#which is a dangerous game for me to play btw......... i may be forced to work while i'm in complete shambles

[txmxkis]

less than 7 hours .......

[yourheart-inmyhands]

haha im back from the dead to be annoying >:)

Btw zhongli pantalone and childe you know the one where you made her like a child hissing at them. What if they suddenly became like a calm and kind darling after one of the biggest child screaming last night and like they also stop fighting or anything but will be Affectionate if you treat them kindly and won’t force them >;)

ah this is such a good idea! i apologize that it took me so long to get to it but i hope you like it :D

Warning: this post contains yandere-themes, including mentions of stockholm syndrome, mentions of drugging, mentions of mind breaking, being held against will, being deprived of food, being deprived of sunlight, delusional behaviors, and other potential topics. Please Read At Your Own Risk!

Yandere!Zhongli would be skeptical, while he likes the idea that you finally came around, he knows it’s not true. He’d continue to keep you trapped in one room for a while, testing the limits of your sudden kindness and docility. If you should continue to act well, he may begin to step back a bit, allowing you to be in a less secure room, one with windows, perhaps even a real light.

It was startling at first, to suddenly find you so calm and pliant. Zhongli had almost believed you’d finally been broken mentally, a sad side effect he had considered from the beginning due to your aggression towards him. He was pleasantly surprised to find you were simply docile now, no mental break or severe lapse in brain capacity. Was it accepting your situation? Stockholm syndrome perhaps? Or were you just playing along in hopes of earning some freedom? Zhongli tests the boundaries for the next few days. Seeing how close you’ll allow him, how much he can come in contact with you before you lash out, all the little affectionate things he’d been dying to do that your previous behavior had prevented. If you should continued to behave, he would reward you with a new room. This room had real windows, the glass is reinforced and there are many fine nails sealing it shut, but it’s something.

Yandere!Pantalone would be wary. He thinks it’s a ruse to get him to lighten up on you, but he doesn’t. The chains bound to your ankles that lock you in the room, limiting your range of movement and keeping you tied down remain in place. The guards stay outside your door and the windows remain sealed shut. If you continue to behave well, he’ll reward you with some small gifts that you can enjoy but nothing more. It takes a long while to earn his trust, it’s something you must really work for.

The first few days of your sudden shift in behavior are handled exactly how they were before. Pantalone would leave you alone for the day, coming to visit only at your feeding time, which was dinner time for the rest. The only difference he made was that he spoon-fed you, typically he’d set your tray at the foot of your bed and set up a small table and chair for himself just outside your reach. He liked the calmer attitude you had, it made the polite discussion over dinner more enjoyable now that he actually received responses. It took a few weeks of this polite behavior for him to start bringing you better gifts. Things like puzzles, books, and other things you hadn’t previously been allowed due to the danger factor of them. From there he slowly starts to visit you more, coming to your room during breakfast and dinner, and eventually he’s there for all three meals. He’s a very patient man, he spent his life building himself to be the legacy he is now, he has no problem waiting out this little game of yours. Doesn’t mean he won’t enjoy it while it lasts though.

Yandere!Childe would be the most accepting of this. He’d assume you’d just finally accepted your situation, as escape was inevitable with him looming over your every move. He’d take you on walks around the palace now, sit closer to you when you two would eat together, cuddle with you at night, anything you’d finally allow him to do and he’d do it. He is so devoted to you and your happiness that he’s over the moon now that you’ve accepted him, accepted that you two must be together.

Waking up beside you had never felt better, now that you could actually cuddle him back. Before when he’d have to use other methods of keeping you calm, it just wasn’t ever right, but now, now it was perfect. Childe liked this new you, the you that smiled at him when he said a stupid joke, the you that let him mess with your hair in the morning, styling it how he thought best for the day. The you that let him take you one walks around the palace, your arm linked in his as he told you about his grand adventures. He hoped it was just you finally realizing that you love him too, and that you were destined to be together that made you like this. Part of him gnaws in the back of his mind, worrying that he had messed with your head too much and that you’d developed stockholm syndrome, but he doesn’t think that’s so bad. After all, you finally loved him back, why did it matter how you’d come to that conclusion.

[saberamane]

Ngl, when I saw your tagged post about the Nergigante, I immediately had war flashbacks of me and my friend playing MonHun. Nergigante’s a beast (haha).

Nergigante is actually a good monster to turn Desmond into because it’s an elder dragon which means it’s one of the most dangerous monster in any MonHun game but it has a certain quirk to it:

It keeps fighting even if it means hurting itself.

Not to mention, it’s an elder dragon without any elemental abilities, relying heavily on brute force and it’s theorized (or maybe this is already confirmed? Not sure) that Nergigante’s null elemental status and its penchant for hunting fellow elder dragons shows that it is meant to keep the balance of the world by keeping the other elder dragons in check which would… sorta tie in with Desmond’s ‘special situation’ in terms of AC lore (especially now that he’s the Reader).

The spikes on Nergigante’s body can also be used as projectile which would make short work of Cesare’s Papal Army. Although, it should be noted that due to its large body, it’s more on the destructive side so if you want him to stop the colonizers from attacking Ratonhnhaké:ton’s tribe, it would be better for him to strike them before they reach the village, otherwise, the village would be caught in the battle.

As for saving Sef and Malik and Abbas’ coup, that would even be harder because Masyaf is a small space when compared to the normal Nergigante size. Although, at that point, I’m sure Desmond wouldn’t care about destroying the fortress if it means he can save Sef and Malik.

Another thing to note is that the Nergigante’s spikes regenerate (freaking too fast in my opinion) so… Altaïr can definitely use it to craft some things. (Nergigante-based armor and weapons usually rank high as well)

Btw, if you want Desmond to have a more ethereal flaming look, may I suggest a gold/white version of Xeno'jiiva?

While Xeno'jiiva does not have Nergigante’s devastating brute force, it does have a sense of mystery surrounding it, which would fit Desmond well, and is a fire elemental elder dragon (. It’s final form Safi'jiiva loses the ethereal look but is deadlier as well.

Although, if you want a monster with a connection with the sun, our best bet is Teostra.

Or the deadlier variant, the Risen Teostra

*******************************************************************************************

Additions by SaberAmane:

Ok, so...I have Monster Hunter World for ps4, and I’ve had it for literal months now, and just havn’t gotten time to play it. But all the monsters and such I’ve seen from the game look awesome and is the main reason I got it to play.

Now for Nergigante, his size would cause issue for doing anything in towns, or dense forests, but I love the fact that Altair could use the spikes from his body to make weapons and armor, and it wouldn’t hurt Desmond at all since they detach organically.

Xeno’jiiva looks even cooler, and yes a white/gold variation would be stunning! Also I love the ‘false eyes’ look that travel up the horns, it’s something a lot of animals do to protect themselves (there’s a moth/butterfly that literally has wings that look like a snakes head) but also it’s just a cool look, and it seems like they might be able to glow as well? That would just make him all the more menacing.

But I have to say, for my love of dragons and related creatures, Teostra would have to be my favorite choice. It seems to be a type of Manticore, which is just awesome and a fantasy creature that doesn't often get used because Dragons are seen as being ‘cooler’ and often more menacing.

My argument would be, how is a lion/dragon hybrid, which is usually venomous/poisonous, and can fit into the same space a human would go to hide, not just as cool and deadly??

The Risen Teostra looks more manticore than the regular, having a more lion-like face, but I do like the giant tusks the regular one has. And it’s probably the rendering or angle or something, but the regular Teostra seems to have bigger, more ‘ornate’ horns??

So...I would have to say Teostra would be my pick. It’s still deadly, looks cool, can fly to get places quickly, but also... you can’t hide in a building/cave to get away from it because it’s too big to fit. It can pretty much go where ever a person can. The only thing i’d change is to give it the scorpion tail manticore’s typically have so he could have that poison ability to both use himself on enemies, but to also aid the Assassin’s.

[fireemblems24]

Cindered Shadows Ch 4 & 5

Alright! Spoilers below for Cindered Shadows C4

BATTLE

For those of you wondering, yes, I'm still playing Warriors too, I just wanted to switch it up for the night.

Man, feels good playing some classic Fire Emblem.

So they're basically telling me, don't fight the thing. Which makes me want to fight the thing. But I only have 10 turns, so no messing around this time.

Not gonna lie, that was pretty fun. I feel like this was a pretty well-designed map. There was enough pressure to force me to get moving and enough enemy obstacles to make it challenging, but without making it impossible. Same with the turn count.

Dimitri MVP. Deserved. Him or Ashe or Yuri honestly. Though special mentions to Hapi and Constance for making short work of all the armored knights.

I just lost 30 smithing stones because my storehouse was full. I'm literally crying. Not really but ahhhhh. why.

STORY

More love for how goofy Byleth's answers can be here. I'm picking "I was pretty sure we were going to die." It's just hysterical picturing this "Ashen Demon," but in reality he's just constantly sure they're all about to die.

And no matter how many times I pick that no one believes me 😭

Aelfric's been kidnapped. That's the guy with the longish brown hair, right?

I like Yuri insisting they tell the church about it. Seems more sensible.

This letter lying around conveniently is a bit sus. Feels like a trap.

It would be super funny if Edelgard was the rat and she wanted the chalice for her conquest. I know that's not the case, but imagine.

CAMP

I'm still not used to Yuri's voice. It's so much deeper than he looks like it would be.

Ohhhhh, wait, wait, wait. Hapi says she was abducted once for someone's "twisted" experiments. Gotta be TWSITD, right? And she specifically says "her," so Cornelia likely over Kyrona. Because in Hopes she was nervous being in the Kingdom, worried she'd run into a "her." Must be Cornelia.

Mysterious Woman acting pretty sus.

Honestly, all this "Aelfric's sooooo perfect!" makes me a bit suspicious of him. The game is just pushing him as this totally pure dude a bit too hard, and there's got to be more to him then "saint."

Oh, hey, look, Claude and Dimitri hanging out again.

STORY

Alois is here now?? Finally someone found out what's going on? Because I'm sure by now Dedue and Hubert are getting ulcers.

Yuri we don't disrespect Alois in this house. You take that back.

Byleth can pick, "I don't know this man." 🤣😂

Overall, I feel like this game is doing a good job making Hilda and Linhardt feel relevant to the story, but everyone else feels tacked on.

So if we're visiting Rhea now, does that mean everyone came back up? I'm gonna call BS if Hubert and Dedue just let Edelgard and Dimitri go to this dangerous area without them.

Byleth is so uber special he unlocked the Chalice by himself! It's this kinda stuff that I don't like about Byleth.

Rhea be like, "Here, take some experienced knights to help unkidnap your beloved Aelfric and protect all the heirs to the existing kingdoms in Fodlan, who will for some reason participate in this too." Everyone, "Nah, let's do this ourselves! Who needs experienced knights and extra manpower to save someone we care about! Let's put all of Fodlan's future leaders at risk too while we're at it!" Rhea "Sounds good!" Like I know this is DLC, but there's only so much disbelief I'm willing to suspend.

And now Balthus is like, "Oh, you may be our great friend and trusted leader and we're in the middle of a crisis, but btw, how did you end up here?" Like, I know they want to explain Yuri's backstory . . . but, like, why didn't a Deer, Eagle, or Lion ask that? The writers could've tried a bit harder.

See, this is what I mean. Linhardt cuts in because his crest knowledge is important to the storyline, and the three lords also trail in because . . . they're the lords. Like, don't get me wrong, I love some more Dimitri content, but I feel there's a ton of missed opportunity here with Dimitri having a chalice around that could bring back the dead, new lore for Claude to learn, and new dirt that could get dug up on the church for Edelgard, but like, there's nothing.

So all 4 of the crests needed to unlock the chalice are in the wolves, hummm, this isn't suspicious - at all. Nope.

Constance being like, "oh, mine's a secret even from the Empire." . . . right in front of Edelgard. Not a secret anymore. See, this scene makes more sense WITHOUT Edelgard, who added nothing of substance and makes it more awkward being there.

Yuri is like, "no, this isn't suspicious at all." Actually, yes, yes it is. Dimitri's spot on saying they could've just stolen the chalice if that's all they wanted. There's more going on and Yuri's either unintelligent (or writing forced unintelligence) or deflecting because he doesn't want them to guess.

MAP

I have to run around and talk to everyone again 😭😭 I thought I'd get a level to play 😭😭 But it makes sense because we had back-to-back levels, and honestly, not mad about it because that's more tiny dialogue bits for characters I mostly like.

OMG, all the Ashen Wolves are standing around together and Hilda's just chillin there because, lamo.

Ohhhhh, Constance, asking if he's an ally or enemy??? She's the smart one, y'all, realizing how sus this all is.

WTF Linhardt 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 "It's like casting a line and thinking you've landed the Big One . . . but then you reel it in, and it's Seteth." 🤣😂🤣😂 Confirmed he gets the best lines. Has someone drawn fanart of Linhardt fishing Seteth out of the water?

Ashe asking good questions too, proud of my boy.

This rouge's like, "why hasn't the church done more to help?" Like, bitch, Rhea offered. Go ask the Ashen Wolves why they said no.

Both Claude and Dimitri are like, "there's something weird going on." Props to them. Don't blame Edelgard for being more hung up on Constance's reveals.

STORY

There's a connection between Byleth and Yuri? Did I totally miss that or did it come out of nowhere?

LAMO, I love Byleth's answers for this. Getting flustered about the "date," telling Yuri his smile doesn't reach his eyes (poor Claude isn't unique anymore), or just "not now." IDK which to pick, I think "not now" is funniest and lines up the most with what I've picked so far for Byleth.

Yuri's like, "meet me at midnight, alone." Either dude is thirsty or he should've added "unarmed and possibly drunk or drugged." I wouldn't trust Yuri father than I could throw him. And Yuri's not big, but I'm not even 5 foot so . . .

Rhea's letting it all play out in case Sothis wakes up?

Ashe's too precious, worried about Constance wanting to turn herself in to save Aelfric.

Edelgard, "you make Hubert look like a spring chicken." She just killed Balthus and Hubert in one sentence. I disagree, though, that whole "I've never even seen sunlight" look makes Hubert look older.

OMG METODY!!! Long time no see. I wonder what Edelgard thinks. Not gonna lie, he's not unattractive if you're into unhinged people.

Aelfric is so sus, "just flee! my flock!" Like, it's too much.

The sigh thing is so weird. Like, who wrote that?

The bird flew off with Balthus, but they're like, whateves, we got Aelfric 🤣😂 🤣😂

I'm going to lie, I think I just have to turn my brain off regarding the writing around some of this.

MAP

AELFRIC IS PLAYABLE??? That's a surprise.

GOD, I want to kill Yuri. Why the hell is he asking for more demonic beasts. Like, he literally spawned them in the middle of my units and nowhere near the enemy in some areas.

Man, I wish Edelgard was closer to Metodey and see if she had unique dialogue with him. But she's all the way over in the other corner.

Balthus MVP. Honestly, deserved. Dude was dropped in a corner by himself and never broke a sweat. I was worried at first, but he never even really got hit.

STORY

Wait, what just happened?

I knew it. I knew Yuri was sus. I'm sure he'll either redeem himself or is some kind of double-agent or something because he's playable, but yeah between diverting everyone from talking about everything and never telling his friends jack shit. . . like I said, wouldn't trust him for a second.

Which is funny, because they tried that with Claude, and I'd trust Claude a fair amount at least, but with Yuri they got that "smile doesn't reach his eyes" way more convincing.

And Aelfric was always suspicious as hell.

Byleth has this "I expected nothing and I'm still disappointed" face lamo.

Dimitri's worried about Byleth 😭😭, like y'all, Dimileth is a good ship and anyone who says otherwise can eat shit.

Edelgard is like, you must be wounded. Byleth's like, no. What was the point of that dialogue?

Oh, so Edelgard actually got a line. Dimitri had the worried line, Claude had the figuring out line, so Edelgard needed . . . something.

RHEA! She figured it out. #Girlboss

I still need a fanfic where Dimitri struggles with using the chalice to bring back all his dead . . . everything. Ohhh, make it post-TS too when he thinks Dedue is dead for max pain.

Dimitri's so pissed off that the wolves are in danger.

So what does Rhea mean it can "breathe a spirit into a body" but can't bring back the departed? Like a body swap sort of thing? I get how that works for her plans for Sothis to come back, but how would it work elsewhere? And no, not at all wanting to know because fanfic. /s

So who is Aelfric trying to bring back to life? Not Sothis.

Rhea's like, "it's a serene, peaceful area," and Byleth can be like "the kitchen" channeling his inner Raphael or Ingrid, I see. I'm soooo picking that one.

LAMO, Dimitri calling me out "I'd hardly call the dining hall peaceful. Are you sure you're not just hungry?" 🤣😂 🤣😂

Right so the knights have to attack the bandits so that way theres an actual excuse for why they're not around for the next battle other than the Ashen Wolves being like "leave it to us!"

Dimitri's like "I'm sure Yuri has his reasons." Boy knows he's a playable character in the main game and spinoffs so he must be a good guy.

XXX

[mistleaneous-chaos]

Elden Ring thoughts because I’ve been watching Woolie play it and thoughts keep poppin’ up somethin’ fierce

It’s fucked up of Castle Sol to have eclipse imagery after how much Dark Souls 3 made me worry so much about the game ending on a similar note

At the same time though if there is a connection between Souls and ER like people theorize I really fucking hope Elden Ring is in the FFAAAAAARR future because I honestly cannot handle it being a prequel because I cannot emotionally handle everything just leading to the literal wasteland that is the Dark Souls 3 DLC

Also btw, nobody’s been talking about it but the Elden Beast arena is literally surrounded by Erdtrees so that really makes me think that Erdtrees are possibly corrupted Archtrees from Dark Souls, like you fight it in a lake with a bunch of trees around so like, it’s not impossible?

Also it’d make sense considering the fact that after everything in the Souls Games, Ash Lake still fuckin’ exists?? Like it never disappeared or got destroyed or anything it just kept existing because nobody knew it even existed besides the Chosen Undead and uh, I don’t know if they’re still around, personally. And also it’d be fitting for the main driving force of the plot to have taken over the dregs of what came before and just infecting it. It’d also go with the theme of creatures taking refuge in that which came before like the claymen infesting the old cities, the creatures taking refuge in the Haligtree, etc

Man Albinaurics have it rough. They either wander Liurnia and can’t talk, get killed for existing in their village if they’re first generation, try to find their way to a land that they don’t even know if it exists for certain, or live in a Dynasty based entirely off of blood-worship… which ironically is the only one where they’re not actively in danger. Like it’s weird how the Albinaurics in the Mohgwyn dynasty are just, chilling??? Like it is a really dangerous place and there’s probably some dead ones or smth I missed but like, it seems chill? So yeah points for Mohg for doing more for the Omen and Albinaurics than Morgott did? Still pretty fucked up for that Miquella stuff though.

Speaking of, it actually does kind of make sense for Mohg to feel a sort of kinship with Miquella. Not only did they both have the same mother, they both tried to create new sorts of orders outside of the Golden Order, Mohg with his dynasty and Miquella with his Haligtree. Along with that is their use of blood in pursuit of their goals, specifically their own. Miquella uses his blood to try and spur the Haligtree to grow, and Mohg embraced his own blood in order to rise above the Order, so it’s not improbable for Mohg to have heard that and decided that Miquella could be useful

Also keep in mind Mohg is still definitely a fuck and I don’t wanna excuse ANY of the shit he did

I think a lot of people disregard the fact that like, a majority of the Runebearers are insane. Like not just Radahn, but like it’s made clear that almost, if not all of them were driven insane by the Great Runes and tainted by them according to Enia, and if I had to guess it’d be due to how long they’ve had them. Hell the only person who may be ok is Malenia and that’s just because she’s been in a coma for fucking forever. And keep in mind that likely includes Miquella, because when bringing up missing demigods Gideon says Ranni doesn’t matter because she discarded her great rune, implying Miquella does, so he’s probably a bit insane too. But overall it adds more depth to the demigods’ actions like Godrick possibly having had those ambitions before but them being enflamed by the great rune driving him mad, Morgott’s self-hatred and fixation on the erdtree maybe being stronger than it was because of the Rune, etc.

