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auntie-venom · 2 years ago

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Will of Fate

Chapter Three

Fandom: Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Story Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Mature

Characters: Din Djarin x Original Female Character

Summary: There hasn’t been an unidentified spacecraft in the stratosphere of Arkadia in over two decades, let alone three in one day. Those skilled or mad enough to venture into the Chaos unguided were few and far between. That means no one has ever made it to Arkadia who wasn’t intending to be here.

Until today.

Din Djarin finds an unmapped planet filled with beings who have the same powers as the Child, but know nothing of the force or the Jedi.

Chapter Summary: Eziriel now has a concussed Mandalorian she has to get to safety and find out why he was even near enough to her planet to get here.

Word Count - 4,623

Chapter Warnings: Language

Will of Fate Masterlist

Read on Ao3

A/N: Sorry for the week-long delay, had a friend visiting and we went on adventures. I am considering posting a copy of this as a second POV reader fic for those who prefer it. Would that be wise?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. Feedback and critique is welcome, I am trying to get better. Reminder this is unbetaed. :)

Chapter three

The Mandalorian did end up sending the winch back down to Eziriel which eased her suspicions minutely and loosened the anxiety in her chest tremendously. She needs to know if he could be trusted and this was a minor assessment she put forth. She didn’t know if he threw the cable back down without a second thought or if he had noticed that the key to the speeder wasn’t in the ignition—it was definitely in her pocket—but she was thankful either way. She imagines he could have easily hot wired the speeder.

Her brief Infiltrator training had kicked in the moment she made contact with the unknown man. The responsibility to discover a person’s truest intentions in order to protect Arkadia was drilled into her head hard enough that she immediately casted her Will out. She is not nearly as skilled as others when it comes to using her Will to penetrate the mind, but she is able to glean emotions from others when she focuses. The problem was that his head injury is causing his emotions to jump in a disorientating way and her read on him is somewhat jumbled. He mostly cycled through panic, worry, and pain through the conversation she held with him on his ship, but he did have spikes in irritation from her verbal provocations which was a good sign.

Irritating a person of interest was her preferred tactic to elicit a truthful emotional response. It says a lot about a person when they don’t outwardly show their agitation or confront Eziriel’s vexing nature and it usually means they are presenting a facade to masquerade in some way. The Mandalorian not only physically reacted to her verbal jabs but he didn’t seem to hide his unease with her. She didn’t know if his authenticity could be truly trusted because it might be due to his injured state, but he did hold out an arm to ease her final ascent over the cliff’s edge which put a point in favor of trustworthy.

The man, like most adults, towers over her. He has a broad frame that displays his armor in a striking image. Each move he makes is self assured with no sign of second guessing. He keeps one hand resting on his belt while the silver armor gleams under the rain that pelts them both. The overall visage would be quite intimidating if she couldn’t feel the pain radiating off him.

After watching him scope his surroundings she activates her HolOmni to bring up a map of the local area. While showing him the projection she gives him a brief explanation that they were hundreds of miles away from civilization. She watches as his shoulders tightened and a resigned sigh left his vocoder at this information.

“I was staying there for the night and planned to head back to the capitol in the morning,” she says, pointing at the beaming light at the top of the beacon station that she previously exited in a rush. “You are welcome to join me.”

The T shaped visor of the helmet locks on her for a moment before dipping his head in agreement. He’s not much of a talker, it seems. It must be a Mandalorian thing because Rezzik also uses a silent demeanor when interacting with new people. She remembers when she was a child she asked him about why he was so quiet in public when he was a great storyteller at home; “People reveal who they are in silence,” he had said. She didn’t understand and hated the answer at the time, but that insight helped her misdirect authority figures who used that same silent tactic when she grew into mischievous adolescence. Knowing how the mind game worked before being forced to play it gave her an advantage that others did not.

The wind picks up and the storm rages a little stronger by the time she loaded him and tied his metal pod onto the back of the speeder. She feels the exhaustion of the being inside the pod and concludes they must be unconscious from how deep in sleep the mind is. There isn’t even the little spill of emotions from dreams most beings have when they sleep. Poor creature must have unwillingly gone under.

Glancing up at the Mandalorian she notices him holding himself very stiffly and he keeps correcting his head from swaying. She clocks this behavior and pulls up her visor so she could keep track of his vital signs while she drives. With a quick weighing of the pros and cons she sent a command into her HolOmni to have CHI sync her comm to the one in his helmet just in case they need to communicate on the ride. She didn’t want the man to fall off the speeder and injure himself further. Amarian would never let her live that down.

She kicks the speeder to life and makes sure to start off slowly so he can get used to the speed and balance. He grips the side handles tightly so she tries not to take turns too quickly. His head injury must be messing with him worse than she imagined and she makes a mental note to get the medkit to him immediately. About halfway there she notices his blood pressure dropping suddenly again and so she used the tactic that worked to stabilize him last time: annoyance.

“So my lovely Lori, you crash onto planets often or are we just lucky enough to get your handsome self?” She feels his larger frame jolt back into a firm stance and she watches as his blood pressure rises then stabilizes once again. She’d bet he had a hand on his blaster again, but didn’t look to verify her theory.

“How the hell are you in my helmet comms?” His unmodulated voice is a pleasantly low timbre. Through her earpiece she can hear the irritation in his voice and she feels his emotions match it. Still being authentic.

Good.

“Clever, remember?” She gives him a quick smirk over her shoulder and feels his irritation spike.

“Intrusive is more like it,” he grumbles back and she chuckles at him.

“Sorry Silver, I am bound to your safety,” she shrugs her shoulders, “and according to your vital signs it seemed like you were on the verge of going unconscious again. I had to keep you awake somehow.”

“And slicing into my helmet’s comms was your only way?” His voice seemed a little less slurred.

“It was the more fun option.” She smiles at the annoyance bleeding deeper into his emotions, “I mean, it also wasn’t exactly the most safeguarded.”

She hears a scoff that probably would go unnoticed if she weren’t directly in his comms. “What does that mean?” There is an air of offense in his reply.

“It means that anyone with a processor could get through that firewall if they had half a brain and an understanding of syntax patterns,” she verbally baits, and takes a turn a little harder than necessary hoping to keep him engaged and on his toes.

“I’ve never had a problem with my frequencies being hijacked before,” he states.

“Are you saying I am special?” She gives him a dramatized gasp, “You flatterer.” She smiles to herself at his heavy sigh as they pull up to the beacon station.

The door was still ajar and foliage and rain had made it into the entrance. She kicks as much of the mess back outside before dimming the interior lights in hopes to not make his concussive state more painful. She turns to invite the Mandalorian in and finds him right behind her and his helmet locked on her and the pod hovering next to him. She steps aside and gives a dramatic presentational bow to invite him in.

