#would have saved me and a lot of other people tons of psychological damage

[darkpoisonouslove]

The betrayal the trix must have felt after Griffin kicked them out of her school because a fairy thought it would be right.

Lmao, that is such a funny way to present the situation. I mean, the Trix might present it exactly like that but the truth is that Faragonda wanted them expelled (iirc) back in 1x08 and Griffin said "fuck that". She literally told them that she's going to give them another chance because she feels that they can become great witches BUT she warned them to do what they do without getting caught. Really, they had those consequences for their actions coming. They already got away with so much shit and they were warned beforehand that they're on thin ice. Griffin did what any normal headmistress would do. She can't afford to sacrifice the reputation of the school just to save the skins of three ungrateful students that keep hurting the school's image. She had no choice, in fact, because the Trix got caught. She can't do whatever she wants just like the Trix can't. The only difference is that she understands that.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Rambling About Charles and Evil and Empathy.

I saw a sweet Charles quote. And to be honest, even though we were completely smacked in the face by how evil his behind-the-scenes actions were, I do have a soft spot for him. There are tons of moments where he just broke my heart. Of course, it’s hard to tell who anyone in this book truly was at the end of the day… But I felt pity for the guy, while hating his vices. I think he did have good streak in him that his addiction wrecked. The neat thing about this book is that fans will empathize on different levels with different characters.

It sounds weird to say but I think TSH made me a more empathetic person. Obviously, I have to be careful with what I say here because none of the crimes in this book were excusable. In fact, that’s a key part of the conflict! The characters are delusional and challenge moral boundaries, and there was no other way this could end but their actions destroying them. Richard is problematic precisely because he paints away the flaws of these characters— much like Julian does— until he’s forced to admit how evil everyone has become. Things just get too out-of-control. Besides, society would collapse if we didn’t draw hard lines and refuse to justify people. That said, it’s also important to understand the types of things that make people break and to take them seriously. No character in TSH was just born evil. And we get periodic glimpses of who they could have turned out to be.

I do believe Charles, had he not come to rely on alcohol and face multiple traumatic experiences, could have just been a sensitive and thoughtful man; he loves animals and we see this when he saves Frost from being put down and when he takes in the cat. He’s also the most reflective about what the group did to Bunny and to his family (Richard reflects a lot too, but we are in his head. Charles voices this aloud multiple times). And I have to admit I nearly broke down crying when he was sick in Richard’s room and said, “I’m scared.” That’s a feeling so raw that it just really hurt me. Francis’s flippant attitude about serious things, honestly, annoyed me. But I felt the same thing for him when he was having a panic attack and didn’t know what was happening to him. Genuine panic, fear, and loneliness are just tough to watch.

I don’t know. Tartt writes with so much nuance, bringing light to the fact that we have to admit some people are bad people and that aesthetic beauty has nothing to do with it. But her characters, despite their evil, are also humanized in a way that isn’t just a cheap “but his parents died” few sentences. The slow burn aspect of this book and the time Tartt takes to actually provide a full psychological picture is breathtaking. Human minds are just tricky things, especially when they’re damaged at young ages. Eh, I’m rambling now but these are tough topics and the line between justifying and empathizing is thin and hard to understand.

[thursdayarchive]

Geoff Rickly discussing his difficulties as Thursday’s frontman after signing to a major label and his old nickname, “Tone Geoff”, on Lead Singer Syndrome Podcast, February 26, 2021. (Transcript under cut.)

Like it was a painful thing for me to be stuck in that situation where it was all being decided for me and I had to go out there and sing something that I could not sing because I was so exhausted. Um. And that was really tough, man. That was really… it really did some psychological damage. And from that point forward, I started trying to break up the band over and over again.

Shane Told: So, all of a sudden, you’re one of four opening for your buddy Saves the Day, that you literally know from your own basement. Geoff Rickly: Yep. ST: Then you have, all of a sudden, pretty much overnight, you have a song blowing up on MTV, you’re playing 1500 cap rooms, selling them out, and now you’re signed to a major label. And I read this thing—and I never heard of this before, so I don’t want you to think that I heard this before—but people called you “Tone Geoff.” GR: Oh yeah. Oh, dude, yes. ST: You know, you weren’t super comfortable as a singer, you didn’t feel like you were really a singer. You were kind of like this kid that was really into this community and into this scene, and you really cared about it, and now you’re put on this place where it’s like, okay, you have to be a rockstar now. And you don’t really have a choice, you have to do these things. And I just—that must have been so incredibly difficult, um, scary for you? GR: Oh yeah. It was…basically, like…. basically, I think there was sort of a sense, for me like yeah, we’re gonna get out of this Victory thing, which is going south real fast, and we’re gonna end up somewhere where they appreciate us, which is what…every label clearly seems like they really appreciate you when they’re like this band’s gonna be huge, I really wanna sign them. So I was like they get what we do, they appreciate us. But, you know, it became a thing that’s like, well now you have a chance to actually be, like, one of the biggest bands in the world. And, like, it’s going that way, like, this record’s headed towards gold very very quickly, on like a little tiny indie that’s never sold even 100,000 records before, and…you know, you guys are a phenomenon. Like, at the time, bands from our scene didn’t get as big as Thursday was getting, like, it was really a phenomenon at the time. Like, afterwards, sure, we’ve had tons of huge bands come out of our scene. But at the time this was sort of like, “What is happening?” So suddenly you know the…it is like, but you need to be able to sing. And it was like, well I sing. You know, I do my thing…and it was like, yeah but you’re tone deaf, you know. You’re Tone Geoff, you can’t sing. And…that was like, oh you’re gonna try and change me. Like, you’re gonna try and make me into something I’m not. And, like, actually my band probably wants me to be able to sing better…like, actually maybe everybody wants me to be able to sing better. And, like, maybe even I wanna be able to sing better, but wanting it doesn’t necessarily make it possible. So, it was scary, and they got me a vocal coach, who was, like, probably $250 a session, twice a week or something crazy, and he had five students. It was me, my hero, PJ Harvey, who was who I wanted to sing like my whole life. Bono, Christina Aguilera, and Mick Jagger were his other students. And so, like, I would be struggling with something, and he’d be like, you’re my only other student who can’t get this. I’d think like, well yeah. ST: Yeah, Christina Aguilera’s one of them! GR: Yeah, like, what do you expect man? Like, I can’t get something Bono can get. Oh, okay. ST: Wow… GR: But, uh…but, you know. I tried. And, like, I was singing better. You know, like, on War All The Time I sang a lot better than I sang on Full Collapse, and…you know, but I was singing higher, and that was a lot harder for me to hit on tour, which was like…so it became a whole different…I basically traded out my issues, which is that the newer songs I could sing better but the newer songs were harder to sing live so I was singing worse live. And then we played Conan on Thanksgiving, which, like, that’s the biggest show you can play on Thanksgiving. Conan O'Brian. And we had just done, like, nine months of touring, and my voice was completely shot. Completely shot. Like, I couldn’t sing at all. And it was…we played our ballad, we played what was gonna be our second single, War All The Time, and I just couldn’t, I couldn’t sing, you know what I mean? It was painful. Like, it was a painful thing for me to be stuck in that situation where it was all being decided for me and I had to go out there and sing something that I could not sing because I was so exhausted. Um. And that was really tough, man. That was really…it really did some psychological damage. And from that point forward, I started trying to break up the band over and over again. Um. And…it was really tough, you know, because I loved the band, you know, it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life and I love those guys, but I just couldn’t handle an expectation on me that was something that I probably would never reach. And it was something that was…it was not one of my dreams-like, it was not to be the next big, famous singer who could sing perfectly-was not one of my dreams. I had already gone bigger than, like, Lifetime or whatever. And that was, to me, was what, like. All these other dreams that everybody else has, these aren’t my dreams, and I don’t know what to do with them. And that was really tough.

[justaratswriting]

Batfam and Mental Health

orOkay so I love Batman and all the things surrounding it. Like the idea of a random rich man who happens to be an orphan just suddenly adopting a ton of children is ridiculous, and thoroughly entertaining.

But I am also a big fan of psychology, and learning about the mind. So mental illness and related things are fascinating to me. 

I notice that like strangely there is very little stuff about the batfam having mental illnesses or dealing with psychology or therapy. Don’t get me wrong there is still a lot addressing these things, but still with the things the family experiences you would think it would be a lot more prevalent in the writing about them, and especially fan fiction about them.

Like I think showing mental health through  beloved characters would be really cool and could be a tool to destigmatize them. Like showing hero's with them would make really great representation, people could see them and think Oh I can still be a good person and helpful even if my mental disorder makes it hard and for things like depression or ADHD showing which misconceptions are harmful and don’t work. 

I can also see this in the physical aspect, like I wish a hero would have something like chronic pain or one of the many invisible illnesses. To give representation and show how pushing through the pain can shut a person down for days. 

The specific disorders I think would be really interesting of the top of my head is, depression, Anxiety, POTS, Fibromyalgia, Chronic pain, eating disorders, nerve damage, ADHD, Bipolar, OCD, Chronic fatigue, PTSD, c-PTSD, Autism, Elhers Danlos syndrome, And the one I really think would be interesting DID. 

Like fore depression, showing how hard it is to get out of bed. Not showing constantly being sad but showing how it can be numbing. Acknowledging that in a disorder like this logic doesn’t always win even if you are the most logical person to live. 

For anxiety showing how debilitating it can be. Looking into their minds to show the thought process, the mind fight itself and logic. Knowing their fears are unreasonable but not being able to shake the feeling. Show how for different people different things cause anxiety. 

POTS or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, (super simply put it is a circulation disorder where upon standing up blood rushes to extremities and can cause all sorts of problems like fainting, pain in your feet, Dizziness, poor temperature regulation, etc. Also I am assuming people know what depression and anxiety is.) would be fascinating to me. Like having a hero that is constantly sitting down or biting down and pushing through the pain even a hero that has to slowly stand up. So in the middle of a battle being shoved down having to slowly stand up or risk fainting or vision completely blacking out for a while. Showing a hero who has learned to fight with no sight because of that very thing. 

Or Fibromyalgia (This one I am a little less educated about but from what I understand, it is a disorder characterized by muscle pain and tenderness usually with no known cause, so from what I understand it usually is diagnosed after a ton of other disorders are eliminated and the pain is still occurring, often also has affect on sleep and memory/mood.) Like showing a hero having a particularly hard patrol and having to take a couple days off and constantly going places or trying things to help with the pain. 

Or Chronic pain ( from what I understand the main difference between Fibromyalgia and Chronic pain is chronic pain has to do with the nerves and Fibromyalgia has to do with muscles, also Fibromyalgia has other thins to go with it like energy levels and mental functions so memory/mood.) Like a hero having constant pain even if they didn’t have a big fight, maybe showing them icing, heating, or taking pain meds and the rest of the family or team being super confused as to why. Before they know showing them freak out and worry that they went on a mission without telling anyone. Showing how it is a constant battle, that sometimes treatments will work and other times, for seemingly no reason they won’t. 

I would also like to see eating disorders portrayed by the bat family. Showing how it’s not always a conscious choice, sometimes it is more along the lines of choosing something else over eating. Showing how people can use it for control or to punish themselves. Letting there be a male example, reminding people that they can happen to anyone. Allowing people to have representation. Show a recovery, how it is not impossible for anyone but not down playing how hard it is. It is a true and hard fight, and show how it can sneak up on you and drag you back. Not just one easy recovery, that recovery is a choice. You have to want it but you also need help, it is a long hard process and accessibility is everything. Show a family member making them food, show them sometimes eating it and others not. Also don’t only show under eating show how people can’t stop themselves from eating. Having cabinets locked to keep people out, for their own safety. 

Or nerve damage, showing how years of their work and fighting can really mess someone up. Show someone suddenly losing all feeling or sensation in certain parts of their body or constant pain or even pinched nerves. Show how confusing it can be to not know what you are feeling. Show how weird it can be when you realize you are fine or that nothing is touching you or taking it in the opposite direction and not realizing you are hurt or someone is trying to be your attention. I would also love to see the batfam explain any of these injuries to the hero community or to the public. Maybe show the hero community really starting to look into mental and general health services. 

ADHD or also ADD, showing how people can use it but also showing how hard it can be to control and fight. How much it can impede focusing and show situations it can put people in. Show a hero forgetting a huge part of their plan and falling but because of some random information from a hyper focus they still save the day. 

Bipolar, showing the wild swings and how confusing it can be. Feeling like a different person, struggling with identity and their own decisions. Show them accidently pushing people away but also how hard they work to maintain family and friends that despite how unpredictable they can be their friends still stick around. Or if their friends can’t handle it show them peacefully and respectfully stepping out of their life. Show how hard that can be to except but that the future can end up better than you could ever hope. 

OCD is really one I wish we saw in the hero's. Show their routines and things they do. Show the thought process, like if I don’t properly put the dishes away in fourteen seconds the joker will escape arkham. Show how terrifying the thoughts can be, but show how detail oriented it can make people and the beautiful art and amazing work that they can do. Show a person putting them selves at risk to comply with their routine. Like ignoring injuries to write a report. Show them and family or friends working to change the routine. Show how hard it is the moments they want to turn back and continue and how much they want to stop but show them not giving up and making the differences they want. Show them accomplishing things, show their compulsions actually keeping them safe.

Or even chronic fatigue, Show the fight each morning. Them saving energy, the disconnect between how exhausted you are mentally vs. physically. Show a hero that 50% of the time physically is too exhausted to be in the field so they offer technical support. Show a hero crashing, suddenly just not having enough energy to finish patrol or even get home. So someone has to come pick them up. Show them getting stuck in a fight and how hard it can be to do anything much less a fight. 

Let the characters have PTSD or c-PTSD, show flashbacks and being stuck in your head. All of the bat family has lived through horrors please show it affecting them. Show how they get help how they work through it show what can happen and how bad it can get if it is unaddressed.  

Show them having autism and how it is just a different way of life that there is nothing inherently wrong with it and how the ignorance that surrounds it and similar disorders can hurt and affect people. Show how it can be simple things that can show it or affect it. Try and look at it from their perspective and what things happen that should not just because they way someone is. 

Elhers Danlos syndrome, show the pain, the misdiagnosis, the process, the fight. Show how disabilities like this and several others including ones I have mentioned can cause a person to need medical equipment such as wheelchairs and braces. Show how not everyone using a wheelchair can’t walk. Show how limiting it can be and the precautions you have to take but don’t make everything about how hard it can be. Show how using a Wheelchair while not ideal can open up so many opportunities. Show them actually being able to go on family vacations and amusement parks because they have a wheelchair. Show how important it is to have ramps and accommodations for similar things so people can participate and so people can actually go places they want. Always show how hard people with disabilities and such work. Show them trying to get treatment and trying new treatments show how it isn’t as simple as getting a knee brace or two. 

And finally coming to one that absolutely fascinates me, DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder formerly known as multiple personality disorder. But don’t do this one completely uneducated, it is already a very stigmatized disorder. Show how Alters communicate. Show how they all work together and that they were made so the body and mind could survive. Make full characters just put them in one body. Show the confusion once they find out, show them slowly realizing and learning signs and what happened to them. Show each of the Alters having different friends and maybe understanding and knowing the family different. Show the different reasons and setups systems can have. Show system responsibility and each Alter working on themselves and to make a life for the system. Show the roles Alters will take. Show the horrible process of fragmenting and what things can cause it but also show healing and people supporting and accepting systems. 

Overall showing good parts of all the struggles people can have but not ignoring how hard they can be or glorifying them to people who don’t understand. Showing misconceptions and how support can affect these disorders. And most important in my mind, giving hope and a future to look forward to for the people with these disorders.

