#you can imagine what happens next
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saintdaily · 8 months ago
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Is this thing on? Saint baking an egg
day 104
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antsday · 1 month ago
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okay i will admit it: i don't like 431 from a narrative standpoint (or really any standpoint) but if you view it exclusively as the true epilogue in an alternate universe of mha in which 5 year old katsuki is right about deku looking down on him and doing everything to spite him and wanting to bring about his downfall then the whole thing becomes kind of absurdly funny
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thebiscuitlabryinth · 10 months ago
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[prev]
In the end, it doesn't matter. His plans, his intentions, his hopes, none of it matters.
In his dreams, it is disturbingly easy for Pure Vanilla to forget that the world is larger than the two of them, full of Cookies with their own plans and motives. In the careful cradle of his dreams, cocooned within Shadow Milk's constant presence, he hadn't even considered that there were other options.
Now, he is forced to confront them, and he can barely pay attention to anything. He isn't sure what happened in the first place, everything moving too quickly for him to process a thing. There is chaos everywhere, a flurry of colours and sounds and happenings whipping around him like a hurricane, the veil of darkness turning it all into a blur. The air is thrumming with unleashed archaic power, pricking his dough like pins and needles, and it all goes straight to his head, making him dizzy.
His grip on his staff is tight, leaning against it as he closes his eyes and borrows its gaze in the hopes of having a clearer view. It is just as indecipherable through his staff though, which means he isn't seeing things – the world really is coming apart at the seams, his nightmares unfurling before him.
And worst of all, Pure Vanilla is awake. He is wide, wide awake and cold with shock.
"There you are!"
Arms wrap around his shoulders from behind, the voice chiming delightedly in his ear. Pure Vanilla pulls away with a violent jerk of his body, not quite having the mind to be surprised that the arms let him, spinning around to face the other.
Shadow Milk stands, practically glowing with giddy joy, in a newly-crafted body of fresh dough, and it is strange to see him so solid. He stretches his arms above his head, leaning from side to side, before turning in a circle with a flourish, as if to show the body off.
"Wonderful, isn't it? And with this, Little Miss Guardian can't lock us back up again so easily! Certainly not with a dirty little trick like patching up some cracks." His voice is jovial, even as irritation flickers over his eyes at the memory of his encounter with White Lily. It disappears quickly, swallowed by tide of something that could almost be taken as childlike excitement. "Ah, it's so fun to have my own body again!"
It's the sort of happiness Pure Vanilla had hoped to see from him, but seeing it now, it just makes his heart ache fiercely, his chest seconds away from caving in. He is beautiful, a fact preserved even through the filter of his staff's eye, and everything is falling apart around him.
"What are you doing?" He asks, hardly more than a whisper, hardly able to manage those words anyway. It isn't the fact that Shadow Milk is out, physically here in front of him that makes him feel queasy. If it were only that, Pure Vanilla suspects he'd match him in his joy. It isn't even that he grabbed the first opportunity to escape, even if it wasn't following Pure Vanilla's plans for negotiation.
It is the upheaval sweeping around him, a complete lack of care for the surroundings and exactly as Shadow Milk was before, that is what hurts. Pure Vanilla had never lied when he said he believed in him.
"Celebrating, of course! This is my greatly anticipated grand return!" Shadow Milk announces cheerfully, taking an overdramatic bow before glancing at Pure Vanilla with a cheeky grin. His eyes glitter like stars, in that way that always mesmerises him. "Come on, Vani, dance with me!"
He reaches for both of Pure Vanilla's hands, not fazed by the fact that one is still holding his staff. He simply traps Pure Vanilla's hand between his and the staff as he pulls him towards him, using the momentum to whirl them around. Pure Vanilla stumbles, and without thinking, he scrambles to hold Shadow Milk back, his stomach and head churning uselessly.
It must show on his face, the horrible turbulance within him, because Shadow Milk's eyes all squint at him, some softly, others teasingly. He lets go of the hand not on his staff, instead wrapping his arm around Pure Vanilla's waist to offer him more stability. "What are you looking so gloomy for? Isn't this what you wanted?"
"Not like this, you know that." Pure Vanilla whispers, his now free hand balling into a fist and falling weakly to rest against Shadow Milk's shoulder. His sadness leaks heavy into his tone, but he can't help it, can barely articulate himself. "I wanted you to be better."
Shadow Milk doesn't reply for a moment, still dragging him through the motions of a partner dance. He seems to realise Pure Vanilla isn't planning to open his eyes anytime soon, because his eyes slide over to make contact with him through his staff, his grin simmering down to a smile, still unbearably cheerful. "You didn't truly believe that would work, did you?"
It's a harmless question, in the grand scheme of things, in the whirlpool of everything happening around them, but it feels like a cracking punch to the stomach. Shadow Milk had seemed reluctant at first, but he had never outright refused his idea. By the end of it, he even seemed to be considering it seriously, but something said as bluntly as that must be his true feelings–
"So you lied to me." Pure Vanilla murmurs hollowly, the cracks in his heart filling with sticky disappointment, all towards himself. He can't bring himself to hate Shadow Milk for acting within his own nature, not when he should have known. "...Of course you did."
For the first time since he regained a physical form, Shadow Milk's smile drops completely, replaced with a fake pout. Though it seems lighthearted, the stars in his eyes spark with annoyance.
"I would never! How could you say such a terrible thing about me, after all we've been through?" Shadow Milk laments with exaggerated sorrow, throwing Pure Vanilla into an awkward twirl as his free hand rests against his own forehead like a hapless maiden. Pure Vanilla's brain seems to scramble at the sudden movement, barely gathering his bearings as Shadow Milk's arm returns to his waist. He thinks he may be sick.
"Remember, I said you could try your little plan out, not that I ever agreed to it." Shadow Milk reminds him in a low croon, lined with condescension. "I even told you I thought it was a stupid idea! I may be the Beast of Deceit, but I never directly lied to you. I'm a little hurt you assumed I did. I thought you knew me better than that!"
And Pure Vanilla can't muster a response to that, spirit growing soggier by the second, because it is true. His hope had led him into assumptions that were misguided, how can he blame Shadow Milk for that?
Somewhere in the background, there is the rumble of an explosion.
"You might have been able to convince me, you know." Shadow Milk adds with a gossamer thin smile, his voice growing more serious. "There was just one eensy-weensy problem with your argument."
Pure Vanilla trips over something behind him with a frazzled yelp, unconsiously gripping Shadow Milk's shoulder as his hat falls off, and Shadow Milk uses the momentum to lower him into a dip, bowing over him as he finally pauses their dance.
"You assumed that I need to be fixed," Shadow Milk spits the words through his teeth with a slight growl, curling his lip disdainfully as he pushes their faces far too close together, "but there's nothing to fix. We paid the price for having power the Witches' themselves gave us, all because of their cowardice and fickleness." He huffs, smiling with a lack of mirth. "Good punishments always teach a lesson, you say, but our punishment was unjust, decided on a whim. What lesson could it possibly teach?"
Pure Vanilla stares at him wordlessly, ears buzzing nervously. He feels vaguely like he is in freefall, his body tensing in anticipation of hitting the ground.
Instead, like a switch is flipped, Shadow Milk's stormy expression clears back into that pleasant merriment.
"But enough about all that," Shadow Milk says with faux politeness as he straightens up smoothly, jerking Pure Vanilla back onto his feet and sweeping him back into a circling dance, "now is the time for celebration! Relax!"