The ground floor of Ga’ladora Beacon Station is a cozy space. The main room has a small sofa that sits opposite of a round table. Along the back wall houses a small kitchenette and the storage cabinets of tools, emergency supplies, and the rations that were kept in all the stations. On one side of the room lay doors to a refresher and a small room with bunks while the other side is a staircase that ran along the wall that spiraled up to the top of the tower. Under the curved wall of the staircase lies the open utility door and the tangled mess of cables she left behind in a rush. She lets out a curse and rushes to deactivate the soldering iron that blackened the stone floor.

Glancing back she notices the Mandalorian standing just inside the entrance with the door still open. She reaches a hand in that direction and Wills the door closed, causing his shoulders to stiffen at the noise. She disregards him and peels off her drenched cloak, laying it on the back of a chair, and makes her way to the supply cache. Pulling out a medkit she gently sends it to the table with her Will before turning back to dig through the supplies for the kettle.

“I’m going to make some tea to go with these tasteless rations.” She pulls out the found kettle and turns to smile at him, “The fresher is through the door on the right if you want to use the medkit for your wounds. There should be some bacta injections for the head injury, and I can do some basic first aid if you need.”

He makes no movement from the entrance and she tilts her head at him curiously at the feeling of surprise coming from him. Her look seems to shake him out of his stupor and he grabs the medkit before disappearing to the refresher with that metal pod tailing him. She makes a face to herself at his behavior before setting up the kettle and pulling out rations.

While the kettle is brewing Eziriel takes a moment to fully go through what has happened this evening. The Cloak of Arkadia went down enough to allow undesignated ships into the planet’s airspace. She would guess that error had something to do with the odd signals she was receiving back in Helix from the south eastern beacon stations. It had been a three week journey to check all the stations in the quadrant and this was the last beacon station on her list. Every unit so far was fully functional upon her inspection and she was hoping to discover the source of the mystery readings here. Now that she was behind schedule she hoped she would get her answer tonight without losing too much sleep.

This malfunction was worrying enough as it is, but adding the possibility that the TIE fighter that got away could very well bring back more was disastrous.

“CHI-CHI, have Amarian send a drop team to the area the TIE fighter went down in. We don’t want any activated tracers bringing the Empire our way.” She gives a sigh at the thought before continuing, “We also need to make sure there aren’t any kriffing Imps on our planet from the wreck. It went down hard, but you never know.”

“Quite right,” CHI responds back from her HolOmni.

The kettle beeps and she goes to get mugs and tea bags while she tries to think about what to do about her new companion. She pulled a Mandalorian out of the wreckage of his own ship, bound herself to a man she doesn’t even know in order to gain his trust, and now she has to navigate the bureaucratic minefield of getting an unsanctioned person planetside when the person is already here. She’d rather spend three more weeks doing manual diagnostics scans on the beacon stations than have to play politics.

“King Amarian wants to know if he needs to send a real Infiltrator to interrogate the Mandalorian,” CHI’s bored voice fills the quiet space once more. She doubts that Amarian worded the offer quite like that.

“I’ll vet him, no worries.” She says with a shrug no one sees as she pours the boiling water into the mugs.

“Ahh, yes. The stamp of approval of a failed Infiltrator will pass screenings, surely,” they snark back, causing Ezirial to roll her eyes.

“Kindly, go suck some malware CHI,” she says as she drops a tea bag in each cup and turns around with both mugs in her hands to see the Mandalorian standing by the table. “Damn Silver, you are silent for a giant man of metal.”

“You were preoccupied.” He is giving her the opportunity to be honest about discussing him and she appreciates it over flinging accusations.

“Had to get a team to check out the TIE fighter wreckage. We don’t want any Imperial rubbish on this planet if we can help it.” She walks over and sets down the mugs and ration packs before sitting. “We have a very tight passage control on this planet. The fact that you are even here uninvited is a first, to my knowledge.”

She gestures to the food as an open invitation to sit and eat and he doesn’t move. She looks up at him in mild confusion at him just staring at her without doing anything. She reaches out and finds his emotions are less erratic, meaning his head is clearer and that bacta shot must have helped. He is giving off a solid stream of suspicion and curiosity.

“Uhhh, are you going to eat? Or–OH!” She interrupts herself with a memory of Rezzik explaining to her about Mandalorian how armor etiquette varied among the houses and clans. He grew up in House Jexum of Clan Borean that only wore helmets as a signal to inform others that they were in the presence of warriors, usually at training, war, or among enemies. Eziriel jokingly calls it “warrior mode” when she sees Rezzik with his helmet on which usually earns her a playful flick to the ear.

She gestures at the sleeping quarters and Wills the door to open with a groan.

“If you’d like, you can have your meal in there if you are from one of the clans who are persnickety about helmet removal.” She wiggles her fingers toward the door. “We can still talk if you want to keep the door open a smidge. You can even place this chair behind the door and sit on it to make sure I won’t barge in,” she says with a gentle smile.

He takes a moment to weigh his options before just sitting down at the table across from her and ignoring his meal. So that is a different level of trust that we are not at, got it, she thinks.

“So I need to be interrogated to be allowed to be on this planet?” he asks outright. She hums in affirmation into her mug.

“Typically.” She gives him a tired look before continuing, “Usually newcomers, like yourself, are sponsored by someone trusted and then we send agents to meet the newcomers offworld to do a few screenings. If they pass that then they are allowed to come here, but will have to tolerate drop-in screenings to make sure they can truly be trusted.”

“This planet wasn’t on any star charts I’ve seen, why all the secrecy? Where am I?” He props an arm on the table and leans his giant frame in almost like he is trying to intimidate her.

“Arkadia, ‘The Soul of the Galaxy’!” She spreads her hands in the air and wiggles her fingers in sarcastic exuberance and gives him a bright smile at the planetary slogan. After not getting a reaction from him she picks up her ration and continues, “This planet is deep in wild space and has been hidden to anyone who isn't our ally for thousands of years.”

“Why?” He asks.

Eziriel looks at him and casts her Will out once again to get a feel on him. There is a small hum of desire and confusion that usually correlates with curiosity. With no signs of maliciousness, she decides to be honest. She tells him a quick version of the planet’s history of being very rich with very rare elements of all types and how Arkadia was once a target of exploitation nearly a thousand years ago but was lucky enough to be able to hold off attacks and set up defenses which rulers used to lock the planet down for centuries after the attacks. She explains that after years of isolation, elected rulers of Arkadia opened the passage more with each generation until the fall of the Republic where they once again locked down; and how only recently with the destruction of the Empire were there talks about opening passage more once again.

