't care less. Subtlety isn't his strong point but desperate times call for desperate measures and he is so desperate it's not even funny anymore. He would give anything to hold Lucas tight in his arms at least one last time. So Eliott indulges himself, he stares, stares and stares some more even if from where he is sitting he can only glimpse at his back with a mop of hair on top. What a beautiful back it is though, muscular but slim, topped by even more beautiful hair, the reflecting light casting specks of gold on the brown locks. God the things he would do to be able to touch his  hair again, pulling it gently while they kiss, hearing Lucas moan...

His memory decides to betray him then, flashing snippets of the perfect morning they spent together after their first kiss. Coming back to the flat completely soaked, giggling like children, stopping every now and then on the way back to kiss against walls, the both of them not being able to keep their hands off each other, holding each other oh so close while kissing in Lucas's bed, their minds chanting in unison, needing to be closer closer closer, trying to melt together to be forged as a whole again, fusing beautifully never to be apart again, Eliott feeling like he was finally complete, having found the missing piece of his puzzle.

The boy is so lost in his memories  it takes him a few minutes to notice someone is all over Lucas again. He should have grown accustomed to the sight by now, only it's not a girl this time but a boy. A boy Eliott vaguely recognises, Valentin something. They are so close together,so comfortable basking in each other presence, so intimate Eliott feels  his heart shaterring in his chest. He can almost hear the glass cracking. Valentin has his arm around Lucas's waist,the latter resting his head on his shoulders. The perfect little couple. The couple they would have made, the one they made in a parallel universe. Yes Eliott his bitter, sue him.

“Go talk to him Eliott, instead of moping.” Hugo's voice pulls him back to reality.

He sighs, angling his body towards his friend, not wanting to see more of what was happening in front of his eyes. He's seen enough already. He rubs his eyes tiredly.

“What's the point? It looks like he's moved on. Have you seen all those people chasing after him?”

“Mmmmm, I've noticed your boy was a bit busy lately, yes. I've got eyes you know? Hugo pauses, thoughtful. Eliott can almost see the gears turning in his head. “Let me ask you something Mr.Grumpy. Do you know all those people around him?”

“Most of them yes, he introduced me once when... When everything was good between us.”

He can feel his eyes watering at the thought, the lump in his throat increases. Because he knows he can't move on, call him dramatic all you want but he knows deep down Lucas is his one and only. He'd rather stay single the rest of his life than move on from their not-quite-relationship. He brushes a tear away before it rolls down his cheek. His friends don't seem to notice though, or they just simply ignore it, too used to his emotional outburts by now.

“Don't you find the whole situation weird though? I mean, suddenly all of his friends are flirting with him, all at the same time? Don't get me wrong, your boy is attractive but sounds shady to me.”

Eliott frowns, thoughtful. Hugo's got a point.

“What do you mean?” He tilts his head to the side, inquisitive.

His friend rolls his eyes so hard he's genuinely worried they will stay stuck in his skull. The habit reminds him so much of Lucas his heart clenches a little. Everything reminds him of Lucas these days.

“Eliott I love you man but you're so dense I swear”. He sighs, shaking his head in disbelief. “Lucas hasn't moved on dummy, he's simply trying to make you jealous.”

Eliott scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. It seems so out of character, even for someone as petty as the boy.

“No way, Lucas would never do that.”

“Never underestimate the length to which people are ready to go to when they're in love Eliott.”

Hugo looks so serious he represses a shiver under his piercing gaze. Eliott wants to believe him. His heart believes him already.

“Oh yeah it's true” Isaiah interrupts. “One of my exes once reenacted the Romeo and Juliette scene for me you know, the balcony one. Anyway I was on my balcony and he was in the street, in front of my house, waxing poetry. He was making his grand declaration of love at 3 am. It was cute” He says fondly. “And embarrassing. Hard to explain to my parents why there was a boy confessing his love for me at such an ungodly hour.”

“Why did you leave him then?” Hugo asks, genuinely curious.

Isaiah rewards him with a shrug.

“I saw him kissing another guy in a bar barely a week later.”

Ouch. Eliott winces. Someone just threw a cold glass of water in his face. The situation is too similar of the one he was currently in. He doesn't appreciate the feeling, even though he knows he deserve it. He decides it's better to stop listening for now, instead focusing back on Lucas (he's a masochist he knows) still sitting at the table, alone with Valentin .Eliott scowls. All of their friends have left, probably wanting to give the two lovebirds some time alone. Said Valentin is holding Lucas hand with care, as if it's a precious jewel, his other one stroking his thigh softly. The latter is blushing, happy by the turn of events. Eliott feels his eyes watering with each passing second. A snap of fingers in front of his eyes makes him look away.

“Why do you keep doing this to yourself? You know it's unhealthy right?”

“I know I know, I can't help myself that's all. I really hate seeing people all over him. I mean, it's great for him to have so many friends really but why do they have to be so touchy?” Eliott groans, pushing his tray away in order to rest his head in his arms, closing the world off for a moment.

