#(and i mean makes sense trying to keep everyone alive while plotting and scheming and doing everything to get the upper hand)

[mercymaker]

act 2 mal is all about pushing herself into a corner, repressing feelings, repressing herself, denying herself, the juxtaposition of what she feels she needs to be and what she actually needs, but also about recognizing the power and influence she has over other people and how easily she can push certain individuals against their own safety and self-interest and the idea of it is so attractive and it all feels almost natural to have power over someone it's all like a fist tightening around her throat like a corset that's squeezing her ribs it makes her posture tall and controlled and authoritative but it also takes her breath away and there's no release in sight all i'm saying is that someone just needs to fuck her real good to make her see the world more clearly dfdgdfgdfg

[madcrona]

I'm just gonna say it.

I have problems with this fandom idea of "anyone can make whatever they want, it doesn't have to adhere to canon, if you don't like don't read, etc. etc."

On paper it's a nice idea, and I get it. We don't want to overly police what fandoms consider "acceptable" because that's a deep rabbit hole to fall down. Everyone has their own tolerances for what's OK and what isn't, and we can't really set any ground rules when everyone looks at things in different ways. What's OK to me may not be for someone else and vice versa.

And I get that the idea is meant to encourage people to explore new ideas while discouraging others from shouting them down. Which is what you want to do when trying to keep a fandom alive and healthy. And yeah, a lot of these odd takes are harmless in the grand scheme of things. It's not like riots are going to break out because of the umpteenth coffee shop AU that maybe has one character conveniently ignore a part of their backstory that the author thought was contradictory to their overall character. A lot of these fics do merit the response of just moving on with your day if you don't agree with it.

But I am willing to bet good money that just about everyone reading this post has come across a couple of fics in the past that are just wrong. I don't mean that in the sense that it has some content that just doesn't sit well with you no matter what the context of it is. I mean in the sense that it seems almost designed from the ground up to go against everything you understand about the canon material. Like they're going out of their way to mischaracterize just about everyone in the story to prop up their bad take that completely misunderstands everything, or deliberately write everyone wrong just to prop up one OC as the greatest and most amazing who can do no wrong and makes everyone fall to their knees in deific worship just at the sight of them.

You might still say that it's better to ignore those and move on, and you're probably right. But that feeling of anger and disgust that wells up inside of you when you see that happens because you care about the fandom you're part of. You care about the characters that are getting mishandled, you care about the setting that's being twisted into something else, you care about the plot that's getting mangled beyond recognition. We can argue about what's a level of healthy care, but regardless, you still care. And that means that anger won't always go away when you try to disregard the fic and move on.

So what can you do?

Well, most people head off to write something new to counteract the bad fic they saw, and that's entirely valid. Probably the healthier option, even. But sometimes that just doesn't work. Because it's not specifically about showing other people how to handle the concept right, it's about showing that one specific writer who's fucking it all up how wrong they are. And making a retaliation fic isn't always guaranteed to be viable because they'll likely ignore it, or maybe you already have a dozen other projects you're working on, or you have other things going on in your life that make it less possible to do something like that.

So no, essentially walking up to that author's home with a list of 90 reasons why their fic is trash and is built on the worst take you've ever seen and nailing it to their door isn't the healthiest option. It's also likely to get ignored or disregarded, and the fic somehow has fans and they'll just end up going after you for whatever reason they can think of.

But isn't there a part of you that feels better after getting it out of your system?

[just-absolutely-super]

Final review of the Prime Wars Trilogy, here are my thoughts on Power of the Primes

you can find my reviews on Combine Wars and Titans Return in the links provided

So Combine Wars set the bar super low, and then Titans Return was a step in the right direction

Power of the Primes...while not as bad as CW (like I said, that one set the bar pretty low), I still wasn't really impressed with this. I went from hopeful with it, to extremely meh, and then at the end I kinda hate it a little

Maybe I'm just looking at it from a very biased perspective but this just...bothered me so much, and I'm not that hardcore of a TF fan enough to articulate why it bothered me so much

But I'm gonna try. Sorry if this is just turns into an all-over-the-place rant, but that's the only way I can convey my feelings on this:

Okay, let's start with something general about the series that I kinda noticed after watching TR. It seems like it just takes itself too seriously. From what I read, this trilogy was meant to be more mature but like...c'mon guys, this is Transformers we're talking about. It's a big elaborate marketing scheme. Why are we being edgy about it? I mean, even the Bay movies had their moments of silliness

It got to the point I started associating it to the '86 movie in regards to the character deaths. I'm not one to complain too much about death, I know there are times and places for it, but after the 4th one I was just like...okay really, was all that necessary?

It also pisses me off because they revived Optimus (who died at the very end of TR btw) at the very last second, but refused to revive all the other character deaths. Yes, Optimus is known to die and get revived, and we all love him for that, but he only gets revived because...somehow Solas Prime going back to being completely dead allowed the Matrix to revive him? I didn't...really get it. I'm trying not to be mad about it, but it was one of those things where I'm just like...bro you either shouldn't have died in the first place or you should have stayed dead

(ngl I'm just salty in general that Optimus was only here for 10 minutes, they only killed him off because it's just what you have to do)

Getting into the story, though, I don't think the plot was terrible, but it didn't hit right for me. Like I went into this thinking we were going to see all previous Primes coming together to stop Megatronus the Fallen, but no. Megatronus and Solas Primes were the only Primes we see (not counting Optimus, Rodimus, and Optimal Optimus). DID WE NOT LEARN FROM CW ABOUT FALSE ADVERTISING??? SMH

But even if it wasn't the worst plot in the world, some things just didn't make sense. Like how is mass genocide supposed to revive Solas Prime's spark? Is sacrificing every single spark of a transformer the requirement to bring back one Prime? And even then, when she shows up as a ghost thing everyone is still alive and kicking. Then they remove the artifacts completely from the machine keeping her spirit around AND IT'S STILL THERE

I MAY BE STUPID AND JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND, BUT IT BUGGED ME THE ENTIRE FINAL BATTLE

And Unicron is also involved because of fucking course we have to involve Unicron! And I hated it because he possessed Hot Rod the entire freaking time and made my boy kill people! To the point that in the end that trauma will stay with him and Optimus implies he'll never recover from the guilt!

FUCK YOU! LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY BOY!

AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT THAT ENDING THAT WAS STUPID

THEY ENDED IT ON A CLIFFHANGER SHOWING THAT STARSCREAM SURVIVED AND IS ALIVE

YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING UP WITH THIS, WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK IS THIS ENDING SUPPOSED TO IMPLY??????

sigh.......

Moving on (no, sadly, I'm not done)

Another thing that kinda bugged me here was the continuity. I went into this thinking it was just its own thing and it would have sprinkles of references here and there like any other TF media I've been consuming. As I kept watching, it seems this is like a mashup of G1 and the comics (IDW in particular maybe? though some aspects seem to be taken from other comics). I don't think this is a bad thing, but there were moments where I found myself just being like...am I supposed to know this stuff?

I'm a basic enough fan that I know most of these characters and the lore, but there are so many things that I had to rely on a database for to better understand characters and plot. For example, during my watch of CW, I had to look up the Camiens to get a better idea who they were because I haven't touched anything they're a part of yet. And now here with Overlord, who was introduced in the Japanese G1 continuity before the comics picked him up, we learn that he associates with Unicron and The Fallen in order to get revenge on Megatron and I'm just sitting here like...revenge for what?

I wouldn't call this a very glaring flaw, as I'm sure this trilogy was made with hardcore TF fans in mind and not newcomers, but for anyone who is very new to the franchise, they won't have a lot of understanding of some things. Anything you don't know or if there are things you haven't heard of, you need to do extra research

Also I'm not a Beast Wars expert (as has been brought to my attention numerous times throughout my dive into TF media lol) but from what little I have gathered, the Maximals are like...meant to be descendants of the Autobots, right? But Optimus Primal here in this age guarding the Requiem Blaster for who knows how long? I know he won some kind of poll they did as promotional matieral, so maybe that's why they put him here? Or maybe there was a retcon somewhere in 40 years where he and other Maximals are around during the age of the Autobots, and they put him in this particular position because he's cool, I'm so tired of digging through the wiki to understand this stuff...

(side note: while it's cool that they got Ron Perlman to voice Primal (and apparently he plays him in the movie ROTB so that's cool), part of me wishes they brought back Garry Chalk to reprise the role. No disrespect to Ron, I just think Garry's cool)

Characterization-wise...honestly the only people I can really comment on are Megatron, Perceptor, and Grimlock. Perceptor is...Perceptor. ngl he kinda annoyed me during all of this, but he kinda annoyed me in G1 too so that tracks. And Me, Grimlock is always nice to see. You can't really go wrong with Grimlock tbh. It was super cool seeing him and the other Dinobots turn into Volcanicus

But for Megatron, I guess this trilogy was presented as some kind of redemption arc for him because he grew from regular antagonist, to anti-hero, to an actual heroic figure. He still has that typical Megatron attitude, so him being thrown into this position didn't feel forced to me. It was actually fun watching him at times. I just kinda wish Optimus was alive to lead with him. It would have been nice to see them working together and mending a friendship that the trilogy implied they did have (Optimus referring to him as his brother like in other continuities)

You all know my feelings about how they treated Rod...

Megatronus was kinda cool I guess, and his plot to bring back his lost love was interesting. It's just weird to me that it took him now after millennia of his banishment (which was apparently self-inflicted???) to think of this plan to revive Solas. What, did Megatron taking on his name and doing evil during the Great War in honor of the first Decepticon intrigue him so much he decided to put the plan on the backburner? It kind of was a long-game sort of thing but I still kept wondering why he chose now of all times?

Solas Prime...eh I guess? I think she's an interesting character, and her basically solving the conflict by being like, "If I'm dying I'm taking you with me because you're literally fucking everything up," was definitely something. I am confused on how exactly she died in the first place. Like the Requiem Blaster wasn't even facing her when it went off. It looked like it blew up the entire area but Megatronus--who was literally inches away from her--wasn't effected at all? I watched that scene twice and I still didn't really understand what happened...

Ugh, overall it was very underwhelming as a finale for the trilogy. The action didn't hit like in TR, and the plot dragged a lot for me. Maybe if you're a hardcore Optimus Primal fan you'd be into it, but I don't know him that well yet so for now...I missed Robot Dad, and Robot Son deserved better

4/10 rating

[therealvinelle]

(suitable headline)

So, there’s this thing about the Twilight fandom that’s been bumming me out, and that’s the lack of those real tinfoil hat crack theories. You know the ones, the ones that circulate in fandoms for years and get picked up by youtubers trying to take credit. Harry Potter has beauties like Dumbledore has a horcrux or Harry is being drugged with amortentia in HBP. Star Wars has theories like Satine Kryze’s nephew actually being her love child with Obi-Wan, to say nothing of the very canon theory that Anakin is God’s own weapon.

My point being, tinfoil hat crack theories are delightful and the Twilight fandom should have some. They’re a huge guilty pleasure of mine.

So without further ado, I’ll just come up with a few. Gotta sow some seeds of chaos.

Theory one: Renesmée is an immortal child, and her creator has the power to implant fake memories

At some point, a vampire whose identity is unknown bit a five-year-old. By the time Breaking Dawn is happening, this vampire has realized that the child will sooner or later be found out by the Volturi, and killed. The vampire decides to place her with the large and gifted Cullen coven.

The vampire proceeds to implant the Cullens with memories of their most recent addition, newborn Bella, having been pregnant with a miracle baby. He gives them memories of having seen the child now named Renesmée (gotta make sure they think she came from Edward and Bella) grow, and of having heard a heartbeat and seen blush in cheek, felt warmth of her face.

The vampire in question was unable to use her gift on Irina when she came by, which is why Irina didn’t see any blushing cheeks or hear any heartbeats. 

Whenever Renesmée kills people, as immortal children are wont to do, the memories of these transgressions are wiped from the Cullens. They believe her red eyes are brown.

Nahuel isn’t a hybrid, because there are no hybrids, the creator made them up. Either he doesn’t exist at all, or he was the creator themselves.

Weaknesses: Bella’s gift would definitely protect her from this. More, no pregnancy means the Cullens would have left Forks after the honeymoon, which would have a series of trickle effects. Jake is out of the picture, so is Charlie. To say nothing of Bella’s one college semester plan. Removing the pregnancy changes the timeline drastically, though I suppose it’s possible the vampire infiltrated them that early, making them all believe they were caring for a pregnant woman.

Variation of the theory: Renesmée is the one with the power to implant memories. However, this would require her being a lot more sophisticated than a mental five-year-old is capable of being.

Theory two: Alice is a time traveller

Alice doesn’t have the power to tell the future at all, she’s a time traveller who has to make all these disastrous things happen because if Victoria doesn’t create her newborn army or Bella doesn’t get pregnant, a hole in the space-time continuum will tear it all to pieces.

Edward and Aro are in on it, but just as trapped as Alice because if they don’t fulfill this terrible future then the fabric of reality will unravel.

Weaknesses: Midnight Sun clearly shows Alice looking through different futures.

Theory three: Carlisle is a Volturi sleeper agent

He stayed in Volterra for decades, and the Volturi have Chelsea. Why wouldn’t Aro use her to ensure that this intelligent and charismatic young vampire was always loyal to the Volturi?

We see that Aro has no problem letting Carlisle have a powerful coven, in fact he refuses to let Edward & co leave Volterra until he’s received reassurance that Bella, who can neutralize his most powerful vampires, will be a Cullen vampire. Those are the actions of someone who trusts Carlisle to a fault, and could for the benefit of this theory be construed to be the actions of someone who views the Cullens as an extension of the Volturi. Why else make them more powerful?

Weaknesses: the plot of Breaking Dawn.

Theory four: Didyme is alive and well, and cross-dresses pretending to be her brother

At some point before the Volturi became particularly powerful, the information was leaked that the excited Greek fella will know all your thoughts if you let him touch you. So, now people didn’t want to touch Aro anymore.

Fear not, Aro had an idea: he simply had his sister pretend to be him, and then he would pretend to be his sister. Didyme-as-Aro keeps a polite distance, while Aro-as-Didyme is all hugging and touchy-feely. Everyone is happy, in part because of Didyme’s gift.

They eventually get caught out, and decide to fake Didyme’s death so people will think Aro isn’t deceiving anybody anymore. Instead, what happens is that Didyme now takes on the mantle of Aro for good. A short while later Aro rejoins the coven, this time disguised as a guard, and will touch people under subterfuge.

As Didyme-as-Aro petrifies and her brother doesn’t, the lure is perfected.

Weaknesses: I guess they forgot to tell Marcus. More, it would have made sense to fake Aro’s death, not Didyme’s. Also, Edward would have exposed them.

Variation of the theory: this scheme is the real reason Didyme died. Someone had her mistaken for her brother, and we had ourselves a switcharoo tragedy.

Theory five: Aro wrote the entirety of Western literature

He certainly has the free time.

Before the 20th century no one knew how to read and write. It was all Aro. All of it. He invented all the languages too.

Weaknesses: this entire theory is a weakness.

Feel free to add!

[yodawgiherd]

You Were Never Truly Gone ch.9

>>>Read on AO3<<<

This chapter was... difficult to write after the full ending, and I will put deeper reasoning in the end note. Anyway, I hope that you will like it, it's basically plot only ^^

“I’m not going to marry the Shogun because I will be one.”

Those words were supposed to mean something, but they just hopped around inside Kiyomi’s mind before flying out, leaving nothing behind. They just didn’t make sense, put together like this.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I will be Shogun.”

“No, you will marry the Shogun you…”

“No, I will be the Shogun.”

There was no spark in Mikasa’s eyes as she spoke, no hidden smile, but it was so absurd that Kiyomi burst out laughing anyway.

“That has to be the worst joke I have ever heard, lady Mikasa. Now…”, she tried standing up, the chair scraping the floor, “let us go before…”

“Sit.”, this time it was from Eren, and she found herself seated before Kiyomi even realized why, “Mikasa is not finished.”

“She is, obviously, she is simply making fun of me.”

Slowly and surely, the raven shook her head.

“I am not.”

“You are joking, you have to be,”, Kiyomi rambled, “all you ever wanted was a quiet and peaceful life, right? I can… I can give it to you, I can give you that solitude you want…”

She half-raised her hand, almost reaching over the table.

“You never asked to be special, you never wanted that burden on your shoulders. I understand and I will help – all you must do is follow the plan and you can have everything you ever asked for. Please, stop this nonsense.”

Mikasa’s eyes didn’t budge, meeting Kiyomi’s pleading ones without flinching. Her hand holding onto Eren’s tightened a bit, but other than that she remained still, as her lips formed the word the old woman feared.

“No.”

“B-But…”

“Listen, I know that you mean well for me, that all you want is for your country to be stable in this ruined world. You are right in almost everything you said, but realize that as the world changed during the war, so did I.”

Mikasa’s voice was not very loud but it carried a commanding tone, one filled with the inner strength Kiyomi admired.

“Do I want a quiet and peaceful life with those I love? Yes. But that is no longer an option.”

“It is if you…”

“Let me finish.”, again, even when interrupting her Mikasa didn’t raise her voice, “Please.”

Seeing that the old woman backed down, the raven continued.

“I have lived my whole childhood behind walls, believing that we are the only human society left. Then, as a teenager, I fought the titans who I believed to be the true enemy of humanity. As an adult, I was told that it was all wrong.”

Behind her, Eren shifted a bit but didn’t say anything, leaving Mikasa in charge.

“You can’t blame me that all I wanted was a safe and stable home, a place at peace. But the world is hellbent on preventing me from having it, in a different way than before but still a valid one. Even if I and Eren hid, even if we ran from it all, the best possible scenario is a delay in the destruction – with the course Paradis is on, it will end up destroyed. I don’t care if it’s a hundred years from now, I don’t care if it's two hundred, I don’t care if it’s a thousand years. In my life, in our life, I want to make it a place that is open and peaceful with the world, not an island marked for destruction. Because if we can’t make it safe for our children and grandchildren, then what did we fight for in the first place?”

Her fingers squeezed Eren’s between them.

“You are right that I would still prefer to have a quiet life somewhere, but I am prepared to sacrifice that solitude in order to have that dream. After all, I realized that home is not a place for me anymore.”, she tilted her head a bit to the side, a tiny smile mirroring that one on Eren’s lips, “It is something I can take with me, anywhere in the world.”

For whatever reason, Kiyomi had a feeling that Mikasa wasn’t talking about the goat.

“Look, that is a nice speech and all, but why would they ever accept you as a Shogun? It makes no sense.”

“Hizuru fell to ruin while it relied on itself – granted, it was mostly caused by the rumbling but your council did little to unite the country. I will bring an outsider perspective, a new and open book that represents Hizuru in its post-war world. Still, without anyone supporting me I would say that you are correct and I have no chance, but I will have a very strong ally on my side.”, once again, the grey gaze speared the old woman in place, “You.”

“No, you are crazy.”, Kiyomi was shaking her head, “I will not support you in this insanity.”

“You don’t really have a choice.”

“I... I don’t have a choice? Me?”, fed up with this, Kiyomi’s fist slammed the table, “You don’t realize that we are in my country now, and I control what happens with you. The Faceless outside? They are sworn to the Shogun but you are not one yet – if I order them to take you they will do so without a second of hesitation.”

She leaned over the table, fuming.

“I can have you locked up in a second, both of you. Sure, your will might be strong but I can take my sweet time breaking you and…”

“You could when I came here,”, Mikasa interrupted her, “But not anymore.”

“… What are you talking about?”

“The parade. All the people who saw me, both here and the harbor, happy and alive and going of my own free will. What do you think they will do if the hero you brought from beyond the sea, the Shogun’s descendant and the last link to his bloodline, will disappear?”

So this was why Mikasa wanted one… this was why she, being usually a very reserved person, insisted on being paraded through the city. This was why….

“You never told the public about your plans, did you?”, the raven went on, “The ruling council knows, but not the ordinary folk – you were preparing this bid for new Shogun and his foreign wife in secret. So, simply exchange it for my scenario – young and motivated ruler, coming from a horrible was she was a hero of. Scarred by her past but ready to be the one we need in these trying times.”

Mikasa was right too, Kiyomi realized to her horror, the situation in Hizuru was on the knife’s edge already, and if the one bargaining chip she brought suddenly went missing that would be enough to boil it over the point of no return. The peasants would storm the very gates of the palace, just to save the blood of the revered Shogun.

“They won’t accept it…”, Kiyomi muttered in her slump, “They will never let you be their ruler.”

“Maybe, but do you realize all the power you could keep? I don’t understand ruling, I am a simple soldier, I would need the council’s help. I would need your help too, Kiyomi.”