[keichanz]

Mistake

kay so i really don't care if some of this doesn't make sense because this is the first thing i've written in a while that i don't absolutely hate. well this version at least. ending up scraping the first draft because it just seemed wrong and went in a different direction. im glad i did cause im happy with it.

anyway i realize that this may not get much feedback because i took a different approach to it, aka the entire pov is from an OC but i can't bring myself to care too much because i wrote this purely for myself. got inspired, started writing, and i actually liked the content i was writing. end of.

btw the oc doesn't refer to inuyasha as a half-demon because he's unaware he is one and i was too lazy to delve into those waters anyhow.

also for the sake of this oneshot pls dont look too closely at the ranks of diplomat and ambassador. i was too lazy to put much research regarding positions of power so just...go with it.

inspired by @stillunderyourbed​'s art that can be found here.

It was…quaint. Smaller than what he'd expected. The housing structures looked subpar, there didn't appear to be any wooden walkways, and he could detect the distinct odor or fish in the air with hints of manure. There even seemed to be a perpetual dust cloud hovering at about waist high, thickening from the numerous carts, wagons, horses, and villagers kicking up dirt as they went about their daily lives. Already he felt like there was a layer of dust caked on the inside of his lungs and he wasn't even inside yet.

All in all, it was your typical countryside village, home to simple folk that made a living off of fishing, farming, and trade. The diplomat sneered in disgust. For being the rumored home of the creature strong enough to destroy the despicable Naraku, the village was…less than impressive. And to say that he was underwhelmed would be a vast understatement.

Shifting atop his mount, a chestnut gelding that had been his faithful companion for the last four years, Takeji frowned as he surveyed the sight before him. It was early afternoon, so men were out working in the fields, women were chatting amongst themselves as they laundered clothing at the river, and children were running about, playing and laughing while dogs barked at their heels. He could see the great red torii gate and the stone staircase that led to the shrine and he could hardly refrain from rolling his eyes.

The village was obviously poor, possibly even teetering on the edge of poverty, and instead of feeding themselves for a good long while, they decided to construct that monstrosity. He would never understand the minds of simple common folk. Daft. All of them.

Barely keeping himself from scowling, Takeji reluctantly climbed off his mount and forced himself to move forward into the pathetic excuse for a village. Already he knew he would have to burn his expensive attire; there would be no getting the dust and stench out of it after his ghastly visit. A visit he had not wanted to make, but being a highly revered and prestigious diplomat, it was his duty to travel to far off lands in hopes of establishing a profitable relationship that would ultimately benefit his homeland.

Although, looking around and fighting against the urge to retch at both the nauseating stench and the mere sight of all the unwashed villagers milling around, Takeji wondered not for the first time why he even bothered to accept this task. True, it was said the slayer of Naraku did hail from here, but surely having his homeland associated with this hovel would garner nothing but loss. So why had he agreed to come?

Oh, yes, he mused, grimacing as he stepped over a large manure pile right in the middle of the road. Because apparently, being all chummy with the nation's hero will allow us to have him at our beck and call, because who doesn't want a powerful demon capable of slaying the most evil demon in all of existence as an intimidating presence during negotiations, and let's not forget he alone would be equal to about one hundred soldiers in battle.

Rolling his eyes, Takeji tied his mount to a hitching post, withdrew his satchel with all the necessary paperwork, and set about finding this Inuyasha fellow. He'd been told the demon wore scarlet robes, carried a sword at his hip, and had white hair so no doubt he would stick out like a sore thumb amongst the droll browns and grays of the common folk, which suited him just fine. The sooner he was done, the sooner he could leave because there was no way he was staying even a second more in this village than he had to. Even if the next inn was hours away, he'd make the journey; the inn here was probably as unclean and riddled with bed bugs or something. Ugh. How vile.

Shrugging the satchel over his shoulder, Takeji bit back a groan, sighed, and hadn't even made it a single step before the sound of screaming froze him in his tracks. He gasped and immediately started looking for the danger, body tense, preparing to hop back onto his steed lightning fast and make a hasty getaway.

But as he looked around with wide eyes and a frantically beating heart, Takeji couldn't help but notice that he was the only one that appeared to have heard the sound of terror. The villagers were just continuing to go about their day, calm as you please, either severely deaf or completely uncaring. Takeji was beginning to wonder if he was perhaps hearing things when it happened again, a high-pitched sound that he realized with dread belonged to a child.

Takeji gaped. A child was in danger and nobody cared?! What kind of village was this?! Another shriek pierced the air, and Takeji made a decision. Very well; if these imbeciles weren't going to do anything about it, then he himself would see to the danger. While by no means a swordsman or warrior, he did have some weapons training he could fall back on for this precise reason. Traveling alone was dangerous, and you never knew what you would encounter.

Resolved, the diplomat set his jaw, unsheathed the dagger at his waist, and darted toward the direction the screams were coming from. He meandered between houses, hoped over lazing dogs, dodged startled villagers in his path, and he came into a small clearing by the forest's edge. The sight that greeted him was…not what he expected.

Coming up short, Takeji watched with a befuddled frown as one child chased around two other, slightly older looking children. One might think they were playing a game of sorts, and the diplomat started to believe that was indeed the case…until the one doing the chasing, clad in red, suddenly jumped high into the air, over the heads of the other two children, and landed before them with hands raised.

Hands, Takeji noticed with growing dread and disgust, tipped with claws on each finger and he quickly realized what exactly was happening. That wicked little demon brat, that creature was toying with those helpless children! It was keeping them trapped, preventing them from running away by leaping over their heads and blocking their route of escape! They screamed, the demon child laughed, and so potent was his fury, so enraged was he for the fact that the villagers apparently did not care about what was happening right beneath their noses, Takeji failed to notice the wide smiles on all three of the young one's faces. The blood pounding in his ears prevented him from hearing the gleeful giggles as the two human kids scrambled away from the one clad in red, and without another thought, Takeji moved.

"Run, children!" Takeji ordered as he hurled himself into the clearing, dagger raised as he charged toward the demon brat with a baleful glare. "I will take care of his filthy animal!"

All three children froze in place, eyes wide as Takeji inserted himself between the two human children - twin girls, he idly noted - and the demon spawn that dared raised its claws toward them. The brat stared up at him with big brown eyes and it - she - actually looked confused. Takeji scowled. He would not fall for such a ploy.

"I will not allow you to harm them," he spat and pointed his dagger at her. The child blinked at him and then looked behind him at the two girls who still had not taken the chance to flee. In shock, perhaps? Stunned? No matter; they were safe, so long as he stood between them and the threat.

The demon child made a face and started to walk around him, completely disregarding the weapon trained on her, but Takeji shifted and stopped her once more. He heard the two behind him whispering as the spawn looked up at him once again, this time frowning at him with narrowed eyes. And was that a growl he heard? He snorted. Was she actually trying to appear threatening? Pathetic.

Scowling, Takeji lifted a foot, placed it on her stomach, and shoved. The demon gasped as she stumbled back and then landed on her behind with a small grunt. He heard a gasp from behind him, urgent whispering, and then hurried scrambling. A glance over his shoulder told him they'd finally gotten wise and ran away. He nodded. Good. Now he could deal with this vermin without innocent eyes to bear witness.

But as he stared down at the pathetic sight before him, Takeji wondered maybe if such measures would even be necessary. The beast was still lying where she had fallen and was staring up at him with wide eyes brimming with…wait. What? Were those tears? Oh, you have got to be joking.

Rolling his eyes, the diplomat scoffed at the pathetic play for mercy and careless waved his dagger at her. The child actually flinched and followed the blade with her gaze, wariness clear in her eyes. Well. It appeared her self-preservation instincts have finally kicked in.

"Cease your theatrics," Takeji drawled, unimpressed. "They do not fool me. Now lucky for you, demon spawn, the pathetic sight you project has made me decide to spare your life. Your tainted blood is not worthy enough to soil my blade, so I will say this only one and you would do well to heed this warning, beast."

Hardening his stare and curling his lip into a sneer, Takeji spat, "Leave this place at once and do not return. There is no place for the likes of you, an abomination that preys on helpless children. Now get out of my sight, afore I kill you on principle. Your vile presence disgusts me."

The child grunted and Takeji watched, stone faced, as she got to her feet. Then to his surprise the little demon balled her hands into fists at her sides and glared at him, but the effect was ruined by the tears he could clearly see brimming her eyes. He cocked a brow, unmoved. She sniffled once, twice, and then to his utter surprise and bafflement, her face suddenly crumbled, her lower lip trembled, and she promptly burst into loud tears before spinning on her heel and running away.

"P-Papaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Takeji frowned. Papa? Were the brat's kin nearby, then? Body tense and weapon raised, he waited, prepared to either fight or flee - because he wasn't a fool and knew when he was in over his head - but when no demons came bursting out of the tree line, Takeji slowly relaxed.

Bewildered and more than a little annoyed at the whole debacle - what a waste of time! - the diplomat scoffed in derision as he turned to watch the little demon brat scurry away. And then right at that exact moment, a figure donned in red dropped to the ground seemingly out of nowhere and Takeji felt a wave of relief sweep through him. Finally! This had to be his demon quarry.

Nodding, Takeji stepped forward and opened his mouth to call out a greeting—

And then froze in his tracks as the greeting abruptly died on his tongue. Because the little demon girl, the one he'd just pointed his weapon at and shoved to the ground, ran straight to the figure robed in red and Takeji could do naught but watch with a growing sense of horrified dread as the older demon knelt down to take the child into his arms.

All color promptly drained from his face and Takeji suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He glanced behind the pair and he was somehow not at all surprised to find the twin girls from earlier glaring at them and holding onto the skirts of their mother with a monk garbed in violet robes beside her. They too were staring at him in a not so friendly manner, but upon returning his gaze to the two demons, Takeji numbly thought that if looks could kill, he would surely be dead by now.

Because the demon robed in red - which was now unmistakably the child's father and none other than Inuyasha, the demon he'd come here for - was glaring absolute murder at him and it was obvious that he was. Not. Pleased.

Takeji swallowed and unconsciously backed up a step. With one small hand fisting her father's robes, the child had the other pointing an accusatory finger at him as she no doubt recited to him their earlier…ah, exchange. Inuyasha said nothing in response, but he didn't need to. The deep, nearly subsonic growl that erupted from his mouth, complete with fully bared fangs in a truly fearsome snarl, told him very clearly of his thoughts on his daughter's mistreatment by him.

Which, if Takeji had to guess, were not very Takeji-friendly. At all.

Somehow managing to fight against the urge to flee, Takeji swallowed hard as Inuyasha pushed to his feet and stalked toward him with that same murderous look on his face. Something told him, perhaps some deeply rooted self-preservation instinct, that if he even tried to run right then, it would not end well for him. So he remained where he was and tried valiantly to control the trembling in his body as he slowly, very slowly, tucked his dagger back from whence it came.

Inuyasha stopped in front of him and Takeji cleared his throat before attempting a placating smile, but it looked more like a grimace than anything. "Ah…I assume you are…In—"

One second Takeji was staring into the scowling features of one pissed off dog demon. The next there was a bright flash of light and then he was staring at the business end of a very large and very sharp sword. With the tip just a hair's breadth away from his nose, Takeji gasped sharply and stumbled back a step out of instinct.

Sweet merciful heavens! How—?

"Usually I'd ask who the fuck you are," the demon growled, his eyes twin slits of baleful gold. "But honestly, I can't really bring myself to care enough to know the name of the asshole who threatened my daughter when she was doing nothing but playing with her friends."

Takeji blanched for the second time and he could actually feel himself breaking out in a cold sweat. He fucked up. Oh dear god he'd fucked up so bad—

"There's—there's been a misunderstanding," Takeji tried in a voice higher than usual, raising his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture as he eyed the very sharp point of that blade. "I—I admit I've made a grave mistake—"

"Shut the fuck up and tell me why I shouldn't gut you where you stand," Inuyasha hissed, lips feeling back off his fangs in another fierce snarl. With his ears pinned back and those golden eyes glaring absolute death at him, the demon made quite the menacing picture. Takeji had the brief, if a bit ludicrous thought, that perhaps the demon Naraku perished from the sheer animosity that was coming off of the silver-haired demon in waves.

Swallowing once, twice, Takeji realized that he only had his quick wit to get him out of his certain predicament. So bracing himself, he opened his mouth—

"He's from the continent, Inuyasha. You can't hurt him."

Startled hazel eyes swung toward the source of the voice but amber eyes stayed locked on their target, the only acknowledgment of the voice a flick of an ear.

The owner of the voice the human diplomat could only presume was the child's mother, as the child in question was standing behind her legs and was actually smirking at him. He frowned.

"You're from Shenshi," the woman remarked and Takeji swung his gaze back to her. "Right?"

Though her expression wasn't openly friendly, it wasn't exactly unfriendly either, however the human diplomat still felt he needed to tread carefully. Because while her face didn't betray anything, her stare was hard and her mouth had tightened into a thin, flat line. She had one hand on her daughter's head while the other clutched a longbow, and belatedly he realized she had a quiver of arrows slung across her back. He barely held in a flinch as he realized this was one of the demon's companions that had assisted in slaying Naraku, possibly the young woman in which Inuyasha held a more meaningful relationship.

A much more meaningful relationship, if the child currently glaring daggers at him was anything to go by since she was more or less living proof of it.

Wonderful. So he'd gone and threatened the only child of two of the most powerful beings in Japan. Clearly he'd stepped over the wrong grave and pissed somebody off.

Clearing his throat and aiming a strained smile toward the woman who was still awaiting his reply, Takeji nodded once. "Ah, y-yes, my lady. I'm—"

"The diplomat Ambassador Sharaku sent to convince Inuyasha to join his ranks so he'd have the support and protection of 'The Great Slayer of Naraku.'" The woman raised a delicate brow at him. "How am I doing so far?"

Takeji had the good grace to look a mite sheepish. "Ah…well—"

"You can't kill him, Inuyasha," she repeated and Takeji thought she sounded disappointed. "If he goes missing, the ambassador will send his troops to find out what happened or if he returns injured, it could be taken as an insult and you can imagine what would happen after that. You would risk mine or Moroha's life like that, and you know it."

Inuyasha growled but said nothing to refute her words, so Takeji assumed he agreed.

"He threatened her, Kagome," the demon spat, inching the blade closer to his throat and Takeji flinched. "Called her a fucking animal, shoved her down, and waved a goddamn dagger in her face! You can't honestly expect me to let that—"

"Papa," the child - Moroha - suddenly said, successfully stalling her father's angry tirade. A quick glance revealed the girl, still sticking close to her mother, was staring at the older demon with big brown eyes, bright with the threat of tears as she worried her bottom lip. And evidently the sight was enough to calm the raging storm of Inuyasha's fury because he grimaced, released a low growl, and then Takeji watched in stunned amazement as the massive sword suddenly transformed into a rusty katana before it was sheathed at his hip.

With a weapon no longer at his throat, Takeji could breathe a little easier and he released a breath he hadn't even been aware he'd been holding. But then he sucked it right back in when Inuyasha suddenly stepped in close and got in his face, a low, threatening growl leaking past rightly clenched teeth bared in another snarl. Golden eyes bore into his own, filled with a lethal warning that had the human male's back straightening and his blood to run cold in his veins.

"You listen carefully, asshole," Inuyasha hissed, glaring so heatedly it was a wonder Takeji didn't burst into flame. "Don't you dare think that my wife's words have any sort of sway over my decision to spare your pathetic life. I'm not scared of your weakling ambassador and I sure as hell ain't scared of his little human army. No, the only reason that I let you live is because I don't want my daughter, the one you foolishly threatened when she had done nothing wrong, to see me sully my hands with your disgusting blood when I reduce you to nothing more than a bloody smear on the ground."

Takeji paled and swallowed thickly. That particular image was…not pleasant.

Inuyasha watched the color drain from his face. Satisfied, he sneered before saying in a growl filled with sinister promise, "Now get the fuck outta my village and if you ever touch my daughter again, I'll gut you so fast you won't even have time to fucking scream."

Then with that, Inuyasha leveled him with one last dark scowl before spinning on his heel and stalking away, a clear dismissal. Neither mother nor daughter even spared the frozen human male a glance as Inuyasha paused to pick his daughter up into his arms before striding away, his wife close to one side and his friends on the other.

From over his shoulder, Takeji could only watch in a mixture of shock and befuddlement as the little demon girl named Moroha smirked and then stuck her tongue out at him, safe and sound in her father's arms.

Left standing in a state of numb bewilderment, Takeji blinked, looked down at himself, and had the passing thought that it was a very good thing he'd decided to wear brown trousers that day.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Sona, the Maven of the Strings build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Shilin Huang. Made for Riot Games.)

(Shit meme by yours truly.)

Revealing my Champion Mastery just to say that I play a lot of Sona. Don’t flame me for playing Seraphine and Yuumi I swear to god, and I have no idea why Teemo is in my top 10 highest mastery champs ngl.

Anyways you have no idea how happy I am as a Sona main that my girl is now top tier. I came to League of Legends from Overwatch (yes really) and I used to main Lucio in OW along with some of the more “techy” characters like Symmetra and Torbjorn. (Came to OW from TF2 where I mained Engineer and Medic.) Sona was a natural fit for me as a champion who was both easy to play and very similar to Lucio. It also helps that I joined the Rift during the single most engaging meta to ever grace this game. I was kinda too shit to play Janna but the Ardent Censer meta is also why I have such a high mastery on Lulu tbh.

But enough about my history with League: Sona! Honestly when I think of an archetypical support Sona pops into my head a lot sooner than Soraka: a champion based on empowering their teammates in as many ways as possible with heals, shields, movement speed, and CC to hold the enemy team down. I’ve always loved playing her because she feels like much more of a macro oriented character than other supports, with team-wide support as opposed to keeping one person alive like Soraka or Yuumi or focusing on CC like Morgana and Nami.

I’m going to build most if not all the champions eventually but man I am happy to tackle Sona now. She’s always been on my mind as my main but it was pretty difficult to think of how to make her. I think this build is good enough though!

Wow that was much longer of an intro than I’m used to. You can really tell which champions I’m excited for lol.

GOALS

Everything in harmony - Sona boosts everyone on her team with her songs as they fill the air.

Triple time! - Sona’s ability to boost her whole team into a good position is always beneficial.

Crescendo! - Fun fact: Sona’s ultimate is canonically extremely painful as she forces you to contort your limbs against your will. Why is Sona needlessly macabre? Well remember that Riot also wrote Volibear as an Eldritch old god.

RACE

Sona is Human but if you want to be cool you can make her a Kalashtar for resistance to Psychic damage and advantage on Wisdom saves. Regardless we’re going to be making what’s known as a dollar store Kalashtar with Variant Human. Increase your Charisma by 1 as well as your Constitution because we kinda don’t need much else. You also get proficiency in one skill of your choice which will of course be Performance, and a language which you can pick as you fancy: you won’t be speaking it anyways lmfao.