“I feel you really but if this is some sorts of mind game as you claim it is Hugo, both are great actors I must say.” Isaiah replies, noticing Eliott's hunched shoulders, burying his head farther in his elbows.

“Or really close friends ” Hugo retorts.

“Let it go guys” Eliott sighs defeated,emerging from his makeshift pillow. “He's clearly over me, I need to move on too.”

He gazes down at his untouched food. Eliott isn't hungry, hasn't been for a few days. He flinches when he feels Hugo sit up straight as an arrow next to him, receiving a hard nudge in the stomach.

“Eliott look up. The door. Now”

“Wh...”

The words die on his tongue the moment he lifts his head up. He freezes, swallowing with difficulty. He's entranced by a pair of electric blue eyes he used to drown in an eternity ago. Across the cafeteria, Lucas is staring at him, hand intertwined with Valentin's, who is pulling him quite forcefully towards the exit Eliott notices. Before they vanish in the maze of hallways, Eliott stares right back, Lucas raising an eyebrow in pure smugness. His eyes are challenging him. All of his being is, in fact.

Come and get me. The boy mouthes at him, winking for emphasis, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

It's Eliott's only wish. After all, he's not ready to give up so easily, he will raise up to the challenge. He'll redeem himself. Eliott doesn't now how yet, but he will. He doesn't have a choice.

[onceuponmystory]

I Have Finally Found Peace With The Rise of Skywalker

And it's all thanks to my crazy, wonderful, just-as-obsessed-with-Star-Wars-as-I-am best friends.

But before I tell you how we did it, I have to give you guys two rather important warnings concerning this post. 

First and foremost, please beware that there will be MAJOR SPOILERS for The Rise of Skywalker in this post. If you haven't seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, and don't say I didn't warn you.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this post is quite critical of the movie. I examine in detail everything I thought was bad about The Rise of Skywalker, and give my opinion on how it could have been done better.

But that doesn't mean this is a negative post - in fact, I hope to achieve quite the opposite. With the help of my friends, I realised that the best way to make your peace with The Rise of Skywalker is to talk through it and play Teacher With A Red Pen on the parts you didn't like.

I have to warn you that I tend to get a little carried away playing Teacher With A Red Pen. There's just so much to say about this movie... But if you're up to reading an insanely long post, I really think it'll be worth your while. 

Now, since this is a free era, we are all entitled to our own opinions, and this is mine. You are perfectly welcome to disagree with me, just please do it politely. And with that out of the way, let's jump right in, shall we? 

First Things First: Ben Solo's Death

I think one of the biggest WHY??? moments in the entire movie was Ben Solo's sacrifice and death. I'll say it now - I hated that twist, absolutely hated it. And not just because I'm a huge fan of Reylo, either. 

To start, it's predictable, the exact mirror of the Darth Vader sacrifice/death scene from Return of the Jedi. And while it worked for Darth Vader, doing it again with Ben was not only cliché and repetitive, but also a slap in the face to the character.

Because Ben Solo deserved better. He really, really did.

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo was from the start a very conflicted character - the son of two of the galaxy's greatest heroes, and the nephew of the last Jedi, manipulated from birth by Emperor Palpatine. Yes, he did terrible things, but he also had terrible things done to him. At the very least, he deserved the chance to atone for some of those terrible things.

While we're talking about slaps in the face, Ben dying made the deaths of Han, Luke and Leia mean so much less. All three of those people gave their lives so that their son (nephew, in Luke's case) would turn back to the light. Especially Leia - she literally used the last of her energy to reach out to her son and turn him back. Killing Ben off makes her sacrifice almost meaningless - didn't she die so he would be able to live a better life? 

And my last point about the Massive Unfairness of Ben's Death has to do with Rey. She and Ben love each other, don't they? They are literally described as "two of us who are one" - which is about as close as we're going to get to soulmates in Star Wars. With Ben's death, Rey lost half of who she is - not to mention the man she loved.

George Lucas once said, and I quote, that "I have always hated that in movies, when you go along and one of the main characters gets killed. This is a fairytale. You want everybody to live happily ever after and nothing bad happens to anybody."

So yes, maybe it's not the most perfect of arguments, but this is Star Wars. And after all these years of love and admiration, we all deserve that happy ending. 

And While We're At It: Ben Deserved A Proper Redemption Arc

I know I've just spent a long time ranting about why Ben deserved better, but I'm not quite done yet. Because yes, Ben absolutely deserved better - and most of all, he deserved a proper redemption.

Now, I don't know how many of you have seen Avatar The Last Airbender, but that show contains a prime example of a really good redemption arc. It's not simple, and it's not at all easy, but it's worth it.

In ATLA, Fire Prince Zuko starts off as the villain of the series, but ends up seeing that the way he was raised was wrong. He decides to make amends by joining his former enemy, Avatar Aang, and helping him save the world.