[tosikoarts]

SFW Alphabet | Koito Otonoshin

WAP reference? In my SFW alphabet? More likely than you think. You can check tosikowrites tag for more. Warning: there’s a lot under the cut.

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

First of all, everybody in the radius of two kilometers knows that Koito has fallen in love. He isn’t loud about it but it is written all over his smug face 24/7: when he starts daydreaming about them (which he does a lot), faint blush covers swarthy cheeks and his eyes fixate at the farthest point on the horizon. Tsukishima has to call three times before the Second Lieutenant finally notices his presence.

Okay, maybe, he is a little louder than was previously stated. Koito hasn’t had a lot of love experience so for him it is a bumpy road of trials and errors. Considering his behavior in front of First Lieutenant Tsurumi, easy to imagine how he awkwardly stutters in the crush’s presence, switching between native Satsuma dialect and classical Japanese. As they grow closer, nervousness dies down, and Koito finally talks like normal people do! Oh, he is such a show-off. However, he is a sweetheart as well so his talk comes across as a nice kid trying to be overly cool. Makes tons of compliments but can’t take any himself. No, he does. No, he doesn’t. Koito is a mess that thinks about small compliments for weeks. You say he looks nice with hair parted down the middle and this young man never goes back to his previous haircut.

It is serious when Koito starts rapturously venting to Tsukishima about them. At first, Otonoshin starts asking subtle questions not to seem too inexperienced. Then he asks for advice on how to dress, what to give as a present, how to act in general. If there are any problems in the relationship, Koito will 100% craw to his Sergeant for help.

One of the first and generally the main way of affection for Koito is giving pricy presents. Even when he is trying not to flex on wealth, it comes across as disguised bragging. Gifts given are always unique and of quality, so there is no reason to be indignant.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

His best friend has to be either someone from childhood or the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Koito won’t befriend anyone in the actual military (except one exhausted Sergeant) since he has a fear of becoming a career trampoline.

Koito squanders the money on entertainment with no remorse and no shame. If he gets a new Western-style suit, his best friend will receive one in the mail too. On nights out Koito generously pays for the food and drinks, saying that they will pay next time but the next time never actually comes. There is some money in his bank account, why not spend it?

His best friend automatically becomes a part of his family and friend of Tsukishima. Koito doesn’t ask, he confidently states it. If they for some reason do not want to be close with the listed contingent, Koito faces cognitive dissonance and, notwithstanding, tries to improve relations between them.

Koito is not a stranger to gossiping and petty drama. He doesn’t get involved ever since his family has a status to maintain, but he knows what skeletons are hidden in the neighbors’ bedroom closet. His best friend hears the phrase “You won’t believe what I know” more often than “First Lieutenant is so amazing”. By the way, yes, Koito is still that fangirl and they have to deal with it.

Eh, you can’t rely on him in troubles, though. He will unapologetically push the blame on another person to stay an innocent good boy that was accidentally dragged in the mess, but he will make amends after the noise dies down.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He is so touchy-touchy-lovey-dowey, oh my god, just like you would expect from a touched-starved young man. Koito has no problems with PDA, he enjoys gazes fixed on him, so it is not uncommon to see him with the partner on the lap. Tsukishima learned to turn a blind eye and do some extra work to give the Second Lieutenant more time with his loved one. Koito prefers spooning to any other position so he can press them against his chest and fall asleep in their warmth. Sweetheart cradle is the second-best option but, honestly, Koito is down to anything that includes any of his limbs resting on their body.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

Too young (especially in the mental sphere) to think about settling down. He is 20 years old or something, right? Koito doesn’t even know what he wants, what his principles are, what his life guidelines are, so no, there’s no way he thinks about settling down any time soon. Perhaps in 3-5-10 years, after his father knocks some sense into the guy, Koito will come to the conclusion that it's time for a new chapter in his life but definitely not now. Oh, also, he is useless in the household. He can’t cook, he can’t clean (and he can’t tell how he got this ring).

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

That doesn’t go well at all. Pangs of conscience do not give him the chance to pretend and delay the moment for too long but Koito can’t just say “yeah, that’s it” and walk away as nothing happened either. He chooses the most feckless option – cruelly distancing himself and making them lose interest in the relationship. Once the decision is made, there’s no going back. Koito's interest in his military career rises significantly and, suddenly, he is always busy disciplining juniors, taking additional trips wherever First Lieutenant sends him, surprising everybody with an overwhelming passion for small arms… Yeah, I’d say that boy sus.

If the time spent apart doesn’t kill their fire, Koito will go full mean mode and start acting like a literal jerk. It’s small comments that hurt the most: he finds them too loud or too quiet, too touchy or too cold, yadda yadda. Unreasonable ostentatious attacks of jealousy? Hell yes. His goal is to get on their nerves even if it means still small voice will whisper what a terrible person he is. Regrets the childish behavior months later but won’t admit it no matter what. Fights the desire to crawl back to them for a year or so.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

It's too early to talk about it. Again, he is standing on the doorstep of real-life and significant changes like getting married and starting a family are not even close to his vision of the future. Koito hesitates much and overthinks more so there is no point in waiting for a proposal in the first two years of a relationship. There are vulnerable moments when he doubts his own suitability for marriage. They may lead either to deep conversations with psychological aspects (remember the gnawing feeling of being a family failure?) or to abrupt distancing but in both cases, Koito pulls himself together and remembers: if such an amazing person chose him among another than he must be special.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

One of the few soldiers who were left damaged but not broken, so gentleness does not just smolder, but burns in Koito's heart. When it comes to being gentle, he is a physical manifestation of fondness: it beams from his eyes, radiates from his touch, and hides in his choice of the words. Someone may find it inconsistent, but brutality outside the battlefield, in any type of relationship, seems unnecessary to him as well. In a physical sense, Koito is quite remarkable in his raring, so his actions can come off a little sloppy, rushed, and aggressive.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Exciting hugs! Koito trembles from the top of his head to the tips of the toes when he gets a chance to hug his loved one even if it is the tenth time this day. Most often, he starts with a fast welcome kiss on the cheek before pulling them into the tight embrace: it is heartwarming but never the same, which makes a person wanting to come back for another dose of unconditional love. Koito is down to hug at any time of the day, of the week, of the month and, honestly, he sees it as one of the most gentle and innocent expressions of affection.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

Blurts it out by accident after half of a year of stale dating. The delightful feeling of sentiment overwhelmed him to the point of blinding adoration so Koito couldn’t stop himself from an unexpected confession. With head resting on his hands and cheek muscles twitching from the continuous wide silly smiling, Koito just blurted out what came to his mind at the moment, realizing what that was a few seconds later. To avoid embarrassment at all costs, he played dumb even though everything was written on his face in bright red color. Whatever. Conscious confession isn’t that easy. He is full of love but translating it in an understandable voiced statement is freaking work.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Whether he is a witness to his loved one being a flirt or his loved being hit on, Koito is l i v i d. In the first case scenario, his ego is hurt so badly, he storms from the room to avoid throwing a tantrum right there on the spot. Any attempts to speak with him after what happened result in loud indisputable “don’t touch me” and silent treatment for a good week or so. The mere thought of being replaceable terrifies poor Koito, it forces him into unhealthy coping like acting demonstratively independent and detached to show them he can do it solo. We’ll pretend it is not a desperate tactic to punish them, ok ok. When his love is being hit on, Koito does not even assess the situation. He rushes to the partner to save the day, steps between them and another person, laughs it off, and asks his rival if there’s any problem. Usually, confrontation is pretty effective against unwelcome suitors. Thank god, because Koito wouldn’t want to get physical anyway.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Awwww, have you ever imagined yourself as a teacher? Too bad because as much as passionate he is, Koito is hopeless. Literally. Lack of experience affects his (non-existing) technique. Couldn’t figure out he had to open his lips for a French kiss, leave alone any abstruse tricks, and knowledge of more sensitive spots to pay attention to. All preferences in the form of instructions have to be said aloud: Koito may act like he doesn’t need them, he is so cool and mature, and only losers need to be guided, but in reality, the opposite is true. Thanks to the above-mentioned features, his favorite kisses vary from pecks on the cheek to thigh and hand kisses but they never include kisses on the lips. If the partner is the same height or taller, he prefers to be kissed on the temple and top of his head. In other cases, doesn’t have any preferences.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

There are times when you have to do what you have absolutely no idea how to do, and it perfectly describes Koito’s relationships with kids. Somehow, they are on the same level but at different poles: he would rather cry because of how annoying capricious baby is than find any way to calm them down. Changing a dirty diaper is a challenge like no other, and going to the continent for a little girl protected by the company of bloodthirsty, armed to the teeth veterans sounds a lot easier (and not so disgusting) than babysitting a single baby. Older children are fine if they know how to keep themselves occupied and out of the sight. On his watch, there is always a small chance that the house will catch fire or the most active child will break their arm. Requires obligatory supervision of a more experienced babysitter.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

No one is leaving the bed in the morning. Sleeping in is inevitable. Do not plan anything for the first part of the day because if Koito chooses to devote the weekends to the lovely company of his partner that means he will squeeze every single second spent together out of it. It doesn’t matter what they do in the bed, like cuddling, talking, doing something spicy (youtube censorship much?) as long as they remain under a warm blanket. Koito giggles a lot catching their soft gaze on his lips, tickles them when silence falls. If the couple stays in the family house, servants are ordered to prepare the tastiest breakfast with gourmet chai tea as well as to find possible entertainment for the day.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

The end of the day is the last opportunity to let off steam before getting into a slower pace, and, finally, going to bed. To no surprise, Koito prefers activities aimed at the work of muscles and not of brains. Nothing too extreme though. Horseback riding is a common pastime if they are not in the mood for anything else. In other cases, Koito offers to play cricket in the summertime and go ice-skating in winter but his all-time favorite is swimming in sun-warmed waters of a crystal clear river. Despite the cold underwater currents winding around the ankles, Koito can swim in circles for hours without letting his loved one go ashore. If they are up for a challenge, competitions for who can hold their breath longer and swim to the other side faster are always a choice.  

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

As soon as they let Koito know that they are interested (doesn’t matter in him personally or in him speaking), the dam breaks. He is ready to talk about anything, from how the day was to the meaning of life, the role of the monarchy in the future of Japan, and what influence Heinojou’s death had on him. So to say, Koito sees no problem in opening up early in the relationship. There are no forbidden topics in his mind except, maybe, what is so below the beltline: starting any intimate conversation reduces Koito to a red stammering (in Satsuma dialect of course) mess. It gets better with time.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

Chill enough? Not in the Tsukishima’s sense of “I have seen too much shit in my life so I am no longer surprised by anything and I expect nothing as well” but in a cheery and optimistic outlook. If he breaks a plate or cup, it is a reason to buy a new one, not to throw a tantrum on how Japan no longer makes quality dishes. How boring life would be without nuisances, huh? However, Koito immediately blows off when it comes to serious matters like life-threatening situations. Overall? Absolute ray of sunshine, anger is unnecessary, keep calm and take it easy.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

Remembers nothing but anniversaries’ dates. Seriously. Don’t expect Koito to compliment your eyes’ color, he doesn’t remember it. Favorite food or place? Did you mention them at all? Hm. Blame it on the charm of the moment that hypnotized Koito and sent him into oblivion. He doesn't bother himself with writing down any facts and details and is visibly surprised if the partner expresses frustration with his forgetfulness.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

Perhaps it will be a surprise but the most memorable moment for Koito would be doing “bad stuff” together. As for a person, who has not yet emerged from cheerful adolescence, drinking, smoking cigarettes, and, who would have thought, opium together leaves a weird feeling of agitation and gaiety. Hiding with the partner in crime, bottle covered under the lieutenant's coat as if he is some kind of thief, is something Koito won’t ever get used to. He drinks and mumbles gibberish then pulls his loved one closer for some sloppy smooches that never work out: someone keeps missing lips and laughing like a goofball after every failure.

Smoking opium, which happened exactly one time, was the complete opposite of previous experience. They ended up in semi-darkness in a distant room with artfully painted paraphernalia and one carved pipe that was passed back and forth for the whole night. An intoxicating sense of calm and emptiness hit Koito in the head as he was watching his loved one fusing with the thin lilac smoke: a situation they were in was too bizarre to be real but magical too so he had no right to complain. Memories of that night stayed with him for the whole life but Koito never had a desire to go for a smoke again.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

For the sake of justice, Koito has a protective side, but the carefree character often overshadows it. He meets dangerous situations in conditions where one large group of opponents confront another so everyone covers each other's back. When Koito has to fight one on one he can fully rely on the own strength and reactions but when there is someone to protect things get messy really fast.

Koito is ready to cover them with his body to save from a whistling bullet but this thought comes from a place of “I can’t come up with a plan what do I do what do I do” and not from rational thinking or self-devotion in the name of love. Nah, boy just no thoughts, head empty but HEART FULL.

Would want to be protected as well? He has no problem being viewed as one who needs help. Won’t want them to act recklessly though, exchanging their life for his isn’t fair a bit.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Youthful maximalism and all-encompassing love push Koito to new feats every day: he racks his head over which place to choose for a date, should he buy them expensive things or no because what if they look at him as at tasteless braggart, maybe, he should have not brought a bouquet today, maybe, he is too annoying… At the beginning of the relationship, he is excessively enthusiastic and scarred to mess everything at the same time. Often this mixture leads to an awkward situation but with some guidance, Koito calms down and begins to feel a partner on an intuitive level. Anniversaries will still be celebrated on a grand scale though. He has literally no chill when told to make that one day special. Lacks consistency when it comes to everyday tasks: either puts all of his effort in building a stool or does nothing the whole day.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

The bloated ego doesn’t seem a big problem at first but it keeps popping up now and then in the conversation and overall behavior. Again, it is not even close to megalomaniac extend but can be pretty annoying when Koito keeps putting himself in every story and boasting with every minor achievement.

Not the most independent, kinda clingy guy that needs somebody that he can always rely on. We have already seen Tsukishima's fate and this is what awaits for the person who decides to tie the knot with him.

LOUD. SO LOUD. DEAFENING! If you think Koito would lower the voice down or, for the frick’s sake, stop screeching but no! Excited? Yell! Scarred? Yell! Surprised? Yell! I can see him screaming louder than his newborn baby shocking midwives in the maternity hospital. Pray to God that it is not inherited.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Not to call him obsessed, but Koito takes good care of himself and tries to be attractive in the eyes of others. He may spend a little bit too much time staring in the mirror during the mourning routine, brushing hair locks just the exact way he wants them to be. Several creams are lying in the drawer of his nightstand and Koito replenishes its stock with enviable regularity. Of course, he looks sharp: when circumstances do not oblige Second Lieutenant to strict dress code, he pulls off well-tailored looks, both traditional Japanese and Westernized ones. Just imagine him dressed to kill, wearing an all-leather long car coat with skintight gloves. Koito is too powerful in his handsomeness.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Has zero knowledge of how to handle break-up and that pretty much describes what a hell ride it will be for Koito. Obviously, the violent reaction is accompanied by complete confusion, he is at a loss for words and can’t find the right ones even in the Satsuma dialect. Well, if he had a gut feeling that they are planning on leaving later or sooner, Koito would lash out at them in the worst way possible: every wrongdoing suddenly transforms into hidden signs confirming that he was not loved at all, never ever. He makes a loud scene with eyes brimming, screams whatever nonsense comes to mind to stop them from speaking further. No explanation can overpower his growing resentment. If break-up comes up out of a blue, Koito remains silent, listening to whatever they have to say. None of the words makes any sense to him and there is nothing he can tell or ask. Nothing makes sense. He sighs while rubbing his temples, eyes shut tight to separate from the world as much as possible, and turn down the white noise coming out of their mouth. Koito leaves without saying a word with a plan to avoid them in the next few weeks.