Mikasa saw it, saw the tiny flash of greed in the old woman’s eyes, and that’s when she knew that she got her hooked.

“My help?”

“But of course, all the pains and responsibilities… I would very much appreciate it if you were there to help me carry them.”

Power, so much power that could be squeezed out of this situation. A young, inexperienced woman thrust into a role she didn’t understand. She, an old and skilled schemer. Together, they could be unstoppable.

Was it such a risk to Kiyomi herself? If the council went fully against Mikasa she would bow out to save her face – sure, she would lose some credibility and reputation, but it wouldn’t be too bad. If she went carefully about this, she could express her support of Mikasa’s claim without sticking her neck out for her.

So, then…

“I am willing to give it a try.”, she let out slowly, weighing every single word, “However, if everyone turns on you I will not go down with your plan. You have to understand that the chance of the council going with your proposal is minuscule at best, and if they decide that you will marry instead then I won’t be able to stop them.”

A tiny light of hope flashed in Mikasa’s chest.

“That’s all I ask for,”, the replied curtly, “I believe that I can convince them.”

“Remains to be seen.”, standing up for like the third time today, Kiyomi stretched her back with a pop, “Shall we go then?”

“One more thing.”, jerking her thumb towards Eren, Mikasa gave her an apologetic smile, “Do you have a spare Faceless uniform around?”

“……..”

“Well?”

“You want to bring him to the meeting?”

“The Faceless never remove their masks, you said it yourself.”

“Sure, but…”

“I know that you dislike Eren, but he and I are a package deal, I thought that I made that clear.”

“How do you think that the rest of the Faceless guard will react if you just jam your lover between them?”

“I figured that they won’t question it if the order comes from someone as high ranked as you.”, Mikasa had the audacity to blink at her, “Was I wrong?”

Where did this woman come from? Last Kiyomi remembered Mikasa Ackerman was a quiet and timid woman so shocked by her revelation that she couldn’t even speak correctly. This sudden change…

No, it wasn’t sudden at all. Kiyomi remembered this Mikasa too, she showed during the battles and fights, when the goal wasn’t to speak but to fly around and knock skulls together. This goddess in a human form found a way to project her sureness from the battlefield to her everyday life and looking at the man behind her Kiyomi could guess why.

It took her years and an apocalypse nipping at her heels, but Mikasa was a way more adult version of herself now. In a way it made Kiyomi happy because seeing her reach the full potential was amazing, on the other hand it complicated her own schemes. This Mikasa wouldn’t let herself be led around.

“No, I think that I can arrange it.”, pushing herself away from the table, Kiyomi made her way out of the room but not before shooting a last look at the pair.

Impressive.

It was also smart because no one would question a Faceless accompanying the future shogun’s wife -if anything they would congratulate her on integrating into their society so quickly.

The Faceless guard was trained in a lot of ways – fighting, protecting, dying for their master, and most of all not questioning orders. Normally they only took those from a Shogun, but because there was none Kiyomi, as a member of the ruling council, effectively commanded them. Finding a uniform for Eren “Aaron” wasn’t difficult, and soon Kiyomi was waiting outside of the room while Mikasa helped him change.

“There,”, she pulled the last strap tight, “That should be good.”

“Hmm, I hope that it will be enough.”, Eren’s fingers brushed over the mask, “Me getting recognized…”

“… is not going to happen.”, Mikasa finished for him, “Now stop worrying and give me a good luck kiss so we can go, I’m sure that Kiyomi is tearing her hair out by now.”

It was supposed to be just a peck but she wasn’t satisfied with that. Her hands circled Eren’s shoulders while one found its way to the thick of his hair, pushing his face down to meet her height. And then it was teeth, tongue, and everything until she pulled back, a blush dusting her cheeks now.

“There, now I think that I’m ready.”

Grinning, Eren fastened the mask in place, making sure that all his features were hidden from view.

“Shall we?”

Kiyomi’s scowl grew from anxious to disgusted when she saw Mikasa’s red face, very quickly connecting the dots and realizing what took them so long. For once she didn’t comment on it, only motioning for them to follow and taking the lead.

The chambers they were looking for were in the palace, but with the sheer magnitude of the building it was quite a journey. One that got interrupted, by a man that walked up to them with wide eyes and a surprised expression all over his youthful face.

“Mikasa? Lady Ackerman? Is that you?”

“Do I know you?”

“Not yet, but I hope that we will get to know each other soon.”, a cocksure laugh, “Lady Azumabito, would you do the honors?”

There was a badly concealed pained expression on Kiyomi’s face as she gestured towards the man.

“This is Daigo Sawamura, heir to the Sawamura clan and one of the most influential men in Hizuru.”, a short nod towards Mikasa, “Your future husband.”

He was…. young, about Mikasa’s age, with a pleasant face and trained manners. Someone who was born to wealth and raised in it, would probably die in it too. This man never had to fight for his life, never had to starve or scavenge on the streets for the smallest scraps of food. He might be nice, as Kiyomi claimed back on the ship, but almost instantly from meeting him Mikasa could say that life with him would be unbearable to her. Their worlds were miles and miles apart, and she had a feeling that no amount of time spent together would bridge that gap.

Now then, there was no need to be rude.

“O-Oh.”, Mikasa’s eyes ticked from left to right, “I.. Uhm.. nice to meet you?”

Behind her, Eren let out a long breath from behind the Faceless mask. Jealousy was not a new emotion for him, and having it from someone who was introduced as the “future husband” of his lover was understandable. Then again, he couldn’t act on it, since he was… well…

Dead. Or at least supposed to be.

Unphased by her embarrassment and ignorant of Eren’s internal struggle, Daigo took a step forward.

“I’ll admit, I was doubtful when lady Azumabito described your beauty to me, especially considering that you were a soldier your whole life, but now I see how wrong and stupid I was. She didn’t overplay your beauty, she didn’t give it justice instead”, with a practiced and elegant movement, he kissed Mikasa’s hand before straightening with a tight and easy smile on his lips, “Consider me smitten by your uttermost perfection.”

In a way Kiyomi enjoyed the way Eren’s hand tightened, shaking dangerously close to where his sword was. But having Daigo cut down by a “Faceless” would do nothing but throw whatever plans she or Mikasa had out of the window. So, Kiyomi did the smart thing and stepped in.

“I am very sorry, but we are expected by the council.”

“Of course, don’t let me keep you.”, he winked at them, “I was told to meet you there, but I simply couldn’t wait to see you for myself. I heard so much about you, lady Mikasa, all about the barbaric society that you were raised in, all about the heroic deeds you’ve done in the war - I must say that I admire you, you are a hero.”

“T-Thank you.”

“And seeing you now, I do hope that you won’t be offended when I say that our children will be perfect, beautiful, and will indeed save Hizuru. Me and you, our dynasty will lead this country to a glorious future, and it will start by our marriage that I’m already looking forward to.”, he leaned even closer, whispering but they all heard the words anyway, ”Especially the wedding night, my dear fiancé.”

God damn it Daigo.

“That is very kind, but we have to go now.”, pushing herself physically between the smitten noble and Mikasa who was one bad touch from showing him what personal space meant, Kiyomi forcefully separated them, “Excuse us.”

Pulling the girl behind herself and hearing the footsteps of Eren, who luckily didn’t stay behind to gut Daigo, Kiyomi retreated to a safe distance before letting go of Mikasa’s hand. She turned to the girl, fists on her hips.

“How close were you to punching him?”, she asked.

“Very.”

A chuckle from Eren, followed by a muffled “Nice.”

No matter how old he got, Eren Yeager would apparently remain a suicidal blockhead. Attacking a noble in the palace was nothing but trouble.

“I can assure you that decking him would have done a disservice to whatever you are planning.”, Kiyomi deadpanned.

“Then I’m glad you were there with me.”, Mikasa latched on, “See? You are already guiding me, it will only get better once you can instruct me when I’m Shogun.”

Stroking her ego, huh? Well played.

“We should get going, the council is not known for its patience.”

Crossing one corridor and the next, Kiyomi slowly but surely led them towards the ruling chambers. Each and everyone was holding their breath – Kiyomi in her nervousness, Mikasa while she was reciting what to say in her mind, and Eren because his eyes kept going left and right and searching for a possible escape route if the plan went haywire.

With last few steps they were at their destination, a large door guarded by two men in ceremonial armor. Upon seeing Kiyomi they both saluted and were ready to open the entrance on her command.

“You ready?”, the old woman asked Mikasa, getting a shaky nod in return.

Eren wanted to hug her back then, stroke her hair and tell her that everything will be fine, but such an act would break whatever illusion he was hiding behind. Steeling himself against the mushy feelings in his chest, he remained still with back straight, the perfect image of a well-trained guardsman.

After a few more deep breaths Mikasa’s next nod became firm again, and Kiyomi deemed her ready to face the council. With a mumbled order to the men, the door creaked open and the trio stepped in, ready to lay their cards on the table.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Oh shit, Homestuck 2 is back! Looks like the art team problems are getting worse, but maybe the writing’s good? Quick, recap of the story so far, since there was a hiatus

Previously, on Homestuck 2:  DIRK: I’m evil now and we’re on a new planet where we shall create our own lifeforms and rule them as gods ROSE: I’m making memes and vaginas DIRK: NOOOOO ROSE: Jade got me preganté and we named our kid Yiffy and I kept it a secret from everyone this whole time, including my wife but inexplicably not the dictator I’ve trying to overthrow, who kidnapped her JOHN: NOOOOO CALLIOPE: I’m in ur bod drinking ur juice JADE: NOOOOO CALLIOPE: Oh, like you’re not used to having weird people inside you, skank JADE: Wow, rude, I’m kicking you out of my brain for that  CALLIOPE: NOOOOO JOHN: Man, I love how my son tells me everything and keeps no secrets  KARKAT: John! Vriska’s alive and she murdered the clown pope and your son is hiding her because he and his friends are wanted for treason  JOHN: ...... KARKAT: You’re supposed to say “NOOOOO” John: Why would I? That fucking rules!  We now return to Homestuck 2

Yay, we’re finally seeing Davebot, Aradia, and Calliope. Fun fact: In a comic with like ten billion retcons and timeline splits, this Aradia is still the definitive “real” Aradia in a way no other character can claim to be (except Sollux), which is a fun endgame for a character who was introduced has having hundreds of thousands of duplicates.  I can not wait to see how the HS2 writers ruin her. (Also, where did they get a rocket ship?)

Also it it me, or is there something a little off about this art?

DAVEBOT: beep boop ARADIA: i have told you several times that i was a robot before and i know for a fact you dont have to say beep boop DAVEBOT: hm that sounds fake does not compute ARADIA: david DAVEBOT: mom

“David”? 

This is the first indication in the entire series that any of these kids’ names are short for anything, something Hussie explicitly said wasn’t the case but which was never actually addressed in the comic proper so I guess it’s not a plot hole. Still, it feels a little....wrong? 

ARADIA: well we are both an infinite number of years old living countless lifetimes at once but thats no reason to waste any of our...

Wait, what?! Aradia is Ultimate, too? When did that happen?! Why does she not need a robot body? 

DAVEBOT: time DAVEBOT: say time ARADIA: ... DAVEBOT: time then make a weird face

There’s a fine line between “callback” and straight up recycling a joke. 

ARADIA: would you say you are hung up on leaving your wife and friends behind DAVEBOT: are you ARADIA: am i hung up about leaving your wife and friends behind ARADIA: i do not think that i am no DAVEBOT: arent you even a little guilty about ditching your boyfriend ARADIA: what ARADIA: oh fuck

I do like the implication here that Aradia flat forgot about Sollux. Poor dude can’t catch a break. .

Ooh, an [S]. An extremely basic one, but still. Also, from this scene in the epilogues:

The distant sounds of war travel above the canopy of a forest. The artillery fire fades to a series of muted knocks and thuds as the sound waves cross beyond a thinning patch of the forest and arrive in a clearing of grass and shrubbery. Above, the sky is dramatic, colorful, menacing. The way it looks when a storm is coming. The clouds are wild, whipped into a sort of spatial frenzy, as if they know what’s imminent is no earthly phenomena. Aradia stands in the field, her mouth gaping wide. But not at the sky.

Probably the starkest example of how the epilogues presented Earth C has falling about and doomed and stormy and scary like the system crash in Reboot and Homestuck 2 has it all sunny and bright. I kind of wish HS2 kept the semi-apocalyptic feel of the epilogues, even if it made Aradia’s spurious decision to leave Sollux behind way more dickish. 

Oh hey, God’s back, and back in the body of the OG pre-Retcon Jade Harley. There’s something very Shoujo about this posing.

DAVEBOT: thanks JADE: They sit in each other's presence, the silence between them as meaningful as any words they could exchange. DAVEBOT: its always really cool to hear how meaningful my silences are DAVEBOT: especially while DAVEBOT: CALCULATING DAVEBOT: CALCULATING DAVEBOT: especially while i am attempting to experience them

I think Calliope, and possibly Aradia, is shipping Dave/Aradia right now, which is a pairing that has some comedic appeal were it not for Dave’s gayness.

ARADIA: i think she looks quite lovely covered in the viscera of the all-powerful enemy she consumed ARADIA: floating lifelessly in our periphery

We just established that this is months after they left Candyland. Has Jade’s body been covered in the blood and guts of Lord English this entire time? Take a goddamn shower, Jesus. 

Oh, there we go. Much better. Also, the one thing I heard about this upd8 was all the discussion of jorts, and then Dave references jorts, but no one is actually wearing them, unless Aradia’s got a pair on under her cultist robes? (Also, is Calliope’s Jade body healed from the shard of reality that killed it originally, or is there just a huge hole under her shirt)?

JADE: As a point of curiosity- ARADIA: oh shit!!!!

The dead Cherub possessing the body of an equally deceased Goddess of Space pauses at the interruption. Were she to voice her opinion, it would be that --actually-- it is not unusual for those whose primary concern is The Grander Scheme to have a passing curiosity about the insignificant. So when one really thinks about it, any annoyance with the attendant’s small mindedness is both understandable and warranted.

ARADIA: :(

Given how much time was spent on how Terezi can sense Dirk’s narration, I like how Calliope’s narration is literally just her talking out loud and everyone can clearly hear it and just assumes it’s like a troll quirk.

ARADIA: in this form our bodies stop aging once we reach maturity i think ARADIA: the god tier keeps our physical form locked in a state of undying ARADIA: even in death the bodies do not decay ARADIA: only lay dormant DAVEBOT: no thats boring DAVEBOT: like how long have you been alive JADE: yes, that one.

One of the things I don’t fully get about Calliope is why there’s stuff like this she doesn’t know. Another thing I don’t get: How come John and Jake are visibly middle-aged? They’re gods, too. 

ARADIA: you were there too i threw your air conditioner into the sun DAVEBOT: wow thats fucked up DAVEBOT: thats not where that goes at all JADE: these events are not-canonical. ARADIA: rude

I believe this is a reference to Pesterquest?

DAVEBOT: is that the trope of being hundreds of years old but looking young forever patently sucks ass DAVEBOT: a plot device an asshole would write ARADIA: :( JADE: that is not what i am trying to say at all. DAVEBOT: hmm wow yeah thatd really be a sort of pot/kettle situation i guess DAVEBOT: i cant believe im the only woke one here DAVEBOT: its hard being such a visionary AND such a fine metallic specimen

What the fuck is David even talking about? What? 

DAVEBOT: but can she see why kids love the sweet cinnamon taste of cinnamon toast crunch JADE: i do not know, or care, what that means. ARADIA: neither do i :)

I like the “Best Narrator” mug, and with this sudden headache to interrupt the laughter comes the end of the chapter and presumably a lead in to the next one when we’ll learn what’s blowing Calliope’s mind 

[howtotrainyouragents]

Things I Noticed in the Hamilton Film

Soooo, I was supposed to have posted this last year when the film first dropped, and I forgot...

Anywayyyy, things that were new, from the album, or was obvious to everyone but me. This is literally just me listing details I loved for my own keepsake later on

I hope this film’s success (and the play’s hopeful continued success on stage), shows that Broadway plays can and should be filmed for everyone 

Lin Manuel Miranda is a brilliant writer, scriptwriter, musician, rapper, singer, and a genuinely lovely person, but I think my favorite part about him is his acting. He has such a pure naturalness and sincerity in his acting. He nails microexpressions/gestures and sometimes I forget that he’s acting

E.g., Lin’s devastation after Washington kicks him out 

There’s some songs I wondered what their purpose was, but watching it I understood. For example, Story of Tonight sets up the purpose of the revolution. Like, My Shot is Hamilton’s ‘I want’ song, but Story of Tonight is all of the revolutionaries ‘I want’ song, and that’s why it comes up again for Laurens and Hamilton at their ends

Samuel Seabury’s acting was gold

In Right Hand Man the way the backup stage/cast lights up as they sing ‘not throwing away my shot” and Hamilton agrees to work for Washington

The fact that Helpless ends with “You’ll be a new man” because Hamilton is still so obsessed with his own ascendency  

HOLY FUCK RENEE ELISE GOLDSBERRY

They way they start Satisfied, it’s like Angelica doesn’t know the true extent of her devastation until she gives her toast and says “satisfied”. Like, she knows what she’s done but she’s still thinks this is fine and this is for the best, and it’s not until this moment that the weight of it fully hits her. By the end of it, it’s like she’s barely holding it together for this toast

Towards the end of the song, Eliza kisses her cheek and Renee’s expression is like she’s about fall apart in that very moment from the sheer overwhelming joy and pain

So in Helpless when their talking about letters, Peggy does a cute random shimmy while handing Eliza the letter. But then in Satisfied we see that she’s doing the shimmy to the beat of Satisfied, meaning that she knows how Angelica feels and knows about the love triangle 

I’m trying really hard not to scream about the rewind of all the dance and action in Satisfaction but please know I am internally screaming about this forever. 

Almost forgot, Burr and Hamilton were friends at one point. Burr shows up for his wedding to wish him well :(

I wasn’t gonna scream that much here, but LESLIE ODOM JR. 

Leslie’s smile- amused and scoffing disbelief- when singing about Hamilton in Wait for it

Speaking of Wait for it, the way the whole cast is waiting on stage and the balconies as Burr sings. and the way the dancers shift to Hamilton’s direction when Burr talks about him 

Also the lighting creates boxes on the stages, like Burr is trapped. But then this reappears in Your Obedient Servant 

I never knew the lyrics were “This is commonplace, 'specially 'tween recruits” and not “’tween corps” in Ten Duel Commandments...makes more sense

I think there’s 10 people in that line up in Ten Commandments 

The way Stay Alive conflicts Hamilton’s precious notions of sacrifice, and forces him to shift his focus from dying to legacy

The mimic of the bullet in Stay Alive 

The way that Eliza is also so excited about the war and the scholars in The Schuyler Sisters and that excitement goes away after she has the actual risk of losing someone she loves because of the war 

Who’s the choreographer because DAMN (btw it’s Andy Blankenbuehler) 

Also the dancers lifting up other dancers for whole bars? Incredible

The way women are interwoven into the story of the war, singing the chorus and setting the scene and rejoicing with the soldiers at the end 

The fucking red lighting in Yorktown. Also, the shot in the song’s pause is one of the best shots in musical history. 

The fact that ‘black and white soldiers wonder alike if this really means freedom’ ‘not yet’ is a commentary on slavery and the line is said by Washington 

The brilliant way What Comes Next undercuts the gravitas of Yorktown . 

Also, King George loses more and more of his costume and moves around more as the show goes on. Also, blue lighting with “I’m feeling blue” hahaha

Lafayette and Hercules getting the same letter about Laurens + Hamilton’s sobbing. And Laurens’ singing ‘there will be more of us’, referring to the future generations who will fight and win abolition. 

Nonstop: 

Burr’s disgust while Hamilton rants. Hamilton’s pouting then childish glee at the beginning 

Burr stays at the bottom of the staircase after Hamilton climbs it. Also, Jefferson descends the staircase after Hamilton ascends it, indicating their statuses

The refrain of “How does a....” shows up in Nonstop as Burr’s “How do you write...” (other characters sing their own personal refrains but Burr sings this), and it’s like this ongoing, jealous, incredulous questioning of how Hamilton became so successful, and part of the answer of how he did it is that he doesn’t stop writing and working.

Regardless of which sister he ended up with, love was never gonna be enough for Hamilton

The way Daveed Diggs jumps and dances and dives across the stage in just about every song he’s in. The man truly deserved the Emmy 

Jefferson’s being surrounded by his slaves because he sucks 

Hamilton’s costume goes from white --> brown-->blue-->green-->black and someone with more color scheme expertise needs to dissect this for me please

The fact that even Burr peaces out when it comes to the affair, like, nope, this is too messed up even for me

An in-universe explanation as to why the Ten Duel Commandments and Phillip’s count is the same is that Hamilton’s killing (metaphorically and literally) in order to stay alive is a part of their family’s DNA.