But what makes it really good is that it's not easy for Zuko. He struggles, he genuinely does, and he has to really work to earn the trust of the people who used to be his enemies. And time-consuming and difficult as it was, it ultimately ended up being worth it a thousand times over.

That, my friends, is a redemption arc. It takes time, and work, and real atonement. More than anything, I wanted to see that for Ben. I wanted him to struggle, and be distrusted, and hate himself, because that is the only way he can really redeem himself - by rising above all that and saying, "I was wrong, I'm sorry, and I'll take whatever punishment you want to give me, because I really want to change."

Death is taking the easy way out - in fact, it's lazy writing. Ben didn't have to die - his whole story, which is already so defined by struggle and conflict, would have been far more meaningful if he had had a final struggle, this time to prove that he really had changed. 

Unfortunately, the writers chose to take the cliché easy way out, killing off the character instead of giving him a much deeper, more meaningful ending.

If there was one thing - just one thing - I could change about The Rise of Skywalker, it would be that. I would give Ben the chance to properly redeem himself, because he really, truly deserves it.

Moving On: Rose Tico

With the Ben arc out of the way, I can move on to the next biggest issue I had with The Rise of Skywalker - and that's the horrible sidelining of one of my favourite characters from The Last Jedi, Rose Tico.

Now, I get that not everyone liked Rose's character - and that's fine. But there was no reason - none at all - for basically removing Rose, who played quite a significant role in The Last Jedi, from the new movie. Additionally, given all the racist and sexist harassment that Kelly Marie Tran suffered at the hands of malcontent fans, cutting Rose from the film almost seems like caving to those trolls.

And that is not acceptable. If you let a bully have his way, stopping him becomes near impossible. So even if it was just to show the trolls that bullying will not get you what you want, Rose Tico deserved a bigger role.

What bigger role, you may ask? Many people have said, and I grudgingly agree, that there wasn't really space for Rose to go along on the whole wayfinder quest. All right, fine. But sidelining her completely is not the right course of action. If you can't take her along on the main quest, then give her a significant sub-plot, for example joining Lando to call for aid for the Resistance.

Remember, Rose Tico was the person who turned Finn from an ex-stormtrooper more than ready to desert the Resistance into a loyal fighter for the cause he believes in - to such an extent that he was willing to sacrifice his own life for the survival of the Resistance. If there's anyone who could give the galaxy enough hope again to send help to the Resistance, it's Rose Tico.

Oh, and some more Finnrose would have been nice. You don't have to agree with me - I know many of you don't - but you have to admit that Finn and Rose definitely had some sort of a bond forged in The Last Jedi, even if it was just a platonic one. Basically ignoring that like they did in The Rise of Skywalker is just bad writing.

So I'm not saying that Rose needed to be the main star of the show - that would have been unrealistic, after all. But I do think, and I will stand by this opinion no matter what, that Rose deserved a lot better than what she got.

And On That Track: Jannah Was An Unnecessary Character

Don't get me wrong, I love Naomi Ackie, and I appreciate that Star Wars is trying to incorporate a more diverse cast. But despite it all, I just couldn't bring myself to like Jannah's character, or see why she was actually necessary.

See, if you take out Jannah, nothing much changes. Yes, it was nice for Finn to have someone to talk and relate to, but it wasn't necessary. We already know that Finn was a stormtrooper, just like we already know he left it behind him.

Also, Finn already had a female character he had a significant bond to - none other than Rose Tico from my previous rant. Why force in an all-new potential love interest at the last minute when you already have one with far more development? Not only could Rose have conceivably replaced Jannah in pretty much every scene, she also has a lot more development and history with Finn than Jannah does, which would have made their interactions that much more meaningful. 

And as for the attack on Pryde's Destroyer with the Orbaks (and no, I didn't know that's what those cow things were called, either, until I Googled it a few seconds ago) - that was a nice touch, but there's a simple way it could have been much better. Instead of introducing an all-new character and cow things with a name no-one knew unless they looked it up on Wookieepedia, bring back the fathiers from Canto Bight and that little Force-sensitive kid with the broom from The Last Jedi.

At this point, some of you may be wondering why I'm not attacking Zorii Bliss as well - isn't she also a brand-new character with very little real development? The answer to that is yes, she is, but she gives Poe Dameron some much-needed backstory. If you cut Zorii, Poe has no significant backstory, which means that she was actually important to the plot. (Also, Keri Russell is awesome, and has stunning eyes. Enough said.) 

So I'm sorry, Naomi Ackie, but I really wish that Jannah <i>wasn't</i> in The Rise of Skywalker. She's just there for too short to have any real development, and I'd rather use the time I gain from cutting her to focus on Rose and the actual plot.

While I'm Talking About The Plot: What On Earth Happened? Is Star Wars A Video Game, Now?

Ah, yes. Another big issue with The Rise of Skywalker is its rather disappointing lack of actual plot.

I'm sure some of you are frowning quite heavily at me right now, so let me backtrack a little and explain.