She is finished with her rations and his tea is cold and over-steeped by the time she is done, but she keeps her focus on his emotions the entire time. Overloading information on a person is another one of her favorite tactics in getting an honest read. It’s harder to mask if you spike with emotion on a specific statement when someone is repeatedly hitting you with more and more information. His emotions stayed within the curious spectrum with nothing ever setting him off into another direction.

“Our secret keeps Arkadia alive. That’s why we are hidden.” She finishes before standing up to discard her rubbish.

“I understand,” he finally says almost gently through the vocabulator.

“Can I ask you some questions now?” She watches his shoulders tighten before nodding at her. “What’s a space like you doing in the wilds of man like this?” She asks with a smile hoping to break some of the serious tension. She can’t tell if the huff he makes is a sigh or chuckle but his shoulders loosen a little. She is enjoying the reactions from him, he seems a little wound up.

“Would you believe me if I said it was an accident?” His voice is deep and raspy, less stilted than earlier.

“My brother would say ‘there is no coincidence, only Fate’s Will’, but I find that mindset a little binary.” She moves over to the mass of cables she made a mess of, pulls out the glowrod to help her work in the dimly lit room and plugs her HolOmni’s scomp link in to restart her manual diagnostic scan.

“I was tagged by a TIE patrol squadron and I didn’t want to chance an uncalculated jump across unknown space so I cut through an asteroid field—”

“Wait,” she interrupts with wide eyes. “You flew through The Kusheri Asteroid Belt? Maker’s tits!” She whistles out an impressed tone before continuing, “It has odd gravity pockets caused by certain asteroids' electromagnetic fields. Our pilots usually wait until it passes before flying out and an offworlder just flew in on a whim.”

“Less of a whim, more a tactical desperation,” he says with the lightest tone she has heard from him so far as he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. She unexpectedly falls into a full laugh at his witty explanation.

“Impressive, nonetheless,” she says to him as she digs out the datapad from the mess she left behind. She starts organizing the mess into piles of importance as her datapad gathers the readings from her HolOmni. He silently watches her as she murmurs to herself the list of things to check before starting her work. “So does the Empire have a bone to pick with Mandalorians or are you just special?”

There is a moment where the tension snaps back into the air. He lets the silence hang while she pretends a cable is more important to her than it actually is. She feels the rumble of anxiety in his emotions. He is special, but whether he is going to be truthful with her remains to be seen.

He remains silent.

“Right.” She nods at him. He is choosing to not lie to her but he also doesn’t want to give her the full truth. “Well, as long as The Cloak or Arkadia functions like it’s supposed to then you are safe here.” She turns back to get back to work before adding softly, “As far as I’m concerned, any enemy of the Empire is a friend to me.”

She asks a few more mundane questions that he answers honestly after she clarified that she has to ask these questions in order to clear him: Where did he grow up? Concordia. Makes sense after the purge, she thinks. Are you a part of a family, house, or clan? Clan Mudhorn. I’ll ask Rezzik if he knows them, she makes a note to herself. Any affiliations with other planetary system’s government? No. She smirks at his tone of disgust.

After pushing through some of the boring questions she lets the sounds of the storm fill the room once again as they both digest the information they’ve given each other. He watches her as she physically examines each cable, capacitor, fuse, and any other sort of connection before placing it back into the wall in a neat and orderly arrangement. She is over halfway through the mess when her datapad alerts her to the completed scan. She picks it up and she feels her stomach tighten as she reads.

That can’t be right.

“Everything alright?” His modulated voice breaks the silence.

“Someone hijacked my system,” she replies in an astonished voice before digging into the section of the hardware where the datapad claimed the problem was.

“Not a great feeling, huh?” There is a level of smugness in the gruff voice that would normally amuse her in any other situation, but her panic dulls the enjoyment.

“I think compromising a planet-wide defense system is a little more detrimental than me kriffing with your comms.”

She runs her hands along the supposed problematic snake of cables until she finds the anomaly that she can’t place. Under the casing of a batch of cables where wires input into a relay is an oblong device the size of her palm. There are no switches on the device, only two inputs and some lights along the side of the device that remain off due to her shifting The Cloak to emergency power.

She sees the wires that were input into the device had been stripped and spliced to fit into it. She carefully disconnects the wires and pulls the device free. She pops the casing at the seams to get a look into it. It’s well built with the circuit board having rudimentary soldering but organized overall and under one side of the shell is a manufacturing stamp.

Eziriel’s manufacturing stamp.

“What the bantha shit?” her voice cries out louder and higher than she expected.

This came from her lab. The lab that she was head of. The lab that only put out specific productions that she approved of. The thought of This is impossible is stuck in a loop in her head as her brain tries to catch up with this new information.

She breathes through the panic at seeing her designated stamp as she puts the device in her front overall’s pocket as she goes to repair the wiring to get the beacon back up on primary power. She did not approve of whatever this thing is and if it was the origin of the malfunction of The Cloak then this will be traced back to her. This is a problem.

The Mandalorian remains silent as she does the repairs, finishes her inspection, and checks her datapad’s scans all the while Eziriel mumbles to herself. By the time she gets all the tech back into the panel and has CHI switch back to primary power it’s well past midnight.

She turns around to see the figure still sitting in the chair and his helmet locked on her. He tilts his head in what she recognizes from Rezzik as a silent, but prodding, question. She walks over to the table setting the device down before dropping herself in the opposite seat and meets the black void of his visor.

“This device was trying to lower the planetary shields, which is how you got in.” She rubs her face in exasperation before continuing, “It has my seal of approval.”

“Which you didn’t give,” he surmises.

“Which I didn’t give,” she confirms and he bobs his head in acknowledgment.

She can’t do any digital forensics here, she doesn’t have the correct adapter for her HolOmni’s scomp link to have CHI read the circuit board and she tells the man as much.

Silence falls over them as she feels the wave of panic start to rise for her throat. She feels the spiraling thoughts begin to run amuck in her head. This is bad. This is treason. No one will believe it wasn’t you. You are going to be—

“C’mon Eziriel, get your shit together,” she interrupts her thoughts with a mumble to herself. She quickly catches the panicked sob that was making its way to her throat. She rubs at her wet eyes and breathes through the anxiety, before addressing the Mandalorian across from her. “Okay, I am going to focus on getting you safely to Helix and settled at home while I get your passage approval underway. You’re gonna be fine.” She says in a forced chipper tone and a strained smile not knowing if she was reassuring herself or the Mandalorian. Focus on what you can control.

“Is that your name?” He asks before clarifying, “Eziriel?”

“Wha—Oh! I’m so sorry! I’m Eziriel Kaita, an honor to save you from the wreckage of your ship,” she says with a dry smile and forced cheek before holding her hand out for a handshake. His helmet moves in a way that almost resembles an eye roll but he takes her hand in a firm shake.