Anthony Ramos is phenomenal at playing 9 years old then having to switch to 19

The fact that Phillip was probably so determined to defend his father is that this is after the Reynolds Pamphlet and everyone was humiliating and scorning Hamilton

The Room Where it Happened

Hamilton is like an apparation to him, and Burr is both scared and begging the ghost to reveal the truth

The fact that this song is a plot song and a ‘i want’ song and a villain song all at once. Also, the song picks up speed to signal the shift from historical recounting to ‘i want’ song

They replay the beginning where Jefferson/Madison call for Hamilton

Jefferson being the one to ask “Don’t you remember Lafayette”, and there’s like a slight change in his demeanor that’s more Lafayette then Jefferson 

Burr, Madison, and Jefferson discreetly talking to each other in Washington on Your Side representing their nefarious schedming. Also, Daveed Diggs keeps Jefferson’s limp even without the cane. Also Madison is angry at Hamiilton when he says “the bill of rights, which I wrote!” 

One Last Time: 

How perfectly the Bible verse reflects Washington’s opinion of legacy. The younger men are obsessed with preserving their own memories in history, but for Washington, his legacy would be that everyone would be safe and at peace. 

Washington’s practically crying at the end 

Hamilton asking Washington here to teach him how to say goodbye because Hamilton genuinely doesn’t know how: people left him before he could ever say goodbye 

We Know: Jefferson’s pure WTF face when he says “my God...”. In this reaidng, Burr definitely threatened him (I didn’t always intepret that way when listening). But Hamilton’s still an idiot. 

Hurricane: Once again, Lin’s facial expressions. The way the the chorus stands around and watches him. But also the freaking brilliant way that the dancers mimic the hurricane, and Burr and Maria are the only other people in the hurricane with Hamilton. But at the end, it’s just Hamilton and the desk 

Reynolds Pamphlet: The way Washington can’t even look at him, but Angelica gets in his face to yell at him. Also, Jefferson hands a pamphlet to the conductor 

This reading, Phillippa Soo sings Burn with so much rage and fury and that is pretty much my favorite part of this entire film

Hamilton’s face at “Alexander, did you know?”

The fact that Angelica narrates Uptown because it’s too intimate for Burr or anyone else to narrate. Eliza’s changing facial expressions as she slowly lets him in. The way Hamilton just completely breaks down and sobs

The Election of 1800: 

Jefferson shaking his head when Madison suggests Hamilton

Burr’s falseness is hilarious. He hands Hamilton a pamphlet. 

Jefferson’s look of resignation when Hamilton is making his decision, then starts dancing around when he’s won

The close-up of Burr’s face falling when he realizes who Hamilton has voted for 

The whole “runner-up becomes VP” thing made me think about if we could have had Hillary Clinton as VP, and I made myself sad. 

Your Obedient Servant: I always saw this song as a reflection of the custom, but I never fully appreciated how it reflects their relationship: their relationship has completely disintegrated, but their working to maintain this false appearance of friendship/civility that no longer has a place in their relationship. 

Also, Burr’s increasingly incensed and it does not help that Hamilton sends like a 12-page letter and the dancer even teases Burr

The guy who gives Hamilton Burr’s duel challenge plays Charles Lee. Karma 

The World Was Wide Enough

Burr’s POV then Hamilton’s POV, like this story has become less and less about Hamilton and he is no longer in control of who’s telling his story

The shot of Eliza walking away and in her wake, it’s Burr shooting 

Burr’s alone in the stage, finally realizing the world (aka the stage) was wide enough for the both of them, but it’s too late. Also, in part foreshadowing his own future: that he had the world before him regardless of Hamilton, but he was completely ruined after this duel

I definitely cried at ‘the orphanage’. Also I interpret the gasp at the end as her breaking fourth wall and seeing the audience and realizing that Hamilton’s legacy has continued even to today. 

[nautilusopus]

Why do you hate the remake? The ending?

AMONG MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY OTHER THINGS

AHEM:

the ending

the way everyone’s character is botched

this goes triple for poor cloud and tifa because they literally aren’t allowed to have either meaningful character interactions or character development because they CAN’T because this is the first five hours of the game stretched into 40 hours so we can’t get into nibelheim yet because we have to “save” it

the fact that this is the first five hours stretched into 40 hours and thus is largely padding

the handling of sector 7, where we go from watching actual people we care about die to seeing literally zero people die at all and also we evacuated the slums so it’s cool

especially egregious considering the game made us do so many stupid sidequests in the (way too clean and sunny) slums to get attached to these npcs only to kill literally zero of them

they still kill barret though so they don’t have to have him fight jenova with everyone else because he’s not a REAL character, let’s get him out of the serious moments. except they can’t kill barret so he’s back immediately due to time bullshit, great

on a related note, the complete and utter lack of any real stakes

the way aeris has fucking future knowledge

the way the vii universe, due to the addition of Fate, now has the judas problem. if the planet can literally fucking control fate why didn’t it just keep jenova from landing? why didn’t it keep shinra from becoming a thing? the only answer is that jenova and shinra are intended to do the things they do and thus are actually under the planet’s control and are not accountable for their actions

the fact that this is sephiroth’s motivation now or something, instead of the actual personality he used to have where he acted as a foil to cloud with his inability to accept unpleasant truths about himself and instead creating a grand narrative for himself where he has not been victimised by unfair and unglamorous circumstances and responded to this by making bad choices

the fact that fate is now a concept in this game at all and how completely and utterly fucking insulting that is and how much of a disservice it is to everything the original stood for on a fundamental level. a game that was literally about how there is no inherent meaning in some grand scheme, and that on a cosmic scale we are insignificant and the planet doesn’t give two shits if we live or die, so therefore we must create our own meaning, small and irrelevant to vast forces like the inevitability of pain and death as they are, and that the meaning we create with other small and insignificant human beings is nonetheless something with value, and that in fact it is harmful to try and pretend there is some vast cosmic significance to your actions and that there doesn’t have to be because your life having value to you is enough, especially in the face of something as absurd as the inevitability of death and pain, now has fucking fate in it. actually, cloud DOES matter on a vast cosmic scale! everyone’s deaths do! and in fact those deaths are unnatural and you’re going to prevent them! hooray!

this is yet another narrative, following in the footsteps of harry potter and the new star wars trilogy, that pretends to be about a nobody going on to defy odds anyway only to turn around and say actually lol no they were special the whole time.

cloud’s handling in general even outside of that. aforementioned lack of development aside, he’s simultaneously way too chilly and way too casual with everyone, with the most meaningful interactions he gets to have being shallow fucking flirting with tifa and him walking around making put upon faces with aeris

the fandom thirst over literal sex traffickers

the fact that this was marketed as a remake when it is AT BEST a series reboot that relies on you having played the og to understand what the fuck is going on half the time

* the utter lack of reading comprehension among the fans that still somehow think they’re going to get other “iconic og moments” remade. did you fuckers miss the ending somehow? about how we’re doing none of that actually? about how they’re going to Defy Fate? you aren’t getting those moments. period. the entire fucking game and ending is literally about that. about how we’re going to Prevent All The Bad Things

the fact that the above was done because they clearly started out trying to actually remake the gam, realised they bit off more than they could chew, and then went LOL NO PROMISES at the last minute with some kingdom hearts bullshit that would let them wiggle out of any long term plot commitments at any time (and also shoehorn zack in because of fucking course he’s here too)

pacing pacing pacing. aside from the atrocious padding problems, you’ve also got sephiroth showing up and mugging the camera every three minutes, because he has to, because this is the first five hours of the game so they need to cram him in there anyway regardless of what it does to the story or no one will buy their stupid game. also they drop the “cloud was never in soldier lol” WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too fucking early, jesus christ. good to know any kind of subtlety is just out the fucking window entirely now

what they did to poor sephiroth, easily the worst handled character in this whole mess. sephiroth sweetie i’m so sorry holy shit

whatever the fuck they were doing with cait sith

taking a big old fucking dump on any themes and meaning the original had in general which i won’t get into too much because it would take forever but you can read more about that here

how they handled shinra and avalanche, or rather how they didn’t handle it and made everything as black and white as possible

jessie’s thirst is extremely annoying and i’m over it

the fact that the fanbase keeps trying to simultaneously go “no it’s only the first chapter of course there’s no explanations” in response to pacing criticisms while also trying to go “no no they had to make it feel like a full game” in response to massive fucking story changes that only served to bloat the pacing

because they can’t bring up nibelheim yet, in this forty hour game (but still have time to go Zack Is Alive Now Also There Is Fate) tifa has no motivation or personality or connection to cloud and barret to speak of. also where the fuck is her anger, holy shit. she regrets joining avalanche? she isn’t

the fact that the fanbase is not only fine with all these changes, changes which again are being made directly in the name of profit to the detriment of good storytelling, but also are even pushing this as the “intended, fleshed out” version of the story they always wanted to tell but couldn’t

bad soundtrack, fight me

midgar and especially the slums look boring

the turks are good now uwu

no Trail of Blood sequence. again, pacing issues. this was meant to be your introduction to sephiroth to set the tone and establish how dangerous he was and how he was the REAL bad guy, but because we’ve seen him every three seconds at this point the whole sequence got cut and it was one of the best sequences there was

the fact that the interviews repeatedly indicate to me that they don’t seem to understand that not every goddamn irrelevant detail needs an explanation (a problem they seem to have carried over from crisis core so that’s great) but that they don’t seem to care about things that DO need explanations and that zero genuine thought was put into the worldbuilding

the way barret’s treated as a joke by the narrative when he’s literally fucking correct

the obsession with Realism (TM) to the point where it creates more tone problems than it solves at times (cloud can fucking fly in cutscenes but can’t hop over a two foot fence)

LET CLOUD BE A DOOFUS YOU COWARDS

about the only character that made it out with their personality intact was aeris and even she’s gone and had her motivations scuttled so it doesn’t matter, yaaaaaaaaay

i can’t fucking believe the remake has made me AVOID fics with jessie biggs and wedge in them. before it was a marker of quality. look what you’ve done.

cloud has an apartment now instead of living with avalanche in the basement. this is also done in the name of Realism but also kind of sucks away the charm imo and makes it that much harder to buy any of these assholes as found family

the timeline of all of this no longer taking place over like three weeks is once again a result of pacing issues. i’m sure this won’t bite us in the ass at all.

god remember when we thought roche was gonna be the worst addition? simpler times

also roche

and yeah the whole ass ending, complete with homage to the ending of ffvii period with the weird doctor who brain tunnel that makes no fucking sense to be here and is only gonna confuse people who don’t know this is supposed to be a callback, and even if it was why is it here, you can’t just fucking copy/paste Famous Moments with none of the emotional beats or writing to back them up or lead into them, context MATTERS did you fuckers learn nothing from the travesty of hollow writing that was ffxv and especially prompto?

the fact that people are looking at this fucking travesty and just assuming the og is like this too and not bothering to play it either because they loved the remake (for some reason???) or because they hated it and now wouldn’t play the og if their life depended on it, which breaks my heart most of all. “the original is still there!!!” is a meaningless overture if people refuse to engage critically with it on any level at all, which as we’ve outlined is absolutely what is happening. this is what people meant when we said the remake would erase the og, and on multiple levels, whether it’s people assuming the og was always meant to be like this, or seeing no reason to play it, or once again failing to recognise what the remake very loudly screams in your face it’s doing and assuming that of course we’re getting a vii remake with all those moments we care about, this is what has been happening.

i can’t even fucking imagine what the northern crater scene is gonna look like now, IF we get one at all. and that’s a big fucking if

i know i’ve missed a lot of them but i hope this helps

[benmparks]

Six of Crows (series) Review

patreon | kofi

Last night I picked up Six of Crows again, pretending I was just going to peruse it for the purpose of this review but who am I kidding? I am fully obsessed with these books, I just wanted to read it again. With that being said, welcome to my review of the Six of Crows duology, Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo.

Review

The duology follows six members of this gang, the Dregs, that Kaz Brekker basically runs as they try to outwit some big players. Somehow Leigh Bardugo manages to jump from six POVs and not only make it work, but also use it to her advantage. The plot is crazy heist after heist, a lot of violence and darkness and yet every character and scene feels so endearing. The character work is crazy in these books, and at the end of the day the focus isn’t the crazy stunts they pull but the dynamic and connections between these six very different characters and how in the end they do care about each other despite the odds.

In the big picture of things, both of the books get a 4/5 Goodreads stars from me. I could not put either of the books down, and to be honest it felt like one long book if only because I read them back to back. Six of Crows is the “introduction” to the characters, but the book jumps right into it. The writing is very dense with character and world building, in a way that I found entrancing instead of boring somehow. I think I can credit that to the richness of the characters, and my immediate love for each and everyone of them. Admittedly, if I didn’t already know them from the show, I don’t know if I would have made it past the first page which is why it only gets 4 out of 5 stars. It was a thick book, and sometimes my eyes did just glaze over the words to try to get it moving.

The ending of Six of Crows was almost cruel, and I had to wait a day before I could get Crooked Kingdom. Reading Crooked Kingdom was like running a marathon and I have to admit, I’m not sure it was because it was very interesting or I just really wanted to get to the good parts. The plot in Crooked Kingdom gets a little repetitive, and I just really wanted Kaz to get some rest near the end, but the writing and some scenes really saved the whole book. I have reread some scenes multiple times already, Ms. Bardugo does have a solid grasp on writing emotion and dynamics in a way that feels so authentic like I am watching it play in front of me.

Some Thoughts

To be fully transparent, I read these books so quickly and in a haze of hyper fixation, so my review is probably biased but the books really did deliver on the character building that I wanted after what I had seen of the crows in the show. The writing was truly captivating, and the plot had me stoked to see how they managed to pull it off. By the end of Crooked Kingdom, I had managed to figure out the pattern though, which made the final resolution a little lackluster to me.

I really liked how casually diverse the cast was, with people of color with their own fantasy cultures, diverse romances, and even some disability representation. Kaz, my favorite character, has a limp and PTSD induced touch aversion like........ That spoke to me on a personal level. (I don’t have PTSD, but I also can be averse to touch at times.) The way that all of this works together, the diverse character with their diverse traits and flaws, was a masterpiece.

I keep going on and on about the characters, but I am truly amazed at how well they were built throughout the series both personally and their interpersonal connections. You get the sense that they are a dysfunctional family that deeply cares for each other. I said it already, but it is really endearing despite all the violence and thievery. So much so, that the rest of my review will be about that.

Let’s talk about the relationships

Kaz and Everyone Else

Everytime I write this review it devolves into me going on and on about how much I love Kaz and here we are again... but really. He carries the story, okay?

As I said, Kaz is the cold and calculating “leader” of the Dregs. He is known in the Barrel (where they live) as a ruthless killer who cares about furthering his gang than anything else, which is sort of true but not the whole story. By the end of Crooked Kingdom, I think what Kaz cares about the most is getting everyone else out safely. He had dragged them all into the mess they were in, where chances of getting out alive were slim, and he felt personally responsible for making sure it worked for everyone else. This was the part where I was reading just so maybe he would go to sleep, because I was so worried about him.

There were other moments throughout the books that showed his “soft side” for his gang, but in ways that they wouldn’t read as friendliness. He acts very careful to continue his persona around everyone except...... Inej. Which we’ll get to in a moment.

Kaz and Jesper

Jesper is sort of Kaz’s right hand man, he is introduced to us in that context anyway. It is not made clear, as I remember, their relationship much further than this but Jesper clearly looks up to him. Impressing Kaz, or proving his loyalty to him, seems to be a main driver in Jesper’s actions. He clearly wants a more personal relationship with him, and is constantly disappointed.

I liked how they portrayed these two, switching POVs to show that they are very clearly close personally but neither of them really knows. Near the end, in a dramatic and emotionally charged scene, Kaz accidentally calls Jesper his dead brother’s name and I think that says it all. That was one of my favorite scenes because after two books of this sort of tense relationship between them, it kind of ties it all up in a bow. Kaz does care about Jesper, maybe too much in his opinion.

Jesper and Wylan

Wylan is the estranged son of the merchant that they were up against, so the crew originally sees him as a bit of an outsider. He had a rich upbringing, so they think of him as soft and he’s only originally used as something to hold against the merchant. I loved him, he was the voice of reason in the group. A look into what a normal person might see when interacting with this band of thieves.

Jesper is a flirtatious character, he flirts with everyone, but you can see the slow way his flirting with Wylan changes into something a little deeper. Their relationship was masterfully done, it was like I stumbled into it. It was like, halfway through Crooked Kingdom, I suddenly cared a lot about them which made the twists and turns of their relationship so much more fulfilling.

One side note, I personally didn’t care for their final resolution. I’m not big on sappy endings, so there’s that.

Nina and Inej

I love a female friendship, okay? Nina’s entire story seemed to focus on Matthius and her being a grisha (someone who can use magic), so her interactions with Inej were refreshing. Nina was like the heart of this troupe, trying to keep the focus on a righteous goal instead of the money that Kaz seemed to only care about. (Seemed being the operative word). Inej was a perfect counterpart to that, as her religious and cultural background kept her on the softer side of things despite integration to the Dregs.

I think it was those parts of their story that made them care so much about each other, they were two girls trying to keep a part of themselves in this crazy world of the Barrel. In the midst of all the darkness and scheming, their softer bond was a welcome addition.

Nina and Matthius

I said this in my Shadow and Bone review, I just don't care for these two. Nina, as I mentioned, is a grisha and Matthius was a grisha hunter who did try to kill her. Maybe a little too enemies to lovers for me, and too fast. While I think their dynamic was better portrayed in the books, I still didn't really like Matthius as a character and I didn't feel a strong enough reason for Nina to care so much for him. I think their story is a little too insta-love for me. (I also had a major spoiler about the two of them which I don't think helped, let's just say I knew not to get too attached.)

Kaz and Inej

Alright. I’m writing this.

Kaz wears gloves all the time, except with Inej.

I mean, that’s the dynamic. He is that cold blooded guy from the Barrel, except with Inej. He doesn’t want to admit that he feels anything besides professional feelings for her, but god does he pretty much from the start. When he’s losing his mind, it’s Inej that brings him back. When Inej is attacked, oh my god the writing for that part. He lost it, and it was dark and scary because he was scared he was going to lose her.

Yet, still, he won’t admit it.

Inej wants to believe he is that cold blooded guy from the Barrel, she wants to believe there is something else in him but whenever she tries to find it, he pushes her away. Still, she stays and tries again until she gives up but Kaz doesn't give up on her. Kaz never gives up on her, everything he does is for her in the end. He wants her to get everything she dreams for, even if he thinks dreams and hopes are stupid distractions.

And, in the end, he does that for her. And they hold hands.

(Which is a big deal because, as I said, he’s touch averse but he wants to touch her...............................................)

Anyway.

That’s my review.

The characters carried the story which got long and repetitive at some points, but I really did devour these books in a matter of days and I’m still rereading parts just to relive them again. 4/5 stars.

Thanks for reading.

[rainhadaenerys]

Post season 8 fix-it headcanon/Jonerys fanfic outline

For Daenerys Resurrection Week, Day 1: Resurrection and forgiveness

A long time ago I commented here that I had written an outline for a post season 8 fix-it fanfic. And I did write some things, mostly about the political situation in the story, and character's motivations. As far as actually coming up with a proper story and proper scenes though, I didn't really go very far. And to be honest I really don't feel like writing fics, I'd rather spend my energy on metas. But I wanted to share my headcanon anyway.

To start, my headcanon is canon-compliant. I appreciate fix-it AUs, but I have a problem with them because I always feel the need to acknowledge canon. So I acknowledge everything that happened in season 8. But in my headcanon, I completely absolve Dany of everything. Instead, I tend to think Bran warged into Dany and made her burn King's Landing, urged by Sansa. So yeah, this is not for Stark fans. My headcanon is pretty much anti everyone but Dany and Jon. (By the way, if anyone has seen any fic with this premise, and that follows season 8 canon, can you please tell me? I don't know why, but it seems no one has thought of this so far? Or maybe I just haven't seen it, since I don't read a lot of fanfic, but I would appreciate reading a fic like this)

Ok, but now you're probably thinking, but why would Bran do this? Why would Sansa tell him to do this? Isn't it OOC? That's where my complete reinterpretation of Bran and Sansa's characters start. I'm sorry I had to vilify them, but I see no other way to completely absolve Dany.