Upon first watching, The Rise of Skywalker seems like quite a good movie, really. (Except the ending, of course - but We Do Not Talk About The Ending.) It's only when you re-watch the movie that you realise that there is, in fact, very little really significant plot there.

To put it simply, a large part of the movie is a group of characters going to a Place to find a Thing that will help them find another Thing that will take them to another Place where they will save the world. Does this sound like a video game to anyone?

The thing with this kind of plot is that it works well the first time, when you don't know what's going to happen, and when the lack of plot can be hidden by dramatic explosions and cool fight scenes. Oh, and flying stormtroopers.

This is Star Wars, so there just has to be some explosions, as well as a quest of some kind. I don't deny that. But when said quest and explosions fill the story to such a degree that they become the plot, you're in cinematic trouble.

This is pretty much proven when you re-watch The Rise of Skywalker. Where the heroic quest and explosions and jetpack-sporting stormtroopers had you at the edge of your seat last time, now that you know what's coming, you start to see that very little actually happens in these scenes. Sure, they look cool, but they don't really affect the overall movement of the story in a significant way.

And that's a problem, given that most of the movie consists of scenes like these, or exposition. There are precious few scenes in which two or more characters have meaningful development in a way that will continue to affect them and the plot. This, unfortunately, means that the movie falls flat a bit when you watch it for the second time.

How would I change this?

Well, for starters, I would focus less on the actual hunt for the dagger and the wayfinder and whatever and more on the characters. How do they feel? Why do they feel it? And most importantly, how does this affect what happens to the rest of the characters and the plot?

Also, like I said before, more attention has to be given to a) Ben's redemption and b) an interesting sub-plot for Rose. And you know what? The lightsaber fight scenes could have been a lot cooler, as well.

Some More Complaining About The Plot: This Time, It's Plot Holes

Where to start, where to start. All movies have a plot hole of some kind, it's only natural, but The Rise of Skywalker is simply riddled with them.

Of course, this can be attributed to the lack of plot as explained in the previous rant. Since there is so little time spent actually developing the plot, it just stands to reason that said plot isn't the most watertight.

It's sort of spectacular, though, how quickly the first plot hole pops up. It must be just five minutes into the script - you guessed it, on Exegol.

Not only was the Emperor's resurrection never properly explained, but we also have about a thousand creepy Sith guys who are just suddenly there when needed for plot purposes. Who are they? Where did they come from? How did we not know about them before?

The Rise of Skywalker doesn't even try to answer any of these questions. It just gets glossed over in a classic example of How To Write A Glaring Plot Hole.

And while we're talking about Palpatine, let's take a look at his lackey-in-chief, Allegiant General Pryde, who oh-so-dramatically declares that he serves Palpatine "as I served you in the old wars."

Wait a minute. The old wars? As in the Return of the Jedi wars? Well then why on earth haven't we heard of Pryde before?

Sure, maybe he wasn't a major enough character to show in the original trilogy. But if he was such a faithful servant of Palpatine's, shouldn't he at least have made some kind of cameo in The Last Jedi or The Force Awakens? That would also have been some nice foreshadowing for the Emperor's return. 

Also, when and how did Rey fix Anakin's lightsaber? As I recall, at the end of The Last Jedi, it snapped in half. But when we skip to Rey in The Rise of Skywalker, it's perfectly whole again, with not a hint of explanation on the horizon.

Yes, maybe this isn't the biggest plot hole, but it's annoying. At least just have someone mention in passing "Oh well done Rey, you finished fixing the lightsaber" so it's not quite so out of the blue. 

And there's more. When Rey and Kylo have their big fight on Kef Bir, Rey quite clearly takes Kylo's TIE fighter. Since the Falcon most definitely did not stop by for him, how did Ben get off Kef Bir? 

This is never explained. He just pitches up on Exegol, and immediately starts fighting the Knights of Ren so you forget about wondering how he got there in the first place.

Can I just say the Knights of Ren were a disappointment? I was hoping for a lot more... anything, actually. They did pretty much nothing except look menacing for the entirety of the movie, unless you count getting thoroughly beaten by Ben on Exegol. 

I've probably missed another plot hole or seven, but I think I've had enough for the moment. You can only pull faces for so long, after all. I'm moving on.

  Last Thing: Too Much Fan Service

Picking up from where I left off - bad plot - I'll start by breaking a few hearts and saying that I thought Chewie should have died.

Wait, wait, don't run away screaming "Traitor!" like that! Dead Chewie would have been absolutely heart-breaking, I know, but it would have made for a really good plot point.

Rey thought she killed Chewie, and that quite understandably broke her heart. But then she finds out, oh no, wait, he's actually alive, there was another transport in the desert, ha ha, don't worry, fans. 

While that satisfies fans, looking at it critically, it would have been better to really kill Chewie. Very sad, yes, but better.

Let me explain. If Rey killed Chewie, really killed him, she would have been devastated. Being Rey, she probably would have isolated herself so she wouldn't accidentally hurt anyone else. She would have grieved, and her friends would have had to really work to comfort her and get her to trust herself again. This experience would have left Rey that much sadder and wiser, but stronger because of it.