That’s because “Only you can hear me summoner; what masterpiece shall we play today?” Grab the Telepathic feat to complete this dollar store Kalashtar package. Increase your Charisma score by 1 and get a 60 foot telepathy to speak while being mute. You also learn the Detect Thoughts spell and can cast it once without using a spell slot. "Did he want... four autographs? I don't understand."

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - Charisma is tied to performance and all the other stuff a Demacian noblewoman is expected to be good at.

14; DEXTERITY - Something something medium armor; even if you wear a dress there’s no reason you can’t have some padding beneath it!

13; STRENGTH - Hey this isn’t something something medium armor!

12; CONSTITUTION - Sona may be squishy in League but I value not dying more than good skill checks honestly.

10; WISDOM - Speaking of not dying: Wisdom saves are more common, and Insight is more useful than most Intelligence skills.

8; INTELLIGENCE - We had to dump something so unfortunately Intelligence gets the short end of the stick. You may have studied under the illustrious Buvelle family but most of those lessons were music classes.

If you want a better stat array going 13 / 14 / 12 / 10 / 10 / 14 with Point Buy is perfectly viable, and if your DM is cool enough to let you multiclass without Strength then you’re more than welcome to dump it.

BACKGROUND

There’s two obvious backgrounds that fit Sona: the first is Entertainer for proficiency with Acrobatics and a skill of your choice (since we already took Performance lol.) You also get proficiency with Disguise Kits and your Etwahl! (That’s what Sona’s instrument is called btw.) Your background feature By Popular Demand allows you to play any stage once. "Some, just the once.” You can perform in exchange for a place to stay, and when you do so the local people will remember your wonderful performance!

But making an Entertainer Bard is kinda cliché, no? If you want to lean into Sona’s Demacian heritage go for the Noble background. This gives you proficiency with Persuasion and History as well as a gaming set of your choice: unfortunately Tellstones isn’t an option (unless your DM decides otherwise!) so a Dragonchess Set will do well enough. Oh and you get another language that you won’t speak: fun! Your Position of Privilege makes it easy for you to arrange meetings with other important people, and the commonfolk will be kind and cordial with you.

(Screenshot from the Tellstones: King’s Gambit trailer by Riot Games.)

I personally opted to go for Noble when making this build, but if you want to choose Entertainer go right ahead! Backgrounds don’t affect too much overall and it’s up to you (and your DM) to make your own Sona!

(Artwork from League of Legends Wild Rift. Made for Riot Games. RIOT PLEASE UPDATE MUSE SONA ON PC I’M BEGGING YOU!)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - BARD 1

I mean what else did you expect? Bards get proficiency in three musical instruments of their choice: a Lyre is the closest you’ll get to Sona’s Etwahl, though a Dulcimer is also pretty close. I’d also recommend grabbing a Lute since most magical instruments come in Lute variety.

You also get proficiency in 3 skills of your choice like Perception to watch wards, Insight to watch people, and Athletics for a bit of Tenacity to break out of grapples. (As well as potentially grab some people yourself! Although Acrobatics is also perfectly fine for escaping grapples.)

As a Bard you can boost your ADC with Bardic Inspiration, letting them add a d6 to attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. You have a number of these equal to your Charisma modifier and they come back after a Long Rest.

But of course the main reason to play a Bard is to do Demacian-banned Spellcasting! You learn two cantrips from the Bard list like Vicious Mockery for some diminuendo, making it harder for the enemy to hurt your allies while also cutting them down to size. (I don’t know if your DM will let you slap your Etwahl angrily and then point at them judgingly, but you may have to break your vow of silence every now and then.) You can also learn Prestidigitation for all sorts of general magic stuff that you really shouldn’t do in front of anyone important.

You of course also learn 4 Bard spells like Cure Wounds and Healing Word for the atypical healing spells, Dissonant Whispers for some Hymn of Valor damage, and Detect Magic which you’ll likely be expected to cast as the designated support. *Sigh* Always gotta buy wards.

LEVEL 2 - BARD 2

Second level Bards could be called a Jack of All Trades, as you get to add half your proficiency bonus to any skill you aren’t proficient in. This means even if your ability scores are bad the skills you don’t have proficiency in are still good enough! You also get Song of Rest, letting your allies recover an extra d6 of health during Short Rests. And if you have Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything  Magical Inspiration will let your allies add their Bardic Inspiration to the damage or healing of a spell they cast!

And finally you can learn another spell: against as the designated support you’re expected to take Identify.

LEVEL 3 - BARD 3

Third level Bards get Expertise in two skills: Performance is an obvious must and Persuasion would probably be good as well.

But more importantly you get to choose your Bardic College and if you want to both shield your allies and speed them up look no further than the College of Glamour! That’s because Mantle of Inspiration grants 5 temporary hitpoints to a number of creatures within 60 feet of you equal to your Charisma modifier (which can include yourself by the way!) Additionally those creatures can move up to their movement speed as a reaction without provoking opportunity attacks, making this a great tool to reposition an ally who’s caught in a dangerous position!

You’re also capable of creating an Enthralling Performance: if you perform for at least 1 minute, you can attempt to inspire wonder in your audience. At the end of the performance you can choose a number of humanoids within 60 feet of you who watched and listened to all of it, up to a maximum equal to your Charisma modifier. Each target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you.

While charmed in this way, the target idolizes you, and speaks glowingly of you to anyone who talks to them. They also hinder anyone who opposes you, although they avoid violence unless it was already inclined to fight for you. This effect ends on a target after 1 hour unless they take any damage, you attack it, or it witnesses you attacking or damaging any of its allies. If a target succeeds on its saving throw the target has no hint that you tried to charm it, and you can use this ability once per Short or Long Rest.

Finally you can learn second level spells like Hold Person, for a one-man version of your ultimate.

LEVEL 4 - BARD 4

Ah the first of many Ability Score Improvements. You may have noticed our deliberately uneven Charisma modifier: that’s because I’m going to be taking the Fey Touched feat for +1 to your Charisma, the Misty Step spell (for Flash, of course), and the Gift of Alacrity spell from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount for a Song of Celerity! Accelerated movement? I concur.

You can also learn another spell as well as another cantrip! For your cantrip take Mage Hand for help warding those hard-to-reach areas, and for your spell take Lesser Restoration, because yeah it’s also your job to buy Mikael’s. *Sigh.*

LEVEL 5 - BARD 5

5th level Bards get a Font of Inspiration that lets their Bardic Inspiration come back after a Short Rest as well as a Long Rest. That’s good because your Bardic Inspiration increases to a d8, which also boosts your Mantle of Inspiration to grant 8 temporary hitpoints!

You can also learn another spell like Hypnotic Pattern: while it won’t do any damage and your allies can’t hit the dancing enemies it’ll still be the best recreation of your ultimate for now.

(Artwork by Katie “TeaTime” De Sousa. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 1

I hope you weren’t expecting this to be a pure Bard build, because then I’d just be building Seraphine again! Grab your something something Medium Armor as well as a shield (well technically you need both hands free to play a musical instrument) it’s Paladin time, master of auras! 

Paladins get a Lay on Hands pool equal to 5 times their Paladin level for some more healing. You can touch a creature to give them any amount of health from your Lay on Hands, or use 5 hitpoints from your Lay on Hands pool to neutralize a poison or disease affecting them. You also get Divine Sense to locate any Celestial, Fiend, or Undead as long as they’re within 60 feet of you and not behind total cover. Don’t worry it gets a lot more exciting later.

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins can choose their Fighting Style and you’re still more of a mage than a warrior, so Blessed Warrior will give you two cantrips from the Cleric list that use your Charisma! Guidance is an obvious must for a support and Toll the Dead is a great option if you want to go full AP.

Should you have options for attacks to target enemies who have high Wisdom? Yeah probably: Sacred Flame might be a good choice.

Of course cantrips also imply more Spellcasting! You can prepare a number of spells equal to your Charisma modifier plus half your Paladin level (rounded down) which is currently a freaking lot of spells. Let’s just go down the list, shall we?

Bless is great to buff your team and make them harder, better, faster, and stronger.

Command is a mostly harmless Enchantment spell that will force your foes to do as you, well, command. I’d argue “dance” is a reasonable Command.

Protection from Evil and Good is never bad to have in your back pocket in case you’re fighting either Kayle or Fiddlesticks.

And Shield of Faith will let you boost your ADC’s survivability with Ardent Censer!

I know you can prepare more spells but there isn’t much I want from first level of Paladin. I am contractually obligated to mention that you can also turn your spell slots into a Divine Smite if you hit an enemy with a melee weapon, but you aren’t really going to be using weapons in this build. That’s right boys hop aboard the caster Paladin train!

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 3

Third level Paladins get to choose their Sacred Oath and Oath of the Watchers may seem weird but it’s really good at defending your allies. That’s because you get two different Channel Divinity options: Abjure the Extraplanar works similarly to the Cleric’s Turn Undead feature except it affects Aberrations, Celestials, Elementals, Fey, and Fiends.

Watcher’s Will meanwhile lets you choose a number of creatures you can see within 30 feet of you, up to your Charisma modifier. For 1 minute, you and the chosen creatures have advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws. This means that in a party of 6 this ability can give your whole party advantage on all mental saves, which is huge for keeping everyone alive against nasty casters! See? Demacia can use your magic!

Speaking of magic you get Alarm and Detect Magic as Oath spells. (Might want to swap Detect Magic from your Bard list with Mass Healing Word ty Tasha’s.) You can also use Harness Divine Power to regain a spell slot equal to half your proficiency bonus a number of times per Long Rest. And you get Divine Health, because you don’t take a sick day to stop complaining about Seraphine.

LEVEL 9 - PALADIN 4

4th level Paladins get another Ability Score Improvement: cap off that Charisma for maximum AP scaling!

(Artwork by Kelly Aleshire & Esben Lash Rasmussen. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 10 - PALADIN 5

5th level Paladins can finally prepare second level spells! As a Watchers Paladin you get access to Moonbeam as well as See Invisibility, both of which are very good for dealing with incoming gankers.

You can also prepare spells like Aid to boost your allies’ HP, Prayer of Healing (ty Tasha’s) for some out-of-combat healing, and Warding Bond for a Knight’s Vow.

Oh and you get an Extra Attack, which sure would matter if you were actually using weapons.

LEVEL 11 - PALADIN 6

6th level reasons get the main reason Sona’s a Paladin: Aura of Protection! All your saving throws are increased by an amount equal to your Charisma modifier, which is a full +5 currently! But what’s special about this ability is that it also applies to your allies within 10 feet of you, letting you give out auras a plenty to keep your allies safe!

You can also prepare another spell but again: not much I really want. So we’re going to be waiting a little while longer once again.

LEVEL 12 - PALADIN 7

7th level Watchers Paladins get Aura of the Sentinel, or as I like to call it: Song of Celerity. When you or any creature of your choice within 10 feet of you roll for initiative, they gain a bonus to initiative equal to your proficiency bonus. While this may make positioning a little difficult (everyone’s going to have to huddle around you) this ability guarantees that you can speed up all your important allies to make sure they get their powerful abilities off!

LEVEL 13 - PALADIN 8

8th level Paladins get another Ability Score Improvement or a Feat. You may have noticed your uneven Constitution score: grab good ol’ Resilient Constitution for a boost to your health and even more insurance on your Concentration checks. With your Paladin aura and proficiency you’d have a +12 total to your Constitution checks currently, meaning that if you take 24 damage or less you won’t even have to roll for Concentration!

LEVEL 14 - PALADIN 9

You are probably the only Paladin who cares about spells, so it’s nice that you get 3rd level spells now! Watchers Paladins get two very strong third level spells: Nondetection will help you deward and keep your allies safe from enemies that may try to sneak a peak at you, but Counterspell is the true best choice to stop danger from befalling your allies. What’s very good about Counterspell is that as a Bard you get to add Jack of All Trades to the skill check, meaning it’s far easier for you to deny an incomming spell than any other spellcaster! “Mages have enough problems without you.”

Of course you can prepare some more spells like Aura of Vitality for Aria of Perseverance, and Revivify for an ADC’s Guardian Angel. But having access to spells like Remove Curse, Dispel Magic, Crusader’s Mantle, and even Daylight on the Paladin spell list are all extremely useful to be able to prepare. Remember that you are doing yourself a disservice by not taking time to think about what the best spells to prepare would be for your current quest. "Every note is important."

(Artwork by Kelly Aleshire & Esben Lash Rasmussen. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 15 - BARD 6

Now that we’ve got all our auras it’s time to go back to Bard for Mantle of Majesty! As a bonus action, you cast Command without expending a spell slot as you take on an appearance of unearthly beauty for 1 minute. During that minute you can cast Command as a bonus action on each of your turns without expending a spell slot. Additionally any creature charmed by you automatically fails its saving throw against the command you cast with this feature. You do have to concentrate on this feature (like a spell), and once you use it you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

You can also learn another spell but there isn’t much I want from the third level of Bard, really. Oh and you get Countercharm which is awful and I hate it, but since you didn’t take a 10th level in Paladin I suppose you have to use it. Spend an action to give allies advantage on their saving throws against charms and fears, I guess.

LEVEL 16 - BARD 7

7th level Bard; 4th level spells. Freedom of Movement will let you help either yourself or an ally with Mikael’s Crucible, and Dimension Door is great to get into lane fast, or back to base fast!

LEVEL 17 - BARD 8

8th level Bards get another Ability Score Improvement, and if you don’t like the look of something something Medium Armor then the Eldritch Adept feat might be able to help. Take the Mask of Many Faces invocation to be able to cast Disguise Self at will to change your skins as you please.

Could you have taken this earlier? Absolutely. Are there better invocations? Yeah probably, but by level 17 you can make some of your own choices. Build your own Sona: this is merely a guide and you can make your own choices.

Speaking of own choices: take whichever spell you want at this level. There’s plenty of great ones for a 4th level Bard and I can’t recommend anything in particular to you. Every musician has their own style, and it’s up to you to find your own!

(Artwork by Yan Li. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - BARD 9

9th level Bards get to pretend that increasing Song of Rest from a d6 to a d8 by total level 18 is helpful.

You do get access to 5th level spells like Mass Cure Wounds, which is like Mass Healing Word but better! "Harmoniously."

LEVEL 19 - BARD 10

10th level Bards get Expertise in two more skills: Perception is an obvious must to watch over your wards but beyond that? Honestly pick your poison with whatever skill you want since by level 19 you can make your own choices. (Though my personal choice would be Athletics to hopefully give some more safety against grapples.)

But of course the main boon of reaching level 10 in Bard is the Magical Secrets! ...I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you again: there honestly aren’t any spells in particular I want as Magical Secrets. Sure I could recommend spells like Haste or whatever but are they really going to be that great by total level 20? To be honest even the spells on the Bard list like Animate Objects, Greater Restoration, Hold Monster, Rary's Telepathic Bond, Scrying, and Synaptic Static are very good (although I’d sooner replace some of your old spells with them.)

Again I know this is supposed to be a “guide” but most people won’t hit level 19 anyways, so I don’t think it’s that bad for me to recommend you take your own steps to make your own Sona. Hell, build some AP if you want! I know I would!

LEVEL 20 - BARD 11

Our final level is the 11th level of Bard and I’ll be honest: it’s just to add Otto's Irresistible Dance to your spell list. It can only affect one person but it’s still your ultimate by total level 20.

Oh and you were supposed to get a cantrip last level. Uhhhhh I dunno take Mending lol.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

The rhythm connects us all - You have dozens of spells to keep your team alive and active during a fight, not to mention that all your Paladin auras and abilities really help them give 110%. It’s worth mentioning that Gift of Alacrity combined with Aura of the Sentinel is a d8 + 6 to an Initiative roll, which will almost always guarantee that whoever you want to go first will be going first!

A true masterpiece should celebrate living - Despite your somewhat weird level split you maxed out the only stat which matters for you: Charisma. And woah holy shit turns out Paladins are really good with maxed out Charisma! +5 to all saves means even your lowest save is a +4, and the saves your proficient in vary between +13 for Dexterity and Constitution (both very common!) and a whopping +16 save on Charisma!

Curtains up; I'm ready - Jack of All Trades also does quite nicely to help your middling skills. Even though I dumped most of your mental skills you’re still proficient enough that you won’t be completely helpless when caught off guard. And when you’re in the zone with Persuasion or Performance you are easily the best girl around!

CONS

Don't make me get off stage - It was my intention to recreate Sona’s positional gameplay with this build but it does present some gameplay issues when trying to maximize your effectiveness. Where do you position yourself as a character who’s still primarily a squishy caster despite your good saving throws and AC? Can you give everyone in your party support, or are they too spread out to get value out of your 10 foot range auras?

Quiet, please! - You have a damn good concentration check, but what do you concentrate on? Not only do you have a ton of spells but they all scale very good with levels and you have spell slots that go far higher than your maximum level spell. It can be hard to choose what to do with those 7th and 8th level slots.

The world is cruel... Until that changes, I'll never stop playing - One of many “meta�� problems with this build was my choice to focus almost entirely on support. Sure Toll the Dead is a great damaging cantrip but your only two damaging spells are Moonbeam and Dissonant Whispers. Again: you don’t have to follow my build point-for-point and while you’ll be flamed in League for building Sona full AP I don’t think your friends will mind if you take some damaging spells.

But if you can’t tell it was really hard for me to come up with those downsides. With the exception of the positional requirements a Bardadin is a very strong build and Sona is a very strong support. Boost your teammates with your own amazing power and make sure everyone’s alive and jamming! Your power may have been forgotten over the years but no one’s ever upset to have a great support at their side. And remember: Seraphine may be in K/DA but you’re in Pentakill, and you have your own label! No one can replace DJ Sona!