First, Bran: When Bran had met Bloodraven, Bloodraven had hoped that by teaching Bran his abilities, he would have someone to help him look into the past and find an easier way to defeat the Night King. Probably, the children of the forest told him about something (like, maybe, some hidden magical artifact), but they didn’t know where this magical artifact was. So Bloodraven thought having another person with the Three Eyed Raven’s powers would help defeat the Night King. Bran followed Bloodraven’s instructions faithfully, but in the end, he didn’t find anything that would help, and that’s why he was useless in the War for the Dawn. The reason why the Night King was going after Bran was because the Night King knew Bran had the powers to find out his secret and destroy him easily (ie, without a battle). But Bran wasn’t able to do this in the end.

But Bran’s journey to become the three eyed raven wasn’t meaningless to the story. As Jojen once warned Bran, if he spent too much time inside the mind of a wolf, he would lose himself. And this is what happened. Bran spent most of his time warging on ravens, wolves, trees, trying to find the answer. He had seen in his future visions that the Night King would be defeated, so he wasn’t much worried about that (which explains his calm behavior when the Night King came to kill him), but he didn’t know exactly how, he thought he would be the one to do it, so he worked tirelessly and warged tirelessly (btw, Bran’s future visions are more flawed. He can look into the past easily if he knows what to look for, but the future isn’t as clear and it changes constantly, it is based on possibilities). Bloodraven had time to adapt before he spent most of his time warging. Bran didn’t have that time, because the need was urgent, so the time spent warging animals and trees made him start losing his humanity, in the sense that he stopped caring, and stopped having as much empathy. He loved his family to some extent, and he still had some sense of self preservation, but he had almost no empathy left for others.

Now, let's talk about Sansa. Sansa, during her journey, became a hardened woman. Unlike book Sansa, who keeps her kindness, show!Sansa has absorbed the lessons her abusers taught her: don’t trust anyone, look out only for yourself, take any advantage you can manage. This is what Sansa has been doing for quite some time. She doesn’t tell the truth about who killed Lysa Arryn, and the reason for this isn’t that she’s afraid of Littlefinger and sees no other choice. No. Sansa has entirely embraced Littlefinger and his plans. She later resents him for selling her to the Boltons, but this experience just leaves her more traumatized. So Sansa becomes a different person: her trauma makes her look out only for herself. She had always wished for power (since season 1 she wanted to be queen), and this hasn't changed, but now, it's also tied with her traumas: she wants power as a way for her to feel in control after lacking agency for so long.

So here's how I would interpret Sansa's actions since she escaped the Boltons. In season 6, when Littlefinger reminds Sansa that Jon is a threat to her, and only her half brother, Sansa starts plotting against him. She secretly corresponds with Littlefinger, and doesn’t tell Jon about the Vale army. She does this for different reasons: she thought that by doing this, Jon and Rickon had more chance to die, and she could become queen without Jon there to threaten her power. She also wanted to be seen as the hero of the battle, the one that saved them at the last minute, so she could have more chances of becoming queen. Not only that, but she didn’t want the Wildlings in the North and saw them as expendable. They were only a tool to her. She wanted to use them to get her lands and titles back, and used the fact that Jon saved them to try to convince Jon that they should fight (Sansa does say in season 6 that the Wildlings should fight for Winterfell because they owe Jon their lives). So she saw them as expendable tools to get Winterfell back, but she also didn’t care that they would die because she withheld information about the Vale army: the less foreign savages in the North, the better. When she doesn’t get her position of Queen in the North, she starts undermining Jon deliberately. Jon asks her to stop, but she continues doing it. When Bran returns, she offers Bran the position of Lord of Winterfell, and is relieved that he doesn’t want it. When the lords talk about putting her in Jon’s place, she doesn’t reprimand them. In her conflict with Arya, she was indeed going to kill Arya. After all, she sends Brienne away after Littlefinger reminds her that Brienne is sworn to protect both her and Arya. She only doesn’t kill Arya because she goes to Bran and learns that Littlefinger was manipulating her, and she realizes that Littlefinger is a bigger threat than Arya. She was fine in keeping Littlefinger as an ally before, she didn’t care about all the horrible things he did, but she realizes that keeping him alive would be more dangerous than advantageous. So she makes a sham trial to kill him, while also omitting her involvement in Littlefinger’s schemes in the Vale and the fact that she knew about them.

So by the time Dany gets to Winterfell, Sansa is a person that only cares about her position and privileges. When she hears Dany talking about her reforms in favor of the smallfolk, she is scandalized. Unlike book!Sansa, show!Sansa never lived as a bastard, and keeps her classism. Sansa is against Dany not because of pettiness or stupid distrust, but because she feels her power threatened, and because she thinks Dany is a tyrant for wanting to take away the privileges of the nobility. So Sansa tries to undermine Dany in every way she can: publicly telling Dany that she and her armies aren’t welcome; badmouthing Dany while Dany is fighting for her. When Sansa sees Dany giving Storm’s End to Gendry, she hates seeing it because she thinks giving Storm’s End to a bastard is an absurd (after all, she was usurped by her bastard brother) and also because if the Northern Lords see Dany’s generosity, they might not be so against her, especially after Dany fought for them. Finally, Sansa betrays the oath she swore to Jon in the godswood, telling Tyrion Jon’s secret, not necessarily because she wants Jon to be king, but because she wants to overthrow Dany. And she knows that if her plans succeeds, Dany will end up dead and no longer a threat. She doesn’t care that this could spark a civil war and that innocents could die. She doesn't care that she's plotting the death of a woman that just saved her. She only wants to retain her power, and she wouldn’t be allowed to do that if Dany actually “broke the wheel”. She continues not to care about anyone but herself by humiliating Edmure when he speaks (because she wants herself to be queen), and when Tyrion suggests Bran, she undermines him as well: first saying that Bran can’t rule because he doesn’t want it and can’t have children, and later by asking for independence, knowing that asking for independence would just lead to political instability and possibly war, but not caring about it, because she wants to be queen. So these are Sansa’s motivations.

So how would the idea of Bran warging into Dany work? Well, Bran has future visions. He doesn't choose to have them, they happen to him, and they are uncertain. But as we did see twice, Bran saw a dragon flying over King's Landing, and he saw the throne room destroyed. He later tells people in the Dragonpit that he knew he was going to be king. This implies that he didn't just have a vision of a dragon over King's Landing, but that he also had more detailed visions of what would happen later. He also tells Jon that Jon was "exactly where he has supposed to be", which implies that he knew Jon would kill Dany. So Bran knew many things: knew a dragon would fly over King's Landing, knew the throne room would be destroyed, knew Jon would kill Dany (meaning that he probably knew Dany was going to be responsible for the destruction), and knew the political ramifications of all that (he was going to be king). I think that, despite the fact his visions of the future are not as exact as visions of the past and present, every evidence seems to point out that Bran knew Dany would destroy King's Landing. So I choose to believe that he saw Dany, at the back of a dragon, burning everything, and all the subsequent events that happened with it.

So maybe, Bran started looking into the future and saw Dany becoming more and more depressed. He thought this would make her burn King's Landing. And he has seen how much Sansa craves power, and he still has some loyalty to his family. So he really has no interest in preventing an outcome that gets his family on top, and given that he has lost much of his empathy due to too much time warging on animais and trees, he doesn't really try to do anything to prevent the burning of King's Landing. He doesn't warn Dany or Jon. He tells Jon the truth about his parentage even though he knows that the truth would cause chaos. And so on.

At some point, he tells Sansa what's going to happen. And Sansa also does nothing to prevent it, and instead, wants to make it happen (like when she tells the truth of Jon's parentage). She takes Bran's visions of Dany burning King's Landing as a confirmation of her bias against Dany, which makes her feel righteous in her actions. And she wants House Stark on top, so she doesn't really stop to think that maybe, just maybe, she should be trying to prevent this from happening.

So when Dany marchs south, and attacks King's Landing, Bran watches over things to see what's happening, and Sansa waits by his side for him to tell her the news. But as time passes, nothing happens. Dany is not burning King's Landing as they expected. She is only attacking the soldiers, and is close to winning without bloodshed (This did, in fact, happen in the show. Dany never attacks any civilians before the bells, she only attacks military targets). Sansa starts to get anxious. Sansa was already expecting that she would become queen, and she becomes nervous when this possibility starts to be threatened. Then, when King's Landing surrenders, Sansa gets more desperate, and asks Bran to do something, telling him that they shouldn't allow Dany to stay in power. Bran, dispassionate as he is about everything and not really caring about people, tells Sansa that the possibility of warging into Dany exists. Sansa asks Bran to do it. He asks if she is certain, and in the desperation of the moment, Sansa says yes. So for Sansa, this was about seeing the power that she craved slipping through her fingers once again. For Bran, he was simply doing what Sansa wanted. He didn't particularly care about becoming King, but he didn't really have much empathy for the people of King's Landing, so to him it didn't matter.

Dany doesn't really realize what's happening. She is in a very emotionally fragile state, and she is already feeling certain things like anger and despair. This makes her vulnerable to Bran. A person with the mental strength to resist Bran’s warging could have done it, but Dany couldn't. So when we see Dany shaking her head in episode 8x5, before she starts burning King's Landing, it's because she was fighting against Bran's invasion, but in the end she couldn't resist it. So everything we see from that moment in episode 8x5 until Dany's death, Dany is only vaguely aware of the things she is doing, but is actually being controlled by Bran. And Bran is doing everything to make sure the outcome Sansa desired (Dany's death) happens: after Dany's attack, Bran makes her land with Drogon and makes her give Grey Worm the order to kill the Lannister soldiers that surrendered. He makes the speech about world domination. And Bran's warging is also the explanation why Dany acted so weird in the last episode. It's also the reason Dany didn't have anyone to protect her when Jon came to kill her: Bran made her give orders to her soldiers to leave her alone, and to let Jon come in without taking his weapons. When Jon stabs Dany, it's when Bran finally leaves her mind, and it's the first moment of full awareness she has since Bran warged her. So the betrayal and heartbreak she feels is even worse. She wakes from a trance and sees the man she loves killing her.

Now, you might wonder, why did Bran and Sansa have to go to such extreme lengths? Why didn't they warg a random soldier to do the job and kill Dany, instead of making her burn thousands of innocents to make Jon kill her? Expecting that Jon would make the decision to kill Dany is risky, because he could decide not to do it, and Bran and Sansa's plan would fall apart. But the problem is: they didn't simply want Dany to die. They wanted to destroy her reputation, to make sure that none of her followers could seize power. If Dany simply died, the throne would go to Jon, and measures to break the wheel could still happen. Sansa didn't want this to happen, she didn’t want to lose her privileges, she wanted the herself in power and Dany's forces neutralized. By warging into Dany, they could destroy Dany's reputation, make Tyrion and Jon kill her and destroy their own chances of seizing power, and destroy the chance that Dany's allies could seize power instead of her. With Dany burning King's Landing, Bran and Sansa could spin the narrative that Dany is a radical extremist, and that her wish to make reforms is what made her a tyrant. And so on. So this is why none of them thought of warging someone and making them kill Dany, or warging Dany and making her kill herself. (Besides, I headcanon that warging someone is easier if the person is in a fragile mental state, so maybe trying to warg someone else wouldn't work).

So this is my headcanon to explain Dany burning King's Landing. From this point, everything happens as in the show: Bran and Sansa get their crowns, Arya sails west of Westeros (and dies in a storm because I have no creativity to think of a story for her and I started to hate her show self anyway), Tyrion becomes Hand and Jon is exiled. Drogon obviously, takes Dany to Volantis to resurrect her.

In exile, Jon is miserable. On the one hand, he tells himself he did the right thing. After all, Dany seemed intent on "liberating" more cities, and could maybe kill his family. And regardless of whether she would burn more cities or not, or kill his family or not, he thinks that anyone who would burn innocents for no reason and call it "necessary" shouldn't rule.

On the other hand, Jon blames himself for all the ways he failed Dany. He thinks that he was so caught up in his own angst about his parentage, about how he and Dany were related, that he didn't notice how much she was hurting. So while Jon tells himself he did the right thing in killing her, he also blames himself for not comforting her, for disregarding her fears about the dangers of his parentage coming out and telling the secret to his family, for not standing up more for her. He wonders if he only could have comforted her, then maybe she wouldn’t have ended up like that. He also starts to doubt his decision to kill her: if Dany did what she did because she became mad with grief, then maybe he could have helped her come to her senses. Maybe he didn't have to kill her. Maybe he could have helped her heal. So I headcanon that Jon would be really hard on himself and start to hate himself for killing Dany. (By the way, it's also important to consider Jon's state of mind when he kills Dany. I'm sure seeing thousands of innocents burned by dragonfire must be pretty traumatic, and would push him to decide that killing Dany was necessary).

But not only Jon blames himself, he also starts to blame his family for what they did to Dany. He starts to hate Sansa for conspiring against her (and almost leading to Dany's death, since Sansa telling the truth made Varys try to poison Dany). He blames his family for being so cold to Dany, for using her for her resources and then discarding her, and thinks about how things could have gone differently if they hadn't done these things. And at some point, Jon will remember Bran's cryptic line about him being "exactly where he was supposed to be", and start to get suspicious that Bran knew what Dany would do, and that Bran knew Jon would end up killing her, and did nothing to prevent it. But Jon will brush off these suspicions by thinking that "his family would never do this to him".

Meanwhile, Dany will, obviously, be resurrected. Drogon will take her body to Volantis, but since he is an animal, it's not like he knows what to do with it. So he will rest with her body and mourn her somewhere in Volantis, and some slaves will find him. Said slaves will recognize Dany. They have never seen her, of course, but seeing a silver haired woman and a black dragon, it's not difficult to guess who she is. And they will also mourn her, of course. Dany was a hope to many slaves. These slaves also hoped that Dany would come to save them, so seeing the dragon queen dead is the death of those dreams. They try to get to Drogon, and Drogon, slowly, comes to trust them to get near Dany. They bring a red priestess to where Dany's body is to make the rites usually done for the dead and honor the dragon queen. They don't really tell this to anyone, because they don't want her body to be found and desecrated by slave masters. So the ceremony is done in secret. But something they didn't expect happens: as the priestess gives her the last kiss, Dany is resurrected.

Oh, and as soon as Dany is resurrected, something terrible already happens: she has a miscarriage. Dany had found out she was pregnant very recently, and didn't have time to tell Jon. But since he killed her, the baby died, and didn't come back when she was resurrected. (I don't have the link right now, but I remember reading GRRM say that people who return from the dead are those who feel a strong sense of purpose, and I think a fetus wouldn't have that, so I don't think the baby would be resurrected)

Well, with all of this, Dany is incredibly traumatized. She doesn't know she was being warged by Bran, and she feels guilty for what she thinks she did to King's Landing. She has lost another child, she has lost her hope for the future, the love of her life has killed her. So she falls into depression, and starts to live hidden in Volantis (the red priestess that resurrected her helps her with a spell to prevent Bran from using his powers to see her). She has given up on the idea of helping people. And she doesn’t want to fly on Drogon anymore, because she has horrible flashbacks of what she did to King’s Landing, and because she doesn’t trust herself with a weapon as powerful as Drogon.

But after some time, Dany will start coming back to her former self. She’ll see the suffering of the slaves in Volantis, she will hear the news about Volantis going to war against the cities of Dragon’s Bay in order to re-enslave everyone, and she will hear about how some of the Dothraki have come back to their old ways and are enslaving again, and she’ll decide that she needs to do something about it. This is when she decides to ride Drogon again.

*by the way, here’s a parenthesis about the political situation in Essos*

Volantis has slavery, and is preparing for war against Meereen and Astapor. Meereen and Astapor are still strong and anti-slavery, because Dany left former slaves in the government, and she also left military forces to avoid her new governments being overthrown (like what happened the first time in Astapor, so Dany learned from her mistakes). Daario is still loyal to Dany, because he really loved her (and also because the Meereenese government is paying him to protect the city, so he really has no reason to turn on them). In Yunkai, however, Dany had wanted to do the same thing she did in Astapor (kill all the masters), but Tyrion convinced her not to do it, opting for only cutting the throats of two of the Yunkish leaders. This means that even though Yunkai is being watched by Dany’s army in the region, and they don’t openly sell slaves anymore (lest they provoke a war against Astapor in Meereen, which would be bad now that Yunkai is weakened), the Yunkish leaders are still conspiring to bring back slavery, but this time, instead of funding the Sons of the Harpy (once again, they’re not doing this anymore because Astapor and Meereen are aware that they were the culprits, and the resurgence of the Sons of the Harpy would mean war as well), they are secretly negotiating with Volantis, asking for help (since the end of slavery in Dragon’s Bay meant that the price of slaves went up, and Volantis’ economy was suffering because of this).

Meanwhile, some of the Dothraki returned to Essos. Of the ones that returned, some Dothraki believed in Dany, meaning that they didn’t return to the old ways and some even have hope that she will return, since she’s the Stallion that Mounts the World. While others have made up their own khalasars, and started enslaving and raiding again (even selling slaves to Volantis and other slave cities that remained). These khalasars that returned to the old ways are allied with Volantis.

I don’t  really have a headcanon for cities like Pentos, Myr, Tyrosh, Lys and others. I don’t know if they will still have slavery or not. The show doesn’t really mention it as far as I remember, so it could go either way.

*end of parenthesis about Essos*

So Dany starts by seeking for her khalasar, the ones that are in Essos. Some of the Dothraki (the ones that didn’t go back to their old ways and didn’t go back to being slavers) eagerly accept her back. Together with them, Dany starts again her army, and they end up defeating those other khalasars that started enslaving again. So once again, Dany unites the khalasars in Essos. But there are still some Dothraki left in Westeros, so Dany hasn’t reunited all khalasars yet.

After uniting the khalasars in Essos, stopping them from engaging in slavery, and stopping them from selling slaves to Volantis and other cities, at some point, Dany will reunite with the Unsullied. Together with her new khalasar, the Unsullied, and Drogon, Dany will start a war against the slave cities that remain in Essos. She will liberate Volantis and many other cities. She will go back to Slaver’s Bay and destroy the counter-revolutionary movement in Yunkai. She will reunite with Daario too, and things will happen between them, because I ship Dany and Daario, and also because I think Dany deserves to have some physical and emotional comfort before she reunites with Jon.

So with all that Dany is doing in Essos, news of Dany’s resurrection will reach Westeros, and they will greatly worry Bran, Tyrion and Sansa.

*And here’s another parenthesis, about the political situation in Westeros*

Tyrion is now theoretically Lord of Casterly Rock, but the Lannisters of Lannisport are opposing him (and unfortunately, ableism is a part of it). Tyrion has support from some of them, with whom he had a good relationship in the past, but not from most of them (and that fact the he killed Tywin is obviously another reason why many would oppose him). However, most of the Lannisport Lannisters start to die or disappear mysteriously - through suicide, through murder, or simply disappearing. This isn’t Tyrion’s doing, though. He doesn’t know why this is happening, but in the end, only his allies survived, and Tyrion starts to get a better hold on the Westerlands. (What is actually happening is that Bran has spies/ravens and is ordering the killing of those he views as opposition. He does this because he sees no other choice, because the situation in the Six Kingdoms is very chaotic)

In the Reach, Bronn is now lord, which is pissing off many lords (they think it’s an absurd that a sellsword was given Highgarden when many of the Reach families had better claims to it). He has the support of the Tarlys, because Sam’s family wants to support the new regime. But the region is in a chaos. Many lords are rebelling, the smallfolk are rebelling because Bronn is greedy and exploits them, and doesn’t give them justice (They aren’t necessarily hungry, because it’s the Reach. But Bronn is trying to indulge some lords to gain their alliance and be able to contend against the lords that are against him, so he let’s them do whatever they want with the smallfolk and offers the smallfolk no protection). Outlaw groups start to form to fight against Bronn and his allies, but he answers with brutality to those who oppose him or that try to ask him for anything better for the smallfolk. Bronn keeps his own sellsword army, that he rewards greatly to help him stop the smallfolk from claiming for more rights (and spending so much money on sellswords gains Bronn the enmities of some lords and smallfolk). Some of the Unsullied didn’t go to Naath (only Grey Worm’s closest friends went), and stayed in the Reach, and they help the outlaw groups.

The new prince of Dorne doesn’t have any allegiance to Bran. As soon as things calm down, he declares for Independence, given that King Bran gave independence to his own sister. He stops paying tributes, and Bran sends troops (composed of soldiers from the Crownlands, the Westerlands, Riverlands and the Stormlands) against them. The prince of Dorne answers, ready to fight for his independence. Bran brutally crushes his opposition.