This can be summed up quite simply: sad moments make the happy moments mean that much more.

But unfortunately for Rey's character development, Chewie is not really dead. The fans might be happy that they didn't lose a beloved character, but what they don't realise is that they lost a significant character progression instead.

And, sadly, this is not the only spot where the movie indulges its fans rather than a deeper plot.

For example, Rey buries Luke and Leia's lightsabers on Tattooine, and we fans get a warm tingly feeling in our stomachs because yay, we've come full circle.

But have we?

Tattooine holds nothing but bad memories for the Skywalker twins - Luke spent his entire life trying to get off the planet, and that homestead holds only bad memories for him. Easy as it is to forget, the last time Luke saw that homestead was when his aunt and uncle had been brutally murdered there. I somehow can't imagine that's where he would want his lightsaber buried - that's the equivalent of burying Harry Potter's wand at Number Four Privet Drive, for crying out loud. 

The same can be said for Leia. Her one experience of Tattooine was the infamous gold bikini scene with Jabba the Hutt - totally the place where she'd want to have her lightsaber, her legacy, buried, hmm?

My conclusion is that the "hopeful and uplifting" Tattooine ending scene is really only that way if you don't think too hard about it. Pure fan service, in other words.

Which is sad, if you consider the ending we could have had. We could have had Rey burying the lightsabers on Naboo, because that's where her grandfather came from, to symbolise that she really was leaving the past behind.

And if you have to be fan service-y, at least do it in the right way. Give Rey and Ben their happy ending, because as George Lucas puts it, having the boy and the girl walk into the sunset hand-in-hand adds ten million to the box office. (And a sunset across Naboo's seas would look very pretty, wouldn't it?)

In Conclusion: TROS Being So Bad Is Actually A Good Thing, Because Now We Get To Fix It The Way We Want

Take a moment to consider that. If The Rise of Skywalker was so bad that we no longer consider it canon, well, that means we can invent our own canon, doesn't it?

This is how I made my peace with The Rise of Skywalker - by accepting that the movie Disney gave us needed some severe changes, and applying them in my head. You won't believe how much better I feel now that I have "my" version of The Rise of Skywalker accepted as canon in my head.

That's my message to you all: if TROS has upset you as much as it did me, don't try to deny it to yourself. Gather a group of good friends around you and have a The Rise of Skywalker fix-it session, and talk it out until you've made the movie into what you want to see.

We are the fans, my friends, and we deserve the movie that we want to see. So get out there and make it for yourselves!

[pass-the-bechdel]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (thirteen of thirteen).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

41.16%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Seven, so just over half. Three of those are 50%+.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-four. Thirteen who appeared in more than one episode, five who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-nine. Eighteen who appeared in more than one episode, seven who appeared in at least half the episodes, and one who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Not nearly as good as you might expect or hope. As with previous seasons, the show’s most impressive content is not the feminist stuff at all, and on the feminist front it feels sometimes as if the show spends more time denouncing different aspects of the feminist movement as ‘the wrong kind of feminism’ than it does declaring and upholding the aspects it does approve. I tend to feel that it spends time talking the talk on women’s issues, but doesn’t often get up to walk the walk (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Easily better than the previous two seasons, despite a deflated ending. It takes a much more focused approach to its storytelling in the beginning of the season, in a manner which briskly becomes refreshingly confronting and leads in to a powerful middle. Unfortunately, it never sustains quality for very long, and overall the show still suffers for being too easily distracted. It’s not infuriating, but it can be frustrating.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Ok, let me explain something about myself first, something I’ve mentioned in other (non-Crazy Ex) posts which have gone live long before this one will, but for anyone who missed it in any of those other places, here it is: I am, right now, pregnant. In fact, I am pregnant with a child conceived non-traditionally with a gay friend of mine, and as such, Darryl’s non-traditional quest for biological parenthood in this season struck a very personal chord (though, unlike Darryl, I used the phone-a-friend option as my first choice, not a fallback. Would recommend, if it’s ever relevant to your life). I bring all of this up because I can categorically declare that there are certain plot threads that you absolutely will NOT have the same reaction to if you don’t have that very personal chord being struck, and even moreso if that chord is relevant to your life right now, rather than being something that you’ve experienced in the past but has since slipped from the forefront of your attention. Thus, when I talked about feeling like the emphasis was in all the wrong places for Darryl’s part of the narrative, and expressed irritation with Heather’s pregnancy and birth? I sure ain’t mad about it for no reason. I am extremely, extremely aware of what those processes are actually like right the heck now.