In the case of their death, Koito is in no hurry at breakneck speed to take revenge but that definitely doesn’t mean he is indifferent. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and even such a hothead as angered Koito is can wait for a better moment to strike.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Since Koito joined the army, celebrations turned from long-awaited days into in minor verbal congratulations aaaand that’s all. The atmosphere is just not the same. In the beginning, he tried to keep head up but general disinterest killed his vibes and left him bitter.

The only person who does not mind supporting the Second Lieutenant is Tsukishima: he gladly watches Koito happily screaming as he launches a colorful kite into the air, joins playing hanetsuki and sugoroku on Japanese New Year, once he even gave Koito pochibukuro as a joke. Otonoshin was merry and embarrassed at the same time since, you know, pochibukuro is given to kids, not adult men who shoot people for a living.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Mysterious silent people aren’t the company Koito can tolerate. He hadn’t had a good experience with Ogata back in the 7th Division and doesn’t see himself with anyone hiding behind a duplicitous smile.

Scolding Koito for his frivolity won’t do anything good, quite the contrary, it will force him into acting withdrawn in their presence. Attempts to change Koito are pointless since action generates opposition: the more he is told to be a serious man, the more infantile he will become.

By the way, it is important for Koito to see a class in his surrounding. He himself carries an elusive aesthetic so lack of taste and sense of beauty is a bummer. Good thing they can be acquired just like other skills.

Comparison. Do not compare Koito to anyone, ever. His father probably did it a lot back in the days when talking about Heinojou’s success so Otonoshin became allergic to any “you are just like/you act like/you look like/wish you were like” comments.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

The most normal person in the 7th Division when it comes to sleeping. There’s literally nothing to describe: Koito falls asleep fast, he doesn’t have any problems with falling asleep or waking up, doesn’t use any medication, doesn’t have any evening rituals. Dreams are a rarity. Loves to sleep with someone by the side, so he can hug a person from behind with both arm and leg, and if the place next to him is cold and empty, Koito may hug a pillow or rolled blanket.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Thanks a lot for such a thoughtful answer. I have ton of things to say but this being Q&A medium I don't think it's appropriate or even possible to address them. I wonder though. In what way do you think Sugimoto is healing? You mentioned him socializing and having fun and realizing people care about him. But I don't think he was short of having comrades. The core of his struggle is him being unable to forgive himself for being "useless". Do you think he made any progress with that?

^_^

Well, if you want to discuss things feel free to do it.

I know the Q&A medium is a bit of a turn down and my lack of time often causes me to postpone answers a lot but I do genuinely love to talk about GK... actually I probably love it a tad too much... :P

Anyway... in regard to Sugimoto’s healing... I fear things are rather complicate and he might not have made much progresses in this sense.

But let’s start with the comrades part.

Prior to his family’s illness (which took place in 1899 according to the timeline) Sugimoto was likely the sort of guy who’s very sociable and has many friends, among which a best friend, Toraji, and a friend who’s actually a love interest, Umeko.

After having to leave his village he probably spent years (at least 2 since this was his original plan, possibly more as we aren’t told when he actually came back) keeping away from people, afraid he got infected and could infect them as well. This likely, combined with the trauma of losing his family and seeing the village ostracize him, as well as finding out, once he came back home, that Toraji would have preferred him to either be dead or never came back, probably scarred Sugimoto in his social relations.

During the war, except when he’s with Toraji, we don’t really see him being among ‘friends’... and in a way this fits very well with the person Sugimoto evolves in during the war but I will arrive at it in a minute.

Let’s assume, even if the manga doesn’t show it to us, that Sugimoto still manage to make friends with his war buddies.

Most of those friends ended up killed one after the other during the assaults and being replaced by new soldiers, while Sugimoto kept on surviving, the thing possibly giving him an additional dose survivor’s guilt, which is another part of PTSD.

Ultimately even Toraji will die under his eyes and there’s probably more than met the eye in Toraji’s death but this is likely something Noda will reveal in the future. Anyway let’s assume not all his army companions died under the war.

When Sugimoto in spring goes back to his village he’s, again, alone.

In short if he had friends in the army... well they went for separate ways, very likely they too damaged by war and unable to psychologically support him.

Sugimoto, according to the timeline likely around November, goes in Hokkaido to search for gold... and he’s again alone.

Sure Gotou knows him but he’s an aquaitance, not a friend. Sugimoto is not really that much social with him, it’s Gotou who searches him, not Sugi.

So, while prior to his family falling sick Sugimoto was likely a very social guy who found easy to slip into relationships with others, after it he spends long periods alone, haivng to count only on himself, discovering betrayal at the hands of his best friend (I understand Toraji, I really do but what he did when Sugimoto came back was terrible) and that the girl he loved didn’t wait for him (on this I’m fully on Umeko’s side as Sugi EXPECTED her to wait but never asked her to do so, actually he told her the opposite) and seeing people he got friend with dying or being maimed in battle.

The Sugimoto we see at the beginning of the story is a guy who has the ability to be social, who can be friendly and likable... but he’s currently not being social or trusting others beyond a certain point. His first interactions with Asirpa, who has just SAVED HIM, are pretty terrible, he first doesn’t want to reveal her anything about the Ainu gold then does so, but only because he needs her to help him, basically putting her at risk.

So yes, I think that Sugimoto took part to the gold hunt in a moment in which he was completely bereft of comrades and not really capable as he were before to handle them, with him first subconsciously keeping Asirpa at distance, as she’s a mean to his end then, as he fails to do so and grows attached, he immediately 'dumps’ her (he leaves while everyone is sleeping, without talking with her about it and leaving behind no explanation), feeling upon himself the duty to protect her and afraid he would fail it.

So the fact that Asirpa actually went and saved him when his best friend instead told him he shouldn’t have returned and his love interest didn’t wait for him and no one dared to help him through his family’s sickness should have been ENORMOUSLY important for him, and so the fact that Asirpa insists on how being with him is her choice and not his responsibility.

And Shiraishi too provided companionship (and what’s more companionship of an adult around his age and of his same culture so with a lot more of common points than Asirpa) and interaction and another point of view which are all things humans need and of whom Sugimoto specifically was left bereft for long time.

So they were good to him.

But now... now comes the hard part.

Because the real problem is that in truth Sugimoto isn’t healing, he’s getting worse.

Why since having people around heals him?

Because he’s in the gold hunt, which is another prolonged traumatic experience, in which he’s put under pressure, risks hims life, wounds and kill people.

So the gold hunt is for him like a goose game filled with squares that push you back.

Having his friends around for him means that rolling the dice he gets a high number, let’s say 12... only to stumble over a square that tell him ‘you’ve killed someone, your psychological trauma brings you back of 24 squares’.

And the more this game goes on, the less effectively Sugimoto manages to roll his dices. I’ve already discussed in my previous answer how his bond with Asirpa ended up deviating from a healthy bond but Shiraishi’s bond too apparently got affected.

Sugimoto and Shiraishi are clearly friends, Sugimoto risked his own life to save Shiraishi’s and Shiraishi did the same, they’ve great chemistry, they can talk and share some tastes so I was very troubled when in the Q&A we got this:

Q9: “If Shiraishi were to betray Sugimoto, would Sugimoto be able to kill him without hesitation, like the other prisoners?” Noda: ‘If he tried to kill Sugimoto, or circumstances justified betrayal at the expense of being killed, Sugimoto would kill him first.’

Of course I like to think this is a hypothetical question and we’ll never get to this point but... the real key problem here is that despite being betrayed or threatened many people would still hesitate in killing who they were judging a friend. They would think there’s a reason for that betrayal, like how Sugimoto has done when he has discovered Shiraishi supposedly worked for Hijikata.

Even Tanigaki, who was sure Kenkichi has murdered his sister and came that far exactly to murder him, still hesitated when he had the chance to do so.

That’s because Kenkichi was his friend and even if he was unable to find another explanation for his sister’s death, his heart still wanted to trust Kenkichi.

You can clearly see Tanigaki is hesitating, stalling.

Yet, from the way Noda put it, there’s no hint Sugimoto would hesitate at this point in the story.

So Sugimoto’s relationship with the others is no more working on what we can call ‘the normal scale’.

That’s because due to repeated trauma his idea of ‘kill or be killed’ had started to rule him. We saw in the last chapter how Boutarou has surrendered yet he wanted to kill him anyway even though, they had bonded briefly, Boutarou is clearly in a state in which he can’t be a threat and it would actually harm Sugimoto’s goal of wanting to find Asirpa if Boutarou were to die... and yet he wanted to kill him anyway and he doesn’t only because Shiraishi raised the rifle when Sugi pushed the trigger.

The traumatic experiences are what’s hampering Sugimoto’s healing, what’s making Shiraishi and Asirpa’s friendship for him UNABLE to help him fix himself because it’s simply not enough.

Sugimoto is downspiralling and the worst part is he’s not realizing this.

So technically, if Sugi makes progresses in his healing... then something in the gold hunt happens and he goes back to square 1.

Sugimoto would be much worse without Shiraishi and Asirpa... but they just can’t compensate.

So well, the real point of this situation isn’t that Sugimoto isn’t doing progresses... is that whatever progress he does ends up being destroyed by the next trauma.

I think for Sugimoto it was really, really important to manage to find Asirpa back... in a way it was psychologically healing his sense of self worth because it was an accomplishment... but let’s look at what happens in between then.

He can’t succesfully pull Asirpa out of the gold hunt, as Asirpa rejects letting herself be handed to Tsurumi so Sugimoto is forced to escape with her.

He gets seriously hurt by Tsurumi’s men, he can’t gain the white bear’s pelt nor find the gold, his arm gets broken by Heita and he has to spend some more time being helpless, ends up on getting lost and kills the little bird he wanted to save to survive... which was useless as, as soon as he ate it, Asirpa finds him.

He fights Boutarou with whom he somehow relates and decide to spare him, then fights Hijikata whom he views as a threat to Asirpa only for Asirpa to decide they’ll ally instead.

And then he ends up in the brewery where he likely kills a man, Ostrog, which is both prychologically healing as with this he saves Asirpa and psychologically damaging as murdering people harms his psyche (never mentioning useless on a practical level as it’s Ushiyama who gets the skin) risks to die due to the smoke and, when he thinks Boutarou has come to save HIM, Boutarou betrays him and steals Asirpa.

So of course he’s back to square 1, or even worse than that, because whatever progress he made got destroyed. He didn’t manage to build over it, he didn’t manage to solidify it so that he could wistand losing Asirpa again.

Due to this... well, it’s probably inaccurate to say Sugimoto didn’t make any progresses because he did... only he also got pushed back a lot, so if we look at where he is, it might seem he has not moved or that he got in a worse position.

It’s a struggle but it will last until Sugimoto remains in such trauma inducing situation as the gold hunt.

At least... that’s how I see it.

We’ll see how things will go, if he’ll manage to advance and conqueer permanently his progresses, but for now Sugimoto has clearly just been thrown back again.

I like tot hink the fact Shiraishi has stopped him from killing Boutarou who has again turned into an ally might help him somehow.

Boutarou is sharp and good at pinning him out so interacting with him and Shiraishi might help Sugimoto realize his problems because, most of why he’s not making progresses and he’s so easy to throw back to where he started is because he can’t see the problem in the first place.

I want to be optimist and hope he’ll manage to before the end of the story but only time will tell.

Thank you for your ask!

[bigskydreaming]

You said the other day that you don't really like Talon stories. Do you mind saying why?

LOL they’re just not really what I’m here for? Idk, I think people tend to make a bigger deal out of this than it actually is even in my head, maybe because Talon stories have so quickly become such a staple of fics that it just seems weird not to like them? And its not like I’ve never liked one or been intrigued by a premise, I have, though specific recs elude me at the moment, there’s one I was reading on ff.net I really enjoyed, it was YJ verse.....

But honestly its really just that a recurring theme of Dick’s stories in canon - and one of the things I turn to fanfic for in the first place, to get away from, to read something ELSE about him - is dehumanization. Reducing his sense of self, brainwashing or controlling him, making him other than he usually is, even just in temporary ways....it gets old. I come to fanfic hoping to read and write stuff beyond that, and Talon fics are so often even heavier on the dehumanizing him aspect of things, like making him even more mindless than most Talons in canon are ever portrayed, and don’t get me started on how often they just flat out refer to Talon Dick as ‘it’.....its just a no thanks from me. Just not what I’m looking for.

Add to that other incidentals, like, its completely understandable in context of these narratives that the Batfam feel they have to restrain Dick while he’s a Talon and in the Batcave, but again, its just not something I’m looking to read? Because for example, another big theme of mine is how uncomfortable and unwelcome I think Dick’s come to feel in Wayne Manor over the years, given the many times Bruce has essentially kicked him out and how little effort he’s made to make it into a home for him again (like I think there are more reasons than just grief that Dick lived in the penthouse rather than the Manor when Bruce was believed dead and Dick was in charge of his estate)....so when you look at things from that angle, which I’m just kinda predisposed towards doing, the imprisonment angle of Talon fics (and the attitudes of a lot of the Batcharacters as they go about it, like they’re just being pragmatic, Dick will understand - yeah he might understand but that doesn’t mean there won’t be mental and emotional undercurrents of resentment and hurt to that understanding)....like, its just one more way/reason for Dick’s childhood home to be turned against him and made a place where he feels or will remember feeling explicitly unwelcome. I’m not saying its WRONG to take that angle in fics, lol, I’m just saying....its not for me. Its just not what I’m looking for.

Also its a bit of a pet peeve to see Talon abilities viewed as an upgrade rather than something inflicted on him by his tormentors and at BEST somethting Dick would have very conflicting views on - and tbh this isn’t limited to just him, I have similar thoughts about how Cass might feel about her own abilities and how even now that she can communicate well with others, she still feels somewhat different or removed from most people because of this ‘superpower’ that had to be ABUSED into her and that she would have traded for her father’s actual love any day - but I mean, there’s a thing in a lot of Talon fics where alongside the dehumanization angle, which Dick isn’t even just expected to just ‘get over’ once he’s back to his regular mental awareness, because its usually never even delved into, how he feels about the fact that for awhile there, he was nothing more than an ‘it’ even in his family’s eyes, and IMO he’s like, funny, I’m pretty sure I’m still the only person in this body all along, so if it was just an it to you, where exactly did you think I was? But aside from the angst I feel he SHOULD have from thinking about how easily he was viewed as just a mindless tool and pawn and thing by people, there’s a tendency to hop, skip and jump to him being okay with his Talon ‘upgrades’ because they make him so much more effective....and there’s just a WAY this is usually gone about that like, for me, glosses over how effective he was without them, and the fact that none of his family members seem to need or think they need them themselves to be effective....and somewhere in all that, it seems to get lost that the whole reason the Court even WANTS Dick so badly is because of how effective he is even already.