Yara and the Ironborn want independence. Yara also resents the Starks for killing Dany, and also for making her brother die for them. She has taken back the Iron Islands from Euron in season 8, but now, without Dany’s support and the fear of dragons, some of the Ironborn don’t want a woman as their queen, and they want to go back to the old ways as Euron promised (while Yara, still loyal to Dany, has decided to uphold her ideals, decreeing that there should be no more raiding and raping). So the Iron Islands declare independence, but they are divided. Yara still has more support (since many of Euron’s supporters died in Dany’s attack to King’s Landing), but the few that don’t follow her start to raid the Riverlands, Westerlands and the North.

Edmure is a good lord, but the Riverlands have suffered greatly from the wars and the winter. When he tries to ask the Iron Throne for help to feed his people, the Iron Throne doesn’t send much. His niece Sansa is not going to help either (as she has her own concerns with food and can’t share), and Edmure starts go get disillusioned with the new regime and with his own family, who won’t help him, and who will also make his people fight in another war (against Dorne), while his people are being attacked by the Ironborn. And he doesn’t forget how Sansa humiliated him at the Dragonpit.

Gendry is loyal to the Starks, but only because he knew Arya and Jon. With both of them gone, his loyalty to King Bran is weak. He cares more about his own smallfolk. Gendry was a lowborn bastard after all, so he wants to do everything he can for them. But with time, he sees that the new regime is not interested in helping the smallfolk, just like they weren’t interested in listening to Sam’s idea of democracy. His loyalty also starts to waver. He also has problems with some lords from the Stormlands that don’t like that some bastard is now in charge, but it’s less than Bronn, since Gendry is indeed trying to be a good lord, and he is indeed Robert Baratheon’s son (he was recognized as such by Stannis Baratheon, and later by Daenerys Targaryen, so now it’s common knowledge).

The North also suffered with the War for the Dawn and the winter. Sansa is regarded as a competent lady by the Northern lords, but she has no love in the North. The Northern Lords kinda just got stuck with her. Sansa had stored grain in Winterfell to feed the castle and her armies, but that only means that the smallfolk in other parts of the North had to give up part of their harvest to send to Winterfell, and now, with the Winter, they are starving. To quell discontentment, Sansa tries bringing food from White Harbour, and Bran also sends her food. The fact that Bran is sending food to his sister for lower prices than usually done when trading with other foreign lands makes the lords of the Six Kingdoms angry. Bran stops sending so much food, so Sansa starts demanding more tributes from White Harbour. This angers Lord Manderly more and more, and Lord Manderly decides to demand for independence. Sansa had publicly complained many times about Dany being a tyrant for not giving her independence, so he uses the same argument Sansa used in the Dragonpit: White Harbour had suffered too much: they had sent their troops to fight the Night King alongside the Starks, but not only that, they had been the ones that most contributed to feeding the North. Because of this, he thinks he deserves independence, just like Sansa argued that she deserved independence from the Seven Kingdoms. He argues that what Sansa did created a precedent for independence, and that it would be tyranny if she refused to give it to him. Sansa is outraged, and sends her troops to make Lord Manderly bend the knee and force him to send food again.

The Vale will stay loyal to the Starks to the end, since they have mostly been left alone, and are not having as much problems with food (they weren’t very affected by wars, and their land is fertile). Nepotism also helps, because Bran won’t demand too much from his family. Edmure, also Bran’s family, was asking for help, but Tyrion advised that Lord Royce, the regent of the Vale and Sweetrobin’s advisor, was a proud man and their most loyal ally, and that angering him and making him send food to the Riverlands would be bad for them (Tyrion was wrong, as always).

By the way, winter isn’t over. Book speculation often said that the Others were the cause of the long winter, but in the show, we saw that there was snow in King’s Landing even after the White Walkers were defeated. So here, we’ll accept the fact that the seasons being long is just a normal thing for their world. After they kill Dany, Westeros goes through a few months of “false spring”, but winter returns stronger than ever after that. Crops die, hunger spreads through the land.

So basically, everything is chaos.

*end of the parenthesis about Westeros*

So with the chaos that is happening in Westeros, and the news of Dany’s return, Bran, Tyrion and Sansa start to get nervous. They pardon Jon, and Sansa sends men after Jon to bring him back from beyond the Wall, because she believes having Jon in Winterfell could serve as a shield in case Dany attacks (she thinks Dany might still love him, or that Jon might be able to negotiate with her. In a last case scenario, she could deliver Jon to Dany to make Dany leave her alone), and also, because she feels lonely, since her entire family left her.

Jon comes back to Winterfell. At some point, he overhears a conversation between Sansa and Maester Wolkan. Maester Wolkan was in the room when Sansa asked Bran to warg into Dany, and he knows the truth. Sansa sworn him to secrecy, but now, he comes to her with news of Dany’s resurrection, and asks Sansa if Dany would want revenge for Bran having warged into her. Sansa answers that she is not sure that Daenerys has memories or if she is aware that she was being warged, and if Daenerys doesn’t remember, she might not seek revenge.

So when Jon overhears this conversation, he learns that Daenerys was innocent, and that she is alive. He is horrified by what his family did, and also feels guilty for not believing in Daenerys, for having trusted his family and dismissed Dany’s fears, and so on. There’s a lot of angst. Jon then pretends he didn’t hear Sansa’s conversation, and pretends that everything is ok. He runs away from Winterfell in the middle of the night, without warning, with the intention of going to Dany.

From this moment on, I’m not really sure of what happens. I like the idea of Jon spending some time in the South, helping outlaw groups in the Reach, and learning about his brother’s tyranny. On the other hand, I don’t know how Jon could escape being seen by Bran’s ravens. So maybe Jon simply takes a ship and goes to Essos. But before he manages to take his ship, I still like to think that he talks with the smallfolk and hears what has been happening in Westeros (since he didn’t hear anything about it when he was exiled beyond the Wall).

Jon and Dany eventually reunite. Jon is brought to her in her war camp (because Dany is still at war with the slavers in Essos). While on the one hand Dany feels angry at Jon for killing her, for not supporting her and for giving up on her, on the other hand, she feels ashamed of what she did in King’s Landing and thinks she deserved to die (after all, Dany herself would have killed a person that burned innocents for no reason). So she accepts to meet Jon, but only with her guards around her, because while she still loves Jon, she is also afraid of him. Dany doesn’t have any intention of getting revenge against Jon, since she feels guilty about what she did. She is curious about what could possibly be the reason for Jon to look for her again, and thinks that he wants to kill her in the name of his family.

Jon is still very confused and tormented, and while a part of him believes that Dany is innocent, another part of him doesn’t want to believe that his siblings would have been capable of doing such an atrocity. So when he and Dany talk, he starts by asking her why she did what she did to King’s Landing. Dany answers that she doesn’t really know. That before she realized, she was doing it, like she couldn’t control herself. She tells Jon that her memories of King’s Landing almost don’t feel real, and that she is ashamed of what she did. This convinces Jon that Dany is indeed innocent, and he tells her the truth.

And this causes a lot of angst, of course. Initially, it makes Dany angry that he didn’t believe in her innocence and that he gave up on her so easily. She accuses him of having betrayed her, of having abandoned her. She also tells Jon that she was pregnant, and that because he killed her, he also killed their child (and this of course, makes Jon feel even more guilty). But with time, the anger passes, and she starts to see Jon as another victim of his family’s machinations (unlike Jon, who was hesitant in believing the worst of his siblings, Dany has a very low opinion of the Starks).

So Dany forgives Jon. They don’t return to their romantic relationship, but consider each other friends. And Jon starts to help her in her fight against slavery in Essos. This makes them content, since neither of them wants to ever return to Westeros. But unfortunately for them, news of Dany’s resurrection have started to reach more people, and lords from Westeros come to her to ask for her help in deposing Bran and the lords loyal to him. Listening to all the things that are happening in Westeros and how much the people are suffering only angers Dany. And it angers Jon as well. So they make plans to return to Westeros. Dany leaves a big part of her army of Unsullied and Dothraki in Essos, so that they could keep on with their fight against the masters. She returns to Westeros mostly with the army of their Westerosi allies (and her dragon, of course).

Dany has in mind a new political system, with a council of noblemen and a council of the smallfolk, so she negotiates with her allies with this in mind, making it clear that if they want to support her claim, they also have to support her reforms She has decided that she won’t hesitate to use force against the lords who don’t accept her reforms.

*another parenthesis*

Since I said I didn’t really have everything figured out, here are some alternatives to the things that I just described:

Maybe the reason Jon went back to Winterfell wasn’t because Sansa called him, but because when Jon was beyond the Wall, he saw that the White Walkers weren’t entirely gone. So maybe, what makes Dany return to Westeros isn’t that she wants revenge or because the lords are asking her to return, but because of the White Walkers. This would leave her conflicted, because the last time she tried to help those people she was betrayed and killed.

Or maybe Dany’s motivation to return to Westeros are just that she wants revenge. In this case, maybe she won’t even accept the alliance with the Lords, because she wants to change things for the common people. Or maybe she makes alliances with lesser lords promising them more political influence and that lesser lords would have as much sway as high lords in her new system (as well as smallfolk would also have more power).

*end of parenthesis*

Whatever Dany’s motivations for returning to Westeros are, she returns to Westeros, takes back the throne, and takes revenge. Dany is no longer the trusting soft person she was when she first went to Westeros. She comes with fire and blood, uses force when she needs to. Bran dies, because he is way too powerful for Dany to keep alive and trust that he won’t warg or spy on anyone again. As for Sansa and Tyrion, I could see different endgames: they could be exiled, imprisoned and kept as hostages, or Dany could kill them both for treason: Sansa because she revealed Jon’s parentage against Jon and Dany’s wishes, and also because of her part in the plan to make Bran warg into Dany; and Tyrion for telling what Sansa told him to Varys without Dany’s permission, which led Varys to try to poison Dany, and Dany could have died due to Tyrion’s actions; though I could see Dany being more lenient towards Tyrion than Sansa, since Sansa’s crimes are more grave. But I don’t see Dany ever accepting him as an advisor again.

Jonerys will reconcile and rule. There might be some conflict with Jon because he doesn’t want to see his family die (which is why there could be the possibility of keeping Sansa alive but as a prisoner), but in the end they get back together, marry and have children. Dany creates a new government in which both smallfolk and lords can have representatives and create laws, and she creates laws that limit the powers of the lords and stops them from abusing the smallfolk. She could also give some autonomy to each of the kingdoms: she doesn’t fully give them independence, but this greater autonomy helps quell the growing wishes for independence from each of the kingdoms.

So that’s my post season 8 headcanon. Dany was entirely innocent, the Starks were the villains, and Bran warged into Dany. Btw, if anyone wants to use this headcanon to actually write a fic, feel free to do so. Just please tell me because I’d love to read it.

[secret-engima]

Some Random Reasons I Really Like the Boruto Anime.

(because yes it has it’s problems but honestly I’m tired of trying to enjoy my fandoms with everyone whinging that it’s “not as good as the original”. As if the original two Naruto shows weren’t utter dumpster fires with moments of Pure Awesome to keep it alive and half the fandom isn’t there solely to pick through Kishimoto’s junkyard world building looking for shiny bits to incorporate in their fanfics.  Which is not to say I don’t like the Naruto shows, but seriously ppl you can’t whine about how bad the fillers and slow pacing and weird world-building of Naruto was only to turn around and scream that Boruto is horrible of TRYING TO BE DIFFERENT. Let’s inject some positivity in here. Anyone who has no need for Boruto positivity can kindly move on with their lives and let me have my shiny fandom. Moving on.)

-Reason 1. Mitsuki exists. He is Best Boi™ and I adore him.

-Reason 2. The characters are not carbon copies of their parents, but neither are they polar opposites. They have some of their parent’s traits and some of their own unique traits and honestly it’s so refreshing to have a show that isn’t “Main Character X Take 2: This time with a New Color Scheme”

-Reason 3. Have you SEEN how many girl characters there are in this show? Even if most of them are side characters? Have you SEEN the fact they can actually DO STUFF other than flip their hair and whine about boys? One of them can use seals! And has CAT POWERS!! Another one was the antagonist of the first story arc! And was actually cool! And also got reformed rather than just being yote off the nearest cliff! The main female character is actually useful without being either a whim or a jerk!

Reason 4. The school system has been revamped in ways that make SENSE. The Naruto cast (especially Iruka as the new headmaster) looked back on their early life and went “You know what? It’s REALLY DUMB that we were so unprepared for shinobi life. Let’s change that.” And they did! Students actually learn water and tree walking BEFORE they get thrown into life and death situations! They know jutsu other than the Basic Three! They get to know basic sealing and learn that Summoning jutsu exists! There’s a student who knows medical ninjutsu, so that’s obviously an optional course or something kids can take! They also have an option to NOT BE NINJAS. If they decide partway through they don’t wanna be ninja’s, there’s a civilian middle school program incorporated into the academy! Do you know what that also means? Civilians who get to know BASIC SELF DEFENSE. So even if they aren’t Ninja, they at least know how ninja work and how to not Insta-die the next time someone breaks into their village!

Reason 5. THERE’S AN INTER-SCHOOL TRANSFER PROGRAM. Way to show just how tight the alliances of the different villages are. Even if it’s only mentioned here and there, it’s SUCH a cool thought with so much fanfic potential.

Reason 6. Chocho, flipping, Akimichi exists. Yes, she can be a little annoying with her running gag of “I’m so pretty” but like- SHE IS ACTUALLY PRETTY. And she knows and can use the clan jutsu really well! DO YOU KNOW HOW EASY IT WOULD HAVE BEEN for them to either make her utterly hideous and go “Hur hur look at the fat girl thinks she can actually be pretty lol” OR make her constantly whimpy and shy and lacking any confidence at all because “oh look at the poor girl, she’s FAT so she must feel UGLY all the time, and have no confidence because what FAT PERSON has any confidence unless they’re delusional?” Both of those would be so freaking stupid and defeating. But INSTEAD they make Choho 1. pretty and 2. self-confident. She dresses nice, she looks nice, she’s not stick thin like say, Sarada, but she is actually pretty and she OWNS it. She owns her love of food, and her clan jutsu, and just- herself in general. And yea they use it as a running gag sometimes when she plays it up a little too much, but like- there’s a body positivity character! Right there! Who is also a girl who kicks butt! One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen of the naruto show is that the girl characters are flat and useless and underused save for like- Tsunade. Here you have a useful girl who is also body confident! And that’s not even touching on Sarada “can use both super strength and the sharingan and owns this fact” Uchiha.

Reason 7. Boruto’s issues are not his dad’s issues. There are ... lots of “kid sequels” i’ve seen/read/heard of where all the problems are basically the main character’s problems rehashed. And yeah, the villains so far are that I’ve seen are callbacks to the main show, BUT. EMOTIONALLY. Boruto’s issues aren’t the same. Boruto doesn’t have the “nobody likes me I must earn their respect” issues Naruto did. Or the orphan issues. He has a loving mom, he’s a loving big brother (who makes mistakes and does argue with his sister, which #realistic kthanks), and he is popular. Being alone isn’t his problem. Being unpopular or hated isn’t his problem. His problems are that he doesn’t know how to bond with his always-busy dad (which- of course Naruto is always busy, that’s just the show writers continuing the Overworked Hokage gag from the original show, and yes Naruto uses his Shadow Clones to help with it but come ON he’s running a military force AND a booming village) and that he hasn’t had the same life experiences Naruto had at that age. He’s learning to mature in a different way. If Naruto and Naruto Shippuden were about children who grew up too soon in a brutal ninja world, then Boruto is about kids who grow up in the AFTERMATH of that world. The world where their parents never want their kids to suffer like that and so, just a little, coddle them. It’s kinda like the aftermath of the big wars. The kids who grew up during that war are adults now and their kids have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT life experiences and priorities. It’s just how it works, and I appreciate that.

Reason 8. We have a girl Uchiha who wants to be Hokage. I love the Naruto and Naruto Shippuden shows, but it got ... a LITTLE tiresome that Naruto’s dream was also the dream of both his dad AND his mom and I think also kid Jiraiya at one point? Like- it seemed like at that point the show was going “Of course you want to be hokage! It’s in your blood!”. Boruto couldn’t care less bout being the next Hokage. He’s lived what it’s like to be the Hokage’s kid (something Asuma, if he’s still been alive, could have sympathized with I’m sure) and he doesn’t want to be that person. Sarada on the other hand has lived the live of having no real dad figure until recently, and as such Naruto’s “all the village is my family” motto really rings home with her. She wants to be the next Hokage, not Boruto, and frankly that’s refreshing.

Reason 9. Shino the teacher. I’m pretty sure this is a controversial point but honestly I really liked this. I do have some issues with how the og characters are portrayed (looking at you Kiba and Anko), but Shino I have no issues with. This is an intelligent, helpful boy who grew up struggling to bond with people and who grew up with people constantly interrupting him/not listening. And this gag does make its frequent appearance in Boruto, but that’s not Boruto’s fault that’s actually a case of the show being consistent with its predecessor so, you know, go blame Kishimoto for how his students didn't listen to him in the early episodes. BUT. As the episodes go on, it’s so clear the students do love and respect their teacher. They wouldn’t talk to him if they didn’t. They might not see him as a terrifying warrior, but he’s their TEACHER. Even Mitsuki comes to respect Shino, going out of his way (spoiler) to fight Shino in the graduation exam because Mitsuki saw Shino as someone worth testing himself against. Mitsuki. Orochimaru’s “perfect clone bby”. Thought Shino was badass enough to fight. And also on the student body in general, OBVIOUSLY they listen to him off screen, because if they didn’t then they wouldn’t have learned the things they did and have actually succeeded in the graduation exam, now could they?

Reason 10. Naruto and Sasuke are still utterly epic WITHOUT stealing the spotlight the moment they come on screen. I’m not that far into the show, so maybe that changes, but from the arcs I’ve seen (mostly the Shin arc), Naruto and Sasuke are utter powerhouses, but they don’t ... they don’t just hax the show. In the same way Jiraiya didn’t hax everything and steal the spotlight from Naruto, neither do Naruto and Sasuke, but we still see they’re awesome (after all, they were perfectly capable while fighting all the Shins, and just- the moment one of them got a look at Kuruma it was OVER and it’s SO clear in that moment that Sasuke and Naruto were holding back because they didn’t want to kill a bunch of kids. Naruto or Sasuke on their own could have MASSACRED the Shins, but didn’t, because they’re former protagonists (and reformed antagonist in one case) like that.

So... tl:dr Boruto is not Naruto or Naruto Shippuden but considering all the massive plot holes and world-building errors that happened in those shows, as well as the utter lack of use of its female characters, that’s not a bad thing! Boruto has some stuff wrong with it, and some things that I can see annoying/ticking off fans who had their heart set on another path, but the show has potential, the characters are utilized much better than I expected, and as someone who did not grow up on Naruto and so doesn’t have shiny nostalgia glasses spot welded to my face, I think it’s a really good show.

Honestly if it wasn’t a sequel of such a monolith, childhood-forming show, I think it wouldn’t get NEAR as much hate, and the fact that it gets such flak because it dares have its own unique take on the post-Naruto Shippuden years rather than trying (and inevitably failing) to cater to the whims of every single fan out there makes me sad. If you want to see more of Naruto’s world and see female characters actually get some cool moments to themselves, then give it a try. If you’d rather go with your own Naruto HCs for what happened at the end of the war, then that’s FINE, just don’t get mad at those of us who enjoy Boruto for the glorious animated fanfic AU it is.

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED (for now): Final Fantasy VII

Midgar section complete, and at just under 6 hours.  Boom. It was a fun ride.

So, in the prison cells. Aerith talks about her planned date with Cloud, and Tifa hears. it’s a brief moment of love-triangle-ness, but Tifa and Aerith move past it quickly. Aerith and Tifa don’t quite get the bonding that they do in Remake, but they’re not quite the rivals I assumed them to be. Barret is trying to keep track of how everything is so much bigger than him. This is interesting. I think Barret had a singular vision--get revenge against Shinra (and maybe save the planet). Now he’s learning there’s more factors at play, and his goal isn’t as clear.

Then he calls Red XIII “boring”. Haha. Cloud wakes up to find his prison cell door open. Checking outside, the guard is dead/knocked out. Spooky. I liked this moment, but Remake kinda skipped over it. Instead we got stupid destiny-ghosts and long-ass Hojo dungeon. Following the trail, it’s interesting how the monsters are different. Hojo experiments or Jenova spawn? Speaking of Jenova, she escaped. Curious how it got out. In Remake a Sephiroth “clone” rescued her. But here...maybe she saved herself? Then made a Sephiroth sword to murder President Shinra?