I’m not going to linger on all the details, but I am particularly annoyed at the writers for dropping the ball on the pregnancy/birth part, specifically because it’s something which is so often badly dramatised in tv and film already, and the writers not only know that, they openly reference it as if they’re somehow doing better. The same way that medical professionals sometimes find it too frustrating to watch hospital dramas because of all their inaccuracies, or someone in law enforcement might cringe their way through all the egregious breaches in procedure in a cop show, there’s always a significant risk that anything depicted in fiction will make you want to tear your hair out over the way the plot warps or disregards reality that is pertinent to your life, either through a lack of proper research or understanding of the subject matter, or a conscious choice to prioritise desired storytelling beats/developments over actual logic and realism. Suffice to say there are a LOT of concessions Crazy Ex-Girlfriend asked me to make to their storytelling with this little subplot, some of which most people who have never been pregnant wouldn’t notice, and yes, some of which I would probably dismiss if I were not in the midst of the reality right now. I’m someone who has been present at actual births before and has been raised with an above-average understanding of what’s involved, so I’m used to gritting my teeth and hoping to just not be too annoyed by the way pregnancy and birth is typically depicted on screen. The fact that I am currently immersed in the reality of preparing to give birth makes me less forgiving of fictional contrivances, yes, but in the case of this show’s approach, it’s also more than that: it’s the fact that this show actively promotes itself as a feminist text. And if you’re gonna do that, and criticise the way other things (”written by men!”) depict labour, but then you also choose not to include any education/empowerment of your pregnant character, rattle off a variety of (uneducated, disempowered) cliches anyway, and then handwave it all with ‘nevermind, she just got an epidural!’ as if that ‘solves’ the difficulties of birth (and post-birth recovery, for that matter), frankly that’s just...a really unimpressive failure of feminist storytelling. Congratulations, you neglected the subject completely, at the same time as actively claiming your intent to do better than all that written-by-men schlock out there! What a tiresome charade this turned out to be.

Setting that aside though (difficult for me, as I am...very preoccupied with it), there was actually a good lot of things to like about this season, even if I do still feel that I ultimately have more criticisms than I do praise. Having Rebecca actually reach crisis point in the form of a suicide attempt, and consequently getting a diagnosis for her mental disorder and finally being able to move forward in learning to live a balanced life with BPD? Frankly, it’s not a move that I anticipated, and if you’d asked me where I thought Rebecca’s mental health plot was heading, I probably would have just shrugged it off as an unfocused thread where the ultimate goal was just ‘figure out how to be happy on your own terms instead of defining happiness through someone else’ (which is solid advice, but generalised advice, not something that would require the show to commit to a genuine mental illness). Acknowledging that Rebecca’s behaviour comes from a more distinct source than just the nebulous idea of being ‘crazy’ is a vitally important development, and it ushered in some of the best storytelling the show has offered thus far, at least when the plot maintained steady focus and made an effort to be responsible and mature in its exploration of the issue. As ever, there were still times when the show used Rebecca’s mental state for comic relief in a manner which made me uncomfortable, and times when I couldn’t interpret the intentions of the narrative - I have come to the conclusion that this show and I are on completely different wavelengths, which makes us a bad match, regardless of any elements which I do appreciate. 

On the subject of things I appreciate, I’m going to discuss the true character highlight of the show, someone I wanted to talk about after last season, not realising that if I held off until this review instead, he was gonna wind up so terribly underused in the meantime that it’s almost weird that he’s still technically part of the main cast at this point: Josh Chan. Josh Chan is...kinda the most believable part of this show, both in the bumbling good-natured balance of the character himself, and in other character’s feelings about him. Being able to buy the idea that someone would give up their whole life as they knew it to chase after this guy is kinda important to selling the concept of the show from the outset, and honestly, Josh Chan is the only time I’ve ever seen a central male love interest for whom the hype seemed to make sense. Is he perfect? Not by a long shot, but that’s fine because ‘perfection’ is as conditional as it is unattainable. The problem with male love interests, often, is that they’re written by heterosexual men who treat the character as some kind of masculine wish-fulfillment, a combination of ‘guy I wish I could be’ and ‘guy I think women should want (me)’. Josh Chan is a great example of a love interest written by women for women: he displays positive masculine-coded traits (protective, physically capable), while rejecting negative, toxic-masculine elements (aggression, possessiveness), and he embraces key ‘feminine’ traits (non-threatening, kind, soft, emotionally expressive, family-oriented), while his flaws are unobtrusive and potentially even endearing (the main one is that he’s quite stupid, which is something a lot of straight women will happily admit to liking (at least in theory), and other traits such as Josh’s childish streak can be a source of joy under some circumstances, as well as being something Josh mostly keeps a hold on so that it doesn’t become a burden to his partners). Also, it would be remiss of me to neglect to mention how refreshing and meaningful it is to have an Asian male love interest. I really enjoy not being bored to death by Josh Chan, and I am annoyed at how little of him we got this season while we wasted time with that generic slice of white bread, Nathaniel. Bring back the Chan plots, season four. Do it for me.