Shadow Milk draws Pure Vanilla even closer to him, almost pressing their bodies together, and Pure Vanilla, despite himself, is struck by the warmth of it. Shadow Milk has always been cold to the touch in his dreams but here, in this new body, he is too warm, radiating a heat that suggests getting too close will burn.
Shadow Milk hums a jaunty tune in his ear as they sway to and fro, and Pure Vanilla's darts his gaze around in an attempt to ground his thoughts. He must focus. He isn't sure where the others are – are the children safe? Where is White Lily? Shadow Milk isn't the only one who escaped, of that he is certain, so it is likely they are surrounded by danger on all sides, and that isn't even taking Dark Enchantress' forces into consideration. But if Shadow Milk is focused on him here, that is at least one less Beast for them to handle.
There you are, he had said when he found him. Shadow Milk had been seeking him out specifically, and surely not just for an innocent dance, so why—
Pure Vanilla glances down with sinking dread and realisation, jam turning cold.
"You're here for the Soul Jam, aren't you?" He murmurs, more to himself than Shadow Milk, but he must hear anyway, because his humming trails off. Pure Vanilla doesn't give him time to process the words though, yanking his staff up and suddenly there is light.
It is an extremely clumsy spell that misses by a mile – Pure Vanilla isn't awfully practised in offensive magic, and on top of that, his dough is shaking with too many emotions – but it does the trick. The bright flash startles Shadow Milk just enough for his grip to loosen, and Pure Vanilla wastes no time in scrambling back and away.
He gets a good few paces away before he is stopped by firm tug on his wrist, almost knocking him over. The beginning of real fear begins to well within him as he looks down to find himself caught by a dozen strings, shimmering like spun silk, all leading back to Shadow Milk's own hands as he approaches through the parting haze.
"I didn't know you had that in you. Bravo!" He laughs as he claps, seeming to be at ease, the attack doing nothing to dampen his mood. He comes to a stop nearby, wrapping the strings around his hand once, twice before pulling Pure Vanilla forward in a long, smooth motion that allows Shadow Milk to tuck his arm behind his back as he leans forward to meet him. "But to answer your question..."
Shadow Milk reaches up to grab the clasp that holds his Soul Jam as Pure Vanilla strains against the strings, knowing that despite any fondness he might have for him, he had never planned to let him have this. He braces for it to be ripped off, he braces for it to be gently pried away for him – he isn't sure which would be worse.
He does not brace for Shadow Milk to bend down and press a delicate kiss against its smooth surface.
"I'm here for the Soul Jam and you." He smirks against it, eyes flicking up from its sapphire shine to Pure Vanilla's stunned face, frozen in place. "That shouldn't be a surprise to you, after all our time spent together."
"You must be joking." Pure Vanilla chokes out before he can say any more, voice stuffy with conflicting emotions, gripping his staff so tightly he's distantly worried it may snap. His head is swimming, so much so that he worries he will faint, even though he's never been prone to it. "You don't mean that."
"I do." Shadow Milk replies with breezy confidence, his expression falling neutral as he straightens up just enough to press their foreheads together. It is not quite as impactful with Pure Vanilla seeing through his staff, but the contact between their dough still burns. "I like you. So, because I like you, I've come to collect everything."
Pure Vanilla is seeing through his staff, so he knows he is not imagining the solemn furrow of his brow, the slight pinch of his mouth, the lifetimes behind his eyes, the lifetimes he has fallen for. He is sure, almost instinctively, that he is telling the truth, and the mere thought makes his insides collapse into themselves like an agonising supernova.
"Please," he begs helplessly, strangely hoarse, abandoning his staff's eye and welcoming the darkness, unable to look anymore, "don't do this to me. It's–"
–cruel, but the word gets stuck in his throat. It is an accidental cruelty, and it hurts, hurts more than anything else, more than words can describe, even more than the all-encompassing ache of Dark Enchantress' first appearance, and the realisation that she shared White Lily's shadow. At least, then, Dark Enchantress was clear in her hatred, never allowing an opportunity for hope to fester. For all the pain that caused, the distance kept his head clearer.
But what is he meant to do now, knowing that Shadow Milk Cookie, for all he has done and will do, is sincere when he says he likes him? It is an irony that burdens him like a curse, but he almost wishes that it was a lie. It would be painful either way, but surely being tricked outright and mocked for it would be easier to cut clean from, to compartmentalise.
An ugly, painful sob rattles through his chest, and he bites down on it before it can leave his mouth, shoulders curling inwards like a wilting plant. Shadow Milk's arms loop around them, weighing them down further.
"Look at me." He calls, calm and low and stern, a professor's tone, and Pure Vanilla shudders with another swallowed sob.
"Look at me, Pure Vanilla." He repeats, a little louder, but it is the use of his name that catches his attention like a snare. Shadow Milk doesn't often use his proper name, not when it is just the two of them.
Pure Vanilla finally opens his own eyes, slowly and with difficulty, gummy with unshed tears and unable to make out anything beyond colourful shapes. Shadow Milk's face takes up his whole vision either way, and it makes his pain worsen. He can't look at him, not now, with everything that makes up Pure Vanilla jumbled into a mess and the world around them jumbled to match.
Surprising himself, Pure Vanilla sluggishly shifts to bury his face in Shadow Milk's shoulder, his shaking hands dropping his staff to clumsily grip his back in tight fistfuls. It surprises Shadow Milk too, judging by his slight jolt, but his arms tighten like a noose around his neck, pulling him close into a hug.
"You're awful." Pure Vanilla croaks, muffled and aching, squeezing his eyes shut again and soaking in the searing heat of the other, eating him alive.
Between them, the Virtue of Knowledge hums discordantly, its fractured pieces reunited at last. Shadow Milk chuckles, a sound Pure Vanilla feels rather than hears.
"If I'm awful," he says lightly, rocking them from side to side in a soothing rhythm, "then you must be too."
fin.
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bisexuallsokka · 7 months ago
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beautiful girl saw my sokka embroidery hanging on my wall and said "he's always given me major dyke energy"
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yuwuta · 6 months ago
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twin aus are fun bc sukuna is sooooo ugly and yuuji is soooooooo pretty and beautiful and lovely <3 completely understand why sukuna ends up the deliquent loser twin bc why would anybody choose him when <3yuuji<3 is right there
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get-caitjinxed · 1 month ago
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Writing prompt: post arcane, Caitlyn was able to track down jinx in secret to keep tabs and to make sure that she’s alive for Vi’s “sake”. Secrete check in became when secret meet ups when jinx discovers she’s being trailed. Then those meetups became secret rendezvous because of her obsession of with the cat and mouse game with jinx.
Bilgewater was not a place Caitlyn Kiramman had ever expected to find herself in, let alone more than once. She had also never expected to find herself so dedicated to locating her wife's long-presumed-dead sister. But she had known Jinx was alive since she found the remnants of her bombs in the rubble of the hexgate tower. She was a detective, after all - she couldn't let a missing person go unfound.
And Jinx was missing, because no body was ever recovered. They had found Vander and laid him to rest, but there was no sign of Jinx.
Caitlyn did not tell Vi. She felt guilty at first, not wanting to lie to her lover, but she could understand why Jinx fled. Vi needed space. She needed time to heal. She needed to be able to let go. Caitlyn respected Jinx's unspoken wishes.
Still, she couldn't just let her disappear. That was not in Caitlyn's nature. A mystery unsolved would keep her awake at night for years to come.