Plus - there’s my personal annoyance with how characters with super-fast healing are treated in narratives across the board. In comics, books, movies, shows, fics, everywhere - I ranted about this a TON in Teen Wolf fandom, its a complaint I have with Wolverine and his family in Marvel comics, etc....I vastly dislike how often its just treated as assumed that just because a character heals rapidly, like....the actual trauma and pain of injuries inflicted might as well not even matter. Like, that’s not how it works IMO? When I think about a time I broke an arm, I’m not thinking about ‘oh it barely matters because it only took a couple months to heal and when I view that in the context of my whole lifespan that’s barely anything, it was so fast’....like no, I’m thinking about what it felt like when I actually BROKE it. There’s a tendency, I feel, when characters get an ability to make an injury disappear out of sight out of mind rapidly, to just view the emotional and mental consequences of injury being inflicted as negligible, and not really mattering anymore, and I heavily disagree with that logic. IMO, these characters throwing themselves headfirst in front of everyone else as a human shield, while practical in one sense of the word, is also like, begging to be examined as oh I see, so basically you’re saying that now that you no longer need to be treated with care because you’re invulnerable, you’re worthless and the pain that goes along with all those injuries you get 100x more of now, that’s like...meaningless and fake news.

I mean, even if you make an argument for Dick no longer having pain receptors (which I’d also be heavily against because uh, if you go that route you’re also inadvertently suggesting things about his sensory input and ability to feel varying degrees of touch across the board and again its more the lack of examination of that as much as anything else that’s things that make me go mmmm no thanks)....the injuries are still being inflicted and there’s still gonna be psychological damage inflicted from processing that no one seems significantly bothered by him being ‘family niche - human pincushion for the prevention of others saying oww’ without so much as commentary.

And lastly, did I mention, I just really really reeeeeeally dislike the dehumanization angle that tends to go hand in hand with these fics.

But for the record, like, I honestly do like the Court of Owls and what they bring to Dick’s stories because all of this, ironically is precisely why they DO play so well into his core themes of autonomy and independence and self-determinism. Its just, I’m here for fics where Dick triumphs over them and their attempts to hijack him and his life for their own agendas, and I feel like a lot of the time we see a Pyrrhic victory at best, when going the Talon route, and a lot of THAT time its not even regarded or treated as such, but rather a full victory with no real examination of how Dick’s life is different now, how he’s changed not just by what was done to him but by how he was treated by BOTH sides WHILE it was done to him? 

And the other element here is like....the Court and their presence in his fics doesn’t HAVE to equal making him a full on Talon along the way, just like it never has in canon. I don’t view the fulfillment of what’s inherently a THREAT to his character as an improvement UPON his character. *shrugs* But also there’s just so many avenues for angst or emotional tangles when it comes to the Court even without making Dick a Talon himself.....just have him picturing or having nightmares of imagining his parents turned into Talons and how horrifying he’d find that, or worry in the wake of revelations about the Court that his family is now looking at him differently, imagining the threat HE could be when he hasn’t even done anything. Or there’s the angle of Bruce knowing but not telling him to try and protect him but that causing conflict OR you could go a route I’ve never seen done before, and like, have Dick and Bruce come into conflict with the Court before any of the others come along and like, save Dick from ever being made a full Talon but the point is years later the Court resurfaces and they and their plans for Dick are a complete revelation to his siblings and there’s perfectly understandable conflict because of that even if the reason is as simple and equally as understandable as Bruce didn’t feel it was his to share if Dick didn’t want to, as long as they honestly thought the Court had been neutralized, and he respected that its a painful topic to Dick that he wasn’t trying to hide, he just flat out didn’t want to talk about so it never came up.

There’s a lot that can be done with the Court, but usually they’re just utilized as a prelude to Talon Dick Grayson and bottom line is that’s just not somewhere I’m usually looking to go, personally.

BUT in the spirit of me being completely contradictory as always, again its like I said, there are some here and there that I really get into, there’s a YJ one that really delves deep into Dick’s emotions on all of this and has a prequel set during Jason’s Robin days, when they first encounter the Court, I forget the title but someone feel free to drop it in the notes if you know what I’m talking about, and @dustorange always does interesting things with the Court and Talons that’s different each time and I’m sure I’m forgetting more, so its not like.....a blanket across the board nope thing. Its just I have particular reservations about HOW a lot of Talon and Court fics play out that I’m just....not the right audience for simply because its not what I’m looking for in fics, personally.

[bordeauxatdusk]

Mystique (A Detroit: Become Human Fanfic) Part 1

 Read the full fic (so far) on Ao3 here!

DISCLAIMER this fic is about gay android detectives in 2038. Please know that I am a BLM supporter and that I do not write in this in support of our current shitty criminal justice system. 

Forget-me-nots.

The dead woman’s eyes were the same color as the flowers in her hair.

She was poised, artfully, in an elegant position that looked almost like a sculpture. Rigor mortis held her in place. The crown of forget-me-nots was integrated with an elaborate veil of white lace that fell gracefully down her back.

The bloodstained silk wedding gown she was wrapped in extended outward, rippling over the room, which was staged like a movie set; a host of antique items and classic still-life objects had been structured to frame her. Elaborate globes mingled with vases of flowers mingled with stacks of old yellowing books, covers frayed. Warm light streamed in lazily from large arcing windows, illuminating the oakwood floors of the room.

The light glinted off the pearl dagger embedded in the woman’s chest. In front of her, a gold-leafed, leather-bound edition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had been left open to the infamous scene:

“O, happy dagger, this is thy sheath.”

A human would undoubtedly call the scene beautiful.

To Nines, however, it was simply another murder.

He was capable of appreciating beauty, although many would be surprised to hear it. (Some people were surprised to hear that androids were capable of any abstract thought at all.)

Nines understand the concept of aesthetic value perfectly well. What he was not capable of understanding was how humans, in their love of aesthetic value, sometimes seemed to discard logic and reason.

The concept of a beautiful murder was immaterial to him. It was still murder. Whether it was committed in a wide-open oak room or in a rotting gutter made no difference.

Nines would hunt down and eliminate the murderer either way.

He was glad that Gavin felt the same, although Nines was concerned that he seemed disproportionately unnerved by something. What exactly it was, Nines couldn’t tell.

He knew that Gavin was upset partially from the rising levels of adrenaline in his scans, partially from the fact that Gavin’s pupils were dilated and he was beginning to fidget in the way he typically expressed distress (tapping his fingers together and pacing, mostly) and partially from the fact that he was increasing his profanity from its normal rate of about every one in fifteen words to every one in ten.

Nines had spent a lot of time analyzing Gavin Reed. Perhaps an irrational amount.

It hadn’t helped much.

Nines guessed that the cause of his partner’s distress must be some deeply-held psychological trauma. Humans often experienced it, and Gavin personally had suffered a difficult childhood. Whatever the reason for his distress, it must be very serious.

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘ I don’t know ’, Tina?! ” his partner was currently yelling into his phone. “It’s a simple goddamn question! Do they have jalapeno poppers or not?!”

Fascinating.

Nines was well equipped to read Gavin, but very poorly equipped to understand him. The difference, he felt, was vast. He was... displeased by it. Androids were predictable, generally. Deviants much less so than non-deviants, of course, but they were still more logical than humans. At first Nines had been convinced that Gavin was simply uncomfortable expressing his emotions, but the android had begun to discover that Gavin himself was often unaware of them.

Perhaps there was some unpleasant memory jalapeno poppers evoked for his partner. He would have to ask later. Nines would have preferred to have Gavin leave the room and take a few minutes to calm down, but he had learned recently that it wasn’t an option. Apparently, Nines doing what he was designed to do and examining the physical evidence without Gavin’s interference meant he was “being a fucking know-it-all” and a “stuck-up asshole.”

“Look,” Gavin had said a few weeks ago, waving a hand dismissively to try and distract from the fact that he was clearly upset. “ It’s no big deal. Just don’t keep fucking asking me to leave in the middle of crime scenes, okay?”

Nines had been unable to see the point of this request. “ Gavin, you were clearly disgusted by the scope of the damage done to the victim.”

“Well, yeah,” Gavin had muttered sulkily, “but you don’t need to be all weird about it. Look, Nines, I want to do my job. Let me do it. Even if I’m not really helping, just let me feel like I am, okay?”

Nines had been even more confused. “ If you aren’t going to help, why are you so determined to be there? Humans aren’t exactly well-equipped for forensic analysis to begin with. I don’t hold it against you.”

It had escalated into a full-blown fight that left Nines more confused than ever until Gavin was finally able to articulate that he didn’t want to feel useless.

The absurdity and simplicity of the answer had caught Nines off guard. Gavin Reed, useless? They had won a medal together just six months ago for solving an incredibly dangerous case, saving the lives of ten other officers in the process (and possibly the entire DPD). Their success had almost entirely been due to Gavin. Useless?

Nines strongly disagreed.

He had told Gavin so. Nines always said what he meant.

Gavin had huffed under his breath.

“ Alright, shit, I get it,” he’d said, trying and failing not to smile. “You’re a big fucking suck-up.”

Nines knew enough about humans to understand that the insulting response had roughly meant, in Gavin-language,“Thank you, Nines. I’m flattered.”

What confused him is why Gavin didn’t just say that instead.

Humans never said what they meant. It was inconvenient.

Gavin's voice snapped him out of his reverie.

“Hey, Robocop. You find anything?”

Nines blinked. Gavin was staring at him, phone in hand, waiting.

Nine shook his head. “This crime scene is so elaborately staged, I can’t move through it without risking disrupting the evidence. Every object in this room is potentially a key to solving the case. There’s a very low probability the killer managed to set this up without leaving some traces of his presence behind-- fingerprints, hair, DNA. It would be better to wait until forensics arrives, and allow them to do their job. “

Gavin wrinkled his nose, thinking. It was a habit of his.

(One that Nines found extremely distracting, but it wasn’t the time for that.)

“Is something bothering you, Detective?” Nines asked.

Gavin huffed. “Yeah, stop calling me ‘detective.’ You know my name.”

He paused for a moment, sighed, and then gestured to the scene in front of them.

“It’s this whole thing, Nines. I hate it when they do this shit. It’s so fucked up. Trying to turn something so horrible into something pretty, or romantic, or-- I don’t know. You’ll see. These cases are always hell to investigate. We can’t let a single drop of this leak to the media, or else this poor girl is going to be on the front page of every newspaper across the country. ‘The Girl In the Wedding Dress’, or some shit like that.”

Nines didn’t understand. “I’m not sure I’m following you. You don’t want her case to be publicized?”

Gavin shook his head. “Hell no. How do I explain this? Okay. This girl, she’s not fucking Juliet, right? What's her real name? You know it already with your facial recognition?”

“Ashley Briggs.”

“Okay. She’s not Juliet. She’s Ashley. Ashley was a whole person, with a life and family and friends, and then some fucking creepy asshole murdered her and dressed her up like Juliet. The media’s problem is, they like stories with publicity. They like stuff that has a nice ring to it. Ashley Briggs, not so much. ‘The Girl in the White Dress?’ ‘The Woman in White?’ some other bullshit like that? They eat that up.  A picture of a pretty girl in a wedding dress with a dagger in her chest? That’s the kind of stuff they eat for breakfast. They love it, Nines! It’s like the Black Dahlia. If any of this gets out,  nobody will give two fucks about Ashley Briggs, but they’ll all love her death."

Gavin stopped for a moment to take a breath, hands gesturing wildly, eyes narrowed in anger.

"Rumors will be everywhere. Poor Ashley’s family is gonna have to deal with photos of their little girl murdered and dressed up in a fucking wedding dress all over every tabloid in the grocery store for the next eight years. And not a single one of the people obsessed with ���Juliet’ is gonna give a shit about Ashley. Everyone’s gonna see her how the killer saw her, how he wanted us to see her, how he set her up: as pretty tragic Juliet in a wedding dress. Nobody is gonna know or remember Ashley Briggs. Don’t you see how fucked up that is? They never give a shit about the victim, even though they pretend to. It’s always about the fucking killer and his ideology.”

Nines was stunned. He had never considered that aspect of a crime before. Looking at it from that perspective, it did seem disturbing.

“They’ll romanticize her murder," he finished for Gavin, who looked almost too angry to continue.

Gavin nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “The most fucked up part is, that’s what he wants. Her killer staged her this way because he’s trying to put on a fucking show. This is a murder with a message, we just don’t know what it is. I hate that those bastards always seem to get the attention they want. People always remember the killer, but they never remember the victim. Hell, how many people do you think could name a single victim of Ted Bundy? Or Jeffery Dahmer? Or any of the other sick bastards that decide to take their sexual fantasies out on so many innocent people that everyone forgets about?”

Nines raised an eyebrow. “We don’t know that this murder is sexual in nature.”

Gavin huffed. “Nah, but there’s a pattern when it comes to motive and method. There’s tons of examples. Um. Execution-style gunshots to the back of the head are cold, professional. Victim’s turned away, there’s a distance between them and the killer. No eye contact. Hired killers, a lot of the time.”

Gavin demonstrated with a finger gun, eyes distant, like he was remembering cases he’d seen before.

“Stranglings are personal, and a lot of the time they’re sexual. Killer’s up close, right in their face. Looking them in the eye, watching them slowly die, hands-on contact. It’s ‘intimate’ for those fucked-up pieces of shit. They’re normally sexual sadists. Hate those ones.”

Gavin’s brow wrinkled in disgust as he demonstrated.

“Stabbings are personal too, but in a different way. Bloody, aggressive, painful. Personal vendetta, lots of times. Someone close to the victim with a grudge. Betrayal maybe, ‘cause there’s anger behind it. Besides, she’s staged as fucking Juliet. Who do you think her Romeo’s supposed to be? The mailman?”

Nines hummed in response. He didn’t doubt Gavin’s theory, but any investigation should work from the external to the internal. The solid evidence should be interpreted to form theories, not theories interpreted to fit the evidence. The second an investigator began to let their personal opinions dictate the situation, they became biased.

“I still believe we should wait for the evidence to be analyzed before assuming anything.”

Gavin crossed his arms. His body language throughout this speech had been aggressive. Nines’ scans told him that Gavin was intensely angry.

“I’m not fucking assuming, I’m theorizing. If the evidence says something different then I’ll change my tune. I’m just saying, maybe the fact that she’s being staged all pretty in a fancy room in a wedding dress mirroring the suicide from goddamn ‘ Romeo and Juliet’ might have some tiny romantic undertones, Nines.”

“So perhaps we should interview her neighbors first.”

“Hell yes, we should,” Gavin said. “Starting with whoever found the body.”

He started to turn away to head out the door.

Nines stopped him. “Gavin, wait.”

He twisted back around in surprise. “What?”

Nines pressed his hands together, standing stiffly. “Are you angry with me?”

Gavin stopped in his tracks and paused for a moment in an emotion Nines was unable to read. There was a second of tension, and then Nines’ partner seemed to crumple inward as he sighed heavily, shoving his hands back into his pockets.

“No,” he said to the floor by his feet. “Sorry. It’s this case. Stuff like this- it’s fucking creepy. I get all tense. Of course I’m not mad at you, dumbass. I’m just- I’m not good at expressing shit, y’know. ”

Nines walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Is there anything I can do?”

Gavin’s entire demeanor changed, going from aggressive to something much more vulnerable instantly. It was a switch that, even though they’d been together for six months now, Nines had rarely seen.

“No,” Gavin said softly. “I just want to catch the bastard. Otherwise, cases like this, they always stick with me. I’ll- I’ll see her everywhere. Ashley, I mean. In mirrors, reflections, dreams. Asking me why I couldn’t do it. People always act like murder investigations are some cop-show badass bullshit, but they aren’t. The pressure’s gonna be hell. We’re gonna have to go through her whole life and dig up a lot of secrets. Everyone has graves that are better left buried. Take my word for it, it’s gonna suck. And even if we find the fucking bastard, he still might get off. Normally, I can distance myself from it, I guess, but when it’s something this creepy- I just- I don’t know if I can do it. There's something about this case. I have such a bad fucking feeling about this whole thing. It’s driving me crazy. ”

Nines reached out and wrapped his arms around Gavin, pulling him close. It was meant as a comforting gesture, and he noticed with satisfaction that his partner’s distress seemed to decrease.