[merryfortune]

Heaven Is Not A Place On Earth: Outline

This is a fic I’m never going to write but I do have it outlined to 89% completion, I figured that I would share it so interested parties could have a glimpse into what could have been~

my outline is a list which contains 100+ items so be careful when you open up the post. also, warnings for adultery, murder & character deaths

1.      Mieru divines the blessed army to lead against the Academia Invasion but also Zarc’s Scourge

2.      Reiji takes Reira from their room; Mieru muses on how its strange that the Queen wanted another child in the wake of Ray’s death

3.      The three of them are then joined by Tsukikage who brandishes his teleportation ARM

4.      The four arrive at a safe place for Reiji to conduct the Monban Pierrot ritual

5.      Whilst that is happening, Mieru passes the time by doing some fortune telling in order to divine what kind of person(s) the Legendary Hero is going to be; she has some light-hearted moments imagining a musclebound hero, a charming hero, but also anxieties about a hero being malevolent rather than beneficial to the army

6.      Yuya and Yuzu are summoned

7.      Mieru is Shaken™ because she’s had dreams about Yuya and done seances, trying to contact him and realises that Yuya is her soul mate

8.      Yuya talks about how his father went missing as a child and how his father would talk to him about Marchen before he went missing; Yuzu verifies

9.      Reiji has his suspicions especially since Yuya looks very similar to a travelling magician Reiji met once as a child prior to his father’s court being dissolved and his father escaping because of war crimes

10.  Their army grows from four to six and Reiji muses about how that means there are four members left to find

11. Reiji charts a course for them when Tsukikage receives a message from his brother talking about raids happening against them; he thinks it might be related to Zarc’s Scourge

12.  (spoilers, it’s not: its Shun & Yuto)

13.  Reiji hosts a meeting with the vassals and speak with victims of the scourge; he tells Mieru to look after their “guests” plus Reira

14.  Yuya and Yuzu are treated to some assimilation in the city to help them less stand out and also equip them with the necessary means to fight in this world given that they were summoned to be soldiers

15.  Yuzu gets separated from the group; she encounters Yuto

16.  Yuya gets separated from the group; he encounters Sora

17.  Shun picks a fight with Reiji when he separates from the group

18.  They get into a fight and Reiji remembers Mieru’s prophecy regarding the hunting bird and the dove

19.  Yuzu, Yuya, and Sora all meet up

20.  Mieru is panicking but eventually regroups with the others; Sora disappears afterwards and makes Suspicious Comments about Yuzu and Yuya being so friendly with a witch

21.  Yuya gets defensive and asks why Sora would say such cruel things about the crown princess of Keldea

22.  Sora goes :0 and then >:3 in reaction to that and then excuses himself

23.  Mieru has a reaction to that probably

24.  They rejoin with Reiji again who announces that they have a bird to hunt for sport

25.  Reiji vs Shun PART TWO, HELL YEAH

26.  Reiji wins and the peanut gallery – namely Yuya and Yuzu – are gobsmacked by how powerful those little trinkets are

27.  Shun is thoroughly defanged by the match and swears his allegiances because he knows now that Reiji is unaffiliated with Academia

28.  Shun joins the Lancers

29.  Reiji decides that their next course of action will be to recruit “the nobleman” but he has no idea who that is, but he has a sneaking suspicion that it’s the one nobleman that he can’t stand because Fates is Hashtag Like That

30.  So, he organises a meeting with said nobleman

31.  And his suspicions are proven correct

32.  Some sort of Sawatari side quest begins

33.  Yuya and Yuzu get a moment to shine/use their ARMs and it turns out that shit is way harder than the pros make it look

34.  Some sort of Sawatari side quest ends

35.  Army grows to eight: leaving only the spy, the defector, and the strongman

36.  Gongenzaka side quest begins

37.  Tsukikage and Mieru get the chance to have a Big Damn Heroes Moment inside of it, probably

38.  Yuto also probably reappears at some point to go “Shun, what the fuck?” and “oh, hi Yuzu, you look really pretty today”

39.  Gongenzaka side quest ends

40.  He, Yuzu, and Yuya get along really well

41.  Their movement begins to attract the attention of Academia

42.  Thus introducing Serena who wants to prove her worth but everyone’s like “oh kitten, not now, dearest” and she resents that

43.  Serena attempts to take the head of Prince Reiji

44.  She is inadvertently intervened by Yuzu who just wants some hash tag girl time with a girl she doesn’t loathe since Mieru is really not that subtle about her crush on Yuya

45.  Serena learns that Academia is… Not Good

46.  They split up??? IDK maybe Shun chases her off or something only to go “wait, shit, was that Ruri??”

47.  Serena’s bodyguard (what’s his face) tries to find her and bring her back

48.  Serena fends him off for a while but fails

49.  But luckily, it’s Reiji’s turn (again) for a Bid Damn Heroes moment and Serena is like “oh god, oh fuck, he’s kind of hot for a skinny prick”