Jinx was well-traveled. She had gone to Demacia first, where Caitlyn had easily tracked her down. Vi had actually been with her that time, but she slipped away after she had fallen asleep. Caitlyn didn't approach Jinx, instead observing her candor with Luxanna Crownguard, who was also skulking about in disguise.
Ionia was next. Caitlyn planned a trip to visit her father's family, during which she snuck out and found Jinx sampling the local cuisine.
It was in Noxus where they finally crossed paths. Caitlyn was working a security detail on a diplomatic trip. She was thrilled to see Mel again, but she could practically smell Jinx all over the port city where the meeting was taking place.
"I know you've been following me," Jinx had told her. "Impressive, really. I didn't think you'd travel overseas just to figure out where I was."
"It's my job to know where you are."
"Is it?"
"Faking your death didn't clear your name. You're still Piltover's Most Wanted."
"I don't think this is your jurisdiction, Sheriff."
It was the first of several encounters. Caitlyn was becoming quite the globetrotter following in Jinx's footsteps. Even Vi was impressed. She had suggested Caitlyn quit the force and start working as a diplomat for the Council, but she refused. That would defeat the point. She was an enforcer, and Jinx was a wanted criminal.
This was why Caitlyn was in Bilgewater. Thoroughly undercover, as no one here would appreciate a lawman running around stirring up trouble. Caitlyn knew how to keep a low profile, but she also knew that Jinx was already aware of her presence. She had left a note in her inn room. Well, less of a note, and more of a sketch. That classic monkey. Pink and blue.
They met each other in a dark, dank alley under the cover of persistent fog. Jinx's hair had grown out over the years, though it was nowhere near the length it used to be. Caitlyn approached her slowly.
"Is there a problem, officer?" Jinx asked.
"There's always a problem with you," said Caitlyn, her voice low.
With a practiced swiftness, Caitlyn grabbed Jinx's wrists and pinned her against the wall. She licked her lips and leaned down, nipping at Jinx's lower lip.
"If we can come to an 'agreement', I might be willing to let you go," she whispered.
"I think I understand the terms of your deal, Sheriff. And I accept."
Caitlyn didn't wait. As soon as the words left Jinx's mouth, her tongue replaced them. There was that sweet, electric taste she had grown to love. The kiss was sloppy, hungry. Caitlyn had no patience when it came to Jinx. She barely parted from her to breathe. When she finally pulled away, Jinx's dark lipstick had smeared across both of their faces.
"You got some of me on you," Jinx slurred.
"I've got somewhere else you can spread your lipstick," said Caitlyn.
She let go of Jinx's wrists, put a hand on top of her head, and pushed her down onto her knees.
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mulders-too-large-shirt · 2 months ago
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s5 episode 7 thoughts
(voice cracking) hey guys. how are you doing? because i’m fine. actually super incredibly fine. have never been better, in fact. (heavy on the /s)
this episode feels so final, in a way. there is before this episode and after it, and there is no going back. and we have had plenty of those episodes that involve a shedding of innocence, but we’ll reach a point where you think, surely it cannot get worse than this. and you’ll never guess what happens next: somehow, it does.
sniffs. scully always chooses love, bro. and mulder chooses her and therefore chooses love. and they choose each other. and they deserve to be happy, to be a happy little family.
take me back to around 14 hours ago, when i pressed play on this episode immediately after watching the previous one, not even bothering to make this writeup until now, because i was too invested:
okay. so yes. i broke my rule and i’m watching this episode right away. and yes i feel sick.  (author’s note to past self: girl if you felt sick then imagine how you feel now LMAOOOO)
“it begins where it ends…. in nothingness. a nightmare born from deepest fears, coming to me unguarded” <- girl what are we opening with? she's in these black robes, striding across sand...
is she looking at death itself??? again?? how many times must this happen??? is SHE death itself???
she picks up her necklace… and declares herself alone, as ever. but you're not alone, scully!
bum bum bum bum… intro time… 
mulder, please come and provide emotional support if nothing else. you are desperately needed
YES, HE IS HERE!!!!!! he is watching scully watch emily color. 
OHHHH MY GOD. hold on. she introduces him to emily as her friend, and he immediately is making funny faces to get emily to laugh. stop. i need to be sedated.
he notices her cross necklace on emily. and he doesn't say anything but he doesn't need to, because that says enough. the cross that hung from his neck when she was gone, returned to her as she returned to life, and now placed around the neck of this little girl.
he had frohike hack into the system to find her surrogate mother omg… frohike is an ally… her birth mother is named anna fugazzi…. fugazzi is a slang term for fake??? he thinks they made a whole fake profile to hide her origins??
oh my god….
mulder is telling her that being around emily is incredibly dangerous; whoever it was that killed her adoptive parents would clearly go after her next. “i can protect her, too” “yeah, but who’s gonna protect you?” <- PLEASE KILL ME IT WOULD HURT LESS
“i’ve considered that, but i‘ve also considered that there’s only one right thing to do” <- ohhh, scully and her Need to do the Morally Correct Thing……… it’ll haunt me forever. she's willing to drop everything she has in her life to give this child a better life. and she didn't even knew she existed until a few days ago.
man, i miss s1 sometimes. bitch take me back…
HE CAME TO TESTIFY AT HER HEARING TO ADOPT HER??? and he says he shouldn’t have come because he doesn’t want to see her hurt like emily's adoptive parents were 😭😭😭 but he did. because he supports her through anything. and he knows that this poor little girl was never supposed to happen.
this man is nervously cracking sunflower seeds outside the hearing room. and bill is glaring at mulder like he didn’t just fly down here to save the day. fuck him for real.
oh, this judge guy is immediately tearing into his facts about the abduction. this never stops happening to mulder when he presents his theories. it must be getting old.
she was gone for four weeks when she was abducted. did we ever know the length of time?? huh. not sure if i picked up on that if we did.
he cannot explain to this guy why anyone would do this to scully and put the child up for adoption, but that is her child!!
“not in any legal definition” “well, if you can show me a precedent for this case, i’d like to see it” <- ohhhh tell him!!!
ohhh my god... “dana has known for quite some time that she can’t bear children. she hasn’t known why. now, however that happened, the fact that she can adopt this child- her own flesh and blood- is something i don’t feel i have the right to question, and i don’t believe anybody has the right to stand in the way of” <- that is best friendship. they love each other so terribly. terrible in the sense of a storm, or a natural disaster, in the sense of love being a force
oh my god man hold on. hold on. so had they talked about it before?? how she couldn't have kids?? and did he tell her why?? i don't think he did, because she is looking on at him with such horror as he shares these facts
there is such a terrible feeling of never being able to go back to before associated with all of this…
mulder is at bill’s house now, fidgeting with their nativity, while scully descends from the stairs. she was helping tara get into bed. oh my god. she loves her family so much.
OHHH the big reveal: “why didn’t you tell me? mulder?” “i never expected this. i thought i was protecting you” <- so she never knew that he knew… which is why she looked so horrified when she heard him say that to the judge…
he thought he was keeping her safe??? because he must have known that these people were willing to kill to keep their experiments in order. it reminds me of when he was at the evil honey farm and the alien said the clone children don't need parents....... the utter lack of humanity...
he says he knew children were being created, but not for who or for what purpose. :(
she gets a call, seemingly with no one on the other end, and with one look he has his phone on him, calling to get it traced. their ability to communicate without language is fascinating. within seconds, he has the location
it’s the children’s center where emily’s being held!!!
so is it still the ghost of melissa calling them somehow?? or is there an informer in there???
they’re at the door of the children's center right away!!!! is someone going to hurt emily????? they barge right in despite it being the middle of the night
emily’s in bed, with a horrific fever. mulder picks her up (oh my god, this made me feel terriblly emotional things) and he notices there is something on her neck.