Anyway, I love finding dead President Shinra. It’s interesting to have Shinra boast in front of the team after capturing them, then to have all his dreams whisked away. It creates a fragility to his sense of strength and power. While he may have had massive influence over the world--he’s still just a mortal human. Maybe that’s why the designers wanted a bigger enemy (Sehpiroth/Jenova). But them not being Ancients weakens that for me. I do love how Barret asks if Sephiroth is a “good guy”. But Cloud sets him straight. This is a weakness in this game’s story. Out of nowhere, Cloud is dropping a lot of Sephiroth bombs and no one has bothered to ask Cloud who this guy is or why Cloud hates him so much. I know we get the details in Kalm, but I wonder...if this back story was presented before the attack on Shinra--would the Sephiroth sword in Shinra’s back have been even more alarming? I think it could have created some great context for this moment.

Rufus shows up and he’s a total jerk. We’ve changed antagonists, but not really. Rufus makes a good switch because he’s younger. It makes sense that he would want to chase Sephiroth across the world when his father would likely have preferred sending proxies. I do love how everyone introduces themselves: Ex-Soldier, from Avalanche, flower girl, and science experiment. 

Cloud takes on Rufus, while Barret, Aerith, and Red XIII fight TWO bosses back-to-back, and Tifa waits in the lobby. Knowing what to expect, I equipped the Barret team well enough for their fight. Super easy. But the Rufus battle was more worrisome. I set the battle speed to max. I really like it. Seems like I’m never waiting for ATB bars to fill. But also with bosses, it means I’m constantly getting bombarded with devastating attacks. I opened with poison on Rufus, which was wise. But they kept hitting me back-to-back with attacks, so I got to 50% health pretty quick with a filled Limit Break Bar. I opted for the Limit Break, hoping that between that and the poison, it would be enough to end the fight. Soon, I was down to 25% with two foes. I was just able to give Cloud a Hi-Potion before they could kill me, and it only took one hit from my Fire-Elemental sword to end the battle. Thought I wasn’t gonna make.

Barret, Aerith, and Red are in the lobby. Not sure how they’re gonna get out. I guess it made sense that Remake boosted this scene a little bit with Heidegger. But I was so ready for this game to be done, I couldn’t enjoy the smallest of “improvements”. Tifa gets the team together to hop in a car. It’s a fun little cinematic with some glass busting action!! Now we’re off to one of my favorite mini-games:

The Motorcycle sequence! I was blown away as a kid playing this game, even  more blown away thinking they could have gotten away with something simpler--but they actually invented a whole gameplay mechanic just for this one moment. That’s what I love about FF7--how they find ways to switch up the conventional RPG formula with neat mini-games that often help better serve the story!

Maybe cause I was playing on my phone, but I didn’t defend my team as well as I usually do. They got a little beat up. Weird wheeled-robot boss fight and boom, done with the Midgar section.

No stupid fight with Destiny. Though, I do like how Remake brought Sephiroth into play here. For this game, though, it makes sense to have a somber moment post Motorcycle chase. It’s been pretty non-stop with huge plot twists, new characters, and four boss fights. The players deserve a break. And they’re gonna get plenty of Sephiroth in Kalm, five minutes from now. 

It was interesting hearing the characters’ motivations. Cloud wants to settle the score with Sephiroth. You’re not supposed to know what that means, but apparently Cloud thought he was dead. Now that he’s “not”, he wants to get this resolved. He’s also aware of Sephiroth’s murderous schemes. Cloud, in his commitment to saving Aerith, has committed himself to being a hero. Feels clear to me now. He seems quite willing to align with others that have a similar goal. This isn’t just revenge, but it’s also not NOT revenge. Barret, seeing Sephiroth as the greater threat to the planet has shifted his focus. But Also, President Shinra is dead. While Rufus is terrible, and Shinra is still very much alive...to know that the one person most responsible for your pain and misery is now dead has got to be a little disorienting. A little bit, here, Barret is also becoming a hero.

Aerith admits to having never left Midgar and says there’s things she wants to know. Cloud asks if it’s about the Ancients, and she says “many things”. She’s actually a pretty complex character. I think she has feelings for Cloud, which is somewhat mixed up with her feelings for Zack. She knows Shinra is a threat to the world but also seeking her out personally, so she’ll never truly be safe or carefree. And she’s a pretty decent person that wants to do the right thing. She has a lot riding her shoulders that she didn’t ask for. I think she’s interesting in that she wants to live in her small bubble within Midgar, but her destiny and fate are tied to much bigger things!

Tifa--sadly, Tifa doesn’t have a lot going on right now. I really love her in Remake, but much of that felt added. I think she’s similar to Barret in that she suffered a great loss because of Shinra and wants revenge.  But she’s not as aggressive and violent as he is. Clearly she’s a bad ass. I think this is the one place where Remake has the edge over the original--they did a better job with Tifa.

Then Red XIII. He just kinda wants a lift. Hah!

Well, I wanted to replay the Midgar section as a compare-and-contrast with Remake, and that task is done. I often play this section (once or twice a year) never quite committing to playing the whole game. But it seems I tend to gloss over the dialog (I know this already). But I made myself read it, even talk to most of the NPCs, and it’s just a great game, story, and world.

To say Final Fantasy VII hasn’t aged well is ridiculous. Nothing truly ages well, especially a work of media that represents a growing and evolving craft. Tons of RPGs were inspired by gameplay and technical feats attempted and pioneered by Final Fantasy VII, and the game’s legacy is still strong. The graphics aren’t great by today’s standards, and they were a little weird by 98′s standards, but they still helped tell a great story and provide iconic gameplay moments. And those moments are timeless. Even if the translation is bad. Even a modern Remake can’t erase the original’s greatness.

I’m still a fan!              

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Caught up on 3 weeks of Emmerdale that I’ve been avoiding. Haha. I definitely needed that 3 week break though because I was not ready to just move on from Robert that first week after he left. And binge watching it all way after the fact makes it a lot more palatable and certain parts of it less painful because I’d seen all the Aaron stuff in gifs already and I’d already gotten a lot of my frustrations out about all that. 

Of everything from these last three weeks, I think I’ve enjoyed the Lydia stuff the most. I mean I hate the thought of them giving her a ticking time bomb of an eventual death sentence with this Huntington’s thing but I think it’s great that they’re expanding her family and giving her more focus. It’s hard to believe that she started out as a bit part grief counselor that Jimmy met for a comedy plot. She’s become such a great character since then and it’s so nice to see. 

I also enjoyed the general teen focus. I mean, the Sarah/Danny stuff is really kind of random and I don’t really know where they’re going with all of that but I like that her need to experience more of life has given the teens more to do. And I like her and Noah hanging out and him sort of trying to look out for her. And Samson having something to say about it all. It’s been really nice seeing Gabby again. I’ve missed her. I hope they do give her a real storyline again some day but until then, it’s nice seeing her in a background and supporting role. I like her actually being friends with Leanna now and I’ve liked seeing her and Leanna and Dee Dee altogether even if Dee Dee’s accent still drives me insane. Haha. 

I wasn’t sure what the Jacob stuff was going to be like from the live blogging I’ve been reading but it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, boy still needs therapy badly because he’s clearly so messed up. But I’m glad Maya getting out did at least bring all of this stuff back up and give it a chance to escalate and arrive at some kind of attempt at closure. I still think it would have been better to do this months ago rather than letting it sit for this long but I’m glad it wasn’t dropped and that they built on everything that they’d done before with Priya too. I’m still not sure Jacob totally gets what Maya did to him but hopefully he’s at least starting to. I do agree that David’s methods were not the best and haven’t been since he found out because he should have gotten him help ages ago instead of leaving him to fend for himself and hoping he’d just get over it. I guess we’ll see where it goes from here. It does break my heart that he equates people being nice to him with wanting to have sex with him. That is not good. 

I felt bad for Leanna in the whole thing but again, it was nice to have a focus on teen stories and let Gabby support her a bit and I liked Liv FINALLY being able to talk to people her own age and have coffee with Gabby and yell at Jacob. This is where Liv needs to be more often. 

The Vanity break up stuff was interesting. I still don’t like that this break up came off the back of the casino job which seemingly came out of nowhere. The thing is that their break up addressed very real issues, which I believe that they would have. I liked that they tied in Vanessa’s visit with her mum and how she felt about Frank into how Vanessa feels about Charity doing all of her scheming. It’s just that I don’t think we got enough of that stuff before this to have this be some kind of payoff. They’ve been too lax with them. They haven’t been sharing as many scenes. They have sort of forgotten their wedding prior to it now being an excuse Charity was saving money. So even though the break up made a lot of sense for their characters in terms of the issues they were fighting about, I don’t think the build up was there. And certainly the fallout wasn’t. I kind of preferred them broken up and just being bad at it because they were still talking all the time. That’s the most interested in them I’ve been in them in a while. Although since there was zero build up to their break up drama, I’m not sure how it could have lasted much longer than it did considering that they kept having scenes together anyway and there was really not much stopping them getting back together. But I think they should have let it go on for way longer and tried to find something in there to make it worth while rather than just Charity swearing she’ll change. But who knows, maybe this won’t last and this was papering over the cracks and Charity will screw up again as she always does and then they’ll have a longer break up and they’ll get more out of it. 

On a Cain and Moira front...god. Hahaha. I was cracking up at that scene where she was just trying so hard to find a reason why she had the affair. Because there wasn’t one. It was dumb. Haha. That story is still such a mess. I did like Moira and Laurel talking though. That was nice. I just really can’t stand watching Cain and Moira in scenes together right now. I hope they keep them apart for a good long while. I was glad to see Matty and Vic and Amy all speaking to each other because of this plot though. So I guess there’s that.

Everything involving Kerry is still awful. I can’t believe she’s just going to get away with all of this Frank stuff. And Amy too. I mean, there’s obviously a very real possibility it will all come out in the end. These things usually do. But then...many many people still don’t know who shot Robert. So...who knows. But it’s bad. I’m very done with Kerry. And I hope they don’t put her back with Dan because what’s the point? And if they don’t do that, why is she even there at all at this point? Amy at least is still a mostly viable character even though I still want the truth to come out for her too just so she can move on from that. 

The Arthur/Archie stuff was...a thing. It’s a lot. I mean I don’t know that Arthur would really go quite that dark so suddenly but it’s an interesting concept. A little curious and a little scared of where it will go. But both kids are doing a good job with it. Also glad Jai and Laurel are back on track for the moment. 

Graham and Rhona is umm...also a thing. Haha. It’s not terrible but he’s still so robotic it’s weird. Obviously not going to last though so who cares. It is what it is for now and it’s more tolerable than him hanging onto Kim. 

Speaking of Kim, I have no idea why she’s taken a sudden interest in Nate. Or why she’d be giving him Wylie’s if that’s true. All so weird. 

The Billy/Dawn stuff is cute. They’re very sweet together. Was it Billy that whacked Al over the head though? Cause that seems a bit extreme. I guess we’ll find out. I do like Marlon still getting involved in Billy stuff though. I’m glad they’re keeping that relationship alive. 

Chas and Paddy are still pretty insufferable. I just really hate them together. Haha. I don’t get it. And I think it’s weird we don’t really see Paddy being a hands on dad. I mean I know the story was about Chas this past week with the feeding stuff but even still, we’ve barely seen him interacting with her. It’s weird. Especially for someone so intent on having a biological child. It’s really a shame how much they’ve ruined Paddy as a character for me over the last few years. 

The car stuff with Cain and Aaron was pretty uninspiring. I agree with that assessment from my dash. It was more about Cain but it wasn’t even interesting from his point of view either. It felt really lazy. As far as Charity goes and whose fault it was. I’m kind on team no one. They were all in the wrong really. Charity shouldn’t be forcing her kids on people who can’t actually watch them and especially not two days in a row. And Cain and Aaron shouldn’t have been doing what they were doing. Also Chas was just sort of wrong altogether and she annoys me. 

On the Aaron front...it did hurt way less so far after the fact to watch him smash up the photo and throw all of Robert’s stuff away. Although it hurt seeing him fold up the good two toned maroon jumper. You should keep that Aaron. It’s his best jumper. Wear it yourself. I’m still concerned the show isn’t going to give Aaron a proper emotional payoff in the end but oddly the random little scenes this past week gave me more hope for that than anything because he just looks so empty and like he’s going through the motions, apologizing to keep everyone else happy so his feelings aren’t inconveniencing them. I mean obviously we have those insane terrorizing Wendy spoilers so he is going to go further off the rails. I’m nervous how it’s all going to be framed on a Wendy front though. 

On principle, I still hate that Wendy is around. And Luke. It just makes me uncomfortable that they’re still trying to show her as a good helpful person and portray her as a victim when she hasn’t even apologized to Vic for harassing her and calling her a liar. I’m kind of dreading everything coming up on that front. But I’ll probably just binge it all after the fact so maybe it won’t be so bad. 

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 118 Thoughts

Zeke gets shot, Falco gets a hug, everyone who makes sense is out of jail, and for a brief time, everyone is united in being perfectly fine fucking Marley right the fuck up.

Minus the characters who live there.

But all told, for the first time in months, it’s a happy chapter. :)

:)

:)

In a rare turn of events, I think I’m going to specifically aim to talk about things out of order. I say this with no real sense of how I usually construct these posts, I just make blanket assumptions about how they’ve probably gone in the past without corroboration.

SO WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT CUTE KIDDOS HAVING FEELINGS AND BEING DUMB.

The ones who aren’t legal adults, to be clear on the definition of ‘kiddo’ as used here.

Falco.

Gabi.

You get to go back to the hellscape that is your brainwashed existence, I’m so happy for you both.

The complications of Falco and Gabi fighting so hard to return to a world that doesn’t give a damn about them are things that... honestly, I just don’t want to do that this month. It’s a disaster. Marley’s fucked. Paradis is fucked. No one cares about the right things. Every decision is going to blow up in everyone’s face.

But Falco gets a hug from his big brother.

The youngest characters we’ve followed through this are treated with kindness.

This whole chapter is a breath of relief in the sea of unending horrors that we’ve been dragged through to get here. More on the rest later, but for the moment, we’ve got the two little ones.

Nile doesn’t even hesitate to treat Falco as a child before an enemy.

In the outside world, a man Falco tries to help is scared of being touched by him because he’s an Eldian.

Sasha’s family is still worried about the two little Marleyans they picked up and lived with for a time.

After first contact, no one needs to tell Colt not to shoot Nile. He calls the man who hands his brother over “the enemy,” and is shocked by Gabi’s actions, but Colt runs with Gabi and Falco without looking back.

Nile doesn’t follow.

Nile’s the sort of man who looks at Falco and thinks this assault might be about saving a little boy.

Colt’s the sort of young man who thinks Falco being someone who might be affected by Zeke’s scream is somehow relevant to whether or not it happens.

This story, lately, has been relentlessly cruel.

Gabi and Falco run away from home on a suicide mission to avenge and protect their loved ones after they witness the ruthless destruction of their home. Gabi watches people trying to protect her get gunned down. Falco, the kind boy who delivers letters for a wounded soldier, is the spark that enables the entire tragedy.

They reach Paradis, end up in jail because no one knows what to do with them, escape, and have to live under the constant pressure of their guilt and worldview being challenged. The destruction of Reiner’s psyche that takes a sustained undercover operation over the course of years is inflicted on Gabi in weeks, and Falco has to watch the girl he likes suffer over crimes that he aided.

Gabi watches Falco help her over and over again, and when things really start crashing down, there’s not a thing she can do for him.

They’re separated from everything they know and everyone they love, and then each other.

They make their way back to each other.

The world looks at these two tiny, traumatized children, and refuses to let anything happen to them. The world takes Gabi’s hate and uncomplicated joy in being a good Warrior and deconstructs it with kindness. The world takes a little boy like Falco, who only ever tried to help people, and lets him find his brother.

The reveal of Falco being the one who helps Eren isn’t a mark of betrayal. It’s a shared bond of pain that comes from good intentions being unfairly manipulated by people who didn’t care to be kind.

So they’re at least kind to each other.

In a tiny pocket of all this violence, things aren’t complicated. There’s a little girl and a little boy, and they deserve safety. A child who grew up in an internment camp designed to manufacture and slaughter Eldian children dreams of a world where the girl he likes won’t die, and they’ll get married and be happy.

Falco has always been kind and stable to the point of parody, but that’s honestly fine. Good. That should be allowed to exist, even if it doesn’t make total sense. The good things should be allowed to survive.

Gabi’s arc here ends with the realization that her hurt isn’t all there is to the world. Other people--other sides have their own, and they aren’t evil for that. They aren’t devils.

Falco’s trip to Paradis ends with him finally confessing why he followed Gabi to begin with.

There is something so sweet to the way Falco describes it. I hope it’s a faithful translation, because it’s my favorite thing this series has done in some time.

It isn’t just about Gabi not dying. It isn’t just about her having a long life. It isn’t just about them getting married.

Falco’s dream is for the girl he likes to be happy forever. He likes her, but the core of his dream is that she’ll live as long as she wants, and she’ll be happy through all of it.

Nothing Falco has seen in this world should give him hope for any of that.

He hopes for it anyway.

And Gabi rips off his armband.

The Yeagerists’ perverse mirror of what Marley has always done to them--what Gabi has accepted into her life in her fierce chase of changing it--and Gabi rips it off.

Their world isn’t kind. It’s cruel, and harsh.

People are kind to them.

That’s the only thing that saves them.

Naturally, it’ll be devastating when the bad things keep on coming for them, and no, sorry, this is not their finale, it’s just the finale of all the potential happiness they can have, but for right now.

For right now, kids shouldn’t be on the battlefield. So everyone fighting tries to get them out of it.

Look.

Standards.

We spend time with characters with standards this chapter.

It’s. It’s so strange. What is this.

Also, the fact that our time is spent on this instead of letting Eren and Zeke touch makes me astoundingly nervous for what’s coming next. There are very. I don’t want to say few. Uh. There are, thanks to the Founding Titan, potentially many ways for things to end not poorly.

I would say the likelihood of any of them traveling smoothly is. nil.

For instance, the entire scheme Armin concocts to explain away Eren’s behavior in this! Sounds good, sounds nice. Sounds destructive, sounds impulsive. Sounds vaguely understandable by the horrifying standards we’ve come to expect.

Sounds okay. Ish.

Still involves Eren sparking a national incident that brings a big army into their island so they can kill them all using a destructive power we’re only kind of confident in him using safely.

With the side effect of all his friends being in the splash zone.

I realize that even Armin’s kind of on the fence on that making real sense, but it’s not a bad explanation for everything. Eren’s backed into a corner when Yelena does her reveal. He’s held hostage by it, but hey, by playing along, he’s found a way to make things okay.

Even in that elaborate AU Armin came up with on the spot--

--things remain less than good.

Unless we consider most of the MPs and other top brass, the majority of veterans, and assorted civilians turning into titans and possibly dying--unless we consider all of that a good thing.

There’s a school of thought where Eren can just magic touch everything back to Okay, but the levels of Not Okay being pounced in with reckless abandon are a bit. uh. geez, what’s the word...

Bad?

There is a very good chance that this is all very bad, and running might be in their best interests.

In the non-AU version, all of Eren’s friends are scrambling to keep him alive because he has fucked them all over so horribly that literally their only chance at not dying slow (or very fast), brutal deaths comes from protecting the fucker who fucked them over.

And Armin, realizing this, digs down deep to try and find some of that good ol’ fashioned Friendship Power to bullshit all of them into agreeing to this plan of attack for reasons beyond generously optimistic pessimism.

While kind of wondering if Eren maybe wasn’t kidding about killing everyone.

Armin’s whole role in this chapter is embracing a truth that he secretly thinks might be a lie so that his friends have a prayer of feeling positive about this fuckery.

You’re trying so hard, Armin.

I am so sorry for you.

And Connie.

Like, good grief. Falco gets a hug. Someone needs to give Connie a hug. There’s been a serious shortage of Connie hugs since Sasha died, and I realize how that works, but it should really go the other way around.

Realistically, I am so happy that Connie’s the one who’s at his breaking point. He’s always been a team player, and over and over, it turns out that the people he thought had his back weren’t on his team. He’s a simple guy. This is a simple problem.

So, simply, fuck everyone who has anything to do with it.

Connie is Best Boy.

Onyankopon’s okay too.

This is the meta commentary on Yelena qualifying as a serial killer that we deserve. She is so great. All of you new characters with your new disasters are so great.

It’s a little on the nose, because bless this series, it is not subtle about most things, but thank you Onyankopon for injecting some hecking positivity in this here jail cell.

The concept of a future has been humanity’s fight all along. A better world.

Then Paradis met the rest of the world, and was all, “o fuck.”

“o fuck,” has interlaced every inch of the plot in the current day. Whatever hope there was, Eren’s decisions in Liberio tarnished them, and the rise of the Yeagerists threw it into the trash.