[butteerfly]

— Dating bnha boys ♡

headcanons 🦋

(don't judge me, I'm so insecure that I'm using the translator 🤡)

WARNINGS: mentions of non-con, toxic relationship y aggressive attitudes (yeah, I stan villains)

katsuki bakugo; shoto todoroki; izuku midoriya; dabi; chisaki kai; shigaraki tomura

KATSUKI BAKUGO

hates yelling at you, he can never do it no matter how hard he tries

you are his girlfriend for a reason so you deserve all the kindness in the world

loves to cook so you can taste the food

and since you both like spicy, extra spicy couple !!!

teaches you to use the knife carefully, holding your hands from behind and with his chin on your shoulders 🥺

powerful couple, you always train together

hates the idea of ​​deku being your best friend but accepts it

you have to hug him first

don't forget to hug him

In private he is very affectionate, but in front of your friends he only holds your hand.

possessive boy

If you don't talk to him for a whole day, thinks you're going to break up with him

is insecure with your relationship, but you fix everything by talking

You talk a LOT, that's why you hardly ever argue

you play video games on saturdays until 6 in the morning

you beat him in the middle of the games

pillow fight

Not a real fight, but a fight after all

He always throws you out of bed, he's so strong darling

he always carries you on his back

just love him, sometimes he's a bit rough with you but he doesn't do it with the intention of hurting you

SHOTO TODOROKI

at first he was very shy

you make weird things happen on his tummy, don't blame him

he loves your smile

and your laugh

and also your eyes

this boy is crazy about you, so in love

play with your hair, so soft

he is a flower boy

And since roses are your favorite flowers, don't be surprised if one day he arrives with a bouquet of 100 red roses just for you

Rich boy, he buys everything he likes for you even when you don't want it, just let him be

you share rings, he chose them

you have dates next to the sunset

and always carry chocolates for you

your quirk is not the strongest, but he knows how smart you are and he knows you could beat him in a real fight

you are his pretty girl

always tells you how pretty you are

and he blushes every time you remind him how beautiful he is too

he has trouble socializing, so there are a lot of words your friends use that he doesn't understand

you explain to him very patiently what he does not understand

you always give him soft kisses on his scar and remind him how beautiful he looks

baby starts crying 🥺🥺

you mean a lot to him

You do not understand how someone as kind and adorable as Shoto, went so long without being loved in the right way, because you have no doubt that his entire family, including his father, loves him very much, but you also know that many difficult things happened in the Todoroki family, your baby went through so many things :(

you came into his life to love him and give him the confidence in himself that he lacks, and he loves you too much for that

IZUKU MIDORIYA

he doesn't understand how someone like you likes someone like him

but you always remind him that he is beautiful in many ways, he blushes

you take a lot of pictures of him while he's distracted, you actually have a whole folder dedicated to him on your phone

It's hard to kiss him without him passing out, but you always do it to get him used to it ;)

you sometimes try to cook together, but ...

nothing better than a pizza night and some disney movies !!

you would really love to sit on his lap and hold him tight, but he would definitely die 💀

your dates are always in a cafe, he buys you a strawberry cake because he knows you love them even when you only mentioned it once

baby has trouble controlling his own immense strength and always accidentally breaks glasses with his hand

For that reason, he always hugs you carefully, he's afraid of hurting you :(

loves to play with your hand, which is considerably smaller and softer than his hand

you are his best nurse

the way you touch his scars, without fear of hurting him or getting hurt, just makes his heart fall more in love with you

In fact, you are the first person who, after seeing his room, is not ashamed of his fanaticism towards the former number one hero, you think his admiration is incredible.

you are the couple who give each other confidence and motivation ✨

villains

DABI

well .. this is complicated

you met him in a very dark bar, with dangerous people around you, you should know that nothing good was going to come out

And that's the harsh reality

If some man looks at you too much while you two are walking in the city, don't doubt for a second that he is going to start a fight for you

too jealous

always has a hand on your hip, wherever you guys are

kisses with him are always passionate, long and very loud, he always bites your lower lip until it starts to bleed

It is difficult to be the girlfriend, sometimes he spends MONTHS by your side, and suddenly, one morning you wake up and he is no longer by your side, you know that he left

You have no choice but to cry, you don't know if the tears are from fear and worry, or that your heart broke because the reason why he left is that he got tired of you

you hate him because this lasts many more months than he spends by your side

and you hate him much more when he comes back full of wounds

your discussion is very intense at that moment, it even ends in mutual physical attacks

you have many burns on your skin because of his quirk

he feels something very annoying on his chest every time he sees those scars

but not everything is bad, to the surprise of many

always steal vodka from some store for you, you two love to drink together until you lose consciousness

some nights, he carries you to the shared bed and proceeds to relax his whole body on yours, his head rests on the crook of your neck

take advantage of the moment to leave hickeys on your soft and sensitive skin

he's a fucking vampire, the next morning your neck is PURPLE

He also tells you about how stain's ideology means a lot in his disastrous life

you listen to him carefully and he falls in love much more because you are the only person who really listens to him seriously, even when your relationship has many ups and downs

CHISAKI KAI

I would dare to say that you are his girlfriend against your own will

he is fucking overhaul, he is with you probably because you are one of his whims

He is so cold, he never hugs you and never kisses you, sometimes you feel like you are nothing

but you have to understand something, his job and responsibilities force him to be heartless with EVERYONE

if you don't take a shower first, he won't let you sleep next to him

he won't even let you out of the basement if it's not for a good and justified reason

he always takes showers with you, it is the only moment he can share with you without a care

he even grabs you by the waist and kisses you really hard, which never happens

he is VERY possessive

you are HIS and nobody else's

for that reason he becomes very annoying on days when you don't want him to touch you

btw he doesn't care 💀

two of his men follow you EVERYWHERE

deep inside, you are one of his top priorities

does not tell you or anyone else, but constantly misses your presence and cares a lot about you

You better not get sick, because if that happens you are going to force him to use his quirk with you, and he may love you, but he is not a compassionate man

you love Eri, and you don't like what they do to her but you can't fight for her either, so all you do is play with her to give her something from the childhood she's losing :(

Kai sees this and doesn't like it, but admits that after playing with you Eri is less resistant, so it is beneficial to his plan.

Your boyfriend thinks that there are many things in the world that are wrong and the solution is to eliminate them, he also knows that you are wrong, but he sees a solution for you

SHIGARAKI TOMURA

(look at his arms omg)

dating him is DANGEROUS

dangerous and frustrating

he doesn't care if another man fucks you, if he's in the mood he won't waste time killing people for stupid reasons

you are the stupid reason 💀

well .. your discussions are INSANE

you THROW things at him, you can't let him get CLOSER to you, you know he won't hesitate to KILL YOU

Kurogiri: *sighs*

you cry a lot after arguing, like a LOT

He may be a psychopath, but when he calms down and sees your tears all over your face, something VERY annoying settles on his skin

"oi.. sorry" don't wait for more

He lets you hug him all you want, he won't admit it but he's SOFT with u

I think your relationship is not official, you are the woman he likes the most and makes him horny, he is with you when he wants

hands on your waist whenever you're around

and you're with the only person who shows his face all the time, he says it's easy to kiss you

he loves to kiss you, just kiss you, that's reason enough for you to be his girlfriend

lets you try different skin care with him, but IN PRIVATE

you always wear tight clothes and he gets horny 🥵

When he's this affectionate with you, he kills anyone who dares to look at you

Shigaraki doesn't know how to love, the only people who ever loved him are dead because of him

He is very worried that the same thing happens to you, help him to love you

you are the only person who holds his hands without fear of being hurt

and he doesn't understand why, but you make something inside him warm in a nice way

🦋🦋🦋

— I really hope you liked it, I am very new to this and my English is not very good 💀

[where-all-the-time-went]

The Character-Based Reasons Why Sara Chidouin Has the Highest Win Likelihood

So, okay. We all know Nankidai is, first and foremost, a writer. Don’t get me wrong, the art and gameplay are nice, and the music is... there, but Your Turn to Die is fantastic because of the game’s thematic consistency and incredible characters. Which is why the idea that Sara wins so often because she is so trustworthy and is a great leader always seemed like a very barebones analysis to me. Sure, it makes sense, but what would Nankidai convey through that? There’s definitely a message about trust that is implied, that trusting makes a person stronger, but Sara does not initially trust everyone, and not everyone trusts her. Every single character has plenty of people who don’t trust them and who they don’t trust. If anyone is good at working with and trusting people, it’s Reko (even despite her conflict with Alice), who becomes the big sister to this cast of characters. (BTW: this is a really long post. If you don’t want to read it all, scroll to the end and there’s a TL;DR).

So then, for what thematic reason is Sara so likely to win?

Personally, I would attribute her survival rate to another common theme throughout the game: her balance between prioritizing her own survival and that of the rest of the players. While Sara would never truly give her Sacrifice card to someone else, it’s doubtful that she would take the Sacrifice card to save anyone either. No other character has a similar inner balance, except Kanna in the Kanna Lives route (to be perfectly honest, I have not played the Shin lives route because I’m terrified of killing Kanna, so my knowledge may be lacking). Anyway, I am going to go down the list of characters and talk about why they’re not Sara, which I know everyone is just really, really, excited to hear (please don’t fall asleep). (Also not including dolls since our information on them is very limited at the moment).

I’m starting with the absolute worst person to start with: Joe Tazuna. He may not be a candidate, but he is still a character who dies and is thus worthy of an explanation. While he may have procrasinated to reveal that he was the Sacrifice, it was never truly a battle with Joe on whether to sacrifice himself. In the end, he will always prioritize everyone else’s survival. If there was a battle, it was between whether to save Sara right then and there or let everyone else survive, and although his connection to Sara is personal, this is still not self-prioritization.

Then there’s Keiji Shinogi (yes, I’m going by the Wiki order and you can’t stop me). At first, it may seem that logical, levelheaded Keiji prioritizes himself, but in Chapter 3 1-A, he readily accepts the tag if it means saving Sara. Keiji is traumatized by his own guilt, and thus does not seem to consider himself worthy of survival, unless it means being the smart one and thinking where no one else does. He may not have traded for Sara’s Sacrifice card in the Second Main Game, but it’s unclear whether he was planning to before Kanna took it herself (or rather, tried to). I theorize now that Keiji will have a say about his own death in Chapter 3 1-B, and it will depend on whether he is able to balance his own needs with the needs of everyone else.

Which brings me to Kanna Kizuchi, who I think has the most interesting arc in this regard. When the game begins, Kanna is extremely frightened, and we don’t really get to know her priorities since she is most definitely not thinking straight. As Kanna matures and developed into her own character, in spite of Sou’s suggestions to her, we learn she prioritizes other people’s surival over her own when she attempts to take Sara’s Sacrifice card. Now, this is where the disclaimer of “I Have not Played the Shin Lives Route” comes in extra handy, because I expect criticism here. Anyway, given that Sara logically wants to survive, and there are even character reasons to vote for Kanna (her being more ready for death), it seems very likely Sara would vote for Kanna, which would explain her extremely low 2.7% survival rate. This is a reflection of Kanna’s unshaking will to prioritize others’ survival over her own. However, when Shin dies, Kanna realizes she should never again attempt to sacrifice herself (particularly because he became a role model for her), and she begins, just like Sara, to find a balance, wherein she puts herself in danger only when logically necessary, while also caring for everyone else. As a result, and this is very shaky ground, I am putting forth that there are either no routes, or very few routes, from here on out, where Kanna dies. (The one thing I will say about this theory is that it partially contradicts my theory that the game cannot be a simulation because they would not simulate Gashu’s betrayal. While my argument mainly revolves around the metanarrative of prioritization of lives other than one’s own, these themes are reflected within the non-meta of the game itself, wherein Asunaro specifically tailors who receives the Sacrifice, Keymaster, and Sage cards. As a result, Kanna’s character arc revolving around surviving the Second Main Game makes no sense if she would have been the Sacrifice in the first place if not for Gashu. Although, her low win rate could be tied to the high likelihood that she would take Sara’s Sacrifice card).

Well, now that I’m off my tangent, let’s focus on Q-Taro. At the beginning of the game, Q-Taro, while not the brightest, takes a cold and logical approach. He is willing to sacrifice literal children--Kanna and Gin--because he doesn’t think they’re useful enough. However, his character flips (pun intended) when he presses the button and takes the poison for Gin. Q-Taro realizes that trust and self-sacrifice are noble traits, and he comes to prioritize them over his own survival, as he put his life on the line when he took the poison, when a lower dosage earlier would have been the more logical way to keep him and Gin alive. Q-Taro’s arc is intersting, but unlike Kanna, who becomes a reasonable person, his values flip entirely, particularly because his change was likely planned by Asunaro.

Then you have Shin. I don’t know what he does when he lives, and I have a whole theory about Shin’s 0.0% win rate, which I will possibly write some day and link in later, but I do have some stuff to say about his own character balance. It’s obvious that because of his fear of the win rates, Shin comes to prioritize his own life, despite all irrationality therein. He manipulates and lies for his own survival, mainly out of fear. When Shin realizes that Sara killed him instead of killing Kanna, as she prioritizes emotion over logic, he realizes that maybe he could have trusted her after all, and to die with as few regrets as possible, he gives her the Joe AI. This character change sounds like it contradicts my theory, but given that, at this point, Shin was pretty much already dead, it’s simply an interesting change within him that is representative of the theme of Your Turn to Die. Furthermore, I subscribe to the theory that Shin’s low win rate is a direct result of knowing he has a low win rate (fun bootstrap paradox times (Beethoven’s Fifth plays on electric guitar)), because this causes his self-preservation.

I mentioned Reko earlier, but I think this only needs a brief explanation (important note: I have only played the Reko dies route). Prior to the Death Game, while Alice was in jail, Reko learned that the “weak” do not deserve what’s coming to them. This indirectly causes her own kindness to Nao and Kanna in the Death Game. (Come to think of it, I don’t think this one’s going to be as brief as I thought). Reko enters the death game a changed woman, who already prioritizes the lives of others, and thus is entirely imbalanced. The fact that her past self kills her is beautifaly symbolic of why she died: because she could not balance her priorities, where she only cares about others now (which is why Nao saved modern Reko), and only really cared about herself in the past (because she thought that the “weak” did not deserve her help). As a result, in an act of pure selfishness, the AI, which has Reko’s past personality, kills human Reko. If modern Reko had been more balanced, perhaps she could have explained to Nao why it would make more logical sense to save the Reko AI.

And it’s perfect that Nao should come next. In general, Nao does not think for herself. Not until her suggestion that Sara should run away with her at the end of the Second Main Game did she do anything other than follow earliers or force herself into certain situations. This, of course, relates to the juxtaposition between her and Sara, who is a natural leader. However, it explains why there is not much to say about Nao other than the fact that she is so far removed from the issue of self-sacrifice vs. self-preservation.

Everything Kai did, up until his death, was to protect Sara. His job was to be her bodyguard, and Sara is the person who saved Kai from a life of murder. Kai dies because his silence in his efforts to protect Sara prevented a proper discussion over whether it was worth it to kill the Sage simply because they were the Sage.

Gin Ibushi, much like Kanna, started the game by prioritiznig the lives of others. Unlike Kanna, he did not change, particularly because there was no narrative reason for his change. Even when Gin was about to die, it was up to Q-Taro to decide between self-sacrifice and self-preservation. However, when Gin and Q-Taro were up on the targets, this was a symbolic message to Sara: you must choose between the self-preserving tendencies of Q-Taro and the self-sacrificing tendencies of Gin, who gave out his tokens for free, unaware of the consequences. While Gin has yet to die, his steadfast hold on his self-sacrificing beliefs would explain why his win rate is lower even than Kanna’s.

Gin would often cling to father figures due to his dad’s alcohol addiction, and Mishima was the first to experience this treatment. Mishima cared for Gin, but he knew Nao best, and his instruction that she vote for him would cause his death, because Mishima sacrificed himself for Nao. Mishima is interesting, because his self-sacrifice is less a result of a hope for everyone’s survival, and more about his desire for people to improve as human beings. He tells Nao to give him up when he is an AI, and instructs Reko to break his screen. Although Mishima is perhaps more self-sacrificng than Gin, his understanding of teaching others how to care about themselves is likely why his win rate is higher than both Gin’s and Kanna’s. This may also be a result of the fact that he is older and more capable, but his strange quirks also make him less trustworthy than both Gin and Kanna, which cancels his capabilities out. Thus his self-sacrificing beliefs would kill him, even if his understanding of self-preservation decreases the likelihood of his death.

Last but not least of the non-Sara characters, we have Alice Yabusame. Now, on this one, I am probably missing the most information, since I have absolutely no idea how he dies in the route where Reko survives. However, I can say that in the route where he survives, despite his understanding at the beginning of Chapter 2 that Reko had changed, he was unable to accept that the unchanged Reko was not human. This implies that Alice wants a version of Reko who both cares for others and values strength, suggesting a need for balance. I also know this is a big change from his attitude towards the beginning, where he believes that everyone should be as self-preserving as possible, and not get in anyone else’s way. The fact that Alice has to die to accept Reko’s change (I think???), it makes sense that his self-preserving tendencies would place him in the bottom half of win rates. Again, this theory is weakened by my ignorance.

Joe’s likely inevitable death contributes to Sara’s fear of the Sacrifice card, which perfectly balances her lack of desire to manipulate others with her desire to preserve herself. Sara is also often given the choice between wanting to win or escape with everyone, and the fact that character moments often hinge on her response illustrates Nankidai’s thematic goals. The choice between Shin and Kanna’s deaths, while about emotion and logic, are also about choosing between preserving oneself (voting for Kanna, who cannot contribute to Sara’s survival) and preserving others (Kanna is TOO YOUNG TO DIE). I do not mean to suggest that saving Kanna was necessarilly the “correct route.” Quite the opposite, in fact. I mean to suggest that the fact that Sara is presented this choice and that she does not have an immediate answer is exactly why she is so likely to win.

TL;DR i drone on about how sara is special and not like other characters, and how she cares about people but also about herself, so that’s the theme and stuff. there’s also a long, pretentious rant about the symbolism of reko’s death. and a doctor who reference. there’s also a weird amount of parantheses.

(credit to @sip-of-depresso for having the conversation with me which sparked this theory)

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

Thoughts on The Last of Us Part 2

This critique is spoiler heavy, so tread with caution. I also talk about more than the game. However, non-spoiler opinions: (and again, I want to stress this is my opinion)

This game does not have the same DNA as the first last of us. That’s not a total strike against LOUP2. Yet the first game succeeded so well in creating a relatively simple road trip narrative that was rooted around character growth, with the provoking questions it raised comknf naturally. TLOUP2 revolves so heavily on the message it’s trying to send, that the character and narrative writings suffers to mold around the parable...which doesn’t fully even succeed in that regard. Environments and game play however are pretty solid, and if you liked those aspects of the first game, they outdid themselves here, so you’ll probably like this game’s go around. Does it make it worthwhile to play? That’s a case by case basis, but I have to say that exploring the world made me want to continue the game. And if anything, I’d say this game is a relatively easy platinum trophy to collect. And despite this very long critique where I really dive in, (because that is what I do, it’s in my nature.) I’m glad I played, because I had an enjoyable experience.

anyway, on with the nitty gritty. Please keep in mind that even as I seem harsh, I did not hate this game. Aspects of it pissed me off , and I think it’s broken in a lot of respects, but certainly not a failure of design, game build, and acting.

When I think of the perfect sequel, (and please, bare with me) Shrek 2 comes to mind. It expands the world in a meaningful way, introduces new characters that seamlessly fit in with the dynamic, lets the established characters have more growth without cheapening what happened in the first part, and stays true to the core DNA of the first film. I’m not saying that all sequels need to follow this formula, (I love Silent Hill 2) but The Last of Us 2 was not a fulfilling sequel in any of these regards. Joel and Ellie in the first game, as well as the other characters, felt like real people who made decisions that made sense for their characters. In this game, we have a clumsily patched together narrative that is simultaneously simple and yet far too much for it to handle. This is not a narrative-driven story, but a parable about the dangers of revenge. And while not a bad parable to tell, I could easily pick up Moby Dick or a myriad of other works that detail the “revenge is all consuming and unhealthy” narrative. Now, was LOU particularly new with it’s story? No. But the characters made it worthwhile and fresh. Additionally, the narrative of this game is so riddled with hypocrisy that the parable it’s trying to tell almost misses the mark.

Before further diving in, I also want to talk about one more detour as a preface: Game of Thrones season 8 (and please, bare with me again.) My biggest issue with season eight was how unearned everything was. Most egregiously and infamously, Dany and Jaime’s fates was not rooted in her past actions, therefore making their fates make sense, but rooted in the final outline Benioff and Weiss had. The writers had a plan, and they made the characters fit that plan no matter what, no matter that the characters had grown and changed and had arcs that didn’t make sense with the final plan, leaving a lot of people, including me, note how unearned everything was. LOU2 feels similar. Druckman had a plan, and he made the characters fit that plan, no matter how many gaps in logic there was, no matter how unearned it was. Joel dying the way he did was not very Joel-like as established in LOU. That man noticed an ambush right on sight as he was driving with Ellie into Pittsburgh, while this Joel walks right into an ambush and let’s himself be cornered by a group of unknown people. Maybe you can say that he got softer living in Jackson, or the storm gave no alternatives, but it reads to me as more as Druckman needed Joel to die to set off his plot.  