“I allowed you to assist me in an evacuation,” he says as his leather covered hand retreats from hers and rests on the table.

“Of course,” she says with a tired chuckle. She waits a beat before asking, “And your name is?”

There is a stretch of silence that Eziriel is becoming familiar with. She waits patiently before he finally answers her.

“People call me Mando.” He crosses his arms and leans back in the chair.

“Mando as in short for Mandalorian?” She gives him a pinched look.

“Yes.”

“Is that your name though?”

“It’s what I’m known by,” he says with an exhausted tone and a shrug.

“Well that’s just lazy.” He gives her a questioning helmet tilt and she continues, “That people call you by what you are. Beings are more than their designation.”

“You’ve called me ‘Lori’ multiple times.”

“Yeah, but that was just to get a reaction from you.” She pouts a little when she realizes he isn’t going to give her his name. “Well, I’ll let you have the bunk room so you can feel comfortable and lock the door. Let me just grab a blanket and a pillow.”

She goes to get what she needs to sleep on the common space sofa while he stands up and gathers the rations she had given him earlier in the evening. He directs the floating pod into the room once she exits and gives her a nod at her melodic wish for sweet dreams.

Eziriel easily fits on the small sofa and turns the lights off once she hears the bunk room lock engage. In the darkness with the storm finally dying out she tries to think about finally coming home to Helix or the Mandalorian with the nice voice but the stomach dropping thought of The Cloak’s sabotage keeps sleep out of her reach.

<< Chapter Two

Chapter Four >>

#star wars fanfiction #star wars #star wars au #Mandalorian #the mandolarian #mandalorian fanfiction #mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x ofc #Din Djarin x Original Female Character #din djarin x original character #din djarin fic #slow burn #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #eventual smut #third person pov #third person perspective

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rubykgrant · 10 months ago

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(I'm going copy-paste the "high-lights" of Grimmons moments I added to another post to explain all their nonsense, and I'll bold some of the significant bits. Hope it helps a little~)

-The intro to the whole show are two characters on Red Team, Grif (in orange armor) and Simmons (in dark red/maroon armor). The conversation they have, containing the lines “Do you ever wonder why we’re here?”/“It’s one of life’s great mysteries” becomes a repeated theme through the series (sometimes as a joke, sometimes as something more deep)

-Grif is a lazy rule-breaker, Simmons is a bossy know-it all. They are constantly side-by-side, talking and bickering. Sometimes they agree and vibe with the same ideas, but they also know exactly how to drive each other crazy. Even when the plot splits the main characters up, Grif and Simmons were still stuck together every time. They’ve had to be roommates, with all the arguments that come from sharing the same space. There is a repeated visual gag of them always glancing at each other in a scene (either for drama or comedy)

-In the early seasons, Grif gets badly injured. To save his life, Simmons becomes a cyborg and donates needed blood, skin-grafts, and organs for Grif. For the next 2 decades, as they stand side-by-side and bicker, Grif LITERALLY has Simmons’ heart. Simmons LITERALLY gave his heart to Grif. That is just a thing. Also, Simmons nags Grif to quit smoking, because “You’re gonna ruin my lungs!”

-They also know each other better than anybody else, and though they don’t like to admit it, are pretty much best friends. Other characters have called them an “Old married couple”, and their leader Sarge automatically assumes one will always know where the other is, like that is just their job. Once, during a big battle, Grif started to go over a cliff, Simmons grabbed his hand, and Grif called out “Don’t let go!”. It was all very dramatic

-When they were missing from the group, they explained that they couldn't get back sooner because their solar powered vehicle had been parked in the shade... when Sarge said it would take 2 hours of no sunlight to drain the battery and asked what they were doing parked in the shade for two hours, Grif responded- "Well, I can tell you what we WEREN'T doing"

-The voice actor for Grif once shared fun-facts about the character in an interview, and said “He’s secretly in love with Simmons”. In recent years, both voice actors for Grif and Simmons played as the characters doing a “talk show” together, and even used the ship name that fans came up with “Grimmons”

-In a bonus video (arguably not canon), the characters talked about how new graphics in the Halo games, and how their original starting place in Blood Gulch looked different, but was still the same place. Simmons pointed out that a tree there still had the spot where he and Grif carved their initials together

-When they were with another group of Reds, Grif briefly became the new leader, and Simmons was VERY annoyed because he hated being bossed around by Grif, but just as a reflex had to respond to every order with "Yes, sir". When Grif finally screwed up so bad the rest of the Reds wanted to execute him and Simmons, they had a moment of final words; Simmons wanted to tell Grif something important and emotional, but Grif interrupted him by admitting he once stole Simmons' identity and ran up a bunch of credit charges. Simmons then says he has forgotten what he wanted to tell Grif

-At one point, there was a magic sci-fi alien temple that, when activated, made everybody on the planet super-duper aroused. Grif and Simmons were “stuck in a closet together” during that event

-In a later season, there was a whole plot line with Grif wanting to stop with all the dangerous adventures, and a scene involved him looking at Simmons saying “I quit”/“Quit what?”/“You”. Simmons couldn’t shut up about how annoying Grif was and how he DEFINITELY doesn’t miss Grif at ALL the whole time they were separated. Grif became depressed with guilt and loneliness, gathered up a bunch of volleyballs, put designs of all the helmets of his friends on them, and kept trying to apologize for leaving the group. He was especially awkward when trying to talk to the Simmons-volleyball. When they finally reunite, and have a moment where they apologize and say it is good to see each other again, another character implies he is expecting them to kiss

-The characters meet some evil look-alikes. Most of them have the same armor color but different voice actors, except for Simmons; Gene has the same VA (Simmons claims there is no similarity, and Gene is sooo annoying). In a scene with Gene and Simmons fighting, Grif arrives, and that cliche of “Shoot him, I’M the real Simmons!”/“No, I’M Simmons, shoot HIM!” plays out. Grif asks “Why are we here?”. One guy in maroon armor says they’re here to kill the bad-guys. The other one says “We don’t know why we’re here. It’s still one of life’s great mysteries” and Grif knows, THAT'S his Simmons

-OK, now FORGET everything with the magic sci-fi temple, being in a closet, the evil look-alikes, getting “divorced” and the call-back to “Why are we here”. After 18 seasons, the finale of the series did a ret-con, so season 19 takes place after season 13. In this story line, Simmons offers Grif the chance to finally be discharged and leave all this fighting nonsense behind, which Grif has always wanted. He immediately says to Simmons- “Come with me”. Simmons wants to finish dealing with one last problem, so Grif stays to help. It gets resolved, and before Grif leaves, he asks if Simmons will come visit him. Simmons just says he probably won't. After 21 years of being glued at the hip, they are separated. The end

grimmons enjoyers i need your knowledge

i am collecting “evidence” of various grimmons queerbait moments or mentions of them from RT employees who have worked on the show. if you have any favourites or know of any rare facts then please respond to this i owe you my life.