Nines was beginning to understand how to react to Gavin’s moods, even if he didn’t always understand the reason why they were happening. They had both worked dozens of homicide cases. Nines didn’t understand how this case was any different, but it didn’t matter. He was programmed to adapt to human unpredictability.

He never knew what to make of Gavin’s hunches, though. They were objectively irrational, and they were also always right. It drove him insane. It defied reason.

Then again, nothing about Gavin was reasonable.

“We’re professionals,” Nines began, “and-”

“And you’re hugging me in the middle of a fucking murder scene,” Gavin interrupted, voice muffled from pressing his face into Nines’ shoulder, “like a true professional.”

“You needed a hug. Let me finish. We’re professionals, and there’s a lot of potential just in this room for the killer to have made a mistake. The chances of him staging all this with zero forensic evidence left behind are very low-”

“Mhmmm,” Gavin said, leaning into the hug.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Nope,” Gavin muttered.

Nines sighed.

He gently pulled Gavin away from him, brushing off his partner’s coat, which was eternally covered in cat hair.

“We need to go interview the neighbors. Listen. We work very well together. We’ve faced near-impossible odds before. Compared to our last big case, this will most likely be easy.”

“Nothing’s ever easy,” Gavin groaned. “Especially not in fucking homicide.”

“Well then, we’ll support each other, just like last time.”

Gavin smiled wryly. “Are you going to break a rib and give me a concussion again?”

“That highly depends,” Nines said, “on whether or not you plan to shoot me a second time.”

“You told me to!”

“I was paralyzed and all my communications were disabled. I couldn’t tell you to do anything."

“Your light flashed!”

“My LED,” Nines said, raising an eyebrow, “never stops flashing, unless I’m decommissioned.”

Gavin shoved him-- an adorably futile effort, considering he didn’t move even a fraction of an inch.

“Come on, smartass,” Gavin said. “We have some friendly neighbors to interrogate.”

[ziracona]

What happens in Far Cry 5? I literally only know about it through your posts

Uhhh, okay so this is gonna be a little long but here goes. So, Far Cry games are always you (some PC, changes per game) vs some dictator/cult leader/mass gang leader type sitch. Apparently 4 also ends with an unhappy ending no matter what, but no other game ends remotely like 5 does, and 5 also is the only one to take place in the US or vs Americans.

So, Far Cry 5 takes place in Montana. Basically, there’s a doomstay offshoot-‘Christian’ extremist cult calling themselves Project at Eden’s Gate, following a white dude named Joseph Seed and his siblings (biological brothers Jacob and John, and adopted [kind of – more like recruited to fill a cult role] sister Faith). You play as a rookie deputy from rural Montana, going on this assignment with Deputies Pratt and Hudson, Sherriff Whitehorse, and US Marshal Burke. You begin the game headed to the cult’s center to arrest their leader, Joseph, because a guy in the cult livestreamed a little of a service secretly to try and expose them, was caught, and had his eyes ripped out by Joseph and then was killed on the stream, so you’re there to arrest him. Mostly law enforcement are afraid to go in because it’s several thousand radical insane Americans with SMGS in a cult in the middle of fuckall nowhere Montana, so yeah. Anyway. You show up and arrest Joseph, but a bunch of his followers (PEGies for project at eden’s gate) swarm the helicopter and you crash and the correspondent at the sheriff’s office is working with the cult, so all of you get grabbed initially, except the PC, who gets grabbed not by the cult but by a stranger. You wake up tied to a bedpost and confronted by the stranger who debates a second then decides to let you go and try to fight the cult instead of turning you in, and introduces himself as Dutch. He gives you a breakdown of what stuff is like here, which is, uhhhh, bad. Basically, the people here are trapped because they’ll get kidnapped trying to leave, but the cult comes for everyone eventually. John physically abuses/tortures people into accepting the whole cult “power of Yes” thing and confessing their ‘sins,’ which he then tattoos on their body, then cuts the slab of skin off their chest to staple to his wall, which is part of their initiation into the cult, as is the torture, forced baptism, and implied sexual assault by him as well. Joseph has given your coworkers to a sibling each, respectively, sans the Sheriff, who was sent to one but escaped like you did. John has Hudson, the only female deputy (unless the PC is playing as woman as well). Faith has the Marshall and was supposed to get the Sheriff, and Jacob has Pratt. You want to save your friends and Dutch wants to help, but also asks you to help the people in the community, so you do.

Basically, the cult has many ways of converting people, but also kill a fuck ton of civilians. There’s a lot of times you’ll be driving down a road and see a civilian tied up with their hands behind their back on their knees and two cultists about to execute them (usually someone who tried to flee whose car they ran off the road), and you have a very failable but potential chance to save them. A lot of these people can become your NPC companions as well and help you fight the cult if you do. I’ve gotten very good at sniping, because if a cultist sees you coming, they’ll execute any prisoners so you have no chance to save them. Definitely saved hundreds of people at this point, but it wasn’t easy. Anyway. Also you’ll see vans of prisoners being carted off (usually one or two from a house at a time), and you can shoot the driver and save them if you’re careful. But a lot of the time you show up to try to help people to find them already murdered, or hung up like a scarecrow in a field with flowers stuffed into their emptied stomach, being used for target practice. On an alter, or hung from a ceiling with deer horns tied to them. Staked through on the side of the road with a cult cross. Starved or shot to death in cages. It’s pretty grim.

Anyway, so you go around answering calls for help, doing your best to slowly track down your friends, but also help all the poor suffering people being murdered and abused by this awful cult. There are random NPCs who can be companions, plus specialists, who are more quest-designed-to-be-met characters. These include Jess, Dutch’s niece, who you find in a cage to be shipped to Jacob for psychological torture and brainwashing (I’ll get to him), a puma I loved named Peaches, a pilot named Nick who is just trying to get his family out of town and resist the cult’s attempts to steal his property or buy it out (they stole or bought land and stuff from /everyone/ and took advantage of/ransacked the whole community), but will stay to help you, and a puppy named Boomer whose family called for help that came to late and were shot to death in front of him. You find him in a cage being kicked at by cultists and save him, and watch him go cry over his dead family, then take in as your own.  

Stuff goes better, though, and you make progress. There’s a lot of strongholds you can help protect, like a little town where the resident preacher and the bar owner lady are trying to keep the whole place from being overrun by the cult, and a jail up east where the sheriff and a bunch of survivors/rebels are holed up trying to survive Faith. Basically the area is broken up into three districts, and whichever you complete missions in, you get closer to a fight with that Seed sibling (also you get kidnapped and have to listen to them monologue so much. Kill me).

So John will kidnap you and force baptize you, tie you to a chair and tell you how he’s going to torture (and implied assault) you until you scream out your sins, then you escape but he does all that to Hudson, who you can’t save for another chunk of time, and he punishes brutally and is super fucked up by the time you finally rescue her. She tells you that Joseph (the leader—thinks he is God’s chosen prophet and calls himself “the Father”) would come and watch her and the others be tortured and they’d beg for mercy and he’d just stand there and watch. She’s super messed up but alive, and you’re able to get her out and kill John, but not before he kidnaps you and the preacher, bar lady, and Nick the family man, then forces Nick to confess his sins (under threat of awful shit happening to his wife and infant daughter if he does not), and then be held down and have his chest flesh cut off by John and stapled to a wall. You get forcibly tattooed with a sin but escape before suffering the same bc the preacher keeps a gun in his bible. Anyway. Digressing. You eventually kill John and rescue Hudson.

Over in Jacob’s territory, people are inducted into the cult by being kidnapped, psychologically and physically tortured, and straight up mind-controlled to go into fits of rage at a specific song being played. They are pitted against each other in some eugenicist “only the strong survive, sacrifice the weak” bullshit. There’s a militia called the Whitetails there, fighting back. Before you meet them, though, you’re kidnapped by Jacob and strapped to a chair, then subjected to psychological torture to try to condition you to kill the weak. You wake up days later, barely alive, left for dead having seemed to resist/fail his trials, still strapped to a chair. Among a ton of other dead bodies. Some of the Whitetails show up, looking for survivors, expecting none, and find you. Though everyone else protests it is too big a risk and you might be brainwashed, one guy, Eli, orders the others to take you anyway and says he won’t leave you to die. You pass out and wake up again on a couch in a bunker, and a lady screams about you being a risk and needing to go, but Eli defends you again, then gives you something to drink and takes care of you/nurses you back to health and defends you from the more paranoid members. When you’re up again, he introduces you to the militia fighting Jacob’s people, and asks for your help rescuing some people in the same situation you were in. You then start to work with the Whitetails.

Periodically, your PC gets kidnapped by Jacob again and tortured each time/brainwashed. You escape with help from the militia and from Pratt, later, who was kidnapped and broken by Jacob, but isn’t gone, just terrified and fucked up. Deputy Pratt risks his life to rescue you when you’re in trouble and you try to escape together, but the brainwash song plays and he shoves you onto a convoy so you can escape, but doesn’t make it himself before snapping into a rage, and is recaptured, brutally punished and tortured by Jacob, and then left tied to a chair to starve to death in a cell for what he did. The player is captured again, and railroaded into, in one of the brainwashed fits of rage, killing Eli himself. : (  They then snap out of it, and infuriated and anguished, go to kill Jacob and save Pratt. Pratt is still alive, but super psychologically scarred. You kill Jacob.

I should note here that you can do the sibs in any order—for example, I did Faith’s first—but I am listing them in their kind of ‘suggested’ order. John, Jacob, Faith.

So, Faith. The way she gets people is drugs. She uses a compound she calls “Bliss” to drug people out of their minds. After you are drugged up enough, you suffer irreparable brain damage and cannot be cured. She does this to hundreds of people so that the cult can have “happy little slaves” to do all the hard work and meat-shield shit they need without ever fighting back or questioning it. You are kidnapped by her as well, multiple times. Or something??? With Faith you always hallucinate, so it’s really unclear and kinda bullshit. Anyway. You help the Sheriff and everyone holed up in the jail fight off a wave of cultists, keep doing your rescue poor civilians from awful deaths or lives as drugged up vegetable slaves. Faith keeps trying to win you over and get you to do her awful pilgrimage where people climb up a giant statue of Joseph and trust-fall jump off his bible to their deaths. This whole game and cult is really horrific. Eventually, you find the Marshal and save him, but he is really far gone. He’s hospitalized in the jail for a while after. Faith gets pissed at you after that and quits trying to win you over. Just drugs you and shows you how she’s mind controlling the Marshal, who is still under too much of her brain damage and control, into murdering one of his friends, then opening the gates to the jail so her people can get in, and then shooting himself in the head. The Marshal always does so and dies, as does one of his/your friends. And a ton of people at the jail. You run to try to save the Sheriff after helping the survivors at the jail, and fight Faith, who whines about how none of this is her fault the whole time after making the Marshal murder your friend and himself with her own hands while giggling at you about how it’s all your fault five minutes ago, and tries to get you not to kill her. You do, though, and she monologues about Joseph being the real deal, then dies. You find the sheriff almost drugged to the point of no return in a cell, going to hang himself to death while singing Amazing Grace while you can’t do shit to get into the room to stop him, but awake and himself enough inside to plead with you to shut off the gas pumps for the drugs before he hangs himself, before going back to smiling and singing and pulling up a chair under a noose. You run to shut off the gas, save him, blow up the bunker, and get out.

Joseph then kidnapps all your ally characters and drugs them with Bliss into being on his side and rants at you about how all their torture and death is your fault and you are awful for murdering his siblings, then offers to let people go if you walk away. You can do so, in which case your allies get in a car with you, only for the son that triggers rage and homicide in Pratt and the PC to play, implying before the cut to black that the deputy (and Pratt maybe) kill all your friends/each other.

If you resist Joseph, he shrieks at you about not all problems being solved by a bullet, and you have a boss fight where you save your friends/snap them out of it, then defeat Joseph.

Once he’s in cuffs, a nuclear bomb goes off because apparently in this world North Korea bombs the US just then or some shit, and you try to make it to Dutch’s bunker in time. You’re in a car crash and all the other deputies and the sheriff are instantly killed. You are unconscious and dragged away by Joseph. You wake in the bunker tied to a bed with Dutch’s body on the floor, and Joseph tells you he was a prophet and was right about the collapse and you’re his family now because his old one is dead and the game ends.

 That’s it.

And in the DLC for it, that makes not only that the canon end, but that the Deputy joins Joseph and is converted to a cult follower by him, and Joseph is now an ally character leading the remnants of his cult.

 Needless to say, I am pissed. This is the /only/ Far Cry game where the villain wins regardless, as well as the only one where they suddenly decide to …??? stan??? the torturing abusive brainwashing serial killer? And of course it’s the one in America where the enemy is a hyper-religious Christian-offshoot cultist brainwashing vile serial torture murdering messiah-complex gaslighting abusive white man who thinks he’s God. I am beyond disgusted by that choice in this game and glad I found out before finishing it; wish I had never played any at all. I cannot adequately describe to you how horrific the cult shit is, and how like, gaslit by the company I feel for having played this game and being thrown that. I think this is legitimately the most upset I’ve ever been about a video game’s writing choice. What the actual fuck. Like, I cannot describe to you enough how fucked up this is you’d have to see the shit they do that’s getting pushed in a face-heel turn by the company as somehow justified and sympathetic like. As someone who has firsthand both experienced and seen trauma from an over-religious area of the US, and just a tiny % over-religious-lead-terrible-actions? I cannot emphasize enough how disgusted and enraged I am.

[d3sertdream3r]

TFA ruined SW imo. As soon as they chose to have Han and Leia be shit parents to Ben the story was broken. Not to mention Luke trying to kill him in his sleep! I don’t blame Rian because he had to provide a valid reason for Luke to be hiding like a coward while the Galaxy goes to hell (which again, was set up in TFA not TLJ) and why Ben went dark. Ben never should’ve been evil and should’ve been the MC. It’s the SKYWALKER SAGA. So a Skywalker should’ve been the MC, not a Palpatine.

This basically turned into a Meta, so stay with me if you can! 😅

I think Rey worked well as being half of the protagonist while Ben served as the other half of the protagonist, as Rian Johnson put it. I do think that his backstory was desperately needed though. The full story of the Last Skywalker should absolutely NOT be told in side-stories like comics and books that most of the audience doesn’t read. His story parallels Rey’s beautifully, and it would’ve been amazing to see them really lean into that on the screen instead of just implying it and then filling all that in later in outside material. 🙄

Honestly I don’t see Han and Leia as being awful parents. I don’t see Luke as being a terrible Uncle either. I see them as people that grew up during an age of oppression and fighting a massive war that damaged them all on a deeply psychological and emotional level.