And with that, now’s a good time to talk about Abby, because rather than being an organic character that fits seamlessly into the narrative, she feels inelegantly shoved into the game to fit the message and parable. In the prologue we learn little about Abby and are forced to run away and learn about the game mechanics with her, and most players are here to continue Joel and Ellie’s story, so cutting away to this new character away from Ellie is intrusive. You as a player may have also have heard Druckmann say Ellie was the only playable character and purposely avoided the leaks, so you’re bamboozled as well. It gets worse after we shift to Abby for a good ten hours after Ellie kills Owen and Mel. We’re supposed to feel compelled to play as Abby for a ten hour needlessly complicated side quest when the game jarringly cuts to her...even though she mercilessly beat Joel with a golf club and just shot Jesse, who, IMO, is one of the most likable new characters (and also one of the many minority characters in the LOU franchise that serve as props to the main characters and ultimately meets a sad end, but that aspect of the game is worthy of a whole other post.) 

Playing as Abby for as long as you do at the halfway point is a tough and unearned pill to swallow, not helped by the fact that we know how this long extended flashback is going to end, so the stakes are never high. No matter what happens, Owen, Mel, Nora and Alice are going to die, and Abby is going to find Ellie. Furthermore, you’ve spent a long time as a player buffing Ellie with supplements, upgrading weapons, and using her arsenal. Suddenly, you have to rewire you’re playstyle and get used to new weapons. They’re not totally different, but I can see how going back to square one when you’re halfway through the game can put a player off really quickly. I read the leaks so I knew this was coming, but I had no clue how bloated this section would be with the meandering plot and WLF/ Seraphite conflicts that still somehow aren’t explained well enough. In Abby’s section, plot things and character development things go at such a hyper speed, with relationships developing mega quickly, that I had a hard time believing it, especially compared to the first game when relationships took time and were earned. I think the sex scene is a good metaphor for this section of the game as a whole. they talk, talk, talk about unrelated things, Abby pushes Owen, and then they randomly have sex. which by the way, was done pretty tastelessly in my opinion. ND could have just cut away when they started making out, or if you absolutely had to hold the frame, if you really had the actors to do that in mocap suits, maybe make the situation more morally grey...because it is morally grey. Owen has a baby on the way with another woman. What a way to endear these two characters. I’m not one who gets squeamish with sex in media, and I understand the game’s M rating has a warning. But when you cut away a love scene between two women before things get too heated, but have no problem with showing that, I’m going to raise some eyebrows. 

Abby’s section is like an overly complicated side quest in the larger narrative, with missions that have little to nothing to do with Ellie, so watching Abby’s story play out doesn’t feel like a meaningful look into the character and world we don’t get as Ellie, but an overtly complicated way ND created to get us to like Abby and invest us in her found family. But it took a whole game and about a full year for Ellie and Joel to be father and daughter, and by the end of Abby’s section we’re expected to believe she and Lev have that same bond. It’s so glaringly apparent that they were trying to mirror Ellie and Joel with Abby and Lev, but they banked so hard on us as the player assuming and understanding that aspect, that the development wasn’t cultivated well enough for me. I think more time was needed--especially since you don’t even meet Lev and Yara until you’re an hour or so into her story. Abby’s section feels like a whole other game was tacked on, and not a piece of the puzzle that neatly fits into the larger narrative.  In fact, both Lev and Yara feel like tacked on props to make Abby more likable. 

However, ND is inconsistent with this likability factor, because there are key elements to Abby’s writing that don’t make her endearing to the player. Unlike Ellie, who is visibly shaken with each kill, Abby displays no regrets whatsoever. She doesn’t have any qualms killing her fellow WLF soldiers later in the game, but more infuriating for players, she has no regrets about killing Joel. She does it, and she moves on. The game even seems to celebrate her, with some of her friends saying he deserved worse, despite the fact that  Ellie was on the floor crying and begging for her to stop. (BTW Mel is pretty hypocritical to me. At one point she says she regrets taking part in Joel’s murder, but during it, she wanted Ellie killed. Then later says Joel’s death was too brutal...even if he deserved worse? It’s just another thread of inconsistency in this game.) 

Abby not thinking things through when Ellie is crying on the floor before Joel’s murder is another example of characters making strange, if not outright bad decisions because Neil needs his plot. Abby could have put the pieces together, realized Joel wanted to save Ellie because clearly they care about each other, and yes he did a bad thing and killed her father, but if there’s a crying girl on the floor, maybe he did it because of love. (Or she could have just killed Tommy and Ellie because what’s stopping her from thinking they won’t want revenge like she does? But again, Druckmann needs his plot.) 

But no, Abby is merciless, and then suddenly in her POV chapters she’s pretty cool to Yara and Lev and wants to help them out. And yes, they saved her from death...but Joel saved her from death too. It could have been so interesting if Abby and Joel were forced to work together longer, maybe she meets Ellie, and then she’s conflicted about extracting revenge. But okay, fine. She takes her revenge and the game moves on. Okay. But Ellie, who I remind, is vilified and punished by losing Dina and the baby in the game, has regrets and is shaken up by her revengeful deeds, while Abby, who is also pretty bad, gets rewarded. If Druckmann wanted to really write a revenge parable, it needed to be clearer that revenge didn’t make Abby happy or fulfill her. If that would have happened, and if time was taken to develop the Lev and Yara subplot, it could have been interesting to see Abby’s story.

Ellie’s characterization in this game is a point of contention for me as well. Some reviewers have said she makes decisions that are so outlandish it’s akin to Dany in GOT season eight, and I don’t disagree. Now, the game implies Ellie continuously puts herself at risk, leaves her friends, and sets off on a near suicide mission because she has PTSD from what happened to Joel, along with a lot of guilt for not patching things up to him. Druckmann and Halley Gross even confirmed in an Indie Wire interview that Ellie has PTSD. Now, there are so many negative stereotypes against people with PTSD as outlined by Psychology Today and other sources. There’s misconceptions that they’re violent and dangerous, and it can’t be treated. I don’t think Druckmann was outright suggesting Ellie went on her rampage of revenge specifically because of this, in fact I think the truth of the matter is he wanted to say something deep and artsy with this game, and Ellie and Abby are props to the message. (Supported by pre release statements of ND saying they wouldn’t call this game fun--it’s art.) That being said, this equation doesn’t sit right with me. More broadly I don’t like the fact that Ellie has been a prop in this game so Druckmann can say something deep (tm) especially when the last game did such a good job molding her character and honoring her in an organic way as the plot moved forward. The way they used her here just didn’t feel right.

Also, like to mention Ellie didn’t go to Santa Barbara to meet Abby again until Tommy’s major guilt trip at the farm, which was a wildly out of character moment in itself. But again, in this game, there’s a script, and we needed a way to trigger Ellie’s journey to Santa Barbara. But looking at the first game, Tommy berates Joel for the lengths he went to to ensure their survival, even saying at one point “it wasn’t worth it.” Now Tommy is all of a sudden going to not take the high road and demand Ellie extract revenge when he can’t? Heck, when Abby had Tommy pinned to the ground in the theatre he told her to go and save herself. When tommy came to her after Joel’s death he actively tried to talk her out of going to Seattle. Now maybe you can say that “oh Abby shot Tommy and now he’s relationship with Maria is in shambles...” but it didn’t compute with me. (And damn, can anyone be in a happy romantic relationship in these games?) But again, Druckmann wants a final fight, where the biggest waste of opportunity is squandered. We could have had a moment where Ellie and Abby talk it out, maybe Ellie telling Abby that she cared for Joel despite what he did (though ho boy, more on that later.) and Abby realizing hmm, maybe what I did was kind of morally grey and we’re not so different at the least. If this parable was going to work, Abby had to have an epiphany about her own deeds in addition to Ellie, and Ellie can’t be vilified while Abby isn’t. 

This game also cheapens the last game’s ending. Joel’s morally grey choice at the end part one is rendered into an indisputably bad choice, because he took away Ellie’s choice. Are we forgetting the fireflies, and Jerry, Abby’s dad that we’re supposed to like, (based on the flashback, which, BTW didn’t work for me, I think Jerry’s an ass) weren’t giving Ellie a choice either? The ending of TLOU asked some fantastic questions about the nature of love without forcing it, and this game completely does away with that ending via telling us how bad Joel is and how he wronged Ellie. I can’t really replay the first game now without thinking of how the sequel cheapens that ending. Overall, the message and thought-provoking questions in LOU came naturally with Joel and Ellie’s development. It was elegantly done and expertly crafted. However, this game is so focused on it’s message and so focused on being an art house drama, that not only do the characters bend to fit the message, but it’s rudely it’s beaten over your head with the final shots of a lone guitar. However, playing through the game for me, seeing the cracks, the message fell flat. Want to tell a parable like this? Go ahead, but make sure it’s delivered well , paced well, and crafted well. I don’t think this game succeeded in any of those regards.

As others have stated, the game is needlessly dark, and though there are moments of calm and light, they are not as frequent as the first game, and all but dissolve toward the end of the story. Obviously ND couldn’t help the current situation of the world the game was released into, but I am tired of this trend of dark narratives and SuBerTing ExpECtatIons that Thrones also pulled, and the easiest, laziest tactic media has used lately to get people talking about their stories: doing things for shock value. Expectations were maybe subverted and there was definite shock value by having Joel die at the beginning, but the events that follow are so bizarre and unearned with Ellie’s vilification and Abby’s “redemption,” that I’m not mad that he died, I’m mad he was fridged to make way for this sloppy mess of a story.  And I have to point out that so many of us had a feeling Joel was going to die in this game, that frankly my expectations would have been subverted if he lived. 

Now with this segue, I think now I should probably mention the elephant in the room: the pre-release footage. Images were altered to make players believe Joel meets Ellie in Seattle, but we know now that it was Jesse. Sony was banking on the fact that fans of the first game love Ellie and Joel so much, that they used their relationship to sell the game and pretty much deceive the player. The fact that the game is very much not about Ellie and Joel’s further development is not only deceptive, but kind of cruel. Games are expensive. People pre-ordered this game expecting one thing and got another. Doesn’t sit right with me. If Sony/ ND had faith in Abby’s story the secrecy wouldn’t have been necessary, but keeping her out of the marketing save for one time, with Druckmann out right lying at one point by saying you only play as Ellie, it just proves that someone in the marketing department had no faith in Abby. Now, I think this is all rooted in anti-spoiler culture, and no doubt that had a big impact on this game and the marketing behind it. Though this is another, albeit related rant, I am tired of the current climate of “keeping the secrets and remaining spoiler free.” Sure, spoilers can ruin some surprise, and it’s not cool to needlessly spoil something for someone, but spoilers should not ruin the experience of seeing a story unfold. We all know the damn ship is going to sink in Titanic, and a lot of people love that movie. Heck. I played the first LOU completely spoiled. I wanted to see what the fuss was about and read the Wiki page. I still cried, I still fell in love. I get maybe wanting the player to be surprised that Abby has such a big section, or even that’s she’s playable, but when Abby’s story can make or break how you feel about this game, I raise some eyebrows at the marketing.  

As I said, I did read the leaks when they came out. Why? Well, I’m not averse to being spoiled and GOT kind of burned me before. I am glad I read the leaks because knowing what to expect certainly eased things for me, and got me used to playing as Abby in a way that going in blind wouldn’t have. It was easier for me to bunker down and accept playing as her, but her story is so needlessly bloated and has nothing to do with Ellie’s up until the end. Her section solely exists just to get the player to like her. As I outlined however, the fragments in her story are broken and don’t come together to form a flattering picture. Sure in her sections you get some, albeit, minimal context to the goings on of Ellie’s chapters and the whole WLF/ Seraphite conflict, but not much to make it interesting or illuminate things further. A lot of it was there just to make you feel like crap for the things you were forced to do as Ellie. Alice was a good girl wasn’t she? Shame on Ellie for killing her in self-defense! And I understand the flashbacks were supposed to mirror Ellie’s flashbacks, but part of me rolled my eyes as I realized I was enduring a damn flashback within a flashback. What kind of a meta world, and an uncool one at that, is the game in? (Heck at one point Abby said “fucking video games” so IDK) I think the game could have been better if you played both sections concurrently--some of Abby’s, some of Ellie’s instead of having an entire flashback to play through as Abby. But I can only guess the game did it this way because of good old spoiler culture and they only wanted early reviewers to talk about certain things. (Heck early reviews pre release had an embargo. Reviewers were forbidden from mentioning anything in the last half of the game.)And truth to be told I think Abby’s sections needed a huge overhaul. Actually I think the whole story of the game needed a huge overhaul, but that’s probably apparent from this long diatribe. However, I maintain that this was the Last of us sequel ND wanted to tell, the crafting needed to be improved.

So what did I like? Well, I liked exploring the world and I liked the ease of the beginning of the game, and...the boat section was kind of cool? now initially I thought Ellie’s romance with Dina seemed pretty rushed, but as you play the game, you realize they’ve known each other for a long time at this point, and it makes more sense. The two have a lot of chemistry that makes the relationship feel more authentic, especially as you roam Downtown Seattle. Playing as Ellie and exploring Seattle was my favorite parts of the game. I really liked the semi-open world section at the beginning, though it didn’t mesh well with the rest of the linear narrative. I hope in future games ND does do something similar and makes the whole game have pockets of open-world esque exploration throughout, and not just one part

I tore Abby’s section apart a lot, but there was also good stuff going on there too. I did Yara and Lev a lot, just wish there would have been more time to develop them. The hospital chapter was wild and fun...the most effective horror chapter in the game, with a big ass monster straight out of Resident Evil. Even if it was gross. And of course, the environments were downright breathtaking, and exploring Seattle made me want to continue. The Aquarium was my favorite location overall, as I found it beautifully rendered and a good focal point for the game. I also find it super fitting Abby and Ellie have their first fight in a theatre. It’s almost like Druckmann’s trying to make a point about how violence is a commodity...kind of like us playing this really violent game and they’re using violence to sell it to you, even though the game punishes you for doing actions you have no say in.

I may have been a tiny bit sarcastic there, but I did enjoy the Ellie/Abby fight, and even if I knew the outcome, it did a great job of putting me on edge. I really didn’t want to hurt Ellie, but seeing how Ellie fights from the other angle was pretty interesting. After that fight however it was pretty draggy to have to do it again in Santa Barbara as Ellie. On a related note, there were too many brawls like that in the game. You have no weapons, just fist brawls twice with cult randos as Abby and then two with Ellie and Abby in the game. Could have trimmed those down, because they kind of wore out their welcome. And while we’re at it, good grief the ending DRAGGED. Maybe that was done on purpose to prove the lengths Ellie will go, but I wasn’t a fan.

Look, a part of me can kind of appreciate what ND was trying to do with this game, I just think that the execution was poor, and a lot of small specifics of things that happened in the game were done in poor taste. Pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit a cohesive whole, and the message is pretty grim and broken because of hypocrisies in the narratives. A lot of people are saying its an apocalypse game, of course it’s going to be dark and nihilistic, but the first game wasn’t nihilistic. It was hopeful, and benefited from the simple story it told. Druckmann always said Part 2 would be a hate story, and that’s fine, but I think it was just so committed to that idea the game suffered and became manipulative. I think now we’re now entering a debate about “can video games be art and have messages?” or “should video games just be fun?” and I really think video games can be art. However, there has to be something in the game that makes you want to continue, and that something is usually “fun.” Video games aren’t like movies. We’re not voyeurs that watch. We’re actually in control of the characters. That has an impact. 

if you read all of this, I commend you. thanks! Really needed to pound out all my thoughts and now I can (hopefully) move on with my life.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

I have a ton of insomnia writing in the drafts, so time to start unloading some of it. The usual “as is” rules apply, and I’ll try to keep most of it under the cut,

It just occured to me that I actually have one piece of good advice to give:

If you challenge someone to a duel, ALWAYS have a witness for the fight!

I learned this the hard way when I was a little girl. But to understand why I felt the need to even duel someone, you need to understand the background.

When I was a little girl my family lived in our house in town, which meant until I was 9 I was running around with a gang of kids. I say “kids”, but I pretty much mean boys. There were a couple of years during that time when a girl was inthe neighborhood, one being one of the best friends I had in my life and the other....not, but almost the entire time I was the only girl in the neighborhood.

Now some folks think being the only girl would be terrible, but in a lot of ways it was fine. Kids are kids, rampaging around the neighborhood, and thanks to my family I never felt things should be “girl stuff” and “boy stuff”. I just played.

 In fact, at times being the only girl even gave me a curious power position. I knew “girl things” they didn’t. I can still remember the shock on the face of one of the boys when I tried to explain that I didn’t just piss outside like them because of anatomical differences. He just assumed girls had dicks too. 

BTW, groups of very little boys can get awfully competitive about their dicks. Not that they called them that. They honest to god called them “ding-a-lings”! LOL  In fact, a few times they even had a contest where they would line up with their pants dropped wanting me (the only one that was exempt)  to decide which looked “best”. Remember, at the time we were very little kids, so the concept of “best” was exceptionally vague.** I hope I didn’t give any of those boys a lifelong complex because of something I said in all innocence! But geez, they were obsessed with the idea that whatever hung between their legs was very, very important.

Anyway, running around playing being a girl among boys wasn’t bad all the time. Heck, while the boys could fight over who got to play Han and Luke when we played “Star Wars” or Mark and Jason when we played “Battle of the Planets”, I always knew I wouldn’t have to compete for my part in the games. Though I’m still a little irked to the way their only solution to Gargantuas in War of the Gargantuas being both male was I’d play “the green Gargantua’s wife, at least we always found a way even if what we were playing didn’t have a token girl.

All that being said, there were real disadvantages too, especially as the bots came to learn the rules around gender. I was a girl. They knew it and at times they would think it meant I was supposed to defer to them. This led to many a fight and tears.

For instance, once one of the boys got a BB gun. 

Naturally we all wanted to take turns using it in a makeshift backyard shooting gallery. Trouble was, as far as they were concerned girls weren’t supposed to shoot. Now considering all the toy cap guns they borrowed from me when we played, and the gun I had that shot cork balls had been the envy of all the kids*** until this BB gun, it seems crazy they would think girls weren’t allowed “real” guns. I begged a turn, outshot them all, and never was allowed to touch the gun again. ****Having a girl be the best shot kinda stung for them! LOL

The boys would do this now and then, throw me for a loop with “you are a girl” as a reason I should or shouldn’t do a thing. Being a “sissy” was a common insult used among the kids. A kid should be tough and brave, try never to get crying or show weakness, or sometimes they would even use “like a girl” as an insult. 

I learned that my “girly” side was more of a target, so I got so in the toy chest in the living room I kept the guns, cars, blocks, etc for the boys to use, but kept hidden away in my bedroom the girly stuff like dolls. In fact I kept things like play makeup buried in drawer where no one could find them...

Yes, I was a girl, both in my personal identification and as the whole world saw me, and yet I hid my “girl stuff” like a teenager hiding drugs or dirty magazines. It was the big drawback of usually being the only girl. The girly side of being a girl was something to be quiet about.

So grew up thinking that the way to impress a guy was to be strong, tough,  smart, brave, and not at all squeamish. If boys admire each other for not being a sissy, then certainly they would admire a girl for being that way.  

Oddly enough, never once did a boy reciprocate my crushes because I wasn’t a sissy. Oh, they would like me for it, but it was seeing me as one of the guys and never as romantic potential. Or maybe not oddly. I may be hetero CIS female, but the world sees me as not girly enough in my presentation to quite believe me.