IT IS A TERRIBLE GREEN POISON LUMPY THING?????
the doctor says there is some kind of infection, and they’re having the thing on her neck biopsied.
there’s an awful pause as they're standing outside the hospital room, and he asks if they are the parents…. mulder steps to the side and lets her say that she is the mother, which is so insane to hear, while mulder watches, terribly worried. 
he watches as they’re about to cut the thing on her neck…. but he realizes it is the green alien blood (which he can see, so NOT red/green colorblind) and starts banging on the door, telling the doctor to get away!!! but she doesn’t listen!!! the doctor collapses right then and there from the exposure to the alien blood gas, while they look on in horror. 
so emily is one of the alien hybrid children... i had thought that those were all clones, but i guess there are some unique ones as well. or maybe the ones we have seen in the past all shape-shift to look the same? CSM, this is your fault. evil has a face and a name and he writes bad fiction.
emily is on a mild sedative, and the ER doctor somehow made it. scully asks mulder how he knew what was going on, and he says he had the doctor put in an ice bath like she did when he was exposed :( he remembered.... :(
the dr. calderon that emily was seeing before refuses to transfer her information over!!! and says that scully has no authority over this child!!!! he is straight up willing to let her die.
she refuses to leave her. 
mulder is sent instead to interrogate him; he asks what he can say to convince dr. calderon to convince him to transfer the files over. but dr. calderon says it’s about business reasons. mulder asks how much money is worth letting this child die.
OHHHHHH HE IS THROWING HANDS….. 
holy fuck, i need a moment. he calls calderon and his team "medical rapists", a term i was previously unfamiliar with, and says now they’re just going to let her DIE??? AND HE PULLS OUT A GUN???
“why don’t you tell me whose life is worth saving, yours or hers!!” <- DAMN!!!
mulder is willing to kill for scully and that baby she just learned existed... i need a moment
he only puts his gun away because the police are at the door… but he’s gonna follow him. 
meanwhile, emily is watching cartoons while scully is in scrubs. she wants to talk to emily… she’s explaining that she has to do some tests. "mommy said no more tests" <- now what does that mean?
they insert the child into the machine. poor scully watches.
god, scully must feel so strange at the moment. and she gets flashbacks to her abduction from hearing the MRI machine beeping….
dr. calderon is running into a fancy gated home. and the other men who were watching scully before are here!!!!! 
OH MY GOD???? THEY STABBED THE DOCTOR'S NECK WITH THE NEEDLE, AND THE GREEN GAS CAME OUT???
and the other one morphed into calderon??? SO THEY’RE THE ALIENS????
but mulder is here……..
(i’m torn between genuine devastation and the sheer absurdity of this plot)
back at the hospital, we learn emily has some sort of infection into her brain that is expanding along her nervous system
and the guy who is pretending to be calderon is here!!!
scully and the real doctor are talking medicine, what can and cannot be done for her.
NO WHAT? THE ALIEN THAT TOOK CALDERON'S FACE IS HERE WITH THE NEEDLE GAS STUFF??? he just left emily's room……
scully's going after this guy, but he switches faces the minute they catch him!!!!!
mulder is still tailing the people from the pharmaceutical company. he tells scully he doesn’t think they want emily dead either, but for different reasons… they want their experiment to work, i assume is what he implies, but he hangs up then to go do some more tailing.
detective kresge is here!!!! scully tells him she thinks these men killed emily's adoptive parents because they stopped doing the tests!!! and that must be why that mysterious man came in to see her!!!!
i’m ready to see some heads roll over this whole matter. 
mulder lets himself into the weird huge gated house he saw dr. calderon go into, which seems to be an nursing home, with a label on a shelf for a. fuggazi. she’s a real person???? and she’s 71 years old???
but now emily is getting worse, with the growth spreading; it is killing her. the doctor says they should be grateful she isn’t in pain. 
chambliss shows up to tell scully that the court is freaked out that she’s making choices for emily, but she points out that she is “a medical doctor, and the decisions that i make are reasonable and right” and we know this to be true!!!
OHHHH MY GOD chambliss says that she has no authority, and scully says that if they take her out of the hospital, she will have it known that all of them are responsible for emily's worsening health…… holy fuck
“what do you want me to tell them you’re doing for her?” “i don’t know yet. but i will” <- she thinks there has to be hope…. :(
frohike is on the phone!!!! mulder is reading the names of the women in the nursing home, while frohike looks them up. and somehow they all gave birth to children in the last few years??? despite being 70+ years old????
and frohike wants to know if they are attractive. mulder says he might have a shot with these ones LMAO <- rare moment of levity in what may be the darkest fucking episode of all time
these elderly women are being prescribed estrogen and progesterone, which are in abundance in pregnant women……….
anna comes to mulder and says she wants to start her beauty sleep??? and it’s taken years off of her appearance??? do the aliens turn them young somehow??? and then use them to have children???
holy fuck. horrific commentary on the intersections of reproductive rights and elder abuse....
emily is now being inserted into a new tube for testing, with scully saying she will be right there the whole time. the air in the tube hurts emily's ears??? and makes her veins pop out??????? she is yelling at the doctor to stop running the test, but i don't even really understand what is going on, beyond that emily cannot handle it
mulder is still at the nursing home, where he finds a bunch of the old women in bed, attached to IVs with the hormones he mentioned earlier!!! so they get the IVs in their sleep and then they... no, it's too disturbing to even say
so he looks in the fridge and inside he finds some papers…. HUH???? it has scully’s name on them???? and inside is ANOTHER BABY IN A TUBE????
what the fuck??? this is messed up!!!!
he also finds vials of the green stuff that you use to kill the aliens!!!! but now the shapeshifting alien guy from before is here!!!! so he's running out with the vials!!! 
but detective kresge is here and stops mulder!!!!! IS THE DETECTIVE WORKING FOR THE ALIENS???
NO!! kresge is trying to keep him safe!!! the alien picks him up and tosses him like a rag doll!!!
but kresge gets up and shoots him despite mulder’s many warnings, so he hisses as his alien body releases that toxic green gas!! NO, KRESGE!! you were mean at first, but i grew to like you!!!
the alien takes kresge’s face and dips while mulder is trying to get backup!!!!!!!!!!!!
poor scully is watching emily through the window; she has gone into a coma. mulder suddenly arrives. but before mulder can say anything, she claims she’s okay. 
“but if you could treat her?” “i wouldn’t. i wouldn’t do it to her” “are you sure?” <- oh my god? is she going to take her off of life support? does she think it is wrong to keep her alive with no quality of life? we know she believes that in her own will... is she realizing there is nothing she can do? and why does she always lead with "i'm okay" when she isn't?
“mulder, whoever brought this child into this world didn’t intend to love her”
“i think she was born to serve an agenda” (a horrific thing for a human to be)
“i have a chance to stop that. you were right. this child was not meant to be”
but she is. she is here. and she doesn't have much longer.
he rubs her back and says he’ll stay with her. STOOOOOP
but she says she’d like to be alone. so he quietly walks away.
oh my god. he was going to stay with her while she watched her baby die... but she said she wanted to do it alone....... 
he still has that one vial of green stuff in his pocket, and pulls it out in the hallway. while she’s going in to presumable say goodbye. she lays her head next to emily, crawling into her bed. oh my god.
then we see a stained glass window of mary holding baby jesus while scully sits in a pew. maggie is here, asking if she’s ready. she tells her she’ll get a ride back with mulder. and she hugs her family, smiling at tara’s new baby, kissing him on the head.
there is a little casket, and scully stares at it as mulder comes in, laying flowers upon it. 