This chapter is kind enough to bring it back.

This is what the heroes of this world do.

They look at the impossible odds, and choose to fight. Because to do otherwise means that this is the way the world stays. This is what they’re left with, and that is unacceptable.

We’ve strayed a bit from that point, lately. It’s a relief to have it back in plainspeak.

Then there’s Mikasa, and. Aaaaah.

Armin only truly starts championing the possibility that Eren can still be a force for good when Mikasa comes back to his words about her Ackerman blood. Really, I think he does it for both of them. He refuses to believe Mikasa’s life doesn’t belong to her, so Eren has to be lying, so things have to be salvageable.

Mikasa knows him too well. She knows there’s room for doubt.

She leaves her scarf behind.

Mikasa is someone of great principle. She has a deep sense of responsibility that has been present from day one. She takes charge of Eren. She takes charge of other recruits. She feels the weight of the entire world, and fights for it. Her focus on her family has never made the burdens everyone shoulders disappear in her mind.

I don’t think she has a better explanation for why she can’t let go of Eren than the one he’s provided.

He’s killed children. He, by Connie’s word, laughs when he’s told about Sasha’s death. He abandons them and runs off on his own, risking all of their lives. He spits hateful vitriol at them and throws them in prison, where they would have likely died without someone going behind his back.

How can wanting to protect someone like that be natural?

Her very first argument to Eren is that he wrapped the scarf around her. When the world went cold, he brought warmth and a home back to her.

How does that compare to what he’s done recently?

How could she feel warm at all when she just watched Eren murder people? How, when by his command, she killed for the first time?

She has a genetic predisposition to comply with something like that.

Doesn’t that make more sense than loving this monster?

Children are dead.

Eren killed them.

Her first instinct is still to protect him.

That can’t possibly be right.

Mikasa doesn’t defend monsters. She slays them. That’s who she is.

If she’s defending this one, there must be a reason. Something deeper than just loving her family with all her heart.

To which I’ll say, for my personal stance... sorry, Mikasa. Your love does run that deep. It’s always been at war with your principles. Protecting Eren and Armin at the expense of everything else has always put you in pain. Being willing to let Armin go during the Serum Bowl is almost as agonizing to her as watching him die.

Mikasa’s strongly held principles and strongly held love have always been in conflict, but in the background. In side remarks about overprotectiveness, interspersed with her guilt over what that overprotectiveness has led to.

Eren’s cruelty gives her the excuse.

Here’s how she can be both; one isn’t real.

Whether she fully believes it or not, it’s what makes sense, for a person like her. She shouldn’t still care so much for the fate of this monster. Caring so much is why Reiner is still alive. Caring so much is why Bertolt lived long enough to char Armin to a crisp.

Mikasa learns. Always.

She should be fast enough at taking down the monsters now that they can’t hurt anyone first.

In case I’m not putting this clearly enough, Mikasa is better than anyone in the history of ever, to the point that even she can’t believe how strongly she hold on to things.

And my last comment on the chapter is that Yelena and Armin’s song and dance continues to be firing at max cringe on every cylinder, one of you drop the pleasantries and pull a gun already.

It’s funny, but in the way Jean pretending to be a knife-wielding maniac is funny.

Just stab each other like normal enemies. Please.

So since things are hitting the boiling point here, I guess next month we’re doing a shift in perspective?

Levi and Hange try out their Super Mario 64 skills in not drowning. The results my surprise you.

Nothing good can come from any of this, but you know? Falco and Gabi got to be cute. Plus Colt and Falco hugged. It could and has been worse.

[intim3ate]

To Follow a Lead | Claude/Sylvain [Fire Emblem: Three Houses]

Claude doesn't mean to keep running into Sylvain, at first. He doesn't mean to develop feelings for him, either. But, as they say: coincidence is the mother of intention.

This was originally just a short concept about Claude and Sylvain flirting, but somehow it turned into a 6000+ word fanfic... Let me tell you I was empowered by how good these two are together. Like... they're both so shady and deceptive and I feel like if anyone is going to appreciate Claude's somewhat-underhanded methods of flirting, it's probably Sylvain.

God I love them. What is it with me and rarepairs, though?

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---

Of all the quiet places in Garreg Mach Monastery, Claude thinks his favourite might be the library. It’s quiet, solitary comfortably familiar way. It’s hardly lonely – he’s joined all the time by the people around him, flitting about and minding their own business, completely unaware of the plots he’s hatching or the schemes he’s brewing – but it is isolating, somehow, in its silence.

But that same isolating silence is worth its weight in gold every time it is interrupted. It doesn’t take long for Claude to become a familiar fixture in the library. The bookshelves conceal all manner of hidden secrets; some written in ink and charcoal; some found in the people hiding behind the shelves, away from prying eyes or ears; and still more whispered between those same students, whose eyes roam the room to make sure nobody is listening.

But someone is always listening.

Claude learns, quickly, that people pay him no mind if he acts as if he is minding his own business. They ignore him at best, and cast wary glances and whispers in his direction at worst. He is used to it, though, unaffected despite the occasional wish that that wasn’t the case. Sometimes, he finds himself wishing that he was the one leaning in and whispering conspiratorially in a friend’s ear.

It isn’t even for a lack of trying, really. Claude has made it a personal mission to be at least friendly, if not kind, to everyone he approaches. Sometimes it’s a genuine attempt to make friends, and others it’s what they all expect: a hunt for information, for something to use in his next plan. His mother would call it catching flies with honey. She wouldn’t exactly be wrong, per se, but… Claude had quickly come to the realization that even honey would not work if the flies thought it dripped from a wolf’s teeth.

A lion’s teeth, however…

Sylvain Jose Gautier makes no effort to hide his ulterior motives. He speaks to everyone like they’re the most important person in the world to him, lifting them up and telling them whatever they need to hear to nudge them in whatever direction he has chosen for them. Insincerity spills from his lips like sweet, sugary poison, and he knows it. He weaponizes it in the most insidiously gentle way, mixing it into his speech alongside his real, honest feelings.

It’s rather impressive, really, that so many people recognize it and still give him what he wants.

The first time Claude truly comes to appreciate Sylvain’s… gift, as he calls it, is a late night in the library, long after the moon had risen above the spires of the monastery. He’s alone in the dim room save for Annette, whose nose had been buried in the same book for hours upon hours. It’s just as quiet and peaceful as ever, but something about the late hour and the way the candles along the wall have almost burned to nothing sets Claude on edge. Instead of the comfort he usually feels among the dusty shelves, he is restless.

He looks to Annette and wonders if she feels the same. Her foot shifts beneath the table, drawing out a pattern Claude can not distinguish. He wonders what she’s reading.

His restlessness gets the better of him, eventually. To his credit, Claude holds out for a while - much longer than he normally would - but, as put-together as he tries to appear, he knows his restraint cannot be checked forever. And so, curious, he approaches Annette with a carefully-applied smile. 

“Must be a good book for you to be up so late.”

Annette frowns up at him, sleepy and annoyed. “Oh, Claude. I’m… just studying. What does it matter?” 

Claude raises his hands before him defensively, backing away instinctively. His smile, however, does not falter. “No need to bite my head off,” he says lightly. “I was just curious is all.” 

“Yeah, well…” Annette covers her mouth, trying to muffle her long, drawn-out yawn. “I think I’ve hit my limit anyway. I should probably go to bed. Just... one more chapter, I think...”

Claude nods and shifts, feeling a touch awkward. “Right. Well… good luck, then. And try to take it easy tomorrow, all right? You look exhausted.” 

A small smile graces Annette’s lips - a personal victory for Claude, as far as he’s concerned - and she silently returns to her studies. Claude returns to his own seat a few feet away, ready to resume his own reading… Except that the moment he re-opens his tome, Sylvain Gautier comes barreling in through the door, effectively destroying both his and Annette’s concentration.

Not that Sylvain seems to notice. Or care.

“Annette! Thank the goddess you’re here,” he says, breathing heavy and laboured as if he had been running. Despite the raspiness of his tone, however, Sylvain looks alive, face flushed and smile wide enough to light up his eyes. “Say, have you done… something with your hair? It looks amazing.”

Annette sighs resignedly. Claude takes some satisfaction in the way her eyes roll. “No, Sylvain.” 

“Really? You’re trying to tell me you just always look this good?” 

An aggravated sigh this time. “Just tell me what you want, will you?” 

And he does. It’s the usual fare: a girl kicking up a fuss after he’d broken her heart (though he claimed she had been the one to shatter his). “I just need a place to lay low,” he says. “The library was close, and she’s… not exactly the studying type, if you know what I mean. I figure I’d be safe here, and if it looks like I’m helping a friend study…” 

Annette looks like she’s trying to fight back a smile, but she just can’t help herself. “Fine,” she says. “You can stay. Just don’t get in the way too much, okay?” 

“Me? Never.” Sylvain smiles and takes his seat next to Annette. True to his word, he doesn’t get in her way… at first.

Sylvain sits quietly for a long moment, but it’s easy to see that boredom is slowly overtaking him, because he starts to fidget incessantly. Claude can’t help but watch; it’s distracting, and there’s something about the way Sylvain looks like he’s holding something back that makes his hair stand on end. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wait long to find out just what it is that’s being hidden, as Sylvain suddenly blurts out: “I can’t take in anymore. Annette, look. See this? This entire section here? It’s all wrong.” 

Annette looks at him like he’d grown a second head. “What?” 

“It’s wrong. The formula should go like this, and that rune should be tweaked slightly… see? It’s missing a stroke.”

Claude raises an eyebrow, intrigued. He glances down at his book and realizes he hasn’t read a single word in the last few minutes, so he closes it and sets it aside for now. His research on Hero’s Relics can wait; this is much more interesting. He’d never had the impression Sylvain knew much of anything about magic, but…

“You’re right,” Annette says, incredulous. “How did you know that?” 

Sylvain shrugs. “Guess I just have a knack for this stuff. I…” 

He looks away for a split second, just long enough to catch Claude’s eye, and pauses before turning back to Annette, gaze lingering on Claude even as he turns his head. “The better question is, why are you studying this stuff, anyway? Isn’t it a little above our current level?” 

A sense of disappointment washes over Claude, though he doesn’t quite understand where it stems from. Had Sylvain been about to say something about himself? If he hadn’t spotted Claude, would his conversation with Annette taken a different turn?

He tells himself it doesn’t matter, that he isn’t interested. Claude has gotten quite good at lying to himself.

“Maybe it is,” Annette says, calling Claude’s attention back to the present. “But I’ve been interested in it for a long time, and I always try to study and learn as much as I can. You see, my father…” 

Huh, Claude thinks to himself as Annette describes her past in detail she would never, ever willingly share with him. How about that.

  It really is just coincidence that he keeps running into Sylvain, at first. Claude spends so much time in the library it’s rare that he isn’t around when Sylvain pops in to hide from a girl or - much less often - to actually study. But no matter what his purpose is on any given day, Sylvain always manages to find himself a conversation partner (never Claude, though, despite the frequent lingering looks in his direction), and he always, always manages to pull something interesting out of them.

Like when he runs into Bernadetta, who had run from Claude when he’d asked what she’d been working on. Sylvain manages to get her to show him a new chapter in the book she had apparently been writing and she swears him to secrecy over it, not knowing Claude is listening in as he selects a book across the room.

Or like how Sylvain pokes and prods at Dorothea’s taste in literature until she tells him all about how she aspires to be like the singer in the book she’s reading, which she had memorized even before joining the opera. That one stings a little; as much as Claude has tried to flatter her, Dorothea still refuses to grace him with even a single note of her favourite song. 

Sylvain even manages to get Dedue to open him. Dedue, who rarely speaks to anyone who isn’t His Royal Highness. Claude listens to them exchange quiet stories of their childhoods in the back of the library, and wonders what could have possibly coaxed Dedue into smiling like that. 

It’s as frustrating as it is impressive. Sylvain, arguably, has an even worse reputation than Claude himself, and yet while Claude can’t get anyone outside of his own House to open up to him (and even within the Golden Deer, he still has his difficulties), Sylvain manages to pluck the most interesting things about a person straight from their lips without even trying.

Claude wishes he had that kind of talent. He tells himself that’s why he’s so interested in being around Sylvain, but he realizes, when he watches Sylvain coax Marianne into smiling for him, that there’s more to it than that. He doesn’t dare put a name the longing pang in his chest, though; he convinces himself that it’s simply his own curiosity shifting off of the people Sylvain talks to and on to Sylvain himself.

Because for all Claude knows of Sylvain’s reputation, and all he knows about their classmates through him, he knows frighteningly little about the man himself. And that simply will not do.

Claude resolves, as Marianne walks away with pink cheeks and a shy smile peeking out from behind her hand, that he will pick apart the mystery of Sylvain Gautier if it’s the last thing he does.

And if that means continuing to linger around him when he’s chatting with someone else, well… so be it.

  It’s surprisingly easy for Claude to find what he’s looking for, even if Sylvain himself never speaks of his own interests. He’s oddly secretive, deflecting and redirecting conversation with hollow flattery or disinterested shrugs anytime it comes around to him. It may be enough to get his conversation partner to leave him be, but all it does for Claude is intrigue him further, push him even deeper into this strange, budding fascination he’s developed.

But Claude knows how to get around the deflection. He’s careful about picking his moments, and when it comes to Sylvain, he realizes right away that it’s all about finding exactly the right one.

  The first thing Claude finds out that surprises him is Sylvain’s apparent love of board games.

On his way to his usual library table, he passes by Sylvain and Felix sitting across from one another with a chess board between them. A generous amount of Felix’s pieces stand off to the side, and the smile on Sylvain’s face tells Claude he’s all too aware of his impending victory.

But, as invested as Sylvain looks as he studies the pieces, brows knitted in concentration and hand to his mouth in thought, Felix looks completely and utterly bored. 

“Are you going to take much longer?” he demands. “I have better things to do than wait for you to move a piece on a board.” 

“Ah-ah,” Sylvain chides. “Patience, Felix.” 

He moves his piece and knocks Felix’s queen off its square. Sylvain plucks it off the board and adds it to his collection, catching Claude’s eye as he does. His smirk grows impossibly wide, and he honest-to-goddess winks before turning his attention back to the game and waving Felix’s queen tauntingly before him. “You can’t rush perfection.”

No, Claude agrees, heart fluttering. You can’t.

  The next thing Claude learns, when he spots Sylvain and Ignatz together in the library, is that Sylvain likes art.

He sits on a table, one foot resting on it while the other taps away on the bench Ignatz sits on. They chat idly about a portrait of a knight in a book laid out before them on the table, Ignatz’s own sketchbook with rough drawings of armour set off to the side.

“The composition leaves a lot to be desired,” Sylvain says. “If the artist had chosen a slightly darker shade for more contrast… or something else entirely, like maybe a bit of gold… Yeah, that would have been better. Still, the knight’s expression makes up for it. He’s pretty handsome… as all good knights should be, of course. By the way, if you’re looking for a handsome, dashing knight to paint…”

He looks up as Claude approaches, meeting his eye and greeting him with a silent smile (and what a smile he has, too). There’s something there, something playful, something Claude can’t quite place no matter how much he wishes he could. In response, he raises an eyebrow, and whatever it is he thinks he’s caught in Sylvain’s gaze dissipates.

“Speaking of art…” Sylvain nudges Ignatz, effectively cutting off what he was about to say. His eye shifts, like he’s looking right through Claude, and though he’d thought for half a second Sylvain had been addressing him, Claude quickly realizes he can hear some girls chatting behind him. He doesn’t dare turn to look at them, or let himself laugh at the absurdity of his own thoughts, but the temptation is certainly there.

Sylvain hums. “Looks like someone needs to talk to you,” he says. “Later, Ignatz.” 

Sheepishly, Ignatz smiles. “Right. Goodbye, Sylvain.” 

They both stand. Sylvain passes right by Claude, giving him a private smile as he leaves (Speaking of art, indeed). It would have made Claude grin if he wasn’t so frustrated - he had actually been meaning to talk to Sylvain this time. 

Ah, well. Nothing I can do now, he thinks as Ignatz approaches him. Claude gives his fellow Deer a winning smile of his own. 

“Ah, Ignatz, just the man I was looking for,” he lies. “I’ve been doing a bit of light reading on the divine, and I think I might have an idea for your next drawing…”

  He learns that maybe, just maybe, Sylvain is more an actor than he lets on.

Claude doesn’t hear the whole conversation. He only just catches the tail end of it as he enters the library: Sylvain is with a girl; one Claude doesn’t recognize. It’s not an unfamiliar sight, but something about the way she smiles at Sylvain and flutters her lashes at him tightens his stomach.

“I’ll see you tonight, then,” Sylvain says. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, tender as he tries to make it.

“Yes, you will.” The girl turns from him with a sly grin and exits the library, leaving Sylvain all alone.

Well, mostly.

Claude doesn’t mean to look. He really doesn’t. But it’s hard not to when Sylvain sighs like that, chest deflating and shoulders slumping. The smile he’d worn for his lady-of-the-night doesn’t fall from his face so much as shatter like a porcelain mask, replaced with something darker and more… real. If Claude had to put a name to it, he would have called it disdain, but even that doesn’t seem quite right. This look is Sylvain, uncharacteristically natural and unrestrained, and it sends more than one kind of chill through him.

He doesn’t give himself time to dwell on it, because a moment later Sylvain spots Claude out of the corner of his eye and turns away, expression unreadable. He exits the library.

Claude tries not to think about it.

  But then, two nights later, Claude learns that Sylvain is much more genuine and intuitive than he lets on, too.

Claude had been expecting to be alone in the library that night – it was late, and the nagging questions in his mind of what the church was hiding made him restless – but when he hears voices drifting into the hallway from inside, he pauses outside the library door and presses himself against the wall so as not to be seen. He catches Sylvain’s voice first, and then… someone else’s. Are they… is she… crying? 

“Hey, Ingrid, come on…” Sylvain’s voice is low, almost inaudible. Claude holds his breath and sticks to the wall, willing himself into complete stillness and utter silence. He does not want to get caught. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up such a bad memory.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Ingrid insists. Claude can hear the quiver in her tone, the hitch in her breath. He wishes he could see Sylvain’s face. “It was my fault. When I saw this book, I… I couldn’t help myself. Glenn used to read it to me and Felix all the time…” 

A heavy sigh and a pause; and then, quiet and fragile, like the whispering of a ghost: “You loved him, didn’t you?” 

Claude leaves before he can hear any more. 

  It takes some time, but Claude finally gets his chance to speak to Sylvain when he finds Teach lecturing him about ‘improper conduct.’ The library is blessedly empty but for the two of them, and so Claude finds it easy to settle in and wait his turn. He doesn’t expect to learn anything from this conversation - about either of them, really - and he doesn’t know how long it’s going to take for Teach’s quiet tirade to end, so he selects a book on war strategies and takes a seat at a nearby table. 

He tries to read, at first, but within the first ten seconds he realizes the attempt is futile. He decides to ignore the book and listen in. 

It’s hard not to, with the way Teach lists off all of the… many, many complaints against Sylvain. Byleth doesn’t sound particularly angry as they speak (when do they ever, though?), but Sylvain sounds uncomfortable all the same when he finally responds. 

“Look, I get it, okay? I’ll make an effort not to be so overt about my flirting…” 

“Sylvain.” 

“Fine, fine! I’ll try not to flirt at all. Better?” 

No response from Teach at first; just a long, drawn-out silence. Claude can see them giving Sylvain the stare-down - one he himself has been subject to many a time for his own brand of ‘improper conduct’ – before they eventually relent with a sigh. “If that’s all I can get out of you…”

The conversation doesn’t last much longer. When Teach finally exits the room, Sylvain is left to slump in his seat and exhale in what Claude can only assume is a mixture of relief, aggravation, and resignation. He straightens up quickly, though, and when he does, he looks right in Claude’s direction.

A sudden smile tugs at Sylvain’s lips; Claude hurriedly looks back down at his book.

There’s movement from Sylvain’s table. Claude doesn’t dare look up, trying to keep the illusion of disinterest going. He debates saying something, though; now is his chance, now that Sylvain is finally alone. Claude’s leg bounces. He bites his lip. What can he say, though? Sylvain is—

A hand covers his book. 

"You can stop pretending to read now."

Claude's eyes snap back into focus and he looks up, bewildered but careful to maintain a straight face. Sylvain stands at eye-level in front of him, bent over the table with one palm flat against the wood and the other firmly on the page Claude hadn’t been reading. 

"Hm?" Easy, Claude. Don’t let him know he’s caught you. With an affected nonchalance, he tilts his head to the side. Sylvain just laughs at him - a small, pleased noise that pulls at Claude’s heartstrings - and leans in close. 