#red vs blue #grimmons

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soundsfaebutokay · 4 years ago

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youtube

So I've recc'd this video before, but it deserves its own post because it's one of my favorite things on youtube. It's a Tedx Talk by comics writer, editor, and journalist Jay Edidin, and I really think that it will connect with a lot of people here.

If you live and breathe stories of all kinds, you might like this.

If you care about media representation, you might like this.

If you're neurodivergent, you might like this.

If you're interested in a gender transition story that veers from the norm, you might like this.

If you love the original Leverage and especially Parker, and understand how important it is that a character like her exists, you will definitely like this.

Transcript below the cut:

You Are Here: The Cartography of Stories

by Jay Edidin

I am autistic. And what this means in practice is that there are some things that are easier for me than they are for most people, and a great many things that are somewhat harder, and these affect my life in more or less overt ways. As it goes, I'm pretty lucky. I've been able to build a career around special interests and granular obsession. My main gig at the moment is explaining superhero comics continuity and publishing history for which work I am somehow paid in actual legal currency—which is both a triumph of the frivolous in an era of the frantically pragmatic, and a job that's really singularly suited to my strengths and also to my idiosyncrasies.

I like comics. I like stories in general, because they make sense to me in ways that the rest of the world and my own mind often don't. Self-knowledge is not an intuitive thing for me. What sense of self I have, I've built gradually and laboriously and mostly through long-term pattern recognition. For decades, I didn't even really have a self-image. If you'd asked me to draw myself, I would eventually have given you a pair of glasses and maybe a very messy scribble of hair, and that would've been about it. But what I do know—backwards, forwards, and in pretty much every way that matters—are stories. I know how they work. I understand their language, their complex inner clockwork, and I can use those things to extrapolate a sort of external compass that picks up where my internal one falls short. Stories—their forms, their structure, the sense of order inherent to them—give me the means to navigate what otherwise, at least for me, would be an impassable storm of unparsable data. Or stories are a periscope, angled to access the parts of myself I can't intuitively see. Or stories are a series of mirrors by which I can assemble a composite sketch of an identity I rarely recognize whole...which is how I worked out that I was transgender, in my early thirties, by way of a television show.

This is my story. And it's about narrative cartography, and representation, and why those things matter. It's about autism and it's about gender and it's about how they intersect. And it's about the kinds of people we know how to see, and the kinds of people we don't. It's not the kind of story that gets told a lot, you might hear a lot, because the narrative around gender transition and dysphoria in our culture is really, really prescriptive. It's basically the story of the kid who has known for their whole life that they're this and not that, and that story demands the kind of intuitive self-knowledge that I can't really do, and a kind of relationship to gender that I don't really have—which is part of why it took me so long to figure my own stuff out.

So, to what extent this story, my story has a beginning, it begins early in 2014 when I published an essay titled, "I See Your Value Now: Asperger's and the Art of Allegory." And it explored, among other things, the ways that I use narrative and narrative structures to navigate real life. And it got picked up in a number of fairly prominent places that got linked, and I casually followed the ensuing discussion. And I was surprised to discover that readers were fairly consistently assuming I was a man. Now, that in itself wasn't a new experience for me, even though at the time I was writing under a very unambiguously female byline. It had happened in the letter columns of comics I'd edited. It had happened when a parody Twitter account I'd created went viral. When I was on staff at Wired, I budgeted for fancy scotch by putting a dollar in a box every time a reader responded in a way that made it clear they were assuming I was a man in response to an article where my name was clearly visible, and then I had to stop doing that because it happened so often I couldn't afford to keep it up. But in all of those cases, the context, you know, the reasons were pretty obvious. The fields I'd worked in, the beats I covered, they were places where women had had to fight disproportionally hard for visibility and recognition. We live in a culture that assumes a male default, so given a neutral voice and a character limit, most readers will assume a male author.

But this was different, because this wasn't just a book I'd edited, it wasn't a story I'd reported—it was me, it was my story. And it made me uncomfortable, got under my skin in ways that the other stuff really hadn't. And so I did what I do when that happens, and I tried to sort of reverse-engineer it to look at the conclusions and peel them back to see the narratives behind them and the stories that made them tick. And I started this, I started this by going back to the text of the essay, and you know, examining it every way I could think of: looking at craft, looking at content. And in doing so, I was surprised to realize that while I had written about a number of characters with whom I identified closely, that every single one of those characters I'd written about was male. And that surprised me even more than the responses to the essay had, because I've spent my career writing and talking and thinking about gender and representation in popular media. In 2014, I'd been the feminist gadfly of an editorial department and multiple mastheads. I'd been a founding board member of an organization that existed to advocate for more and better representation of women and girls in comics characters and creators. And most of my favorite characters, the ones I'd actively seek out and follow, were women. Just not, apparently, the characters I saw myself in.

Now I still didn't realize it was me at this point. Remember: self-knowledge, not very intuitive for me. And while I had spent a lot of time thinking about gender, I'd never really bothered to think much about my own. I knew academically that the way other people read and interpreted my gender affected and had influenced a lifetime of social and professional interactions, and that those in turn had informed the person I'd grown up into during that time. But I really believed, like I just sort of had in the back of my head, that if you peeled away all of that social conditioning, you'd basically end up with what I got when I tried to draw a self-portrait. So: a pair of glasses, messy scribble of hair, and in this case, maybe also some very strong opinions about the X-Men. I mean, I knew something was off. I'd always known something was off, that my relationship to gender was messy and uncomfortable, but gender itself struck me as messy and uncomfortable, and it had never been a large enough part of how I defined myself to really feel like something that merited further study, and I had deadlines, and...so it was always on the back burner. So, I looked, I looked at what I had, at this improbable group of exclusively male characters. And I looked and I figured that if this wasn't me, then it had to be a result of the stories I had access to, to choose from, and the entertainment landscape I was looking at. And the funny thing is, I wasn't wrong, exactly. I just wasn't right either.

See, the characters I'd written about had one other significant trait in common aside from their gender, which is that they were all more or less explicitly, more or less heavily coded as autistic. And I thought, "Ah, yes. This explains it. This is under representation in fiction echoing under representation in life and vice versa." Because the characteristics that I'd honed in on, that I particularly identified with in these guys, were things like emotional unavailability and social awkwardness and granular obsession, and all of those are characteristics that are seen as unsympathetic and therefore unmarketable in female characters. Which is also why readers were assuming that I was a man.