TBH, I still have a problem with that. I never learned the rules of being girly. I never was taught how to put on makeup, do hair, know about fashion, move in that swaying hips and crossed ankles when you sit kind of way... 

And down deep I don’t want to have to put on that act. I want to be me. I want someone to love me without makeup or styling, not because of the clothes I wear or because of skills with flirting games. I want to be loved for me, and girly is only part of me. Part of me is walks in the woods where I photograph snakes and spiders. Part of me is climbing in the roof to repair a leak or taking apart the hot water heater to figure out how to fix it....

I have always been a combination of things. Things like how I like romantic comedies and horror films, I picked out my antique sword because it felt like it would swing in my hand well and it had little flowers on the hand guard, or how I love classical and punk.I never wear dresses during the day, because they aren’t practical for my rough and dirty life, plus  they can make you very vulnerable. And yet at night I always wear the prettiest nightgown I can find. I had a unique “Captain’s Canopy Bed” as a child, because I loved both the captain’s bed (a bunk woth drawers under it billed as a “boy bed” by people that gender everything) and longed for a canopy bed. My father sensibly combined the two for me. To me it has never been about a contradiction or conflict, but just that different aspects manifest under different circumstances. 

I really can’t understand why people are expected to fit into catagories neatly, label themselves, force themselves to deny parts if themselves just to belong. Still,  I expect I would be happier if I could have at least forced myself to fake it.

Anyway, the boys were learning girls were “supposed” to be a certain way, and I was constantly insisting this wasn’t true. They would pick on me amd we would fight. Oddly, this “girls can’t” attitude never applied to fighting. They never went easier on me because I was a girl. 

Once they got me treed and the henchman boy was told to go get something to hit me with. I warned him not to, but he didn’t listen. As he went to get the weapon I lept out of the tree in a tackle, and began punching him. My grandmother ran out shouting for me to stop. “It’s not ladylike!!” she cried, while  I shouted back in frustration “They were going to hit me!!” 

Don’t worry, I wasn’t punished. Grandma..well, it’s complicated with her...and my parents would never punish me for something like that. Years later Mom would admit she and Pop were proud if me after that fight. “The boys picked on you so much I was glad you hit them”...

Hmmm, now that I think about it, Mom’s most common response to sexist attitudes in movies and tv shows is to grumble “Oh hit him!” Folks have no idea about Mom’s violent side, the part that watched Xena: Warrior Princess and sighed “I always wanted to be able to leap around and fight like that!” People think she is “sweet”, when Pop was always the family softie! LOL

As we got older, the sexism of the boys got worse and so did our conflict. One boy, a year older than me and the oldest of the usual gang, was the worst. His own mother was a rather strong and independent person, so it was almost confusing how he could be that way. As far as he was concerned the social structure was thatthe older the boy the higher the rank, and girls were at the bottom. It was inevitable that one day their would be an explosion.

The final straw came over, of all things, me wanting to make our gang of friends into a club. It was all the fault if a kids magazine called Dynamite, that put out a book on making your own club, complete with membership cards printed in a fold out of the cover you could cut out. It sounded like a great idea. It wasn’t.

To be honest, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised. By this point the oldest boy had gotten to be a complete pain about gender roles, but also about me in particular. My first day of kindergarten he’d been the only person I knew all day, so when I passed him in the hall I’d said “Hello”. The boy next to him asked who I was and he said “I don’t know!” right in front of me. I had started to consider our “friendship” differently after that, and his now increased insistence that boys were superior increased the rift.

To make matters worse, the boys had developed some sort of age based ranking. When I invited the oldest boy’s little brother to come to the club meeting too, the guy had been outraged. It had seemed natural to me, I mean I invited my little brother. I always wanted to include everyone. To the boys, the younger boys didn’t count and the older you were the more power you were “supposed” to have.

Now for the club I’d fixed up a corner of the shed out back. I put up posters, made a candle (I just loved making candles and melting wax when I was little...us GenXers lived dangerous lives!LOL), set up chairs and a table, had refreshments and, of course, the membership cards. I couldn’t wait for them to show up.

Once the boys arrived I said it was time to elect officers. Immediately the oldest boy announced there was no need and started to pass out the cards. He said he would be president because he was oldest, my favorite boy would be vice president, the thieving henchman would be treasurer because he was next oldest, the other boys would be just members, and I would be...secretary. 

Oh he was glad to explain. Girls are always secretaries. Only girls can be secretaries. Girls can never be president. The other boys accepted this.

Naturally I was outraged. This was NOT right! We were supposed to vote! And we were supposed to vote for who would be best for the job, not who was oldest or a boy. Girls CAN be president! And besides, the club was my idea and the clubhouse in my yard so I shouldn’t be stuck being the stupid secretary without even voting!!!!

There was a lot of shouting after that. The boys stormed off, taking the cards with them. I went in the house to take the refreshments, and the boys snuck back to trash the place. They tore the posters, smashed my candle, and turned over the furniture. 

I cried.

I was also furious.

I was beyond fed up with the oldest boy and his assumption of leadership. Now my favorite boy did apologize, but he was always the nice one. The others were unrepentant. The oldest boy insisted he was right that girls could never lead. 

There was only one thing left to do: Challenge the oldest boy to a duel.

I went right up to him and said I’d had enough. I was challenging him to a fight. One on one, just him and me. No weapons, just our strength. The winner would be the leader of the kids.

I know it’s absurd, but since physical fighting is what they valued I figured I had to go with it. Actually, if anything, a fight would be skewed in my favor. While the boy was a year older, I was a head taller. Where he was lanky, I’d gotten to be a sort of muscular and agile fat.***** Physically the avantage was mine, an since refusing to fight me would be so embarrassing to him I knew I’d get the fight. 

He agreed, and then I made a very stupid mistake. I decided to show him a bit of mercy. Since losing to a girl would be so humilating, I set the time and place where we would meet alone for our fight. I wanted to win, to make my point, but  I wasn’t trying to shame him.

And so the time came. We met in a back yard, in clear area  hidden from windows in case an adult was looking by trees. I wish I could tell you some dramatic blow by blow, but honestly I remember it as very quick. He fancied he knew fighting moves, got into a pose, and I flattened him. Almost admittedly I had him pinned to the ground where I sat on top of him until he admitted I had won. 

I went home overjoyed. This lasted until the kids got together. I, oh so foolishly, assumed I was now leader. The boy, however, was not about to give up power...or tell the truth. 

As an adult I realize my naivety, but at the time I was 7 or 8. I honestly had believed the boy would have been honest. I always told the truth, so why wouldn’t he? And since we had made a sort of “official” deal, he would be obliged to tell the truth. 

He lied. Right there, right in front of me, he lied. 

The boy announced he had won. I said he was lying, that I had won, and he laughed. Of course he had won. He was a boy. Did the boys really think  a girl could beat him?

 I offered to fight him again right there, but he refused saying he’d already won. I couldn’t get him to feel pressured to fight me again because now the boys wouldn’t really want him to. On some level I think they believed me and knew I would win if we fought again. As long as they didn’t see me clobber him they could pretend the boys “deserved” to be in charge. They needed the lie as much as he did.

And so I learned a lesson: witneses matter. People will almost always lie if the truth threatens them. 

You know, I think this is why I have always been obsessed with watching when something horrible is happening. I always had this feeling that even when I can’t help, I can be there for the person in some way. I’d listen, watch, and remember. When I was 9 I stood in the snow, no coat and no socks, waiting until a man was removed from a crashed car because I didn’t want to “abandon” him. I would report teachers that did something incredibly wrong, even though I knew the teacher would deny it and I knew my classmates were too afraid to back me up, because the truth had to be known. I wanted to be the witness I needed for that fight, someone to back me up when no one wants to hear the truth.

As a footnote, after the duel failed I tried one more way to defeat the oldest boy: Voodoo!

Well, voodoo by way of a book I’d been reading. It wasn’t real voodoo, or probably like any realistic magical practices. In the book someone had carved a skull into a tree, written someone’s name under it, and the  hammered a nail into the center of the skull with devastating consequences to the victim. I had a pocket knife and a nail, so I gave it a go.

Sadly voodoo didn’t work. 

Even more sadly the boy grew up to move away from this hick town, get a good job, get married and have kids. In other words, he got a far better life than I’ve had. Oh well, the universe never cares about fairness.

** Actually one boy always won, because TBH I liked everything about him best.

***Hilariously, one of the boys tried to steal my cork gun, claiming it was his. Pop had engraved my name in the gun sight, and when my father pointed at to ask what it said, the boy claimed it was his name! That boy was never very bright, always dishonest, and a born henchman! LOL You know, I bet that toy gun would have been illegal to make just a few years later, just because it literally fired things. Heck, maybe it already was and had been sitting on the store shelf for years before I got it. We couldn’t find one like it a coulle years later for my little brother.... 

****I want to point out being a good shot runs in the family. Back in the 1960s when my family had to shoot for self defense (long story) Mom was apparently a crack shot. On one side of her family she has had relatives that were at times the official best shot for their branch of the military. One, even as an old man in poor health, liked to show off how he could selectively shoot off small tree top branches a long diatance uphill from him. Plus, Mom likes to mention she is distantly related to Annie Oakley, which is apparenty true.

*****Traumatic stuff happened when I started school, triggering a bunch of sudden changes with me. One was weight gain, but I had stayed strong as ever. 

[madllamamomma]

I Think I Have a Problem.... (A personal true story).

So as the title suggests, I have a strange problem…. Just as a warning, this is about my view of my younger self. It is about religion, and gender identity. This is not how I see the world anymore. It was how I told how the world should look. If you are offended in any way, please know this is a vent post and nothing to hurt anyone else. This is just what happened to me as a child. Shit….. This is about to get very long winded, so buckle up and here we go… *takes deep breath*

So a little backstory on your Mother Llama: I was raised in a weird backward ass “Independent” Baptist church most of my young life. If you guys don’t know what those are, be thankful…. But I guess I should explain it the best way I can…. they are a borderline cult. Yes. I said it. I’m not sorry. It may sound like an extreme accusation, but hold on. Just listen to me.

Now, I have no problem with Christians, or religion. You should believe whatever you want to believe in…. I do however, have a problem when religion is used as an excuse to not educate minds about the real world, force them to not let them think for themselves, and when someone questions any of it, they are punished or shamed for it instead of thinking about an answer. If you can’t tell, I am still a little angry about that shit. Imma try to keep on topic here….

I wasn’t taught science (real science anyways, it was all about ‘creation’ bs—OH! And being anything but a cis straight person was compleltly unexceptable. Woman were the weaker sex and were made to raise babies and take care of the husband. Men were superior and should be taken care of.) nor about World history or about other cultures, other than biblical of course. And when they were mentioned, they made them look evil and behave like heathens because they didn’t believe the same as they did. Everything changed when I went to public school half of fourth grade when my family moved to a different state and there wasn’t any church school like I went to. I learned a lot those years, that ‘The World’ wasn’t as bad of a place as they said it was. It was vast and had many things to offer. (No, not the World, Dio’s stan power from Jojo’s bizarre adventures—that is what our pastors called anything outside of the Baptist approved realm. Something ‘Worldly’ was basically something sinful and ungodly and therefor was bad and wrong).

So this may seem like a strange Segway in to what I am actually getting at, but I had a huge crush on this boy back when I was young and it started when I was about 12 or 13 years old and ended when I was 16. He was the same age as me, and he was the son of a pastor of a small church of about 20 people, mostly military families— we will call him.... D.... for dick...

I thought for a long time that I ‘loved’ D. I thought that ‘God made him for me’ (yes I really said that and it hurt to even write it). I really thought I knew what love was back then, but I was very wrong.

D was homeschooled, he didn’t have many friends and was also a navy brat like I was. So, naturally, we got along very well, and I would hang out with him at his house sometimes. We mainly played video games I was terrible at and he would always bet me. But I liked hanging out with him, so I didn’t care if I won or not. My heart for some reason was totally head over heels over D. And he liked me too for a while… or at least I thought he did… He however never made a move. I always thought D was just too shy, and didn’t know how to ask me. Any time I tried holding his hand, I’d chicken out. It was a stalemate. But this particular church did a thing where people had to court. Yes... COURT someone, not DATE (Courting is where you had adult chaperones keeping an eye on you two, you were never really alone. Ever, because apparently you can’t be trusted?). When we both turned 15 yo, D started a private Christian school. Being the awkward girl I was, I never told him how I felt, I just waiting for him to say something. Time passed, and I still waited and waited for him to ask me out.

But here’s the thing! He didn’t know the real me.

I was in public school, in middle school, and I started to become a weeb. Like a super cringy weeb that didn’t like anything else but anime—I was also kinda emo/punk kid thought I was edgy. (Yeah rock music was bad too, it was ‘Worldly’).Not a very good mix for Baptist I know. At school, I was one person, and at church I was another.

Well, being an anime fan meant I was exposed to a lot of things like the LGTB+ community for the first time. A lot of my friends at the time started to come out other than straight and that was very new to me.

During that time, I soon was starting to secretly question my faith, my understanding of my own sexuality and gender. Like, maybe people liking the same sex or both is actually not a bad thing after all (if you haven’t seen any of my works, hopefully you guys know that I know better that what I was taught—I am a proud fuckin’ ally! I still consider myself cis-straight, but some days I feel like I’m bi-curious, and that’s ok! It took me a long time to realize that, but I’m here now. Gender roles are dead and stupid.)

So here is the kicker~ One faithful day we had a guest pastor join us for a few weeks from another church. This mother fuckin’ nasty ass old white man from Alabama came with his ‘perfect quiet godly’ wife. Who badly ever spoke a damn word. She always just sat in the corner all ‘ladylike’.

—Oh!!! Another fun fact, I didn’t wear pants for a year when I was 10 yo becasue that was considered “cross dressing”— I’m dead fucking serious. My parents then decided after attending sporting events and stuff like that to drop that ludicrous lifestyle, becasue it was stupid. So, Outside of church, my family and I still wore pants and shorts and whatever, but in church we pretended that we didn’t wear anything but modest skirts, dresses, and long culottes. (That’s a little damaging…. don’t you think? Telling people your one thing, when in reality you're not like that at all??)

Anyways— I hated skirts, especially wearing them in the state we lived in, it was way too hot and I’d get chafed (these had to be knee length or longer btw). And of course that guest preacher would preach about the sins of women wearing pants, but I didn’t care. I wore them for so long, it just made me angry anytime someone would bring that up. I liked my jeans and I was starting to become a rebel teen who gave less than a fuck and started to speak my mind. Which was dangerous to that community…. Also I had a bad tendency of not keeping my legs together when I bent down, and one time I accidently showed my underwear (that’s really embarrassing btw, it’s not cute, it’s not funny, it’s awful when you're 14 yo-- really any age actually).

So, one day I wore a long jean skirt for a youth outing with the church. I was required to wear it, but I always wore leggings underneath so I wouldn’t accidentally show my undies if I fell down or the wind blew it. This fucker had to say something about it. The old man turned to me with a wrinkled smirk as I was passing by him and dared to utter, “Now, don’t you feel most femine and ladylike in that skirt? I’m sure Jesus would like seeing you like that.”

My shoulders clench up tight, my brow furrows. All I can remember seeing is fucking red and actually trembling with fury. (This was happening in my pastor, D’s father’s, own living room mind you.) D was there watching as I blanched about ten shades of red in anger and embarrassed because that prick of an old man called me out in front of everyone. I turned to him and half shouted, “NO! I don’t!” I could see my pastor’s mouth drop to the floor as I began to completely obliterate this old man. But I couldn't stop myself as I started to further cut into him. “—I hate wearing skirts! I don’t feel ladylike! In fact, they make me feel vulnerable! What if some guy tries to rape me! They won’t have any problem getting to me!—Why is something with a whole on the bottom more ladylike than something that actually covers me?! I like pants! They are comfortable and they make me feel safe! Why is that a sin to wear something that is more covering?!?! I’m not cross dressing, my mom bought them in the girl’s session!! [Keep in mind that was a long time ago, I don’t feel like people should care about what section they get their clothes from, wear what you want] And what do you know about wearing a skirt?! You’re a man! You try wearing them! They suck! You need to stop telling me what I can and can’t wear! I’m not dressing like a whore for wearing something with a crotch!! SO LEAVE ME ALONE!!” Everyone in the living room was just stunned at my audacity to dare speak to this pastor like I did. But he was so fucking quiet after that. And I stormed out of the house and the guest pastor never spoke to me again about it. Luckily my mom came and picked me shortly after that. She was angry too after I told her what happened. That old fuck singled me out and I was pissed off. I was a teenager and that shit was embarrassing!

But I made the mistake of showing my true self. I think after that moment, D stopped liking me after that.

Some shit went down south with my parents behind closed doors of my household, and eventually they got divorced. They left the small church because the pastor didn’t approve of it. Pastor said that my parents just needed more counseling but he didn't understand that they just needed to not be together. Sometimes you can’t make things work. Especially when your dad is a toxic piece of shit that only cares about himself.

Anyways, everyone in my family left the church, but I stuck around that shit-hole just to see if D would ask me out. I was so desperate, I felt like I waited forever, but really it was like 2-3 years, and I felt like I couldn’t give up. Eventually D and I turned 16. He started to become distant and a little mean towards me and I became confused and started to realize the worst. Finally, I was tired of waiting so I asked his older sister if he liked me on the way back taking me home. I could see it in her face, that she didn’t want to have my heart broken, but reluctantly she told me no. He actually liked another girl at his new private school and was going to ask her parents to court her instead.

I was so devastated.... It hurt so much, I cried myself to sleep that night, and most of that week I was very sad.

Obviously, after that, I stopped going to church entirely, I couldn't show my face anymore. Finally let myself question my faith, sexuality, gender roles, and humanity all together. And realized that religion was stupid (in my opinion at the time) and I came u with the conclusion that people can be sheep. I was a sheep for a long time. And I refuse to be one ever again.

High school was very enjoyable after that, and I let myself grow and started to love other religions and world history, and tried to stop being so judgmental of others and what they felt like. I even got into a relationship with a sweet boy around my age.

Eventually in college, after a break-up with my high school sweetheart, I reconnected with D via FB. Apparently, the church went under and his parents moved away to Greece to be missionaries or something. D still lives in the same town I’m in, but graduated from a “Christian academy”—not Catholic, Christian. Catholic colleges are accredited at least. But he basically told me he was a secret “bad boy” now. He lost his virginity in highschool, (like I did) and he was totally trying to booty call me. Not even hiding it either! He was like, “Hey, Llama, you wanna fuck?”.

And I was like, “D! You broke my fucking heart when we were young! Don’t you remember that???”

And he was like, “Oh no! I had no idea! (the fuckin’ liar). Well, we can fuck now!~ *wink, wink*”

🤨

This is where I was a jerk.... Because he broke my heart. I led him on, told him I would meet up with him at his house to sleep with him, and just didn’t show up—ghosted him ever since. The worst part about that, is I still don’t regret doing that to him. I hope I hurt his feelings and felt like an ass like I did.

So years have passed, I consider myself as a rather successful woman now. I’m 27, I consider myself Buddhist (I am a terrible Buddhist I know), I am an Occupational Therapy Assistant and I have a great husband (I married the guy I was with in high school). And he loves the real me—the crazy closet weeb, cartoon watching, creative, expressive, me! The person who also writes fanfiction about a romance novel and he is fine with it. Because he is a huge nerd too and we are both nerds together.