50.  Reiji then successfully recruits Serena

51.  And also escalates Academia into progressing the war games

52.  Whilst that’s happening, Yuya is having an identity crisis because of Yuto

53.  And then Yugo shows up and that identity crisis doubles

54.  Zarc’s Scourge begins to… be a thing

55.  Anyway, Sora sorts them out and then flees when the rest of the Lancers who are capable of fighting turn up

56.  The following day people have no idea what’s going on

57.  And to make matters worse, Reiji receives a formal invite to the War Games

58.  The date has been chosen, and he’s looking at his army and they’re all dumbasses, so he has Mieru prepare a training trip for them

59.  Implied training montage

60.  And that brings us to the date of the War Games, so they head to the location of the War Games in the Citadol or whatever

61.  Introducing Melissa Claire to the scene; she’s going to be our host for the War Games

62.  They arrive and Reiji is lowkey stressed because they’re missing a member and they have no idea what’s going on

63.  But oh hey look, Dennis is here.

64.  Flashback establishing Dennis’ relationship with Reiji and Mieru as the royal court jester of Keldea

65.  Dennis “offers” to be the extra set of hands Reiji needs and Reiji is highkey suspicious, but you know what? Adult life is already so goddamn weird, this may as well happen

66.  Mieru has a dumbass moment here probably regarding Dennis

67.  Anyway, there’s a trumpet sequence and out come Sora, bouncing and happy, eating candy, saying hello to his dear friends Yuya and Yuzu but uh oh…

68.  He’s revealed to be a part of Academia’s entourage

69.  The Professor, The Tyler Sisters, Yuri, Edo, [name], a Brainwashed Rin and Ruri also appear

70.  Melissa begins to explain how the War Games will work

 The War Games will proceed until one side has lost more than half their players

 Losing players are killed or treated as though they have been killed

At some point, every member of the team has to have been on the field in the duel

 If a Captain (so Reiji or the Professor) loses then the War Games are over, no matter how premature but there is a ban on either of them entering the fray until at least day four.

A dice will decide which players fight and when

Environments for the duels are chosen “at random”

71.  And then she has a light bulb moment when she notices something remiss regarding Academia. Melissa points out that Academia technically doesn’t have players for the War Game

72.  The Professor smirks and says “They’re here, give them a moment”

73.  Dennis has a shifty moment

74.  Melissa declares the War Games feast open and that the matches will begin tomorrow

75.  Round 1: Sawatari vs Edo

76.  Sawatari astounds everyone and manages to win the match

77.  Round 2: Shun vs Sora

78.  Lancers win

79.  Round 3: Mieru & Dennis vs Yuri & Sora

80.  Dennis risks revealing himself to be the spy and aides Yuri and Sora by throwing the match

81.  Mieru loses and Reiji is like “oh shit, maybe I do have feelings for my fiancé, even though I have been technically cheating on her”

82.  Additionally, Reiji realises that “the spy” from Mieru’s prophecy is not a spy working for him, like he had hoped/otherwise thought

83.  Round 4: Shun and Tsukikage vs The Tyler Sisters

84.  Lancers win and the Tyler Sisters are severely punished for it

85.  Leo kills them in cold blood in front of everyone and it finally sinks in for Yuya and Yuzu that Marchen isn’t as fluffy as they thought it was

86.  Round 6: Gongenzaka vs Dennis

87.  Lancers win and Dennis, at least temporarily, kills himself off-screen but Gongenzaka finds his suicide note or equivalent

88.  Round 7: Serena vs [her old bodyguard]

89.  Round 8: Yuya & Yuzu vs Rin & Ruri

90.  Lancers win and manage to break the spell Rin & Ruri were under

91.  Shun and Ruri have a heartfelt reunion

92.  Reiji steps in before anything can happen to Rin, so she finds asylum with the lancers

93.  Rin is amnesiac now??? Maybe???

94.  Final Round: Reiji & Yuya vs The Professor & Yuri

95.  Lancers win and Reiji goes to murder Leo and Yuya is like “bitch what the fuck, you can’t kill him, he’s your father”

96.  And Reiji’s like “well I have to; he broke one of the most important laws of Keldea

97.  Reiji proceeds to kill Leo in front of Yuya

98.  Yuya goes berserk

99.  Reiji has an “oh shit” moment

100.                      Yuri, who was barely standing, also goes berserk

101.                      Reiji realises there is an unexpected element in his father’s plan: it wasn’t just total domination of Keldea and Marchen, there was something else which even Reiji didn’t know about and it’s too late now to ask him what his goal is because he’s a corpse

102.                      Yuzu manages to calm Yuya

103.                      Serena manages to calm Yuri

104.                      The War Games are over, but Reiji still needs to quell Zarc’s scourge, especially since something is Wrong

105.                      Rin tells him about Yugo and Reiji begins to wonder

106.                      Four boys; four girls: Zarc and Ray – is it all connected? Can it all be connected?

107.                      He and Mieru have a deep and meaningful on the topic

108.                      Yugo returns to plot somehow???

109.                      Stuff happens???

110.                      Final confrontation with Yu-Boys vs Yu-Girls

111.                      Ray resurrects via Reira somehow

112.                      Zarc is defeated

113.                      Relationships are somehow resolved

114.                      Happily ever after :)