Because, you see, here's the thing. I'm not the only one who uses stories to navigate the world. I'm just a little more deliberate about it. For humans, stories formed the bridge between data and understanding. They're where we look when we need to contextualize something new, or to recognize something we're pretty sure we've seen before. They're how we identify ourselves; they're how we locate ourselves and each other in the larger world. There were no fictional women like me; there weren't representations of women like me in media, and so readers were primed not to recognize women like me in real life either.

Now by this point, I had started writing a follow-up essay, and this one was also about autism and narratives, but specifically focused on how they intersected with gender and representation in media. And in context of this essay, I went about looking to see if I could find even one female character who had that cluster of traits I'd been looking for, and I was asking around in autistic communities. And I got a few more or less useful one-off suggestions, and some really, really splendid arguments about semantics and standards, and um...then I got one answer over and over and over in community after community after community. "Leverage," people told me. "You have to watch Leverage."

So I watched Leverage. Leverage is five seasons of ensemble heist drama. It's about a team of very skilled con artists who take down corrupt and powerful plutocrats and the like, and it's a lot of fun, and it's very clever, and it's clever enough that it doesn't really matter that it's pretty formulaic, and I enjoyed it a lot. But what's most important, what Leverage has is Parker.

Parker is a master thief, and she is the best of the best of the best in ways that all of Leverage's characters are the best of the best. And superficially, she looks like the kind of woman you see on TV. So she's young, and she's slender, and she's blonde, and she's attractive but in a sort of approachable way. And all of that familiarity is brilliant misdirection, because the thing is, there are no other women like Parker on TV. Because Parker—even if it's never explicitly stated in the show—Parker is coded incredibly clearly as autistic. Parker is socially awkward. Her speech tends to have limited inflection; what inflection it does have is repetitive and sounds rehearsed a lot of the time. She's not emotionally literate; she struggles with it, and the social skills she develops over the series, she learns by rote, like they're just another grift. When she's not scaling skyscrapers or cartwheeling through laser grids, she wears her body like an ill-fitting suit. Parker moves like me. And Parker, Parker was a revelation—she was a revolution unto herself. In a media landscape where unempathetic women usually exist to either be punished or "loved whole," Parker got to play the crabby savant. And she wasn't emotionally intuitive but it was never ever played as the product of abuse or trauma even though she had survived both of those—it was just part of her, as much as were her hands or her eyes. And she had a genuine character arc. My god, she had a genuine romantic arc, even. And none of that required her to turn into anything other than what she was. And in Parker I recognized a thousand tics and details of my life and my personality...but. I didn't recognize myself.

Why? What difference was there in Parker, you know, between Parker and the other characters I'd written about? Those characters, they'd spanned ethnicities and backgrounds and different media and appearances and the only other characteristic they all had in common was their gender. So that was where I started to look next, and I thought, "Well, okay, maybe, maybe it's masculinity. Maybe if Parker were less feminine, she'd click with me the way those other characters had." So then I tried to imagine a Parker with short hair, who's explicitly butch, and...nothing. So okay, I extended it in what seems like the only logical direction to extend it. I said, "Well, if it's not masculinity, what if it's actual maleness? What if Parker were a man?" Ah. Yeah.

In the end, everything changed, and nothing changed, which is often the way that it goes for me. Add a landmark, no matter how slight, and the map is irrevocably altered. Add a landmark, and paths that were invisible before open wide. Add a landmark, and you may not have moved, but suddenly you know where you are and where you can go.

I wasn't going to tell this story when I started planning this talk. I was gonna tell a similar story, it was about stories, like this is, about narratives and the ways that they influence our culture and vice versa. And it centered around a group of women at NASA who had basically rewritten the narrative around space exploration, and it was a lot more fun, and I still think it was more interesting. But it's also a story you can probably work out for yourselves. In fact it's a story some of you probably have, if you follow that kind of thing, which you probably do given that you're here. And this is a story, my story is not a story that I like to tell. It's not a fun story to talk about because it's very personal and I am a very private person. And it's not universal. And it's not always relatable, and it's definitely not aspirational. And it's not the kind of story that you tend to encounter unless you're already part of it...which is why I'm telling it now. Because the thing is, I'm not the only person who uses stories to parse the world and navigate it. I'm just a little more deliberate. Because I'm tired of having to rely on composite sketches.

Open your maps. Add a landmark. Reroute accordingly.

#Jay Edidin #LGBTQ #autism #mind and body #gender norms #why humans need stories #Leverage #Parker #Abby posts Leverage #my faves #Youtube #I did my best with the transcript #sorry for any mistakes

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thevindicativevordan · 3 years ago

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what would Superman look like if he had never lost that Golden Age fire? what if Morrison’s basis for T-Shirt and Jeans Supes had carried on throughout the New 52 past that initial run? what would it look like if Clark was actually written to be what Jon’s Superman is supposed to be (i.e. the real world problem-fighting strongman)

Sucks to say, but if they hadn't squashed the Golden Age spark, he probably would have been snuffed out by the Comic Code. The 50s was not an era interested in superheroes fighting the law alongside the criminals, and Superman did reach one of his peaks in popularity around that time. He would be in a much, MUCH better place if they hadn't completely tossed out Morrison's revamp of the character however.

Plenty of folks have made complaints about the New 52's take on Superman, and some of the criticisms have merit (especially about what happened once Morrison departed Action). But there's one benefit of the New 52's resurrecting the "Champion of the Oppressed" attitude and mindset: This Superman is many things but he's neither perfect nor boring. Here is a guy who most definitely does not have "awww he's just a little too good for us", as the only character "flaw" you can point out. Impulsive, reckless, cocky, absolutely in your face about how HEY SUPERMAN HAS A TEMPER in a way that you can't ignore, Morrison went out of their way to tackle the common criticism of Superman as being without faults. Clear and concise character flaws are exhibited and impact his choices and the trajectory of his stories in ways readers can see. His aggressive campaign against corruption amongst the Metropolis elite - another response to another common criticism of why doesn't Superman tackle the real problems - scares the shit out of the general public, turning the people he's trying to protect against him, and forces him reevaluate his approach to being a superhero.

In fact that's probably the best virtue of the Morrison Champion of the Oppressed take on Superman's early days: it makes those early days actually different and worth revisiting, because we get to see Superman undergo a metamorphosis into becoming Superman as we know him to be. Many other Superman origins have him throw on the cape and essentially be The Guy right away. Drawback of that is there's practically no difference between a Superman just starting out and an established Superman, both more or less act exactly the same. Morrison lowering his power levels and changing his attitude means now there's value in returning. You want to see Superman dangling billionaires over the side of a skyscraper? Or fight cops and the military? Or do more "street-level" adventures featuring the character? Now there's a place for that in Superman's history.

Then there's the virtues that come with Superman returning to his "Champion of the Oppressed" roots too. You want to talk about Superman bringing "hope" to the community?