I see Leia being a fierce woman whose parents showed her they loved her by focusing everything on making the Galaxy a better place for her. I see a girl that inherited her mother’s political prowess and insatiable desire to fight for justice, along with her father’s cunning strategical mind in battle, and using these strengths to her advantage from a very young age. I see her as someone who had to stand by and watch her parents and her entire planet explode and die before her eyes. In the novel Bloodline, we learn that the only way she was able to keep fighting after that devastating loss (that none of us can even attempt to understand) was to focus on destroying Vader and the Empire once and for all and making them pay for what they did to her. I see her as someone who found out that the man who gave her life was the same man she hated with every fiber of her being. I see her as a woman that was terrified of her biological father having an influence on her and even seeing herself in him and his actions. Of knowing she has issues with extreme pride that make her want to force people to listen to her and do what she knows to be the way things should be. Of even feeling a small, dark sense of smugness at seeing them all blow up in the sky above her after they refused to listen to her (read TFA novel; it’s in there!). She had a lot of fear and a healthy dose of anger and darkness after everything she’d been through, and frankly I see a ton of Anakin’s flaws in her, just as she did. She wasn’t just scared of Ben being like his grandfather; she was scared of him inheriting the darkness from her. She kept all these fears and feelings close to her chest. She talked a little bit with Luke but not much. She didn’t talk to Han about it at all, feeling like he wouldn’t understand. She really didn’t think anyone would. She had so many walls put up around her emotions, yet she still wanted Ben to know she loved him. So she showed him the way her parents showed their love for her: by focusing on making the Galaxy a better place for him. Unfortunately that meant not being around much. How could someone hiding so much fear and loneliness be expected to raise a child perfectly?

I see Han Solo as an orphan that loved his father so much, he became a pilot to honor the dream that the man he adored never got to live out, and even got a ship that his father likely worked on. He carried the wound of losing his parents, especially his dad, all his life. But the circumstances of his childhood didn’t allow him to truly grieve. He had to hide it and put on a passive face in order to survive, never fully dealing with it imo. In fact I think he ran from that pain; literally. From planet to planet in fact. His scoundrel swagger masked his true self; the incredibly loyal and extremely compassionate man he actually was. He didn’t see that in himself though. He believed the Scoundrel™️ mask he wore, as much as his son Ben believed he was Kylo Ren. He thought he was a bad person and he had no business raising a kid who might pick up his bad habits. He couldn’t live up to the selfless and kind father that had given up being a pilot for him. He had to keep being a pilot and having adventures because his dad didn’t get to. He kept his dad from getting to do that. How could he reconcile the guilt of his father never getting to live his dream because he was too busy raising him, with the guilt of trying to make it up to his dad by having adventures but in turn not always being there for his own small son?

I see Luke as a kid that always longed for adventure, but learned very quickly that it can sometimes come with a terrible price. I see a boy that suddenly had the weight of the whole galaxy thrust upon his shoulders at just 19 years old. I see a boy that loves his friends so much he ran recklessly to their aid, knowing it was a trap and he would probably die. I see a man that was willing to die for the tiniest chance that his father might actually love him. Someone who then had to try and live up to all the hype and legends and expectations building up all over the galaxy without letting the weight of it all crush him. Someone trying to restore a millennia old order that he knew next to nothing about. Who then had a 10 year old child to look after, train, and basically raise because the boy’s parents had so much pain to work through concerning both their personal lives and each other, along with their individual levels of selfishness they’d learned to harbor in order to survive their cruel circumstances, which kept them from being fully present for their son the way he needed them to be. How could Luke balance the weight of the galaxy on one hand, the restoration of the great Jedi Order on the other, and be the extremely attentive uncle that soft and sensitive Little Ben needed?

They all failed him to be sure. But it wasn’t entirely their fault. They are each complex and layered characters that have experienced more than any of us could ever comprehend, and TFA and TLJ chose to show the toll their inner and outer struggles had on them.

They each loved Ben with their entire hearts and souls, and when Palpatine and Snoke claimed him, their lives were utterly shattered. Han and Leia’s marriage was completely destroyed. Luke wasn’t hiding out of cowardice; he hid out of shame and pain. He crumbled under the weight of the Mighty Skywalker name and expectations of being the one to make the hard and selfless choice and always save the day no matter what. Ironically, in trying to protect what he loved most, it cost him that very same treasure; his family. Not to mention it opened up the galaxy for another Dark Organization to take over. Wouldn’t you want to hide and live miserably until you finally die? That’s how I’d feel.

Luke wasn’t perfect. Neither were Han and Leia. They weren’t gods. They were all very flawed HUMAN BEINGS. That’s what made them so relatable. That’s the beauty of the way the original trio was handled.... up until TRoS. Han was great, but Luke and Leia were handled terribly imo. However, that’s a whole other topic. 😉

Sorry for the length! I hope you made it to the end! 😬😄

[siriusist]

 tagged by @anathenma WOO GIRL <3

rules: tag 10 followers you want to get to know better

name: Lauren

gender: Female

star sign: Virgo Sun || Leo Moon || Leo Ascendent, which basically means I have the usually quiet reserved personality of an analytical, organised virgo on the fact of things, am usually the goofy, chill friend amongst my friends, and don’t like to take anyone’s shit, but if I am disrespected, I’m a sensitive six foot flower and withdraw from the world until I can get over it. xD I don’t like conflict.

height: 183cm/6 feet 

age: 27 (YIKES XD)

wallpaper on my phone: (I had to check XD) A calendar of May 2020 stylistically arranged around ribbons

house: Slytherin

ever crush on a teacher: Both my parents and my uncle are teachers and consequently I knew every teacher in my school as actual human people and not ‘crushes’ growing up. So no. XD

coolest halloween costume: I went as the Starbucks logo one year when I was eight, a gigantic Lady Luck die one year with a top hat covered in poker chips and cards. I had some good ones I made: I was creative as fuck when I was 9-11 especially, and I had to be, because I was already around 5′7 and people assumed I was just some weirdo dressing up to get candy (Hearing ‘AREN’T YOU A LITTLE OLD TO BE TRICK OR TREATING’ at eleven CRUSHED me XD)

Favorite 90s tv show: 

Okay. So there’s one’s I watched actually as a child of the 90s, and ones that were just always ON in the 90s that I ended up watching. It’s debatable whether these are actually good NOW. XD

That being said, the background ones were Saved By the Bell (ZACH MORRIS IS TRAAAAassssh~~), Boy Meets World, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond.

As a kid, I loved the Aladdin Animated Series, The Hercules Animated Series, CHIP AND DALE RESCUE RANGERS (Which didn’t really hold up sadly but still has the best theme song of all time, fight me), and Timon and Pumbaa.

One I rarely caught but really liked was All That, The Wonder Years, Sabrina the Teenage Witch- occasionally Fresh Prince.

Out of all of these, I still have a super fond spot for Saved By the Bell, especially with the ‘Zach Morris is Trash’ series on Youtube (Seriously, go watch it. It’s fucking hilarious and basically breaks down how much of a serial killer in the making Zach Morris is XD). The clothing is ridiculous and no one really dressed like that in the early 90s outside of commercials and TV (unfortunately). Maybe one shoddy item out of the bunch. Meanwhile Saved by the Bell is like LETS PUT IT ALL ON. XD It was terrible once they got to college, but it was stupid and fun and made me feel ‘cool’ watching it because I was like three and being like, “YEAH, IT’S BRIGHT AND THESE PEOPLE ARE COOL AND I CAN FOLLOW THE PLOT. I’M MATURE.” XD It’s literally still the only one of these I actively watch now in the form of Zach Morris is Trash, so I’ll go with it. xD

Last kiss: Never had a consensual kiss. Make of that what you will. xD

Have you ever been stood up: Nope.

Favourite pair of shoes: 

I have terrible plantar fasciitis from sports, so I’m a shoe snob, and have to have properly fitting/constructed shoes. It depends on what I’m doing in them, really. I got a pair of trail running shoes for trail running during COVID, but they’re not the most aesthetically pleasing. I’d say the best mixture between comfort and style are either a good ol’pair of black ankle boots with a slight heel (so I can be 6′2 and intimidate people with my height muhahahaha), or more practically on a day to day basis, I have a pair of Reeboks that are 90s-styled with pastel pink and blue triangles on the side. They’re pretty dope. xD

have you ever been to vegas: No, but my parents have. Basically, they said you tire of shopping after two days, and then you’re just stuck inside hotels and shopping malls there. If you’re not a gambler, drinker, or have a ton of money to splash out on stage shows, I don’t think it’s particularly worth going.

favorite fruit: Mango or raspberry, but they’re super-expensive in the land of Maple Syrup so I usually don’t get them any other way other than frozen in smoothies.

Favourite book:

 I could never choose a favourite book. It’s literally like choosing between children. It’s my microcosmic version of Sophie’s Choice. xD Tasteless joke aside, it’d honestly depend on the occasion. There’s a huge difference between entertainment reading, literary exploits, and educating yourself through books as a whole. 

My ‘plane’ book (which I’m terrible at flying, so that was a joke), as in, an easy, fun, instantly rereadable read to read on the plane when I used to have super long fifteen hour flights to Australia, was always Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather,’ because I also had a huge crush on Michael Corleone. 

But it’s also not the ‘best’ book and literally spends an inordinate and honestly disturbing amount of time on the fact that this poor woman in the story (which thankfully in the film, it gets cut down), but the bridesmaid Sonny Corleone has sex with, and how you see his wife indicating his ‘size’?

THAT’S LITERALLY AN ENTIRE SUBPLOT OF THIS BROAD’S STORY I SHIT YOU NOT BECAUSE NOTHING IS ‘BIG’ ENOUGH FOR HER AFTER HIM AND THEN YOU FIND OUT SHE HAS A MEDICAL CONDITION AND GOOD FOR HER SHE’S ABLE TO FIND LOVE AGAIN BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARIO PUZO XD IT WAS A LOT OKAY.

(Footnote: I also suffered through his horrific sequels because I love Michael Corleone and will take him in any form he comes in, even horrifically written Sicilian backhill exploits that were never told to us in the original book and were clearly just written because Puzo needed another pay check but I digress.)

Horrific subplots aside, I really enjoy The Godfather for its sheer pulpiness. The book is essentially what Andrew Lloyd Weber is to musicals. xD (Yes, I come with musical theatre burns. Fight me.)

In terms of a piece of literature that I think is amazingly well done? Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, or Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Stupidest thing you ever done: 

Um, maybe when I was at Cambridge I tried to dye my roots to match the rest of my ‘blonde’ hair at the time, and it turned out bright orange? And because it’s Cambridge, they had this super-strict attendance policy, so I was literally trying not to hyperventilate because it was running close to class (which was across campus) and I was trying to find some way to remedy my hair without it falling out/ someone asking about it. So, I grabbed a toque-cap-thing despite it being literally one of the hottest summer on record in the UK (It was like 35 degrees, it was MENTAL), and had to sprint to class all the way on the other side of campus from my college dodging dodgy tourist groups blocking the sidewalk while I went. Then when I sat down inside, I had to be weirdly rude and wear my hat inside the lecture hall even though the professor was looking at me (it was a specialised program in German Literature) like, “Are you going to take that shit off?” xD THEN I tried to dye it back to brown, and it literally looked like mud mixed with a runny egg had exploded on the top of my head; it was AWFUL. XD So FINALLY I did my research and found a salon, but by THAT point I had done 250 pounds worth of damage to my hair (WHICH IS LIKE 400 DOLLARS CANADIAN AT THE TIME), and I almost had a heart attack and thanked my lucky stars that I had money put away so I could give my parents the ‘parent price’ when they asked why they hadn’t seen me on FaceTime or Skype for like, three weeks, and I replaced my face with a photo of John Cleese from Fawlty Towers, which they tease me about to this day. xD

The other dumbest thing I ever said was when I was so desperate for friends in grade six when I moved to a new school (and because being American was ‘cool’ at the time, apparently), I told everyone I was a dual citizen because my mother LITERALLY GAVE BIRTH TO ME ON THE BORDER CROSSING WHAT. XD And bless this poor bespectacled girl named Mara (who was actually a little class friend of mine), who just said timidly in the back, “That’s not how citizenship works.” xD It basically came out of attempting to be cool and failing, but I’m still SO embarrassed about THAT one that I’d never admit it to ANYONE besides shouting it out into the Tumblr black hole. xD I’m still embarrassed to THIS DAY.

All time favorite shows: 

 I’ll go for the original run of The Twilight Zone, which has some schmaltzy episodes (I’m really not a fan of any of the episodes entirely dedicated to the Space Race or the weird cowboy fanaticism of the fifties/ sixties, or anything that’s overtly like “ALIENS DID IT SO THERE”), but I LOVE their psychological horror episodes or Dystopian episodes. It’s when Rod Serling’s writing and narrative voice is the strongest and most prophetic, and the twists are usually the best. Other shows have tries to imitate it, or reboot it, but I really think the original, due to Rod Serling’s unmatchable voice, in every sense of the word. There’s lists of some of the greatest episodes, but I remember LOVING the episode ‘A Stop at Willoughby.’ The twist literally made me clap my hands in horror and delight, it was amazing. xD

Other than that? Off the top of my head, Mad Men and Band of Brothers, even though I haven’t rewatched either in ages.

last movie you saw in theaters: 

Oh God, before all THIS hit? Probably Rise of Skywalker. I get agoraphobic and itchy if a movie theatre is too busy, and we only have really pokey sort of ones nearby that you’re guaranteed to see someone you went to high school with (terrible), so now that I can properly drive I go out to the big redneck theatre out in the boonies. I miss living in Montreal though, because when you live in a big city like that downtown (and can actually afford to live there), you could see blockbuster movies at like ten in the morning. xD Which would be AMAZING because I’d go to see any of the early Avengers/Marvel movies when they opened, the day of opening, and it was literally me, one old man who fell asleep halfway through and sat near the back, and maybe an elderly couple on a morning date to the movies. xD I get really annoyed with obnoxious movie-goers, and I’m really picky about just being completely absorbed in the movie, so I tend not to go unless I’m guaranteed that space. 

tagging: Anyone who wishes to tag me back so I can learn about them <3

[sparda3g]

Attack on Titan Chapter 122 Review

Ever since the anime season this year ended, the momentum has been phenomenal. Some would believe this would not only lose it but fall off of a cliff alas jumping the shark. Fans have followed since the beginning and remain loyal to this day. After 122 chapters, I can safely say this series still got it. That itself is amazing, but what this chapter delivered is unfathomable. It didn’t just deliver the explanation we have long desired for, it rewarded us for being loyal to this very day.

It opens up with Frieda and Historia’s flashback, centering on the story of a young girl who was loved by everyone. She was called Ymir. She was deemed as “ladylike;” an inspirational figure if you may call her. As fans know, she is the founder of the Titans. They also know her loyalty is to the Royal Family alas a slave. Basically, her figure can be seen as a role model, but her background and history say otherwise. It transition to Ymir’s backstory and from there, the truth is far colder than I can imagine.

It’s heartbreaking, disturbing, and probably the darkest of the series, and that says a lot. As the chapter’s title implies, it takes place 2,000 years ago. Ymir was only a child; a slave who worked hard in the midst of agonizing environment. Throughout the backstory, she never speak a word, but her expression tells tons. This is Isayama’s finest artwork delivery. The amount of effort put in is astonishing, and it only gets better.

The king wanted the culprit who set the pigs free and all the slaves pointed at her. We don’t know if she was even the culprit, but the painted image of everyone backstabbing her for the “greater good” is hard-hitting. She must take the fall and so, she accepted it. That’s purely corrupted and disheartening. Blame a child for your foolish act. But it didn’t matter; the king took it and free her to the forest, where she will be running from death by her own people.

I like to point out how disturbing it is to use the phrase, “You are free,” in a very cruel manner. It makes me believe the ending page of the series is about her. It’s still a speculation, but the chance has increased. Her suffering aches me and the flashback just started, let alone her character. She found the giant tree and entered inside for shelter. But instead, she fell down to the river with a supernatural object that resembles a spinal cord swimming towards her. They fused without a dance and thus, a titan is born. What a great sequence.