My husband is my best friend and I don’t know what I’d do without him. When I write about Rhemi and Muriel, I draw a lot of inspiration with our conversation we have and how relationship dynamics are and I think it makes the writing more authentic and makes them feel a bit more real.

I love my husband more than anything… So why do I keep dreaming about that stupid asshole that just liked the fake me? D was and always will be a total tool. He is like the basic bitch of a man. And yet I still find him creeping in my dreams and I try to cheat on my husband with him in them. I wake up feeling totally terrible and weird after them too. D is a terrible fucking person—the worst person you can be in my opinion—The kind of person why lies and tells people one thing, but hides the fact that he’s really just a nasty fuck boy. If you are one, just be honest! Don’t tell another woman you're a good christan man, when really you’ve slept with not just one, but multiple girls! That how you get fucking STDs! I hate being lied to, and I’m sure other girls do too! So I guess that’s why I do, because I felt like I was lied to my entire life. Then again, why should I even care?! Why do I feel like I still obsess over him? I hate him so much now! So why do I even care? Why do I still find myself stalking him on social media? Why does it even matter? Why do I want him to see I’m happy without him? Why do I want him to see what he could have had with me? We were just stupid teenagers! Why did I care so much? Why did it hurt so much when I found out he didn’t like me?! It’s been over a decade, and we didn’t even really date! Why did this affect me so hard? …. FUCK!

So yeah. That’s my long ass rant for you all… thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[d-pennants]

Spoilers for the Dragon Prince Season 4 and beyond.

My collated notes of all the hints about what is coming up in the Dragon Prince, from interviews, AMA, ComicCon panels. Updated with stuff from Through the Moon.

There will be 7 seasons of 9 episodes each total and possibly some side projects. The story will be in three arcs with a time skip between the arcs. Books 4 & 5 makes up the next arc, which may be called the Mystery of Aaravos. Book 4 is Earth.

Side projects have been confirmed to all be part of canon and include a video game set in Xadia, an tabletop RPG game called Tales of Xadia, a possible feature film of the Orphan Queen and a possible side story set during the reign of Sol Regem featuring Sir Phineas the Cursed and his travelling companion an elf professor Delilah Geel (Who wrote the Secrets of Xadia book).

The video game was in play testing in October 2020, and Wonderstorm was still hiring staff to work on it. After S3 came out they said there was going to be an announcement about the game in 2020, but things may have been delayed due to Corvid.

Through the Moon graphic novel is set between seasons 3 and 4. It feature’s Rayla, Callum and Ezran having returned to Katolis and receiving a request from Lujanne to go the Moon Nexus  for a ritual at new moon and bring Phoe-Phoe’s ghost feather. While there Rayla seizes the opportunity to use the lake’s power as a portal between life and death to try an answer the questions that have been plaguing her about the fate of her parents, Runaan and whether Viren is truly dead.

There will also be a second graphic novel set between seasons 4 & 5.

Reminder - stuff said in interviews, AMA & so forth is subject to the team changing their mind when it comes to actually putting stuff in the show or books. They’re still planning things out. So take things as “the current idea is this, but we’ll see how it pans out”

There’s no word on how long the time skip between season 3 and 4 will be, however, Through the Moon starts 3 days before new moon and S3 ended 2 days after full moon, which is only 11 days. About 17 days pass in TTM. The Tales of Xadia TRPG is also going to fit in between these season too. AE said a vague ‘lots of weeks.’

Season 4 will include the hero trio trying to address how to heal and start to change things in the world, however there are scars history has left that will impede them. Aaravos will bring those scars to bear, though the creator did say that Aaravos himself didn’t cause those scars, he ‘brought it out’ in the people who did.

There’s a big theme of understanding what’s happened in the past and how it affects what’s happening now. Questioning what their fore-bearers have done, admitting fault and forgiving mistakes. (BTW, this is on both human and Xadian sides).

“Ezran is the key to everything.” Ezran’s empathic ability will allow him to play a role in the world no other can as he can connect to non-human beings. Though the circumstances of S1-3, who his parents are and his strong compassion, Ezran is in a unique position to cause real change.

Callum will learn more Sky magic spells well as obsessing to work a connection to another arcanum - he is dedicated to being the best mage he can be. Callum will always have a conflict between what do you want to do with magic and what will you do for magic. One hint given is that Callum cannot perform healing with his Sky magic. On an Instragram Live AE admitted he was trolling a bit, but said a betting person would pick Callum being the first human archmage. On an AMA there was a hint that historically there may have been elves that learned a second arcanum. (However, interview stated Aaravos’ mastery of all the primals is just him - he’s special).

Callum’s ‘destiny’ is tied in with the Key of Aaravos Rune Cube. It will be very important coming up. The Key is being pulled towards a location in Xadia. The closer it is to the location, the stronger the pull. (Reminder - it previously belonged to Aaravos and unlocks a great power in Xadia). In Callum’s Spellbook it says that once Zym has been returned Callum intends to find out what the Key does and make Harrow proud.

Writers have been very cagey about whether Callum being able to learn an arcanum means other humans can. “Callum learning Primal magic means that Callum learned Primal Magic.”

They’ve referred to him as the first human to learn an arcanum. However, another interview indicates that humans may have been able to connect to the primal sources in the past - thus Callum relearned something that has been forgotten for over a thousand years

Are non-magical species able to evolve into one that can use magic?

JR: There have been humans long in the past that could have AE: Yeah, right JR: They’re like [waves hand], but modern day he’s a phenomena. Like nothing is done like this no longer. AE: Yeah, I mean if Callum is developing the ability to do Primal magic do you believe that Callum is special because he’s the only human who’s able to do it or do you believe that that Callum is special because he’s the first human in forever to realise it is possible for humans. You know that kind of a little bit the question - I mean he’s special either way and right, but is he special because he’s realising that that maybe those limitations weren’t true or is he an exception to to this limitation.

Cartoon Universe interview

Though they did point out there’s not been much incentive in the last 1000 years for humans to learn Primal magic, given that Dark magic is both easier to use and more powerful.

Rayla will have an inner conflict about her future as a Moonshadow elf that she needs to figure out. Including how being friends with humans and wanting to be a protector rather than the assassin she was raised to be will affect her relationships with her people. (Plus, the whole being ghosted and ghosted parents issue needs to be addressed). Update info from TTM: Rayla ends TTM by going on a quest by herself to locate Viren. Her clues are the Storm Spire, a cave and... a giant cocoon.

There is an unspecified but important storyline involving Runaan. But the coins will get addressed at some point.The coins would require very powerful magic to release the trapped elves and it may not be possible for Primal magic. However, Viren is capable of releasing people he has coined.  Also, Rayla knows something happened to her parents, but doesn’t specifically know about the coins. Viren showed Rayla a pouch and mentioned adding her to his collection. AMA answer suggests Callum didn’t see what Viren did in the history spell - he just know Viren did something to Rayla’s parents. TtM seems to confirm Callum’s spell didn’t show that part. Whether Gren saw Runaan in the coin seems up to debate - in the novel he knew Viren used magic on Runaan came out holding something small, like a button or coin.  (PS. They also confirmed Runaan slew Harrow, and Harrow is dead dead).

Soren has a complicated future ahead of him as he’s lost the only support system he’s known his whole life. He has a lot to learn and many places to go.

Claudia is going to get a lot worse and there’s a long way to go for her, though they did hint that there’s hope for her in the end. Her motivation is love and family, not power. However, she is willing to go to great sacrifices for her family... Also, her hair will get whiter. 

“When we get back to her in Season 4, there is some amazing stuff, just in the first few episodes, which by the way are also funny and quirky and all the things we’ve come to love about the character, but she becomes a very critically important driving force of the narrative in Season 4.”

Inverse interview.

It will be explained in S4 how Claudia was able to perform the resurrection spell. It hasn’t been used previously because she either a) didn’t know it - as in Aaravos taught her it - or b) didn’t have what was necessary to cast the spell.

The story about how Claudia managed to find a supposedly extinct for a 1000 years unicorn and capture it will be addressed in S6.

According to Claudia’s VA -  Racquel Belmonte - Claudia will likely have a protege dynamic with Aaravos. She will change her mind a bit on disliking all elves and open up a bit on seeing Viren’s connection to Aaravos.

They have a backstory about why Viren treats Soren so harshly compared to Claudia (though he’s manipulative of both), though it’s not indicated when this backstory will be shown. New info from the book said that Viren used dark magic to save Soren from dying of an illness. This ravished his appearance and whatever he did scared his wife, Lissa, into leaving him. Also Viren wanted a son who would carry on his path and is disappointed Soren isn’t like him. Viren feels some resentment towards Soren that he refuses to acknowledge.

AMA confirmed that Lissa will not be making an appearance in S4 or 5. There is a possibility she may be included in S6, but it’s just a potential idea. Early mage fam life involving Lissa will come up in the novels.  (BTW she currently lives in Del Bar and was in no danger from the smoky assassin as she has nothing to do with the leadership of Del Bar)

Viren became a bit of a card carrying villain in season 3, however in season 4 & 5 some of the complexities behind his actions will be revealed. (His VA said that Viren had understandable reasons in S1 & 2, but was a villain in S3, however, he’s happy with how S4 & 5 will develop Viren. Also he gave a strong hint that Viren will have a kind of “fresh start” thing going on, and “do a 180″, and his story is apparently kinda wild). 

Viren and Aaravos: Viren didn’t take Runaan’s warning that “you found something worse than death” seriously enough. Viren is ‘in hot water’ in his dealings with Aaravos. The question over time would be - “Wait, am I making my own choices or am I being led to choices you wanted me to make, Aaravos?”

This current era will be known as the Return of Aaravos. Apparently in S4 & 5 Aaravos is going to be very... mysterious. In fact the arc could be called The Mystery of Aaravos.

“The next two seasons are about understanding who Aaravos was, who they thought Aaravos was, how they realized what was happening, and imprisoned him.” 

This is tied into the Orphan Queen storyline, for more info see this post. Parts of this storyline will feature in flashbacks S4 onwards.

A lot of Aaravos’ motivation comes from a relationship he had with a character whose name is featured on the map from the novel. (Candidates are Skall’s Hook, Ruins of Elarion, Mount Kalik and Eboreus. They said on a Q&A that Elarion wasn’t referring to a person, just the city).

Aaravos has a speech coming up in S5 that explains about the history of magic and why he’s interested in humans. Summed up - Over 5000 years ago there was only one kind of magic, deep magic, and it was very difficult to wield, then something happened that split magic into the 6 Primals Source and gave every creature and plant a connection to one of the 6 Primal Sources, which were much more practical magics. Except humans. 

When asked what was coming out of the cocoon an interviewer gave “Aaravos’ physical form” and some jokes options. Ehasz replied, “I’m gonna say none of the… well, I’m not gonna say.” TtM update: In the world between life and death the cocoon held a corrupted version of Viren - a month after Viren was resurrected at the end of S3. Rayla says Viren is caught between life and death, but in the living world.

Janai is Queen Khessa’s heir, so she should be the next Sunfire Queen. Janai also has a brother. (Sunfire elves also have a Light Being form with healing powers that’s even rarer than the beserker Heat Being form. This fact has come up a couple of times so they’re likely going to introduce a character with this form - could be Janai’s brother). 

Janai will find out that Aaravos whispered something in Khessa’s ear before he killed her.

Also on Amaya and Janai:

Also, they did a reveal page for Janai's mount, a Twin-Tailed Inferno-Toothed Tiger, with some interesting info. These flying firecats are believed to only tolerate those of pure-heart and aggressive to those of ill-intent. You can't give a factoid like that and not use it somewhere.

Tales of Xadia will feature storyline content that bridges the gap between Season 3 and the newly-announced Season 4 of The Dragon Prince,” according to Fandom’s press release. “Players can explore the ruins of Lux Aurea, try to restore the corrupted Sunforge, and fight to stop the spread of the evil monstrosities it radiates. This off-screen story will come alive in game supplements—as well as in organized play events—prior to Season 4’s release.

Forbes

Sol Regem will be in season 4. (No character makes me think of “scars of the past” more than this character. He is not going to be interested in reconciliation between Xadia and humanity).

There will be a new elf character - Terry the Earthblood elf. Has similar powers to Toph from Avatar tLA and is said to be very funny. For reference this Earthblood elf is from Callum’s Spellbook;

Also a new dragon in season 4 - Rex Igneous (Fire King) the Earth Archdragon, who lives underground but comes up every hundred years. He’s appeased by food he hasn’t tried before (looking at Ezran and his jelly tart habit here);

They mentioned that both Earthblood and Tidebound elves will be introduced in seasons 4 & 5.

There’s another archdragon who has been mentioned at SDCC and in the novel, Luna Tenebris, who reigned between Sol Regem and Avizandum.. Ehasz said that the end of her reign is being explored in S4, but no current intentions to explore the beginning.

JR mentioned that the territory of the Skywing elves will be visited at some point, and how having a small portion of the population that has wings, and a even smaller population that can magically manifest wings, has an affect on their culture. (The three types apparently have different outlooks - with winged elves being known for moving on when they don’t care to deal with things).

They’ve mentioned a character that will be introduced in the video game will make it into the show. AE & JR were talking about how they were currently writing stuff for S5 and how this character just got their moment, so I think this character is due in S5.

Core novel Book 2: Sky will introduce a very important Dark Mage character not yet featured on the show.

Also, as a tidbit from AE - there’s a scene in S5 where someone makes a sacred promise to Bait.

Sarai will feature in the show again. AMA confirmed Callum’s father is “fully human.” His father may come up in the novels.

In the novel new lore about unicorns was introduced. This lore will be incorporated into the show at some point.

The reactions to elf/human romantic relationships will be a thing.

Aanya will be featured again. Ezran and Aanya will be friends. 

Queen Fareeda of Evenere actually survived the smokey assassin’s attack - she just went missing for a bit. Her story may come up later on.

Captain Villads and Berto are likely to be featured again, but not confirmed. 

They do have some stories about Callum’s father they want to tell, but it’s likely to be in books rather than making it into the show.

Crow Master has scenes coming up. The Crow Lord is real but that’s all they’re gonna say.

Some very epic beings will eat jelly tarts in the show.

And a finishing note to put the fear in you - possible major character death.

PS. It has been confirmed that Rayla, Callum, Zym (and Bait) are the main characters for all seven seasons, so this leaves... Soren, Claudia, Viren and Amaya. 

[laughingpinecone]

Trick or Treat 2020 letter!

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

All requests are art or fic - for art, the stuff I like is the kind that depicts the characters doing something. I’ll always be happier with a very simple drawing of two characters walking together or sharing a cup of coffee than with an ambitious composition that looks like an Avengers poster. I also enjoy seeing them wear different clothes, getting a feel of what their fashion sense is like beyond their canon outfit(s).

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, sickfic, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, nerdy canon references, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Hurdy

I love the game’s world and all the little stories and legends that fill it. Great atmosphere, great lore, so if you feel like getting a little worldbuildy and indulging in the scenery and its story, please do! A focus on the sense of camaraderie in a caravan would also be great (like people could do on Gamecube.....). Hurdy’s a bit of an odd duck for that theme, but maybe he hitched a ride at some point? With whom? Amidatty or De Nam maybe, among the nominated characters? I love the whole cast so anyone goes. Do they travel together enough for them to cotton onto the weirdness of the whole Gurdy situation? Got any run-in with Lady Mio? Or what’s his status after the miasma is lifted, can he go back to Tipa, can he/they begin to heal? What does healing even look like for him and Gurdy?

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down... him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles... I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back. Dreaming Sissel but he’s strange... and wrong?

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right... I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being into it is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business)

Kentucky Route Zero: Carrington, Cate

Act after act, intermission after intermission, I somehow didn’t see the arts rising to such a dominant theme in KRZ and it’s stuck with me since the ending finally hit. It’s great and moving. So! Who better than good ol’ antler man to linger in those feels! Carrington’s playwright adventures or Carrington&anyone you fancy, either way I’d listen to him ramble for a week and I would like to know more about his big dramatic plans. Or maybe him helping someone, more or less accidentally, by offering his unique takes? Overriding my “no canon retellings” DNW for a hot second, did he ever figure out what was going down in the Death of the Hired Man (or Nap of the Hired Man as the case may be) interlude?

For Cate, I’m mostly interested in two things: life on the river and mushrooms. Maybe both! The Echo river ecosystem is intensely fascinating to me as opposed to life on the surface and life on the Zero, and yet all these environments are permeable. So what’s a moment in her daily life that encapsulates the river? Someone they picked up on the Mammoth, a strange island that popped up at some point? Cate&Will bonding extremely welcome, I’m love Will. And then there’s the mushroom hunting. I don’t know much about mushrooms, but I do know that they’re cool. Cate seems to agree, so if you’ve got a story or pic in you about her and them mushrooms, I’d love to see it.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. If &Manley or &Brighton, I am not interested in more lenient takes on their characters than canon’s. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?"/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue."? btw that ‘emphatically yes xeno’ from my general likes is only applicable here I guess so: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like...

Shenmue: Qiu Hsu, Xianzi Bei

Cormorants... kung fu... cormorant kung fu. They turned out to be my faves in a very likeable cast and I’d love to see either or both of them slice-of-life-ing it up in Niaowu, or anywhere up or down the river. The rest of the cast is welcome to join! Did Ren end up at Liu He Hall for whatever reason, or did Shenhua chat up a cormorant, as she does? Id love to see a spookier mood too! Ghost story time in Liu Jiao shrine maybe?

The Silver Case: Catherine, Kodai Sumio, Kuroyanagi Shinko, Kusabi Tetsugorou, Macalister Edo, Morishima Tokio

I‘m all for the surrealism, big things being introduced and never picked up again, Rashomon’ing it up with six explanations for the same thing where no single one can be true, people dying and then popping up again like nbd...  maybe the thing I like the most is characters transcending their humanity and looming over the dystopian world like ominous avatars. Correctness’ first ending had me swooning, that kind of mood is unparalleled. I have played TSC, FSR and 25W so far and have vague memories of K7. I’m aware of the “everything’s connected” readings but that’s not my main interest in these games. Mainly I see Lospass as a real island but also a metaphysical  place of transformation first and foremost, where strange things happen that don’t make sense elsewhere, but I’m good with anything that works for your story! There are a few & prompts for these fine folks in my Press Start letter [here].

For Catherine, I’d love to see something along the lines of her YAMI appearance, on Lospass on her own or hanging out with another character of your choice (or Tokio again). Sumio leaves me at a loss for words... if you’ve played 25W, maybe an expansion of his [intense ethereal whooshing] moment? He’s a gust away from vanishing from existence altogether... &Sakura and/or &/Tetsu if you want. Or his time in prison or a return to Lospass or whatever’s going on with that one, really. For Shinko I’m itching for different team-ups! Throw her at anyone you like and see what happens! FSR-era Tetsu could be cool, or off-the-grid Tetsu, or Tetsu&anyone... as for Edo, I’d be curious to see his pov on anyone and anything! WAS the Flower Sun and Rain the friends we met along the way? And Tokio... oh Tokio. Something about older Tokio and his gaggle of tulpas (Slash and whatshisface from YUKI who looks suspiciously like YAMI Tokio himself?)? Any...thing...about any part of his life from Lifecut onwards? Any portentous encounters?

[ryouverua]

Trial 6 - Flashfiction (4)

FLIP THAT CHESSBOARD, SWEETCHEEKS!

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3

it’s what kokichi would have wanted

DRV3 HOW DARE YOU HOLD OUT ON THE CUTEST DAMN TSUMUGI SPRITE OF THE ENTIRE GAME

how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren’t real

And we found it in Kokichi’s lab of all places. Why? Had he been able to get access to it ater all? Why was it just lying there so awkwardly - not hidden or neatly put away at all, but just tossed on the floor like an afterthought?