“who are the men who would create a life whose only hope is to die?” “i don’t know. but that you found her… and you had a chance to love her… maybe she was meant for that, too” <- oh my god??? oh my god.
“she found me” “so you could save her” <- and she did save her... she saved her from an unhappy home and unethical experiments and loved her in the week that she knew her, and let her go peacefully instead of suffering....
then she asks about kresge, who somehow made it, but the nursing home has been cleaned out, and no one else knew of calderon’s work. but there is evidence of what they did, she says, staring at the casket. 
she takes the flowers, lifts up the lid, and mulder turns around to give her space. but the casket is empty, except for the cross necklace. which she holds, closing her eyes. so they took her body, too???
the sand… the necklace… the opening scene… the parallels… i’m, like, blubbering as i type this
what the fuck!! who came up with this?? it is so fucked up and horrific and why. why. why. why did they make her undergo that and where do we go from here? no seriously, how is she going to just. clock into work the next day. not knowing she had a daughter except for a single week they had together and then she watched her die.
i honestly think scully is a saint because. if someone told me my autonomy had been taken and they made a baby out of me without my consent, i think i would be horrified and want nothing to do with the poor child. i would think, i have no relation to that little person. it was done without my knowledge, and how can i claim any connection to something i never knew?
(i mean, that is all i can imagine i would do; i know nothing of what it feels like to want or have or learn you have a baby. so keep that fact in mind if i don't fully grasp the weight of everything here. but believe me, what i am grasping is weighty enough)
but she said, i have a baby and i need to love her, because the option to make my own decision was denied, but i need to do the right thing. she just barrels in and loves her. no hesitation. and then she watches her die. 
and what the fuck?? from a writer’s perspective are they just trying to overtly comment on the lack of women’s healthcare?? because this hits different in the current political climate in a way they couldn’t have seen at the time. and i do feel somewhat inspired to write an essay on the subject. and using the elderly women as incubators... holy hell. it really speaks to the lack of agency women have over their own bodies and the terrifying nature of government intervention into women's healthcare...
mulder showing up right away to testify for her… scully being willing to throw her whole career away for a child she never knew she had… i need a few days and maybe a drink.
where do they go from this? how do you move on from learning you have a child, choosing to love it for the week you knew her, and then watching her die? how do you just go hunt bigfoot after that?
i feel like this show throws too many emotional punches and doesn't give us time to let the aftershocks sink in and the grief be processed. i hope that this time we get that chance.
and oh, how tender both of them were with emily... i just know that if they have kids, that child is going to be so loved... i am gonna cry at the thought. because we have always been able to see that mulder wants a family so desperately, but with scully it was more simmering under the surface until it boiled over, and now she knows what that feeling is like, but it was taken away from her and it can never come back, but maybe someday she can find happiness, and they can find happiness together, and raise a little kid who they can hold and carry and read books to and fuck i'm emotional!!!
i'm thinking about how even way back in season 1 we see them dealing with kids and the foreshadowing to this, this glimpse of what could have been in another life, but what isn't in this timeline. and how he was there for her while she waded through entirely incomprehensible emotions. and again i come back to the fact she chose to love this little girl despite having no knowledge of her.
and how they choose to find meaning in that week they knew her, with mulder telling her that she saved emily, that she let her experience love and happiness. to try and find any purpose to their inexplicably cosmic suffering.
fuck!!!
as always, please tell me what you think!!! what was your reaction when you saw this for the first time?? what was the reaction of the wider public? did you also cry a million tears? did you also cry at the mental image of them having a little baby? has your perception of the episode changed over time? if you have kids now do you cry even more? will chris carter ever work on whatever it is he has going on with making women suffer? i need to know every last detail.
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lokiusly · 1 year ago
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lokius reunion —
An army of Kangs fight the Avengers from all of the timelines in order to control the multiverse.
A TVA analyst is in their midst, along with the TVA army.
And from across the battlefield, the king of the multiverse, god of stories— Loki, spots him. And Mobius sees him too.
Loki raises his hands, pausing the bloodshed. Time is stopped but he can’t hold for much longer.
He parts the sea of warriors in battle and walks directly to Mobius, never breaking eye contact.
Suddenly, they are face to face with each other, after being apart for so long.
They smile.
"Loki." Mobius breathes.
Loki steps closer, his hands still raised.
Mobius looks at him with adoration, just like he did all those centuries ago.
"Mobius." Loki's eyes glisten.
With one hand, Loki pulls Mobius closer to him and their lips intertwine.
Loki's hands twitch. He can't hold off time much longer.
As he releases the effect, he pulls away from Mobius reluctantly.
Mobius furrows his eyebrows at Loki's worried expression.
As the screams and bloodshed start again, Loki puts on a brave front, winks at Mobius, and gently pushes him back — a time door opening, sending him far from here, to safety.
Loki touched his lips and smiles. His hands turned green and he faced the battlefield
If more time was going to pass, he would fight.
He would make sure he would make it back to his love, because his love believed he would— and he wasn't going to disappoint him now.
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deiaiko · 2 years ago
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Tumblr media Tumblr media
#12 - Sorrow
Masterlist
Previous
Next
Let me know your thoughts in the reblogs <3
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collgeruledzebra · 1 month ago
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thinking about the possibility of jesse's power boost during the final fight sequence coming at least partially from her status as a living legend among random bureau staff
#much like the service weapon following the director there is literally no evidence in game directly pointing to this that i can think of#it would just be neat#like i mean imagine being in that situation some horrible thing is turning all your coworkers into monsters youre pinned down#getting your ass handed to you and suddenly this random woman youve never seen before in civilian clothes literally *swoops* in#and fucking obliterates the lot of them in minutes displaying parautilitarian abilities orders of magnitude greater than any before recorded#shrugging off any injuries#and then she goes to the control point and apparently forces the building back to normal through sheer force of will#and then just fucks off to the next place?? maybe stopping to grab some sensitive documents on the way bc whos gonna stop her#obvs knowing shes the director would explain at least some of it but the automatic acknowledgement doesnt happen until she tells people#her name -- we see that several times#and shes certainly not stopping to chat with every ranger or security guard#anyways to my original point theres ample evidence that something making an impression on many peoples pysches will create/enhance#altered items/oops and if that wouldnt create a strong impression idk what would#there would definitely be a lot of hearsay floating around about her whether people are aware shes director or no#i just love thinking about the alternate perspective its so buckwild#would love to hear anyone elses take on it as well#control#control remedy#control 2019#original
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jlf23tumble · 25 days ago
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Hiiii it's me again. One question I have is what information from 2010-2015 (or later) do you think is missing? I think there's still ample evidence online that Larry existed during the band (and possibly after) but there are also a lot of dead Tumblr/Twitter links. I saw on a Louis blog that there were UAs in the past who had close relationships with people working with 1D and the boys used to DM fans directly. (I'm not sure how true this is; I don't follow her since she thinks Harry purposely destroyed Louis' career and that's too conspiratorial for me). Was curious if you feel like there's missing evidence out there too, though.
An aside: I think that the reason this is reemerging is that Liam died and now the boys will probably have to publicly acknowledge 1D and the past in a way they haven't. All of them have been candid (to some extent) about 1D but have been able to create distance. And that distance has only grown with time. But now things are at the surface in a way they haven't been since 2015/16. It's a state of tense anticipation.