This guy did that by concrete actions, not inspirational speeches. Folding some "folk hero" into Superman's foundation did wonders to make him more active as a protagonist. Instead of the angelic godling floating above us, he was a friendly neighborhood Superman cleaning up and protecting his community. Leaping above us for sure, but always coming back down to Earth at multiple points.

Furthermore there's the elephant in the room: after tossing Morrison's foundation out, what the hell has DC replaced it with? Nothing. Seriously there's been multiple goddamn Superman origins in the past two decades, but NONE of them are canon, not canon in the actual way they were told anyhow. Johns wanted Secret Origin back, but his story couldn't have happened as it was told because Clark never met the Legion. Jurgens wanted to go all the way back to Byrne's Man of Steel, but that era is too distant for modern readers, and Johns wanted his stories to stay canon. Settling for a hodgepodge of various bits and pieces from different Superman eras post Superman Reborn, Johns keeping his stories canon, Jurgens folding as much of the Post Crisis era that he was responsible for back into continuity, DC gave us a continuity checklist that failed at being an actual story. Other than Superman reflecting "oh one time I was electric blue, and one time I had an ant head, and there was that time I met Lex in Smallville", there's no emotional context for all of these events. They just happened and DC is merely making sure that all of the continuity junkies get their fix, that they know which stories "matter" so they can construct their useless timelines that are all going to get retconned in the next event.

Compare that to what Morrison did in their Action run, which attempted to do "everything matters" in a way that gives Clark an actual character arc!

Beginning with a raw and aggressive Golden Age-esque Superman who in keeping with that foundation can't fly and is weaker than tradition would have it, works at the Daily Star rather than the Daily Planet, mainly fights gangsters, corrupt lawmen, and embodiments of social ills until confronting his first proper supervillain in Metallo - the New 52 Metallo heavily inspired by the George Grant Golden Age "Metalo". Brainiac, his publication debut an iconic part of Superman's Silver Age, arrives and kickstarts Superman's transformation into a more cosmic hero. Superman learns of his Kryptonian heritage, dons a proper "costume", and reaches the power levels he's known for, acquiring the ability to fly. The Fortress of Solitude, the Bottled City of Kandor, the Phantom Zone, Krypto, and the Legion of Superheroes also enter the picture, all key features of Superman's Silver Age era. Finally Superman enters his Bronze Age where he questions if his methods are doing more harm than good, and asks if there must be a Clark Kent (because this is Morrison and they are never going to have Superman choose retirement over continuing to help people). Vyndktvx gathers together a group of Superman Rogues - a homage to Alan Moore's iconic ending for the Pre-Crisis Superman in Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow? - and attempts to kill and replace Superman with a darker incarnation more suited to the modern audience like in the most iconic Post Crisis Superman storyline: The Death and Return of Superman Saga. There's even a mini "reboot" at the end, reflecting the New 52 replacing what came before, with the Legion destroying their timeline to save Superman, Clark made aware that history has been tampered with, and being offered the chance to restore the Kents! Embracing the initial New 52 mantra of looking forward not back, Clark instead uses the offer to restore a group of Martian astronauts he failed to save, and moves onward.

What differentiates that from what Johns and Jurgens did is there is an actual emotional arc underpinning all of those events. We know how Superman feels about these events.

He wanted to continue his original quest to confront social ills, even after his growth in power, but the rest of the League shot him down. He considered retiring Clark Kent because some villains had started to learn his identity, and maybe "Clark" was just a distraction for Superman. But afterwards he recognized that "Clark" is what kept him grounded because without it he lacked the human interaction he needed. He refused to let Vyn break him or to believe that the only future left for himself was death or corruption. Superman grows and learns more about himself and his purpose in life through these adventures rather than simply reflecting "well THAT sure happened!" like his current origin.

Least Morrison's return to Superman one last time in Superman & the Authority let them fold some of their stories back into canon as well, plus PKJ is carrying their torch forward. Sucks that the best foundation Superman ever had, a foundation that truly sought to include as much of each Superman era as it could, was tossed because Johns wanted to make Morrison the scapegoat for the worst of the New 52's take on the character (and hey Johns you wrote him longer in the New 52 era than Morrison did, if he was a betrayal of who Superman should be, that's on you buddy!).

A little hopium to offset all the doom and gloom: between Morrison helping to kick off the current era with S&tA, PKJ working closely with Morrison and wanting to pick up plot threads they set up, DC putting out variants calling back to t-shirt and jeans Superman, and even a few stories in anthologies like Red & Blue starring Morrison's Champion of the Oppressed Superman (mostly by Brandon Thomas), I think we may see some of the ideas Morrison came up with for their reboot return. Not all of them, unfortunately the elder Kents are probably sticking around for a while, but enough to hopefully make the Morrison era not a complete waste.

#superman #grant morrison #action comics #new 52

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leia505 · 4 years ago

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The Sunrise and Your Sins | Tetsurou Kuroo x Reader (street racing AU)

This fic takes place in the same universe as “deciphered” by @hoeneymilktea! Here is the link to the car visuals and spotify playlist, as well as AO3 where the fic is also posted if you prefer to read on there.

Huge shoutout to @aikk00 for creating the fan art that inspired both this story and “deciphered”.

And another shoutout to @hoeneymilktea for pushing me to write this fic, if you’re here from deciphered I hope you enjoy this addition to the deciphered universe!

Pairing: Tetsurou Kuroo x Reader

Rating: Explicit, NSFW(later chapters)

Word Count: 10k

Tags: Street Racing, Alternate Universe - Car Racing, Inspired by Fanart, References to Drugs, Aged-Up Character(s), Original Character(s), Inspired by The Fast and the Furious, Inspired by Tokyo Drift, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Mystery, Drama & Romance, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Summary: Being a mob boss’s daughter had always been a dangerous life, but Tetsurou Kuroo—street racer and mob henchman—made it all seem easy. Although the mutual attraction between you two was undeniable, the darkness that encompassed your family took precedence over your love. Surrounded by lies and deception, you and Kuroo must work together to uncover the truth of your brother’s death and your father’s shady business.

“Hey there kitten.”

“Is that really how you want to talk to a yakuza boss’ daughter?”

“It’s not like your old man’s here to listen.” Kuroo says, pulling up a chair to sit close to you. You turned your head to stare him in the eyes as he smirked at you.

“You think a man like my father doesn’t have his own office wired?” You ask, raising an eyebrow at him.

Kuroo chuckles nervously, looking around your dad’s office. Just some harmless flirting boss. Nothing to worry about here.” He says loudly, turning to you with a wink. You can’t help but smile, you’ve always enjoyed the times Kuroo came to see your father. You weren’t going to try to deny the fact you found him attractive, but there’s no way your father would allow it. A mafia princess and a drug smuggler? What a cliché.