...... thinks about the state of Kokichi’s dorm room

yeah the chance that he left it on the floor like a bored 12 year old or me is not 0%

Wait.... is there??? The only one that stands out to me is the method of applying vs being scouted...

So we go over the events again, or as the game would probably put it, comb over The Longest, Most Ridiculous, Most Despairing Backstory to look for discrepancies.

Don’t look so pleased with yourself!

YES THANK YOU SHUICHI THANK YOU FOR STOPPING HER BEFORE SHE GOT STARTED AGAIN

It.... it doesn’t???

as;dflksdjf

U-Uuuuh Monokuma??? Are you just allowed to namedrop the title like that???

A-Anyway, this one was sort of vague - not sure if the game did too good a job of hiding it or not, but I certainly didn’t clue into this immediately because, well, I’d argue that Junko was ultimately the cause of this? And she was the original Ultimate Despair, even if Mukuro got roped into it with her? This felt a bit like being at a multiple choice exam where there are a few answers that are sort of right but not exactly right and then I cry

AND MUKURO!!! I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS MUKURO ERASURE, DAMN IT!!! can you tell she was one of my favourites in the first game if not my favourite

“And that’s why, even though you are technically right, you are also wrong, and therefore will not get any points for your answer to this question.” sweetcheeks you sonuvab -

despite the mukuro erasure, consider me team maki

“Can it, nerd.”

It would have been really nice to have Maki in the first game.

We really are going over this piece by piece.

Okay, so now we’re reviewing the first game. They were forced to kill each other, then Junko was found out and killed herself in the end, which led to the eventual end of the Despair side....

Shuichi is clearly onto something that I haven’t quite latched onto yet. 8′D

This makes me think of how cool it would have been to have this text style in the previous games. Have I mentioned enough about how much I like the typography in drv3? Because I don’t know if that’s possible.

OOOH that’s right - I forgot! Or, well, I didn’t forget, but it didn’t really occur to me that we were remembering that they were literally trapped in the school by Ultimate Despair, I guess.

I guess the gist of it is that they’re remembering - well, not witnessing the events, but being told things were one way vs another. They would have been too young to have been alive at the time though, right? It seems to me that, though the game clearly wants us to take it a different way, we can also interpret this as them just being told the wrong thing within the memories themselves as opposed to the actual memories being entirely falsified. What if the reports at the time or the commonly-known story was that they had been locked in by Ultimate Despair, and it’s only the properly researched books like this that have the correct accounts? It’s not exactly an uncommon phenomenon for there to be widely-held mistaken knowledge/generalizations of famous events, unfortunately... 8′D

Anyway, I’m getting distracted because like I said, this is really not the angle the game is going with at all.

BULLSHIT

AND ALSO

WHY WOULD A BOOK EXIST THAT DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS THE MEMORIES YOU GAVE THEM

LIKE

WHY DOES IT EVEN EXIST IN THIS PLACE AT ALL

I’m seriously fixated on this book!

also

I love Shuichi just casually ignoring Junko!Tsumugi lmao

I’m calling her Junko!Tsumugi I refuse to call her Tsumugi!Junko I REFUSE TO GIVE UP ON TSUMUGI’S AUTONOMY

This.... this one has to be it, right? This was the one thing I remember getting really confused by when they talked about applying! In fact, I had thought the whole reason Shuichi was considered the Ultimate Detective was because of the homicide case and if that resulted in him being at Hope’s Peak, it was because word of that had traveled - but then if it was an application, that means either his parents or his uncle would have applied on his behalf, right?

this was a detail I remember remarking on and loving btw I got really sad when in Chapter 5 it started looking like they were all in the same class

I think more than the others, this is the big one. All that other stuff can be attributed to mistaken hearsay - but this? This is something they would have ‘directly experienced’.

Oh apparently he chose to come... despite feeling awkward about his title.

I wonder if he was pressured into it by his family....?

Or, uh. Let me correct myself. I wonder if, in this mistaken memory, he remembers being pressured into it by his family?

I-I feel like I would trust the book over you guys especially considering the whole ‘we remembered Kokichi Ouma as a Remnant of Despair and got him killed as the fake mastermind’ situation tbh.

well technically ultra despair girls is

That is a good point. I mean, it could quite possibly happen underground, but I suppose the same could be said of the Jabberwock Island one - there’s no reason that should be public knowledge.

“I mean, I know it’s nothing new, but bear with me here.”

H A L L E L U J A H

REALLY

REALLY

MAKI, REALLY

YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW BETTER

FUFCKFUCKING HELL GUYS YOU’RE KILLING ME HERE

sdfkdslfj fukging

noOOONONO

aND YOU! YOU SHUT UP TOO!!!!

“Also have you seen their outfits? Do you realize how terribly they would clash? ‘Oh Saihara, why would that matter what do uniforms have to do with anything surely Kokichi and his uniformed clown posse could just be a branch under the Remnants’ NO THAT WILL NOT FLY WHEN THE HEAD OF THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION LITERALLY DOUBLES AS THE ULTIMATE FASHIONISTA!!!”

this level of reasoning is possible for saihara shuichi

.... what do you think, everyone?

And he still has the Supreme Leader title, even if these aren’t really their talents... there has to be something to that, right?

Shu -

Shuichi

The words DICE were written in big words over his giant hella awesome throne

He has a checkered scarf which brings about a certain ‘game’ feeling

he literally challenged you to card games

I’m.... I’m just gonna throw it out there, but there’s a pretty good chance the group he led was called ‘DICE’.

YOU SAW THE VIDEO YOU SAW IT DAMN YOU MAKI I KNOW YOU’RE BETTER THAN THIS YOU ARE SMARTER THAN THIS!!!!

“Maki also said he literally said he didn’t know what she was talking about when she interrogated him with a crossbow literally aimed directly at him but surely that’s unrelated -”

s o b s

I 100% bet Tsumugi was not counting on them finding this room. So.... beginning the trial, she tried to do a Kaede/Kaede’s twin mastermind thing. Then she switched tactics to being solely ‘Junko’ and her lackey Kokichi setting up the game with the last survivors of humanity as... revenge for Hope’s Peak, I guess? Or something.

So where are we going from here? Are we about to discover this was all a simulated scenario then?

Sort of like they’re trying to test different outcomes and scenarios - with different talents, maybe? Is there the selected 16 (15? 14?) talents that can be switched around at will, or is there a larger database of students’ talents? That’s what I really want to know.

But “there are an endless possibilities for lies,” a certain person may say.

why are you all ganging up on me also how when two of you are literally the same person and the other one is an AI acting as an extension of you -

It sort of hit me but this is a weird echo of Korekiyo’s trial, with Junko and Tsumugi switching back and forth with each other the way Korekiyo and his sister did. I wonder if there’s something to that, or if it says something about Tsumugi in general...

(one hangman’s gambit later...)

TALENTS ARE NOT THEIRS AND POSSIBLY ARBITRARY CONFIRMED

I WOULD KILL FOR KOKICHI TO POP OUT OF THE GRAVE TO SHOUT IT’S A LIE RIGHT NOW

FUCK YOU BEAR

ghggkhgkh

that is a dangerous precedent to set

But you weren’t planning on revealing this, right??? Right???? Your hand was totally forced! Don’t play this off like it wasn’t!

I swear I had a similar idea when I was coming up with how they could see themselves in photos/pictures if the students weren’t actually who they thought they were - about how their brain filled in the gaps and placed their own faces where they’d expect to see them (like in the funeral scene with the portraits, etc). Glad to know I was kinda right on that regard!

I really like it when they combine Junko and Tsumugi here. There’s probably something to that - when it’s Tsumugi herself acting as the mastermind, as opposed to just being ‘Junko’.

T-Those are some pretty big inconsistencies though? Why would there be incorrect options in those flashback lights in the first place? What was there to gain for their being options where ‘Ultimate Despair trapped the first class in’ and ‘Junko is the end-all of Ultimate Despair’? At least Kokichi’s made sense to have on standby, but the other stuff? Isn’t their existence a bit weird?

It’s... nice to see Shuichi focusing on Kokichi. Being posthumous and all it’s a bit late, but it’s still nice - especially after all that talk of ‘not understanding him’ and ‘the embodiment of a lie’, having him finally clue in to Kokichi’s real place in all of this - a victim of the mastermind - is good. It’s the perfect example of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and Kaito figured that out last chapter, so it’s long past due for Shuichi to drag himself and everyone else to that conclusion, kicking and screaming if he must.

(he was jealous of Angie)

because he was trying to stop the game!!!!!

Which, honestly, was pretty clever on her part. I think overall Kokichi will come out of this looking the best - he had so little going for him and almost succeeded in his coup - but the fact that Tsumugi was able to counter his surprise attack still says a lot about her own intelligence and her ability to adapt, because in that moment she also had limited options.

THANK

YOU

LORD

WE HAVE GATHERED HERE TODAY TO SAY FAREWELL TO REMNANT!OUMA THEORY

REST IN PIECES AND NEVER COME BACK

Pretty damn successfully, too.

While the fact that her first inclination was to straight-up murder Kokichi was very Not Good, it’s at least good to know that it took the extra nudge of the flashback lights to push her over the precipice. Basically, it took turning Kokichi into a complete monster in her eyes - Despair with a capital D - to strip away his humanity entirely. I do wonder if she still would’ve staged a rescue mission of sorts to rescue Kaito? For that matter, I wonder if Kaito had been on the outside (with the Flashback Light used on him and everything) and it was someone else being held hostage like Shuichi, would he have been able to talk Maki down?

It’s interesting how they’re turning hope itself into a weapon here. I think Junko talked about this in the first game, the idea of giving hope out to maximize despair, so it’s not the first time the mastermind has actively used hope as a weapon - but it’s never felt quite as dirty as it does here.

!!! We’re seeing her as herself in the room!!! I guess it’s the flashback light classroom, but still!

That is so unfair considering they were all being threatened with death, you were straight up messing with their brains and also that airlock exists??? And they straight-up collapsed after being exposed to the outside??? I’m 

I think Shuichi managed to break away from that a bit at the end... maybe. He seems more motivated by righting the wrong in Kaede’s case at this point, and of avenging everyone who died - but the same can’t be said of the others.

Man I even wondered what it would be like without Kaito and Kokichi there considering they’ve been the strongest ‘movers’ on both sides - and the answer ended up being ‘I’ll give you artificial motivation to act’.

SHE’S.... REALLY A KILLING GAME FAN GIRL AFTER ALL..........

Oh, this does feel dirty. She’s lusting after them in an abstract way - like pieces on a chessboard. Kokichi was able to compartmentalize and make people take certain actions to an extent, but even he had attachments that he wasn’t able to shake. I knew it felt like she had managed to keep herself from getting too close to them, with the sole exception of the protectiveness she felt for Gonta (which?? I want to know if we’ll hear anything about that specifically???) but this is... wow.

Actually, this is very Komaeda-esque isn’t it? She wants to see them succeed in their battles against each other in a similar way...

Junko only gets that look when she’s actually mad. So if Tsumugi is sporting that... well, she must be smarting a bit underneath all the gloating she’s doing. She was happily spouting off ‘hints’ before, right?

Oh??

me too tbh

OH THE TURNABOUT MUSIC IS HERE

THAT TRANSITION WAS SO GOOD AND SMART WHAT A GREAT WAY TO USE THE PORTRAIT STAND

oooh! OOOOH! OH WHAT A FANTASTIC POINT!

SHUICHI MY BOY YOU’RE ON A ROLL NOW! GET HYPED GET HYPED GET HYP -

AAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hajimemed

[parkyooni]

Everyone is talking about the various glitches in bts videos (btw I think they were confirmed to be the fault of youtube itself. But I still find them extremely weird). Which I agree, are weird but aren‘t as weird as the codes that probably most of you have already seen. 6 members have an encoded instagram account. It seems that only taehyung doesn‘t have one. Every account has an encoded bio. The code is called binary (it‘s a basic coding language). When you try to translate the binary codes that’s what you get.

1)      chxm.chxm_ (Jimin)  START GAME

2)      n0chuu_ (Jeongguk) Level 1

3)      mang_hobb (Hoseok) Level 2

4)      sh00ky_ (Yoongi)  Level 3

5)      k0ya_rm (Namjoon) Level 4

6)      rj_gn (Seokjin) Level 5

They all follow each other. However, only Yoongi follows additional 3 accounts and seems that one of them is Taehyung (tata_vui); his account displays a photo with words „GAME OVER“. Every account has posted photos with unreadable codes. A few that are decodable and some that I have no idea what they mean. For example, one photo on Taehyung‘s account has a binary code „ 01000001 01000010 01010010 01000001 01011000 01000001 01010011“ which translated means „ABRAXAS“

Abraxas is a word of mystic meaning. There are many explanations of what it can mean but as I was reading through I came across something that send shivers down my spine „The seven letters spelling its name may represent each of the seven classic planets.“ Maybe it has some kind of connection with time traveling that seems to be the main theory of the MV‘s. Whatever Abraxas is connected with, it‘s placed here for a reason.

But let‘s start from the beginning:

1) Jimin – START GAME.

I managed to decode these things: Kookie is 9 The universe has moved for us 4 September 16

Besides these codes, there are also a few that seems to be random number sequences or dates (I tried to look for the dates on bts youtube channel but I couldn‘t find any that corresponded) However, probably the most interesting hint is the message: 

무서워, 나는이 순간 위험에 처해있다. 얘들 아, 나는 Fejl에 가입하는 것이 좋지 않을 것이라고 말했다... 우리는 지금 무엇을 할 것인가? @n0chuu_ @mang_hobb @k0ya_rm @rj_gn @sh00ky_ (trans: I am afraid, I am in danger at this moment. Guys, I said it would be bad to join Fejl ... what will we do now? @ n0chuu_ @mang_hobb @ k0ya_rm @rj_gn @ sh00ky_)

The username above ( 6c_6f_73_74_20_75_73_65_72) lets me speculate that perhaps they’re playing a game with a person behind it and Jimin feels  threatened.

2) Jungkook – Level 1

Whistles in my ears

There are also morse codes which can be translated to: eva+ wings+

The most interesting piece is a hashtag that connects jungkook‘s and jimin‘s accounts: #침침 #노추

3) Jhope – Level 2

Find the self that was innocent I know I've drunk from the poisoned chalice 지금 날 위로하네 (trans: I am comforting you now)

4) Suga – Level 3

I looked up and wished you NOT/ TODAY 04:06

It‘s especially interesting because when you go to the time mark in Not Today MV, it‘s an image of jungkook looking at himself.

5) RM – Level 4

180917 02:56 (the only date and time mark I managed to find. It‘s LOVE YOURSELF Highlight Reel '起承轉結' on 02:56)

Omelas 03:47 (Which is of course connected with Spring Day MV)

Jungkook once again sees himself.

RUN+ 02:22 the many meetings and goodbyes of yesterday existed for this moment The bird fights its way out of the egg

6) Jin – Level 5

AWAKE+ A house made of cards, and us, inside BECAUSE/ THE/ SUNRISE/ JUST/ BEFORE/ THE/ SUN/ RISES/ IS/ THE/ DARKEST+ |||||||| Calico cat |||||||| 만나러 갈게 5:08 (trans: I'm going to meet you. 5:08) 血、汗、淚 2:06 (trans: Blood, sweat, tears)

Jin says  "미안해" - “Sorry”.

The additional 2 accounts that suga follows seems to also have photos with various codes.

1) @6c_6f_73_74_20_75_73_65_72 (@thuybinnie has figured that 6c_6f_73_74_20_75_73_65_72 in hex translates to “lost user”)

Basically has undecodable codes that don‘t make any sense for me.

2) @repl4y__

Seems to have a bunch of photos some with normal words and some with morses codes. N/ OF/ NAM+ (this seems to code Namjoon) Y/ OF/ YOON+ (this looks like Yoongi) EYES+ SHADOW+

The other photos has normal words, however, with quite an interesting hint (@CateHarmonic did figured it out)

At least for now, that‘s everything. It‘s hard to say what they‘re thinking to do on this comeback but it‘s clear that bagstan want us to play a game. As you probably already realized, this is not a theory post. I’m not smart enough for that. This is just a bunch of information that I managed to gather while I was going through the instagram accounts.

***UPDATE*** I’m super thankful for my friend who has much more knowledge of codes and coding languages. He found a message that was hidden between numbers on one of the photos on 6c_6f_73_74_20_75_73_65_72 account. It says: THEY___HAVE___US___LOCKED___UP. 

He also recognized the other code, that is used on the other 3 photos. It‘s base 64 code. And sure it is... When I put it in the decoder that‘s what I got.

”Can you read me, right? Are you really still here? You must continue Do not stop, you are so, so close ... or maybe not? Suppose that if you are here is for something, I suppose you will not remain among us for no reason or to put yourself in what does not concern you. Although I can make the decision to leave things as they are, a small part of me trusts you. In fact, I depend on you. Therefore, what I am going to say is only between you and me, player 1 and user: this is not just a game. Take it seriously.”

”Should I start the day by communicating with you? It does not seem like a bad idea either. I'll start by greeting you, dear player 1: Good morning, did you wake up well? I'm glad! Okay, now if what I came to claim. Why do not you want to understand me? Why do you ignore me? Is it because I am "bad"? Is it because I give you terror? The least you have to fear is me ... why do you have bad thoughts about me? I'm friendly. I understand that it does not look like it, but seriously, are you one of those who judge a book by its cover? If so, GO! I DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE HERE, OUT OF HERE. You're done, you've already lost, you've lost your chance, what more do you want?”

“I want to be good, but you force me not to be. I want to help you, but you will not let me. I want you to believe me, but you do not. I want you to stop, but you continue ... You want me to say the whole truth, but I only confuse you more. You want to see my face, but I hide it. You want to know who I am, but I'm still anonymous ... We all want many things, it's true. But not everything we want we can have. So, no matter how much you want security, you will not have it. As much as they want to escape, I'll catch them. Even if they want to hide, I'll find them. And if you want to plan something against me, I'll know. A game must be fair, dear player 1, and these are the rules.”

 As I was going through the accounts once again, I tried to find what kind of coding system they used. And it looks like I found it. There are three kinds of codes that I found. 1) It‘s a simple texting code (I don‘t even know if you could call it that way). If you had a phone with a keyboard, you definitely had used that code every time you texted.

In Jhope‘s: First love (333-444-777-7777-8-555-666-888-33)

2) A1Z26 code (which basically looks like this: 3-15-14-20-9-14-21-5)

On Suga‘s account I found: this / realm/ was / familiar / to / me / in / almost / every / way the/ other/ realm/ however/ was/ completely/ different

On Jungkook‘s account: it‘s up

On Jhope‘s: It‘s so sweet but so bad

And 1 on Jimin‘s: Continue

3) It‘s an octal code (which looks like this: 122 157 165 156 144 40 141 156 144 40 162 157 165 156 144 54 40 167 145 40 141 162 145 40 162 151 147 150 164 40 167 150 145 162 145 40 167 145 40 163 164 141 162 164 145 144 56) On Jungkook‘s: Round and round, we are right where we started. There is still some that I can’t figure out. But trust me, I’m going to try and figure them out. I’m too invested in this at this point... I know, some of you are probably thinking I’m wasting my time searching and decoding all these codes. And you’re probably right... I’m starting to doubt that this is bighit’s job, maybe someone is simply having fun. But honestly, I’m invested!