Hmmmm, not sure what you mean by "missing"? Larry absolutely existed during the band, those fuckers even talk about its origins, lolllll, and there's so much there, like full magazine spreads, magic living in gif form, etc. etc. I personally don't give too much credence to UAs getting exclusive access, it's more like terminally online people gonna terminally online, and receipts are bullshit, forever and always, but that said, I laff and laff about the UAs [??] who got to talk to a drunken Louis who went on about larries being insane, and god bless him, I cannot even IMAGINE what he goes through on that front, because whether they're together or apartTM, who wants someone in their face CONSTANTLY about it? It's actually interesting in the context of what happened with Liam, when you think about it, the ravenous, all-consuming, ever-hungry presence of a fanbase that is never satisfied, how much the pressure of that DID have an impact on Liam for sure, but it does for all of them. Nobody likes to admit their part in it, but you have to think how the relationship side of things absorbs that pressure and how inhumane it is on so many levels, all in the name of "support."
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james-spooky · 3 months ago
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this is a test
#i’m bored i just wanna see how many words i can put in the tags like will it just keep going on forever or will they stop me like i know th#the tag limit is 30 ok so the iindividual tag limit is 140 characters that’s actually so rude i wanted to keep going forever and see how lo#g this could be but i guess we can do this 30 times ok what the flip should i talk about hm i was playing the guitar today but i rage quit#ause the song was hard and hurting my fingers! ermmmmm it was sunny ok this is boring let’s think of more exciting things to type hmmm acco#ding to all known laws of aviation- jk i’m not doing the bee movie script but can you imagine i think that would be funny hmmmmm words i lo#e podcasts so bad that’s a fact no one has ever know before my blog definitely isn’t all about audio dramas the people are definitely not a#ready aware of this jesus christ this is only the seventh one of these this is actually quite a lot of space i underestimated how much i ha#e to type btw there’s probably spelling mistakes in here somewhere or autocorrect has been annoying but i cba to retype anything so i don’t#care lolllllllllllll how do you feel about oscar malevolent i feel a normal amount actually (lie) yk what i really miss sam and colin alrea#y like i’m actually not okay i really hope we hear from sam again in s2 and also colin ngl i hope ur in the computers soz or not dead miss#im like a bastard my paranoid it king ok erm im running out of things to say um heartstopper s3 was crazy good i cried lmao i love gay peop#e so much it’s crazy i hope it gets renewed for s4 i need to reread the comics lowkey and the books they’re all so talented for being so yo#ng it scares me ngl !!!!!! the tmagp hiatus is getting to me slightly like february in reality is soon and not that far away for how podcas#ts go but seriously how am i supposed to live until then without knowing what happened. please colin be alive. ive only just realised i can#use fills stops. sorry that’s made everything a bit messy. i should’ve been doing this before. whoops. anyways. hi mutuals i love you all s#much i hope you enjoy my rambles and shitposts cause i enjoy yours very much! never think you’re being annoying i literally don’t care be a#annoying as you want posts as much as you want i am ur biggest fan <3 im getting a bit fatigued from typing like my mind is blank basically#now it’s just turned into a. stream of consciousness but i don’t really have any thoughts to put here idk if we’re halfway ermmmm omg it’s#lmost halloween how crazy is that time is flying by i kinda forgot it was october lmao. it’s wild how it’s basically almost christmas. like#what. that’s illegal. how is it wintertime again. what the flip. i miss summer already take me backkkkkkk. i hope my phone doesn’t crash or#smth cause i’ve not saved this as a draft and i cba to do any of this again. maybe i should save it. ok i will when i reach the next tag bc#ok it stopped me but i’ve saved it and holy jesus it’s a lot of text im just sat here giggling there’s really no point to any of this other#than me being bored sooooooooooooooooo (imagine if i just did the letter o for every character wouldn’t that be crazy) so wait there’s 140#haracters and 30 tags so what’s 30 x 140. someone hurry. i haven’t done maths lessons in two and a half years i’ve forgotten everything wai#let me get the calculator app ok im back it said 4100 characters so. i dont know how many words that roughly is but its. a decent amount. o#what the flip why am i wasting tag space with maths. i hate maths. my screen time has been actually soooooooooo bad recently like damn some#one put my phone in a block of ice please joshua gillespie style. my mind is running out of things to say. do i talk about myself. im james#im 18 which is weird cause wdym im an adult go away. ive run out of facts. i love podcasts and procedural dramas that stupid firefighter sh#w is my life unfortunately. i think chappell roan should be the queen of england instead of king charles. i dont like having a king cause#ho needs men in power not me. ok um this is the last tag equal rights for all. yolo. the time will pass anyways! thank u boredom ok bye gn:
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stripesysheaven · 3 months ago
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i finally finished evil cbs i’m going through so much right now
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monstermoviedean · 4 months ago
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at the end of my fucking rope with "conversations" about k12 chronic absenteeism.
#sorry. work rant#next time you read a headline about it think to yourself. why is it schools' job to get kids to come to school.#why do schools have to bend over backward to cater to kids#kids not wanting to go to school is an extremely common occurrence#the difference now is that the responsibility is being shifted off kids and parents and onto schools#i get that schools can do better i really do#i think there is a shared responsibility#but there is a profound belief across society that school is not important and does not matter#and that needs to be addressed too#i'd say 99% of the examples i hear of systemic school problems are actually just examples of individual bad actors#again. schools have issued that need to be addressed! the public school system has profound inequities!#but when the only problems you point out are 'a kid was mean to my kid' or 'a teacher wasn't as nice as they could be'#you're not interested in changing the system#you're interested in changing your kid's experience#and guess what. demonizing school staff sure isn't going to fix anything#at this point I don't see myself ever going back to teaching#you know who will go into teaching? people who don't give a shit.#and that's not going to help anything either.#you can't attract people who care when people who care are punished and chased out#imagine if instead of constantly bringing up the worst possible examples and insisting they are representative of everyone#the good examples were celebrated and rewarded#same thing happens with the medical profession btw#and again. lots of legitimate examples of harm#(i'm fat ffs i know this)#and also I think it's dangerous to have people delegitimizing medicine to the point that crystals are seen as just as valid as a doctor#sorry. separate rant.#but still. delegitimizing professions that require knowledge skill and training is how we get thousands of unqualified people#homeschooling their kids and treating them with herbs they got from their local Etsy witch
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randomnameless · 4 months ago
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Drankengard done (land 2!)
A lot of nice things in this part, so far it feels like the most FE-like land, and some characters from this land are really interesting!
l firstly love how the plot starts with "we have to rescue this midget prince from 100k soldiers" in one of the few defend maps of this game with various catapults and other engines to attack/defend against a cluster of loldiers coming at you - that was nice compared to the nigh useless ballistas and other engines in FE.
Granted, Gilbert's defining moment after being revealed is basically protecting his vassal from a gotoh-like character who's twice his size and more or less recruiting her for the defend map -
(localisation thingie : no "kisama" for eng/fr script Gilbert, sure it's kind of complicated to put it in words - like an agressive "you" - and yet it gives some nice characterisation, after Amalia rekts Leah and while Gilbert is standing seconds before being surrounded by 100k peons in front of someone who's basically stronger than anyone else around, he is still angry and pissed for his friend's sake) -
Just before being upset at asking our party - aka a foreign nation who was at war with his for the last few decades and revealing that his dad only granted asylum to the princess of said foreign nation to marry her to his heir to conquer it later on - for help.