I love how it plays off as a phenomenal event and rightfully so. It’s the beginning of everything. It has to be treated as the second coming or the Holy Grail. It’s interesting to see a supernatural element in this series. Granted, a lightning strike, changing into a giant form, and Shifters wielding a special power are supernatural, but this is the origin, before titan became a thing. It has to start somewhere, so this is acceptable. I strongly doubt we will see more of supernatural entity like aliens. This is more of mythology use, the Tree of Life if you may, and Isayama is no stranger.

One would think Ymir’s life would turnaround for the better with her newfound ability. It did not; amazingly, it’s much worse. The King paid much “respect” towards her, thanks to her titan power. By that logic, this means she is “rewarded” to be his wife. The sad part is, earlier in the chapter, she witnessed a wedding that was presented as a blissful moment for the two. She’s no longer a slave to do labor work; she’s a slave to do everything. She’s rewarded a marriage and yet, she’s left cold and depressed. It’s disheartening to say the least.

She does all the works the King command. From being sent to destroy Marleyans to bearing the children for weaponized reason, she’s a mess. Every moment should be filled with happiness, yet not once you see her happy. Not even a baby birth made her pleasant; instead, saddened and broken. Year after year of the same procedure, her life was long gone. We the fans are only seeing her in pilot mode or in other words, emotionless.

What’s interesting is the moment when she was killed. You would expect her death to be glorious or end with a bang, but it wasn’t the case. One of the soldiers took out a spear from underneath the sand and threw at the King, only for Ymir to jump and take it instead. She could have recovered, knowing she was a Shifter. However, she lost the will to live, so she never did; essentially, passed away. It almost happened with Reiner back at Marley, so it makes sense for her to go out like a normal human. I love the imagery of her soul fading away with the sight of a flower. What struck me is her family watched her dead with sadness, only for the next moment to destroy the sensation and embark a really dark scene.

If you once believe the King has any soul towards her, you’ll be dead wrong. After a shock, he recovered and angrily yelled at her to get back up and work. That’s seriously messed up. He had no remorse for her death; not even seeing her once as a person. He flat out called her their slave. It only took a chapter to hate the guy so much. It gets worse as he decided to feed his children with her corpse. That’s unbelievably disturbing. I’m surprised at the raw image as well as disgusted. At least we know the walls are named after the three children; better not reveal that history. How this series not Seinen? I guess it was missing one cuss word to be qualified.

The most heartbreaking part is, even in the afterlife, Ymir is still a slave. In the King’s deathbed, his last wish was an order for his children to spread Ymir’s blood through generation after generation. Not even a touching moment for them; selfishly placed dictatorship over family. Sadly, they obeyed his last wish and through countless generations, the titans have grown.

It explained how the titans essentially break into different traits alas Shifters, including Jaw and Colossal Titan. After spreading for so long, it eventually formed a new type. It’s bizarrely insane. The King can enjoy in hell, while Ymir is forever a slave, creating countless titans. She outclassed all the suffering characters; bar none. It’s pure tragedy. She cannot be freed for 2,000 years and counting. Her life is only used as a weapon; nothing more, nothing less. The backstory ends here. The next scene, oh boy, here we go.

Eren finally reveals his true color and the sole reason to obtain her power: to end this world. Out of context, he would definitely been seen as a villain. Joker, watch out! But seriously, it’s the Rumbling and like he said at the beach, he’s going to put an end to this madness. While the request can definitely be interpreted as a villainy act, the intention is dare I say reasonable.

The idea I get is he wants to factory reset the world. The damage was done 2,000 years ago and its effect goes on to this day. Evil brought upon the titans to its existence. The irony approach to put an end is to use those colossal titans inside the wall. What stared the madness will end with madness. I don’t remember who said this quote about World War, but the third war will be the worst war of our time; the fourth one will have people use sticks and stones. It’s something like that. Basically, it means the world will restart after mass destruction, and that’s what Eren is going to unleash. Not necessarily kill his friends, but end the tyranny war.

I love the last psychological battle between the brothers. Eren wants Ymir to know she is only human; not a God nor a slave. As for Zeke, he wants to stop Eren from unleashing hell on Earth. Out of context, this sounds like Zeke is the good guy, but it’s complicated. Their choice of words to persuade Ymir are night and day. Not because of what they wished for, but what they cared for. When it’s all said and done, it’s perfectly clear which argument matters more.

The major key difference is how they approach to her. Eren may want the world to end, but he believes it’s up to her to decide. More importantly, what she truly feels. With Zeke, all value was lost when he yells at her to grant his wish because he ordered her. He believed he’s right because he carried the blood of the Royal Family; symbolically, history repeats itself or more like, the chain never ends. Eren wants to end it and apparently, so does her.

It is clear Isayama has planned this far ahead as well as improved his artwork tremendously.Thankfully so, because the delivery is powerful. Ymir’s emotion with tears is raw; I felt her agony and now, she can finally let it go. I love the fact Isayama didn’t show her eyes until now; making this moment impactful. You feel free along with her. The pain must end now. To top it all off, alongside with great artwork, it also contain the perfect circle; one that rewards the fans for supporting the work for a long time.

Eren may have a villainy idea, but his heart still contains purity. He wanted her to let go; end her misery. He knows deeply for 20,000 years, she waited for anyone to free her, and he is the guy. It finally hits me that this chapter’s title resembles to the first chapter. It was a message to Eren to save her; this time, it’s the reply she has been waiting for. Absolutely magnificent. Now I get those panels that resemble to Eren’s dream. Not to mention, the tears. It must mean he felt the pain of a poor girl. I’m convinced the ending will have Eren carrying Ymir to let her know she’s freed. I can be wrong, but I wouldn’t mind being right. Ymir makes her decision, and by God almighty, what a crazy ending.

The last couple of pages are incredible. Isayama seriously went all out on his art. Back to reality, Eren’s spine reattach his head; basically, escape death. The image is jarring in a good way. The battle is stopped with the wall crumbling down. By this point, my jaw was dropped. The scenery is intense as hell. Gabi, the one who thought stopped the mayhem, is now witnessing it in front row. The wall is gone; out comes the mass of Colossal Titans. Translation: we’re in the endgame now.

What else can I say? Probably a lot more. The bottom line is, this chapter was outstanding. It delivered a really dark, cruel, and depressing backstory of Ymir that answered many questions and gave us reasons to feel awful for her, which ultimately led to the defining moment. When it comes down to it, the stories we heard from Eldians and Marleyans were true and false. Eren and Zeke’s final debate was mesmerizing. The full circle twist was so rewarding. The visual is among the best Isayama has delivered; perhaps the best. The atmosphere, the angle, the expression; everything is top quality. The ending got me hyped beyond the maximum level. This is it. It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here…

[itsswimmingtragedycollection]

The Dumpster Fire that is ‘The Order’

First of all, why is his show labeled as a horror? My humble guess is that it was intended for younger audiences?? I genuinely wanna know. Because, even if it was for teens, some blood and a few dead bodies does not a horror make.  Secondly, what the fuck? And I truly mean that.  I mean, the idea itself doesn’t sound bad at all. A college student joins a secret society and finds out his supposedly evil dad is the head of it? He’s also in a werewolf club that fights that same secret society? Sign me tf up. But the execution just takes a really weird turn.  From the get go, you kinda aren’t sure if the show wants to be takes seriously or not. And that question is never answered. Literally in the opening scene the letter changes from ‘we regret to inform you’ to ‘congratulations’ in front of Jack’s eyes and he has absolutely no reaction whatsoever to that peculiar development, which kind of screams ‘not to be taken seriously’ similarly to the whole ‘My evil dad killed my mom so naturally I’m gonna join a secret society, become someone important and powerful and eventually use that power to fight him.’ Who on earth plots a revenge along those lines? But then a second later, the plot falls back in the supernatural drama category.  To top it all off there’s a whole lot of ‘woke humor’ which most of the time comes across as cringe worthy edginess we’re all happy we outgrew after HS.  But, even if you could somehow get pas the not-so-subtle jumps from complete absurdity to realism, there’s nothing else to hold on to. No character, no relationship, no plot line we’re offered is strong enough to pull us in.  In fact. one of the most annoying things about The Order is that basically no character has a personality. I am 8 episodes deep (and I don’t intend to finish it because that’s how boring it is) and I still don’t know anything substantial about anyone. And can we take a second to just look at Jake’s relationship with Alyssa? What even is that? Are they flirting are they not, does he really like her or is she a means to an end, is she into him or his dad, why are they kissing and why does it look so uncomfortable, did they just cast two people with the least chemistry on purpose or is bad writing/directing? So many questions. If we draw a parallel between Jack’s progress with her and him being on board with the wolves, it makes even less sense. He needs how many episodes to decide to try and kiss her, but when it comes to dedicating your whole life to fighting bad magic, you go from ‘no way, you’re all insane, you made me kill an innocent man’ to ‘I pledge my life to the cause’ within two seconds.   Speaking of things that make no sense, I have to mention Jack’s ‘friendship’ with Amir. Don’t get me wrong, I get that we meet people and think to ourselves how that could grow into a beautiful friendship, but acting as if someone you just met is really your friend, and that odd flashback to like one beer they shared, when Amir was found dead, is just... I don’t even know what to say.  The Order as an organization is equally puzzling. Who are they? Why are they? What’s the purpose, what’s the goal, the mission? I can’t settle for just a group of magic users who follow strict hierarchies but kinda all look out for themselves and don’t really like each other that much. And occasionally sacrifice goats. And change people’s memories.(And they can revive a golem and ask it who made it, but the fact that Jack, who found out about magic like yesterday, sabotaged their spell somehow goes right over their magical heads. ) But essentially it’s for the good of the whole wide world.????????????? And the masks are what makes me think an 8yo came up with the whole concept.  If you thought the werewolf knights are any less confusing, think again. They hear noises when ‘bad magic’ happens and solve it by killing anything that moves. Heroes. Also, how do they know what they are supposed to do if they refuse to read anything? I mean, that’s not how a secret society, since that’s more or less what they are, works. Someone has to tell you, show you, teach you. Sure, you have the wolves inside you, but if you don’t know they speak a certain language, it’s fairly certain you don’t know a whole lot. And why is there only four of you? How can four knights take down an organization as big as The Order? Especially since their preferred method is violent murder, something that is not very subtle and does not go unnoticed for long, which basically ensures the rage of the entire Order falling on their heads before they even begin their so called mission. Once again: ????????????????? And what even does ‘bad magic’ mean? The term is so vague and abstract that I have a hard time understanding how can you form an organization that fights something barely defined. All magic can potentially be bad magic. What are the guidelines here? Help me comprehend.  The show also has a very odd relationship towards death. One can sort of ‘forgive’ the wizards and the wolves for being chill about it, but if someone was targeting and butchering people on your campus, wouldn’t you be at least a bit worried? We don’t see any students panicking, we saw one police officer, there were no measures taken by the college, unless you count turning Amir’s death into a bike accident. And just when you start getting used to being casual about it, Jack has a whole meltdown over killing someone the first time he turned. And then also his professor. But even that meltdown is not very convincing, since most of what he does is just screaming ‘I KILLED AN INNOCENT MAN!!!’ into the void, without a much deeper attempt to deal with that. Which is why I don’t get why the show even made an issue out of it.  I also don’t get Jack’s grandpa. Like not even a little bit. Because if you think about it, it’s not * that * unimaginable that a little boy would come up with the idea of joining a secret society to avenge his mother’s death, but it is * very * odd to imagine an old ass grown up who not only thinks it’s a good idea to direct your whole young life towards revenge, but encourages it to a point of making a detailed plan on how to do that, and basically spends your entire childhood grooming you to become a little rage fueled bundle of psychological damage. All of this is only scratching the surface of the mess that is The fucking Order, because the show is a giant entangled coil of nonsense and I barely knew where to start. It’s fair to say that the biggest buzzkill is failure to pick a direction and stick with it. You don’t have to look that close to see some of the influences. The biggest one being, obviously, The Magicians, followed by some Teen Wolf, there’s even elements from Scream Queens, a bit of Buffy, a pinch of the Craft, etc. Almost like someone decided to look up successful shows in the supernatural/fantasy/horror genre and just smash them all up together in hopes of making something appealing to the largest audience possible. Personally, as a * very big * fan of before mentioned The Magicians, I get the feeling that Netflix wanted to make something that could rival it, but better. Because TM is, dare I say so, one of the best, if not the best, shows of the decade. I honestly have not seen anything like it, that has the same platform, in literally a decade. If you have, please let me know. 

Whit the BDE, edgy, but in a good way, humor, strong political views, strong female characters, fun twist and turns that actually do manage to mix absurd with normal life in a magical, no pun intended, way, sexuality representation, but not in a ‘we just want to please the gays so they give us the views’ way, great male characters we wish we saw more of, compelling character development and so on. Tho the most likable aspect of the series is probably the take on overdone story lines, where they twist the narrative just enough for it to become actually relatable. We all are tired of super special chosen ones who save the world because they are soo special and specially chosen by gods to save the world and all the dumb boring unspecial people with their pure hearts and strong characters. And also find true love.  You see attempts at this within The Order on every turn, except that it doesn’t work nearly as well for them, precisely because they went for that AND MORE. More wouldn’t even be a bad thing if it was’t so all over the place that it just comes off as ‘WE WANT EVERYONE TO LIKE THIS, GIVE US ALL THE VIEWS, ALL OF THEM.’ I am very much inclined to think this is what happened, considering other stuff Netflix has put out there. (Mostly referring to endlessly stupid shit like YOU, which only has the intention of being controversial and attention grabbing, for the views. Tho they do have some fun shit too, don’t get me wrong.) So I guess what I’m trying to say is,  the though of making something like TM, is not a bad one,  I’m all for it, but you actually have to put a shit ton more imagination into it if you want it to work out. But that’s just my opinion.   

[not-poignant]

How much do you think the stories we tell influence human behaviour? Do you think more stories about people greeting aliens with willingness to learn instead of hostility would change the prevalence of xenophobia, for example? Can you spread kindness and patience through fairy tale? Love your work by the way.

I mean, we don’t really have time to unpack the role of stories and narratives when it comes to human behaviour. The Wikipedia page alone is like a whole overwhelming plethora of information, people spend their entire lives devoted to understanding the role of story and storytelling in cultures (who all use storytelling to convey histories, myths, value systems and more) and I did my entire BA and half an MA in media studies and all media is, is stories on the screen.

The impact that stories have on human behaviour - from the stories in the Bible to the oral histories of the Indigenous Australians that have stretched back some 60,000 years, to the legends that spring up through the mass media machine - is incalculable and difficult to comprehend precisely because it is so profound, and it’s built into who we are as people. There is an entire therapeutic modality based solely around storytelling, because it’s considered so transformative and so fundamentally recognisable to the human psyche.

Story is how our identities are shaped as children. Whether the kid is plopped in front of the television or read to painstakingly from books. The stories of gender in the world around us, the stories of ‘this is how a woman should act and this is how a man should act’ (and how damaging they are), the stories we don’t see about ourselves if we’re minorities or oppressed, the stories of oppressors falsely raising certain groups up above others (the middle class and/or affluent, white people, able-bodied people, straight people, cis people, sexual people, romantic people), and then of course the stories of the underdogs, meant to give strength.

Stories can’t just be about spreading kindness and patience though. Obviously, some are. We have a ton of fairytales about just that, some in fact cultivate and reflect extreme attitudes of feminine passivity (consider: Cinderella -> just be good and nice while suffering horrendous abuse and magic will save you!) In fact, some fairytales have become so sanitised with niceness and kindness, that a lot have needed to be rewritten, to shape new narratives that introduce and valourise other qualities as well.