Claude frowns. He doesn’t mind that Sylvain is blocking him from his book, but he knows he needs to keep up the act for… for some reason. “You know that’s my favourite part, right?”

Sylvain sits down. “Uh-huh.” He withdraws his hand and uses it to close the book. Claude does not protest as he pushes it aside, not even bothering to look as the corner of the cover slides over the edge of the table; Sylvain seems much more interested in maintaining eye contact than ensuring the book’s welfare. More interested in studying Claude, gauging him for a reaction. Is he trying to play some kind of game? 

If he is, Claude is all too willing to play with him.

Sylvain props his elbows on the table and rests his chin on his interlocked fingers. "Except you aren’t reading it,” he says. Damn him. “You've been staring at the same sentence for ages. I can't even remember the last time you turned a page.”

Claude smiles easily. He's played this game before. “Oh really,” he says, drawing out the word. “Do you make a habit of watching people while they go about their business, then?" 

"Maybe," Sylvain chimes. Claude isn't sure he likes what the smirk on his face implies, but he can't wait to see where it leads. "Could be something we have in common."

His heart sinks - was he really that obvious? - but his smile widens. Can’t give ground too early, he thinks as he leans in too, arms folded on the table. "Could be. Care to elaborate?" 

"You seem to spend a lot of time in this library. Especially when I’m around.” There's something hidden in Sylvain’s voice, something dark under the forced casual tone, the false familiarity. Suspicion, perhaps? Or something else? 

"Is that so?" Claude speaks as if making a statement, not asking a question. 

"Yeah." Sylvain nods. His smile never falters, but his eyes narrow a little, just the slightest droop of the eyelids, enough to say that he's looking for something. "Every time I turn around, there you are. Call me curious."

Claude shrugs with one shoulder, closes one eye in a lazy wink. "Does there have to be a why? Maybe it's just coincidence."

"Coincidence that any time I have a conversation with someone, you show up and make yourself comfortable? You, the guy who never seems to do anything 'just because?'" Sylvain snorts and shakes his head. "Come on, Claude. I know I may act like an idiot, but you've got to give me some credit."

Finally, Claude lets his smile drop. He sighs, knowing he’s been beaten. If there's one thing he's learned about Sylvain in these last few weeks, it's that he's anything but an idiot. He might even be too perceptive for his own good. 

"Fine," he says at last, though not without some bitterness. He hates being forced to play his hand. "You caught me." 

"Not sure it counts if you're trying to get caught." Sylvain's voice drops along with his gaze, and for a moment Claude wonders if Sylvain really does know. But he keeps his own gaze and his expression steady, determined not to let on any more than Sylvain thinks he has. 

"Trying to get caught, huh?" he repeats. "And why would I want to do that?" 

“I can think of a few reasons…" 

It's a stupid line and Claude knows it - knows it's one of the many he's used on girls in the past and he shouldn't let it get to him, but he feels goosebumps prickle up his arm anyway. He curses himself for it at the same time he thanks the stars his uniform has long sleeves. "Uh-huh. Take me to dinner first and I'll think about it."

Sylvain raises a brow as he studies Claude once more. The corner of his mouth tugs upward into a grin, and Claude immediately recognizes the signs that he’s about to lose control over the conversation. He cuts Sylvain off before he seizes the opportunity.

"Simmer down, pretty boy. Much as I know you'd like a piece of this, that wasn't why I was hanging around you." Something sits funny in his gut as he says it - Because it’s a lie - but Claude doesn't give himself time to dwell. "It's actually… Look. I know this is going to sound stupid, but… nobody trusts me around here." 

He frowns and decides that now would be a good time to look past Sylvain so that he doesn't have to see those lovely brown eyes agreeing with him. Self-defense, as always. "I don't know if you know this, but I've earned myself a bit of a reputation. I'm a schemer, right? I don't bother to hide it.” He frowns. “So, Sylvain, with that in mind… what would your reaction be if I, the untrustworthy and heretofore unheard-of heir to House Riegan, just came up to you out of the blue and struck up a conversation?"

Sylvain leans back, hands behind his head. He grins and winks. "'Hey, gorgeous.'"

Claude kicks him lightly under the table, but he can’t quite suppress the smile that stretches over his features. "Knock it off; I'm being serious."

"So am I!" But Sylvain laughs despite the insistence in his tone. "I take it not everyone's as willing to play nice as I am, though."

"Nope." Claude crosses his arms in front of his chest. "Everyone thinks I'm up to something, or that I have some kind of ulterior motive in getting to know them. They're not wrong," he adds before Sylvain can interject. "But it's left me a little short on friends."

"So you've been following me because… you want to be friends with me?" Sylvain's brows furrow. Confusion looks good on him, out of place as it is.

"Oh, no." Claude laughs. "If that was all I wanted, I would've asked you to play chess with me or something. And don't even try to tell me you wouldn't accept,” he adds. “I saw the way your eyes just lit up." 

Sylvain frowns, that little spark of intrigue Claude had caught extinguishing just as quickly as it had blinked into existence. He’s sad to see it go, but that doesn't outweigh the feeling of victory that warms his chest. He continues: "I've been lingering around you - not following you - because you're good at getting people to open up."

"So you were looking for pointers." Sylvain frowns, like he still doesn't quite get it. No real surprise there; he still hasn’t quite made it to Claude’s finish line. 

"Wrong again!" Claude waggles a finger reproachfully at Sylvain. "I was looking to learn something, sure. But not about how to get people to open up."

At last, something clicks. Sylvain’s eyebrows rise up past his bangs. "You were getting me to open them up for you."

"Now you've got it." Claude leans forward to rest his arms on the table again. Sylvain's eyes narrow and he lifts a hand to his mouth, knuckle to his lips. 

"That's so… devious," he says. And then he breaks into a grin. "...I'm kind of into it."

"I thought you might be," Claude lies. He tries to ignore the pounding of his heart, part relief and part affection. There was always a chance Sylvain would be fine with it - the more Claude had watched him, the more alike he had realized they were, after all - but there was also the chance that he'd be furious, and he isn't sure if he'd have been okay with that result. "You're quite the wingman, you know. Even when you're not aware of it."

"I'm good at lots of other things, too." He lowers his voice again, both in tone and volume, and licks his lips. Claude swears he sees Sylvain's eyes dart downward again, but he tries to ignore the way that makes his heart beat, too. "I could show you sometime, if you like."

He tries to play it cool. "Now that you mention it, there is someone else I'd like to get to know better…"

"Oh yeah?" Sylvain looks genuinely intrigued. "Tell me everything."

"Well, we're in different houses, for one thing." Claude holds up a finger on the word one.

"Right, of course." Sylvain nods. "Why would you need my help talking to someone in your own house?" 

"Exactly! They're kind of obligated to talk to me." Claude snickers. If only that were true. "I knew you'd understand."

"Mhm. So if you need me, then you're probably interested in someone from the Blue Lions…" 

Claude nods. "Yup. You might even know them."

"Oh?"

"They're clever, perceptive, take all the worst opportunities to make jokes…" Claude laughs. "Or pretend to, anyway. And they're unbelievably attractive…"

"Ohh…?" Sylvain's smirk spreads, catlike, and his eyes narrow even more. He's practically making bedroom eyes at Claude by now, and it's all the Golden Deer leader can do to meet them with a straight face. "They sound like a charmer. Never mind helping you out with them; can you introduce us?" 

Claude shrugs nonchalantly. "I dunno, I get the impression they're already interested in someone else."

The quirk of a brow, and Sylvain's smirk twists into something more amused. "And who might this mystery man be?" 

"Well, he's dashing, smart, and always seems to have an ulterior motive for everything…" 

Claude meets Sylvain's gaze and holds it. He's still smiling, but he's acutely aware that it doesn't meet his eyes. He's studying Sylvain for a reaction this time, searching for whatever he's not getting on the surface. He can see something has definitely shifted, though; Sylvain has gone from easy flirtation to something a little more guarded, a little more careful. He's analyzing Claude just as much as Claude is him. 

But finally, after what feels like hours, Sylvain breaks the silence. "... So," he begins slowly. "How does this mystery man feel about them…?" 

It's like a weight is lifted from Claude's shoulders. Sylvain is curious - he's moving cautiously, afraid to reveal too much of his own hand - but he's receptive, at least.  And Claude has already come too far not to play every card he's got. 

"I'm not sure yet," he admits. "I was hoping I could find out over dinner."

"Ha!" Sylvain pulls back, lifting a fist to his mouth in an incredibly poor attempt to hide his wide, toothy grin. His knuckle bumps his teeth; his shoulders shake with held-back laughter. 

Claude tilts his head to the side, careful to maintain a curious, but amused expression. He wishes Sylvain would quit laughing and answer the damn proposition, but as with all things, he knows to be patient with this. 

Eventually, Sylvain’s silent amusement gives way to actual laughter. Claude feels a small jab of annoyance hit him in the chest, but it flashes like lightning and vanishes a split second later when he realizes it's pleased laughter, not mocking.

Even so, Sylvain trembles, and Claude manages to realize that it’s not with mirth, but nerves. It’s a subtle difference, one he has only come to recognize from so frequently seeing someone come close to piercing Sylvain’s careful façade.

"Ha ha… did you just… Did you seriously just ask me out on a date?" he asks, incredulous. "Damn. I gotta say, I'm not used to being the one asked out.” He pauses and looks away, scratching his cheek without realizing he’s drawing attention to how red it’s become. “It's… kinda nice."

"It'd be nicer if you said yes," Claude says, voice a thousand times calmer than he feels. It hits him all at once that yes, he really did just ask someone out on a date (but he's not just someone, is he? He’s Sylvain Gautier, who’s left a hundred hearts broken in his wake), and that he's tantalizingly close to actually getting one.

He just needs to make one more small push. "Tomorrow night?” Claude holds out a hand, palm-up. Sylvain looks down at it, and his hand twitches as if he wants to reach out and take it, but doesn’t yet dare. “We could go into town."

Sylvain takes a deep breath. His smile isn't quite… gone gone, but it's definitely morphed into something… different. Claude isn't sure what to call it - curious, perhaps? Disbelieving?

…Or maybe even pleased, if he dares to give himself that hope? 

Sylvain meets his eye. Holds his gaze. "Wow," he breathes. "You… you really are serious about this, huh?" 

Claude winks. Sylvain's face turns an even darker shade of red. 

"You know…" He looks away again, he grumbling into his hand as if he is suddenly unable to meet Claude's eyes. "There's a joke in here somewhere. Something about deer and lions…"

"Tell it to me over dinner." He's pushing it a bit hard now and he knows it, but the way Sylvain's lips twitch on a huff of laughter tells him it's a very welcome push. 

"R-right. Okay… yeah. Yeah, sure, why not? I’d like that. It sounds like a good time." He laughs again, a sound caught between disbelief and giddy satisfaction, and Claude finally permits himself to believe that the look on Sylvain's face now is one of genuine excitement. He's learned how to tell when Sylvain is acting for someone else's sake, and at the moment his countenance bears no sign of its usual pretense. Sylvain’s smile now isn’t the kind he usually wears: he is not waiting for someone to turn their back, not forcing anything he isn’t actually feeling. This smile is real, genuine. One of the few Claude has ever caught him wearing.

It’s… nice. And that is all Claude will allow himself to think.

"Great," he says, maybe a little too loudly. He tries to calm himself, taking a long breath through his nose in an attempt to still the furious beating of his heart. He's certain he must look like he's vibrating with the intensity of it. "I'll come get you sometime around… Hm, after the evening bell goes off?" 

It takes Sylvain a moment to compose himself, like he can hardly believe what he's hearing. Claude can't blame him – he’d never meant to take the game this far, even though it had been his end goal for a while. But Sylvain does manage to pull himself together, slipping his mask back on like it had never fallen away. And then it's right back to his old self, reaching (at last) for Claude's hand and taking it in his own. He grins flirtatiously as he turns it over in his palm.

Claude raises an eyebrow, simultaneously asking what Sylvain is doing and giving him permission to go ahead with it.

Sylvain does not disappoint. He grins and lifts Claude’s hand to his lips, closing his eyes as he leans forward to lay a ghost-like kiss on each knuckle. When he finishes, he gazes up at Claude from under his long, long eyelashes. "It's a date."

Damn him, he’s good. Claude swallows the lump in his throat, fights down the flush on his cheeks. “Can’t wait,” he says, a teasing tone to his voice.

Sylvain nods, a tiny jerk of the head (is he surprised he didn’t get a stronger reaction out of Claude?), and lets his hand go. He lingers a moment, once again holding Claude’s gaze, as if he’s trying to figure something out. But then he blinks, stands, and turns to leave.

“See you tomorrow, then.”

Claude waves goodbye and happily watches him head to the library door. “Yes, you will. Just don’t keep me waiting too long.”

“Handsome guy like you?” Sylvain pauses to turn, wink, and blow a kiss in Claude’s direction. “I would never even dream of it.”

It’s unbelievably cheesy, but it’s Sylvain’s way of getting the last word in. Somehow, Claude finds he doesn’t even mind the embarrassed flush that creeps up his neck in response as Sylvain smirks at him over his shoulder. How can he, when in the end they’ve both gotten exactly what they want? 

Claude smiles. Tomorrow night is going to be fun.

[xcziel]

Multi-Fandom Slash Fic Recs: Long reads for your quarantine needs

Was gonna add my own 2 cents for each rec, but it got long and I'll never post if I have to think about it anymore - may edit to add more commentary. Suffice it to say, these are all great long reads, not much angst, some smutty some not, highly improbable levels of things-working-out because it's fanfic and that's what it's for. Feel free to troll through my AO3 Bookmarks as well.

The One Where They're Stars on HGTV Series

earlgreytea68

Inception: Arthur/Eames

AU, 466,359 words 9 works Complete

Summary:

"Have you ever seen "Love It or List It"? In which Arthur is the real estate agent and Eames is the designer.

Eames is certain that they will excel at being celebrity judges.

Arthur is not so sure.

But then, that's usually how their relationship goes."

My 2 cents: Just what it says on the tin: Arthur and Eames are HGTV stars of a show which pits straightlaced realtor Arthur against flamboyant designer Eames, but the new show they're embarking on will give them a chance to work together. Arthur has his reservations - not least among them the surprise arrival of Eames' superficially charming ex. Eames, of course, has all the confidence in the world. Featuring fun design challenges, mildly insecure Athur, fluffy confidant Ariadne, reality show 'backstage' melodrama, Arthur becomes a meme, Eames fantastical decorating schemes, a Matt Bomer lookalike complete with fedora (trilby), and acres of gauzy romantic fluff.

We Begin Again Series

katherynefromphilly

Merlin: Merlin/Arthur

316,197 words 4 works

Summary:

"For many long years Merlin waited.

For the other part of his soul, for the other half of his life. He was born to serve Arthur. So that meant he was also born to wait. Even if it took a thousand years. Even if the wait seemed never to end.

Until one day, suddenly, it did.

When Arthur stumbles from the Lake of Avalon 1,500 years after his death, he finds a world unlike the one he knew. Faced with the loss of everyone he loved, and the threat of impending prophecy, Arthur must learn what it means to be not just a king, but the Once and Future King. Merlin does all he can to guide him, even as he struggles to hide his love for his king, and his fear of losing him again.

Story includes sass, banter, horseplay, & True Love."

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail Series

owlet

MCU: Steve/Bucky

264,438 words 8 works

Summary:

"The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

Integration into adult human social dynamics requires attention and effort. Especially with this bunch of damaged bozos.

(A series of interconnected one-shots.)"

2 cents: Post-Winter Soldier Bucky works his own way through. Recovery fic from Bucky's POV, not shippy in the beginning (unless you consider MCU-canon-level co-dependency shippy I guess) and with added 'Avengers living in the Tower' flavor

The Sonnet Series

nekosmuse, afrocurl

X-Men: Charles/Erik

AU, 196,721 words 3 works

Summary:

"Erik Lehnsherr is a visiting professor at Columbia University, as well as an acclaimed and award winning poet. Charles Xavier is a lead researcher with the Genetics Department who is well on his way to tenure. But what happens when Charles has to cancel a class because half his students abandon him in favour of a mysterious new English Lit professor? Naturally he ends up sitting in in the class, where Professor Lehnsherr mistakes him for a student. It's really too bad Erik has such a strict policy against dating students. It's also too bad Erik doesn't seem to know how to use Google."

Hollywood 'verse Series

clio_jlh

Star Trek AOS: Kirk/McCoy

80,063 words 7 works

Summary:

"From Variety, June 2008:

Pavel Chekov ("Charlie X") and Gaila ("Bread and Circuses") have joined the cast of small budget drama "That Which Survives," funded by Fleet's indie arm Academy and supervised by Nyota Uhura.

The debut feature from longtime script doctor Leonard McCoy, former show runner on sitcom "Three to Tango," centers on a college student coping with his father's terminal cancer. Chekov plays the son, Gaila the nurse. The father is yet to be cast.

Also attached are director James T. Kirk and producer Spock, the team behind the blockbuster spy-girl franchise starring Carol Marcus, the latest of which, "A Taste of Armageddon," opened last month.

(A modern-day Hollywood AU.)"

A Curious Carriage of Crystal and Cold

Etharei

X-Men: Charles/Erik

AU, 114,261 words

Summary:

"Charles, a miner from a poor village in the countryside, saves the life of Erik Lehnsherr, scion of a successful business family and the richest man on the planet Eisen. Charles is a telepath and somewhat anxious about it, while Erik abstains from relationships because the lights flicker and doors open and electronics vibrate when he gets too excited.

Also featuring a long-suffering sister, a foul-mouthed bodyguard, and a best friend with a heart that is definitely not gold.

In which there are princes, spaceships, long journeys, and old secrets uncovered. (An AU sci-fi fairytale)"

Shadowlord and Pirate King Series

Footloose, mushroomtale

Merlin: Merlin/Arthur

AU, 216,060 words 3 works

Summary:

"A fast ship, a good crew, a treasure, a Clan to lead -- that's all Arthur Pendragon has ever wanted. He sits on the Council, he supports his father's kingship, and he keeps an eye on the Imperial Conglomerate when they come too close to Pirate space.

One day the Conglomerate infiltrates the Clans and poisons the King. Arthur must search for a cure to keep his father alive and the Clans from civil war.

An escape route, a sharp knife, a target, the shadows at his command -- that's all Merlin has ever needed. He fulfills his assignments, he uses the Sterling to sustain his once-royal House in their exile, and wages a private war against the Imperial Conglomerate.

When he learns of an elaborate plot to assassinate him, Merlin does the opposite of what's expected. He flees onto a Pirate ship.

There's a saying among the Pirates: that one's fate is written in the stars. Destiny will always set to rights what has been made wrong.

Arthur and Merlin know that they were meant for the other from the moment they meet. They can feel it from across the galaxies separating them. Nothing can stop them from being together or from fulfilling an ancient prophecy."

Children, Wake Up Series

hollycomb

Star Wars sequels: Kylo Ren/Armitage Hux

non-canon after Force Awakens, 608,083 words 3 works

Warning for torture and past sexual assault (offscreen)

Summary:

"Hux follows orders and loses his way.

Barricaded in the darkness of Snoke's citadel as part of his final training, Kylo Ren senses a disturbance in the Force: General Hux in great pain, captured and tortured by a faction of radical traitors within the First Order. Ren seeks Snoke's counsel and finds him gone. He knows this is a test, and that he must resist the urge to assist the General. And yet."

2 cents: I don't even know. I started just to look at it and then somehow I couldn't stop. Two characters I find wholly irredeemable given back story enough to make me suspend disbelief just enough to enjoy the fic - now that's talent. Features background Finn/Rey and Luke/Wedge if you care about that, and generally has everyone written in a positive light except Snoke, including a surprising handful of of First Order refugees. It's weirdly not at all a dark fic, despite the premise and extreme levels of Force Ex Machina.

snipers solve 99% of all problems

silentwalrus

Fullmetal Alchemist: post-canon gen

HP crossover, 170,861 words, 59 chapters so far, WIP

Summary:

"Ed had thought, after the whole Promised Day, homunculus, entire country harvested for alchemical batteries thing, the batshit quotient of his life would have settled down some. He really ought to have topped out the meter with that one. But no. The bullshit is just getting started.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Ed demands. “The wizards?”"

2 cents: Neither of these are my fandom, but I have read all the HP books, so I could get the gist. While jonesing for an update, I ended up bingeing FMA: Brotherhood and I have no regrets. Ed working alchemy-as-science and trying to translate wizardry into scientific alchemical workarounds is all I never knew I wanted. Team Amestris takes JKR's creation to school, with all the swearing you'd expect sprinkled throughout for ambiénce.