Hopefully for him his game is no Triangle Strategy, so no one will actually tell him to eat shit because he wasn't the one who liberated the land even if he participed to instead worship the "foreign" person who led the liberation army.
Hell, idk what kind of PR campaign Gilbert and his few loyal soldiers pulled out, but some NPCs are really acting as if he liberated his kingdom single handedly lol
His relationship with his elder brother was sort of developed in the main plot - but more in the equivalent of the support convos - but as I said in another post, I really loved that part where he feels like he's still a second prince, and if his older brother returns, older brother should get the crown even if older brother feels like dirt for failing his country and his father, and became a wandering... mercenary who's busy saving priestresses from jails (and leaving them in the middle of battlefields).
Ultimately, they reunite and more or less solve their issues, and Ludwig manages to tell him that he wouldn't be half the king Gilbert is, because Gilbert is the one who led a rebellion and ultimately led Drakengard free, is loved by this people etc etc.
TBH, while it was short, this was a nice character arc -
(complete with the support/rapport convo just after the final map I unlocked where Gilbert, wanting to know how the common people live in his kingdom, gets plastered with the a random worthless bandit/merc who's freaking out from the entire situation lol)
The other major character from Drakengard is Virginia, the MC's older cousin!
We first see her being kind of pushy and overbearing, sometimes taking the initiative to do rather extreme stuff (wanting to fetch her axe instead of recruiting the earlier worthless bandit/merc), but she's still deferring to the MC, save for a certain mission - because, and kuddos to the game for going there, while Virginia's story is basically a tragic Marth's, aka, when her kingdom was invaded she had to run away to a foreign state for asylum but without any Jeigan, she believed for 10 years and never stopped believing that she was the only one who survived, and thus it was her role and duty to restore the Cornian line on the throne and take back the country from the evil Empire.
And... MC pops up, as the rightful - aka the son of the late queen as opposed to her mere niece - heir thus Virginia's hopes of becoming the Queen and the one to restore her nation vanish.
So kuddos for the game to basically have Virginia tell her cousin that while she was happy to see him and learn he was alive after all those years... she also felt jealous, because the 10 last years she spent having this dream and hope to be the one to restore the country... vanished in 10 minutes lol.
She's not going to challenge Alain's claim to the throne and instead will support him.
Granted, this moment becomes ten times more interesting if you do her own mission before - aka the one where she zerg rushes against the dude who slaughtered her retinue against the advice of Jeigan Joseph and becomes a dreaded green unit (who loses her promotion somehow???), running in a battlefield full of catapults to have her vengeance.
Remember when I said one of her first defining moments is when she asks to be handed her axe to get rid of a worthless merc instead of recruiting him? Well, her words back then were something like "your men died for you, so you can't beg for your life" or something like that, we learn in her own mission that she was basically talking about herself.
Basically, kid!Virginia was supposed to have her Jeigans and Cain/Abel/Draugs and they were supposed to escape and run away together to Drakengard... but they were slaughtered by some general of the evil empire who thought bringing her head would make a good offering to the evil emperor, so the Jeigans, Cains, Abel, Draugs etc etc laid down their lives to allow her to escape - we have a voiced FB with a few images and a battle cinematic, where the knights basically say they will die to make sure she'll be able to escape, and will slow down the evil general with their corpses if needed.
The entire platoon of knights died, and Virginia has been carrying this trauma for ten years, dreaming of having her revenge but never once confiding in anyone from Drakengard about it - not even in her (Gilbert's) vassal Leah who she seemed to be close too earlier.
Short story, the general holds a fort and is supposed to be called back to the evil empire's capital for some reason, and instead of waiting for his departure to recapture the fort, Virginia storms at the general to have her revenge (accompanied by the knights who were just squires when she had to leave, and thus couldn't be there when their senior knights were slaughtered and want revenge as much as she does!).
You have to send Joseph to talk to her to have her turn blue again (and promoted again thank gods) and the re-recruitment scene is cool for 2 things :
1/it's Joseph, not Alain who talks to her because her beef and the one who talked to her and the one whose plan is ignored is Joseph - I love it when the MC isn't at the center of everyone's universe
2/Virginia during this convo notices her friends/knights are injured (they have the injured sprite) and realises she was going to send to their death the last remaining members of that platoon, chastises herself and her next battle lines are something like "I won't let them die/bleed anymore" or something and it's fucking powerful because hey, besides some "vengeance is empty" that she will get later on herself, part of what makes her see reason is the realisation that her allies are injured and were going to die in her quest, and she can't have that anymore (nice ludonarration moment here, Virginia is a tank, if her allies are injured, it's because she wasn't tanking well enough!).
"Vengeance is empty" moment : the evil general who slaughtered her former knights doesn't even remember the people he slaughtered, or the mission where he hunted her, aka, she's been obsessing for 10 years over something her so called "nemesis" forgot.
End of the map, the realisation that her vengeance was nothing + she put her close allies' lives in danger (+ the little bit of salt when she mentions that Alain is the Cornian Royal people should follow because he is royalty) make her want to leave the army as fitting punishment - which, you know, coming from a series where some lord basically goes 1VS1 against the guy who killed his dad and who was followed by his kid sister who put herself in mortal danger but only receives a scold from his not-mom and slap on the wrist just makes me side-eye FE Tellius' writing even more.
Anyways, while I read on redshit that some people were pissed because "wah wah Virginia is a character who does foolish things and there are consequences about it she should be exiled forever or something", she obviously doesn't leave the army because, all of her close allies ask her to stay. Hell, Alain only gives one or two sentences that are dispassionate compared to the other 4 - again to show that MC privileges aren't everything at least plot wise - but the main voice is Leah's - aka her (well) Drakengard retainer!
When earlier Virginia told her that this story and her choice had nothing to do with Drakengard - because it's about Cornian knights who died during her flight from Cornia - Leah now reminds her that she became someone important for Drakengard too, and you know, the 10 years she spent here ? It's not just only background to give some fluff for a teatime line, no, it has more implication, if not only to have this moment where Leah says that Virginia's pride, bravery and hope to restore her country also influenced and inspired people (Gilbert, the second son who had to assume the role of the King when no one else was left!) around her and made the people of Drakengard also hope to liberate their country - if she leaves now, the named character from Cornia will miss her, but also "Drakengard" in general.
To cement her words, after this map we can talk to some Drakengard NPC who's all "wow Princess Virginia is so cool she defeated the bastard in charge of this fortress!" and while idk if Leah's speech + that NPC were added to make the ending where she becomes the queen of Drakengard (save for Alain marrying his cousin) more plausible, but it was a really nice addition.
Adding to that the fact that Virginia is the one who's basically telling Alain (and informing the player) about various map hazards like geysers around the land, giving some backstory about the desert along with Leah and also the one who tells the party about a sort of shortcut/secret passage and yes, we get it that she lived for 10 years in that land and knows it enough to act as a guide, but also that the people around know her.
I mean compare with a game where some dude apparently went to a school in a foreign capital but when he marches on said foreign capital or talks to people who also attended that school he never mentions it - it's like night and day.
Final "daw" moment that is both tied to her character but also, another example that Alain isn't the center of the universe... Virgnia is the one who tells Alain to talk to Aramis (the eldest prince who became a merc!) and ask him to talk to Gilbert to put his worries aside about the throne and the succession and ust, to reunite with his younger brother.