And people choose the narratives they want around them. There are a lot of narratives and stories that are about greeting the ‘other’ (whether aliens, or fae, or whatever metaphor you want to insert here) with kindness and patience instead of hostility already. There are a lot of narratives and stories that show wanting to greet the ‘other’ with hostility (see: Arrival - I kind of wanted to mention Ender’s Game here but Orson Scott Card is a homophobic asshole and I’m still cut up about it) and then you see humans change as they learn more (which is actually more realistic to human nature tbh). There are like, countless children’s books, especially now, that cultivate embracing what is different to one’s self. But if you’re not choosing to be around those narratives, you won’t see them as easily.

And also, narratives around overcoming xenophobia need to be really damn careful that they don’t also present themselves as ‘kindly saviour white oppressors are here to help the aliens/fae/metaphor for you know, minorities, and save the day.’ That’s...ah...to put it delicately, fucking problematic as hell. Like, kindness and patience here can come across an awful lot like paternalism, it has to be done carefully and with awareness. It helps when it’s balanced, or, even better, when it’s not only told through the lens of a dominant paradigm, and the voices of those on the receiving end of xenophobia are lifted up and respected.

Meanwhile the concept of the Other, both in psychology and narrative, is a whole other thing that we don’t have time to unpack here. But anon, psychologists, narrative experts and more have been noodling over this subject for as long as it’s been possible to noodle over this subject.

A lot of the questions you’re asking already have answers by people far more experienced than me, y’know? We know kindness and patience can be spread through fairytales, we have the fairytales to prove it, and we have generations of very passive women (and AFAB people) who were strongly influenced by it. (Kindness and patience isn’t wrong by nature, but just because the words sound nice, doesn’t mean they always have a nice influence depending on your target audience or how you’re portraying them). We already have huge blockbuster movies designed around ‘hostile population or member of population meets something always treated with hostility: and begins to show it care and everyone benefits’ - see: How to Train Your Dragon.

We have growing populations of younger folk, who are more accepting, more left-leaning (and attacked for it), and more willing to look outside of themselves and their lived experiences. Obviously not across the board, but certainly, I think narratives have already changed these things (the prevalence of xenophobia, for example), even as they reinforce these things as well. And sometimes they look like they’re changing it on the surface, but are just reinforcing it on the surface. And sometimes they’re changing it in one way, and reinforcing it in another way. No stories avoid being problematic, after all.

But anyway, I think it’s possible to see the shift in the populations around us, especially the younger generations who are often exposed to the newest stories, the newest retellings of fairytales, the newest films with their messages etc. It’s pretty amazing.

And in the meantime, the impact of storytelling, welp, as to the ‘how much’ - the best scholars in the world are still trying to determine that. The only consensus they all have is that the influence is: A Lot, lol.

[oppressiveliberator]

what age did Ghetsis discover that he had magic abilities? What can he do with his magic?

((Again, if this doesn’t answer!  Because when I start rambling I always, always go off track!!  Feel free to ask for more info!  Hell, feel free to ask for more regardless lol

ALSO ONCE AGAIN PLEASE FORGIVE ME APP USERS THERE IS REALLY A READMORE THERE BUT.  /GESTURES @ TUMBLR

OKAY SO GHETSIS AND HIS MAGIC.

Ghetsis discovered his magical abilities somewhere around the ages of 3-5. When he showed his parents, they were quick and harsh to shut him down for his unnatural and freakish display. This didn't put him off, however, only annoyed him and made him question why this was such a problem when his skill in damn near everything else was praiseworthy, but eventually he skulked off to the Harmonia Estate library and records and began to seek out knowledge on the matter. Between diaries and history books and magic books, over time he learned to use magic on his own.

Ghetsis's magic is tied to his life force. As a result, if he overmagics himself, he's in actual grave danger. So he tries not to overuse his magic considering magical exhaustion has done him dirty in the past.

A Harmonia's powers are typically divided into passive(a usually singular inherit thing that, so long as they aren't completely ignored or rejected and unindulged, typically persist at all times without any conscious effort on the part of the user) and active(powers that need to be used with some deliberation or exertion such as emotional intensity or frustration and so on.)

Ghetsis's passive power is the ability he's well known for--his ability to get his way. Ghetsis is naturally and with minimal effort and based on will and intent, able to talk his way into somebody's head to get his bidding done and to be believed and obeyed--it’s not infallible, but it’s pretty easy to be lulled into it for your average person. He first noticed the passive power when he was singing on stage--I'm not fully certain how it went down, but it was something to the effect of that he somehow managed to sing with such passion that he magically drew the crowd's undivided attention. I mean like. Babies stopped crying to listen to him sing. It was a strange sort of hypnotic ability and simply because he was passionate and wanted to be heard. Not on purpose.

(Ghetsis learned to suppress this ability over time, preferring the challenge of psychological manipulation without magical assistance. At present, it's not usually 'activated' beyond that he's got a fairly intimidating and dominating aura about him, and people feel inclined to listen to him. Believing him, however, is usually simply his own studies of psychology and manipulation at work--not only can he magic his way into your head, but he's gotten to the point that he really doesn't have to and can do it without any magical interference. Dangerous.)

The active abilities vary. Generally I leave it as a sort of vague ability to manipulate the world around him to certain degrees. Ghetsis can do this on his own--manipulate elements, for example. However, he can also call upon/use other things to use their energy/power and put less strain on himself:

The Victini movies I believe introduced the Dragon Force, an invisible energy, that the People of the Vale(whom i headcanon to be the Harmonias) used to cultivate their land and live in harmony and prosperity, until the Twin heroes fought and caused a war. This caused the dragon force to go wild, giving Kyurem the energy for both Twins’ perspectives on the situation to split from it up Zekrom and Reshiram. Unsatisfied with this, the Dragon Force continued to run rampant with the intensity of the Twins's feelings and anger and the disruption of the harmony that had been, even after the war had ended, and began to wreak dangerous havoc and destroy the area, leaving the once fertile land barren and turning it into desert.

Eventually, The King Of The Vale(King Harmonia,) with his partner Victini, moved the Sword of the Vale--a big ass sword-looking building that's kinda part of the Harmonia estate now--to Eindoak town which somehow put the Dragon Force back in check by sealing it up--if the Sword of the Vale were to be moved somehow, then the Dragon Force would leak out again(i still haven't seen the movies and i really really should.) However the dragon force remains in the earth. . .and Ghetsis calls upon it when using magic that affects the world around him to make it easier and less dangerous for himself.

I'll usually describe it as some kind of fog or smoke coming from the ground, usually green or purple. Used unwisely the Dragon Force can make a big mess of the world. But since ghetsis is magically capable, even when he uses it for ill, it doesn't go wild like it did back then. Yet.

He can also call upon the power of legendary and mythical Pokémon, namely Unovan ones, and this is also part of the power of the Dragon Force--rather, he uses it to reach the Pokémon to use power from it. The thing is that Ghetsis doesn't ask for this power. He demands it and commands it to be given.

Fortunately he doesn't do this a ton and, if he does, it's usually for minor things that the legendary won't notice too much if he draws it out--if he went too hard on this, he'd probably be in trouble with a lot of Pokémon, but as it is he's taking like. The equivalent of a shed hair magically, on average if he does this. It’s not something they really notice on average, unless they’re not being acknowledged by other entities at the time--like, imagine that a god hears all these requests and prayers, so one is gonna be a drop in the bucket, but if there aren’t many then each one is gonna be a little more noticeable even when expected, you feel me?

Next is ancestral spirits. Because in the past the Harmonias used magic, the remains of their spirits are magically powerful as well. And with magic remaining dormant in most of his family, of he's near one of them, he can take from the magic they don't use(as long as it isn't too much, given that that would kill them)--but the spirits and remaining of deceased ancestors is more powerful and are more malleable to use to manipulative the world around him. Of course, if they don't like something he's doing. . .well, again. the dragon force can be used to force their compliance, but generally if they don't like it, it’s not easy or advisable to draw on them.

Finally. . .Kyurem. Ghetsis controlled Kyurem without any Pokéballs or anything. He's Kyurem's sort of hero the way N and the Protag are the Heroes of Truth/Ideals--I may refer to him as the Hero of Ambition sometimes just so the naming scheme is complete. So he can call upon Kyurem to a greater degree as well--which typically manifests in the form of STAB if he were using ice. So. Flying and dragon types fuckin beware i guess.

(Hell, he doesn’t really even need to call on Kyurem sometimes, especially since Kyurem is very much dormant--it doesn’t have much better to do and will just kinda support him in general.  But since he’s not usually with it it’s not as strong as it could be.  Still a force to be reckoned with, still a big legendary ice dragon connected to his person.)

His powers are watered down from the powers Harmonias had thousands of years ago due to lack of use, so they aren't Pokémon level strength or anything. But as far as magic goes with Harmonias he's the first to have really mastered it in a long ass time.

Ghetsis’s abilities are pretty immense, but it can also be very, very straining depending on what he does. Again, it's connected to his life energy--if he overdoes it too much in one go, he'll get sick, bleed from orifices he shouldn't be bleeding from, collapse, suffer injury, outright pass out, or even die. Even if he draws on someone or something else for power, he needs to use his own magic to do that and to direct it.

And while he doesn't give a damn about the lives of others. . .imagine if you were pulling on a rubberband that was around something pretty solid. You keep pulling and, whether it breaks or comes loose, it's gonna come hurtling at you at mach fuckin 10 and hurt your hand, if not hit you in the face and take out your eye. Now imagine doing that with a life. Chances are, getting smacked in the face with another life will remove your face and you'd die--same thing would probably happen to Ghetsis if he were to just draw and draw from a source until it was gone. Gradually would likely be less damaging, but magical overload is a thing, too--he can't just infinitely store magic in himself, he can’t just channel magic through himself infinitely without a break, he doesn't have the room for it even though he has such a large and overbearing presence. So he has to be careful with magic.

(I kinda made a messy drabbly thing featuring Ghetsis and @sacriflare a while back in which Ghetsis protects Lys from Yveltal so he can put it in a Master Ball, even though Lys didn't believe this possible at all. After doing so, Ghetsis collapsed though he was still conscious, just in pain and real fucked up and probably drooling blood or something awful. So with enough effort and energy to pull from, he can do lots of things, but on his own he'll tire faster--theoretically holding off the god of death from sucking the life out of him and his friend? Uuuuuuuuuh he was lucky to be alive when he was done. and that Yveltal is a flying type because that ice typing probably saved his ass.)

(In addition to those he also knows more 'witchy' things, like sigils and using crystals and stones and stuff like that. This pulls less from his life energy and more from nature in a weird sort of magical-alchemical way I guess.)

Many things Ghetsis does can be done without flourish--he channels magic through his cane because, well, if it backfired from his hand he'd lose another hand. He'd rather break the cane. That's replaceable. He can use his hands or his voice or his mind but that's more painful and strenuous--and, again, if something goes wrong that’s not gonna be good for his physical body. However, he can also make magic circles on the ground--in fact, he does this in the anime to push fire into the Light Stone to revive Reshiram.

Allow me to reiterate that.

This man revived a sleeping legendary Pokémon, on his own, with his own magic. In a canon material. And all he needed was the legendary's sleeping form, some torches, and a big enough space to make his magic circle in--a magic circle he made with magic, not a physical means.

That! He did THAT!!! (The glowing red obedience brainwashing is from the Colress Machine.  But tbh bringing the legendary out of the rock is a bit more impressive to me. Anybody can command Pokémon.  Most people don’t do /gestures) that.)

(credit where credit is due, tho, colress, you are p gr8.)

So you can probably see why I figured 'okay. He's pretty magically capable. I can OP him if i do it right.'

I'll run down some other canon i drew from.

In the games the Abyssal Ruins tells tales of the king buried within, The Great King Harmonia who ruled and protected Unova 3000 years ago.

Ghetsis's passive ability, aside from other canon instances, is inspired by:

Listen to King's words.

Here we praise King.

King's light shines.

King moves his people

Active abilities are also inspired by some of the contente here, such as:

King's light shines. and Shine if agreed. - Ghetsis can control fire to a certain degree, as well as just generally create light and visual imagery.

Eating is receiving life. - Ghetsis can draw life energy out of others, though this isn't something he really knows how to do at the moment unless he severely injures or exhausts his target--i.e. causes them to already be draining of life or not ‘holding onto’ their life. He doesn't use this much however and this power is more ritual than inherit(if he were to do it there's probably be a magic circle involved or something more elaborate than just magic use.)

Saved all from waves. - the Great King Harmonia saved Unova from a horrific tsunami. Probably caused by a clumsy lugia. Similarly, water is something he can control, though he probably wouldn't be able to stop a whole tsunami by himself.  Maybe a storm.

Act strong if agreed. - buffing and debuffing, some healing, but for the most part his healing is best in the form of like.  Ritual necromancy at best.

In the anime(and I’d include pics for this but I don’t remember which episode it was and I have a lot of frames i’d have to go through to find out):

Anthea and Concordia can slip between planes of existence and live hidden away there with N. This usually manifests as a fog, and entering it takes you off the plane you're on and into another one, seemingly in some sort of forest, though there's a swamp inside too that we've seen, and a whole building, so there's probably way more to the area. There's an invisible source to it from the outside world, which Ghetsis had Team Plasma locate and break through, as the idk source shield thing keeps what's outside out but can be broken through to enter. When you're forced out of the plane and back into the previous one, your surroundings will be completely different, so it's not exactly somewhere that fully corresponds to the material plane.

I’ve decided that Ghetsis can also do this--this plane of existence(i also call it 'slip space') is where Ghetsis is at present day, and he has his own little cabin house hideaway in there where he's recovering and plotting and resting.

What's supposed to happen is that the fog disappears and closes up the entrance. However, Ghetsis opened the space in a bad physical and mental condition. As a result the magic is a bit. . .wonky. it's not usually properly closed up at all, and so if the fog is discovered and walked into, you'll wind up in the woods Ghetsis is hiding in. However, the fog's current existing criteria is something like 'place with a lot of trees and low external visibility' or something like that. So sometimes it isn't even in Unova and you can reach it from somewhere else entirely--and, subsequently, Ghetsis can leave it and wind up somewhere else entirely too. It's mostly connected to him, so it only moves if he's still inside--it'll stay where it is if he leaves, so he can go back to it, unless he closes or deactivates it entirely.

Like I said earlier, in the anime Ghetsis performs the Ceremony of Revival--which, the first(?) time he uses it during N's coronation, causes Reshiram to come and burn down his castle and kill a bunch of people and really piss Ghetsis off because what more do you want reshiram????? The second time he uses it(i assume it's the same thing) he has his grunts set up a circle of torches on some altar somewhere, his cane glows, he makes a massive glowing red magic circle on the ground, he lifts the light stone in the air, and all the fucking fire just goes up to the light stone and into it, eventually giving enough strength to Reshiram for it to come back to life/wake up, and it woke up pissed. He knew it would be angry though. Idk what that says about this process but it says something.

. . .anyway, Ghetsis can do a lot of things with his magic because he has most of King Harmonia’s powers, albeit watered down. But some things are too much for his mortal human body to handle. . .ever. not even just in his current condition but period. So nothing too intensive. . .and for the most part, not a ton of simply benevolent things like healing. But intensity is kinda dependent on how he goes about it.

(On the topics of passive and active skills, N's passive is obvs his ability to communicate with and understand Pokémon. Does he have others? Maybe! Thats for N-muns to decide.  Ghetsis will try and teach him to use anything he finds out that he has, tbh--and see how he can use it for the future haha.) ))

[presondegos1987-blog]

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