The characters concerned (Gilbert and Aramis) thank Alain for giving them the occasion and push to talk to each other - not knowing this was something Virginia planned, because while hers and Gilbert's issues are sort of similar (the not "legitimate" heir who took the mantle of restoring their country to glory and believed it so for the last decade, only for the legitimate one to return), she has a good enough read on Gilbert to know that he needs to talk to his brother to put his doubts and questions about his legitimacy aside and accept that he is the King.
Coming from a series with "avatar scissors", the bonds and links between the characters was really something I enjoyed, Alain will not pop up and tell Gilbert that he is a good king and should get over/or deal with his doubts about his brother, Alain isn't the one who gives the most meaningful speech about why Virginia is important to Drakengard and hell, we don't even see the exchange we know he had with Aramis to convince him to talk to Gilbert, because the most important scene here isn't the Alain-Aramis dialogue, but the Aramis-Gilbert one. Gilbert doesn't want to free his Kingdom because he envies Alain or Alain told him to do so, it's something he wants to do being inspired by Virginia.
In a nutshell, Drakengard's major characters were a good surprise and their stories and quests were cool.
More minor character wise...
We get the Drakengard version of the same plague we saw in Cornia, but instead of having "clerics" perform experiments on infected people to find a cure, the accent here is put on a wyvern knight who was to enforce a lockdown, to prevent the plague from spreading and well... no fines in this setting, instead she runs them through with her spear.
IDK how that game would have been received just after Covid lol
All jokes asides, just like the Cornian version of this plot heavily suggested, the plague was devised by the evil empire to cut down the forces of the rebellion and make sure this land would be able to be conquered easily.
Why are the imperials killing people? Well, it might have to do something with the fact that the totes-not-gharnef old sorcerer guy is a necromancer...
Leah's quest explored a little more the background info that "Drakengard and Cornia used to be at war" thingie, with random green units also mounting a liberation army but refusing our help, and we know how this ends with green units, we basically have to save them.
Map ends with some Drakengardians - who swore allegeance to the evil Empire? - still willing to fight us, and Alain asking Leah to please ask them, as a Drakengardian (?) to surrender because if someone from Cornia asks them they will refuse.
Also it's a bit of a character exploration, for once the usually demure + always in the back behind Virginia asks the Liberation Army to do something and insists even if people refuse, straight up saying that in that case (if they refuse) she's going to help the green NPCs herself since she's strong enough to do so and it's cool because I think at one moment Virginia sighs/laughs, but not in a derogatory way, but more in some "damn she's becoming like me" way - which is alluded to in ther rapport conversation, Leah seeks to emulate her bold and fearless (being a green unit) behaviour.
I haven't seen a lot of convos with the desert people we recruit - thank goodness we're far from Hyzante's clichés even if the "people in the desert are bandits and former prisoners" trope is still here, but given how the ones who attack us were brainwashed by the evil Empire, it's not as aggravating as, well, Nopes or Hyzante.
Gameplay wise :
Damn if promoting your units cost medals, but it's so worth it to have more than one action (at least) per turn ! It also means we can use entire new strategies because now the turns are at least longer than one round each!
Drakengard fills the Jugdral quota with the group of units coming all at once at you sometimes lol, but I loved the aesthetic difference that ultimately became gameplay difference between this area and Cornia, basically we have more mountains to less space to manoeuver the non flying units, the enemies use AoE engines to ruin you or at times, AoE map abilities from their own units to deal some annoying amount of damage.
The cities are larger so instead of fighting in a meadow with one or two small buildings here and there, at times the fight takes place in an entire city, so again, it means reduced mobility and of course, desert sucks because, just like FE, you can't move well in the sand.
Lolcalisation wise :
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Virginia "I have never been fond of court formalities" says a desert full of bandit isn't a place for "royalty like us"? When the "us" is both her and her cousin reknown for their martial abilities?
What the fuck does it mean ?
At least in FR it's "a lot of people avoid this place" and not just "royalty like us" - which doubles as ridiculous because in the "people avoid this place" it's again the trend of Virginia being a tour guide of Drankengard, telling Alain that people from Drakengard think about the desert, eluding this part is also, in part, eluding part of the knowledge Virginia has about Drakengard.
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I think the localisation took the "royal pride" that defines her and exaggerated it to "royal arrogance".
IDK if the meaning is the same in english, cretin is an insult like in french, but damn if you say to someone the are a "crétin" they will feel offended and insulted because that's way more rude than calling someone an idiot!
:/
And I also have a bone against whoever thought it was a good idea to throw "pseudo elvish" words in the localised script (sadly we followed this :'() when the japanese audio doesn't use them at all, was it to pretend the evles from Fevrith have a different language because Tolkien shall be universal, or what?
Elf land doesn't see that interesting plot wise compared to Drakengard, and I'm not saying this because of my Alcina bias lol but I'll just have to wait and see!
(poor hodrick is being slaughtered by those pesky pointy ears and their hybrid attacks, tfw armor not withstanding magic is universal, I'll have to promote Miriam asap to protect him or just bench him :/)
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danielnelsen · 5 months ago
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things aren’t going well with peach. while i think my dad’s very right to be concerned that she hasn’t eaten anything in nearly 60 hours (obviously i am too), im becoming increasingly concerned that she hasn’t slept at all in around 36 hours and prior to that she was under anaesthetic, which isn’t exactly restful, so it’s closer to 48 hrs
like dad took her back to the vet today and we’ve got injections for her painkillers now because she’s not eating, and also injections for fluids (because she doesn’t drink; she only gets water from her food), so the not eating is Bad but also kinda under management, but if she doesn’t sleep soon i’m extremely worried. dad was like ‘if she doesn’t eat by tomorrow afternoon we’ll take her back because the injections will run out’ but like. if she doesn’t sleep tonight we have GOT to take her back first thing in the morning so they can sedate her or something
#her pain doesn’t seem to be too bad now that she’s got pain relief so idk what’s stopping her from sleeping#she won’t even lie down unless i’m sitting next to her. she just sits there staring out the window#her pupils are also taking up her entire eyes and have been all day#that’ll be a side effect of the medication and maybe the lack of sleep? but it won’t be making her feel any better#she can probably barely see at this point#like imagine you’ve been awake for 2 days after surgery and you’re in a lot of pain and haven’t eaten since before surgery#and are also on strong painkillers. and you also have no idea what’s wrong with you or why everyone’s doing things that hurt you#bruh your brain would be COOKED. there’s no way she has any idea what’s going on rn but she’s clearly feeling terrible#personal#like i think she’ll be ok in the long-term but she’s gotta somehow get through all these immediate issues#last time something like this happened she stopped drinking and never started again#not eating or sleeping don’t have workarounds as simple as putting water in her food#it really doesn’t help that there’s so much other shit going on rn#i’m doing a whole bunch of stuff with my phone and computer that’s taking a lot of work#but also my sister’s going on a long overseas trip that she’s leaving for tomorrow#so the combo of dad and sister coming and going constantly and also like 6 random deliveries for tech stuff in the last 2 days—#has the dogs really wound up. so georgie’s been howling at absolutely everything#and it’s rainy so my clothes aren’t trying and they’re hanging on a rack hooked on the hallway door so the door can’t close#which puts one less door between my room and the dogs so they’re waking me up every time anything happens#and i sleep during the day so that’s ALL THE TIME. i’ve had like 8 hrs of sleep between the last two afternoons#my sister always has so much random life stuff she wants to talk about and was getting really annoyed that i wasn’t very receptive#like ‘im about to go away for 3 months’ sorry i know its a big thing but i can’t just reschedule peach’s medical emergency
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