Your father’s sudden entrance startles you both, and Kuroo instinctively stands up to bow. You remain seated, knowing that the power he held over this city applied to everyone but you.

“Hello father.” You greet your dad as he sits in his office chair at the front of the room. He definitely has a demanding presence, which is to be expected from the man who has the Tokyo underground in his pocket. Kuroo had power, and definitely had some authority, but he was a guppy compared to your father.

“Sit, Tetsurou.” Your father says, motioning for Kuroo to take a seat. He quickly sits down in his chair, attentively looking at the mafia boss for further instructions.

“So, as you could probably guess, I have another job for you.” He says, pulling a file out from the locked cabinet of his desk. He laid the file open in front of him and turned to Kuroo. “There will be a shipping container coming in this Friday from Cuba. I’m going to need a team of your best racers to get it from point A, the ports, to point B, headquarters.” He explains, motioning for Kuroo to stand next to him to look over the details.

“Seems easy enough, standard job.” Kuroo says, studying the papers in front of him. At this moment, you can’t help but wonder to yourself why exactly you’re there.

“Exactly. Nothing new, just the same old.” Your dad agrees. “However, this is a bigger job. And we do have some eyes watching us nowadays. So what I need from you is to take the lead and choose your team. Approved by me, of course.” He says, motioning for Kuroo to take his seat again.

“How many people are we talking?” Kuroo asks.

“You, maybe two others. And your colleague, Snake Eyes, taking the lead on logistics.” Your father explains, leaning back in his chair. “Snake Eyes will be essential to this one, we need eyes and ears on the route. The less run-ins with the authorities, the better.”

‘Snake Eyes.’ You thought to yourself. ‘Isn’t that Kenma? The nerdy looking mechanic?’

“I’ll let Kozume know.” Kuroo says, nodding. “I think Oikawa and Shinsuke would be a good fit for this one. Fast, experienced, trustworthy.”

“Oikawa…he’s the one that calls himself Cypher correct?” You father questions.

“Yes sir, head of Seijoh Brawlers. Shinsuke goes by Sly Fox, head of Inarizaki Bois.”

Your dad let out a hearty chuckle, startling both of you. “You kids and your code names. You would think you’re playing spy.” Kuroo nervously chuckled in agreement.

“No playing here sir, we’re all in.” Kuroo says, giving him a confident grin.

“That’s what I like to hear, Tetsurou. With that attitude, you’ll fit right in at the grown-up table.” Your father says, getting up from his chair. You roll your eyes, bored of the conversation between the two criminals.

“Why am I here?” You ask, causing both of them to turn to you as if they just realized you were there. You rarely sat in on your father’s meetings, so you were confused from the start as to what your purpose was.

“Oh sweetheart! I almost forgot, Kuroo has a present for you.” Your father says brightly, waving his arms at you, motioning for you to follow Kuroo out the door.

You peered your eyes at Kuroo suspiciously as he smirked at you. You continued to follow him out the door of your family’s Tokyo home, with your father following behind you.

As the three of you exit the house, your eyes fall on a bright pink car, with a giant white ribbon tied around the hood.

“Is that-“You begin saying, quickening your pace to get closer to this absolute beauty.

“A Honda S2000? Yes, yes, it is.” Kuroo says, leaning against his car, a cherry red Nissan Veilside 350Z. He holds up a pair of car keys, which he tosses to you.

“It’s mine?!” You exclaim. You turn to your dad, who smiles warmly at you.

“A gift, from the Nekoma crew to our family. Me and your mother have enough cars, so I figured you could claim this one.” He explains, chuckling.

“Thank you!” You wrap your arms around him, embracing your father in a hug. He tightly hugs you back, the same way he always has. You turn towards Kuroo. “And thank you, you and the whole Nekoma crew. How’d you know I wanted pink?”

Kuroo shrugs. “I just guessed. Seemed like your color.” He says, winking at you. He slyly opens his car door, climbing in. “Thursday night, I’ll bring the team?” He asks, turning towards your dad.

“Yes, and make sure they bring their cars as well. I need to see for myself what type of speed we’re working with.” Your dad says, switching into business mode seamlessly.

Kuroo lets out a laugh, closing his car door and rolling his window down. “I can promise you sir, the one thing we will surely not be lacking is speed.” He says, revving his engine, speeding out of the driveway and down the dark street. The roar of his engine could be heard long after he disappeared from our sight, breaking the silence of the upper-class neighborhood he sped through.

“Sweetheart, Tetsurou and his boys are here if you’d like to sit in on the meeting.” Your father says, peeking his head into your room.

“I’ll be right down dad.” You reply, getting up from your bed. You heard their cars coming from miles away, so you were already prepared to meet them downstairs. You were curious as to why your father suddenly invited you to sit in on his business meetings, he never really allowed you to take part in your family’s activities. Nevertheless, you were glad you finally had something to keep you entertained while locked away in your home.

As you walked down the stairs, you heard Kuroo’s voice speaking to his friends, and you were caught off guard by how mature he sounded. He must have known you and your father were coming down the stairs, so he put his big boy voice on to impress your father.

“Hi.” you say shortly, causing all of them to turn their heads to you. You finally got a good look at all of them, and they were all exactly what you’d expect street racers to look like. Piercings, tattoos, just a bunch of tough looking guys with skeptical faces as they looked up at you.

“Is this the one you keep bringing up?” a guy with shoulder length bleached blonde hair asks, turning to Kuroo. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. It was a drastic change from Kuroo’s deep, commanding voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kuroo says, awkwardly clearing his throat, tugging at his collar as he avoided your gaze.

“Hola mami.” The brunette one says to you, shooting you a devilish smirk as you descend further down the stairs.

“The fuck is wrong with this one?” You ask Kuroo, opting to stand next to him. You tilt your head towards the brunette guy, who was still staring at you like a luxury car.

“He lived in Argentina for a few years and now he’s just...like that.” Kuroo says. “You kind of get used to it. He also doesn’t care that no one but him knows Spanish.”

“Tetsurou! Glad you all made it here in one piece. Shall we move this to my office?” Your father says, waving his arm down the hall to the large double doors that lead to his office, the space where all meetings, illegal or otherwise, were held.

The five of you made room for your father to lead and followed him down the hall. You were keenly aware of the fact Kuroo stood almost directly behind you, mainly because the smell of his cologne was too strong to ignore. Kuroo was just like that, a presence you couldn’t seem to get out of your head.

Upon entering the office, you choose to take your usual spot on the comfortable sofa chair you put in your dad’s office over a decade ago. When you were younger, more naive to the truth to your father’s business and your family’s wealth, you frequently accompanied your father in his office on long work nights, falling asleep in the chair that was kept out of the way to keep others from taking your special spot. That’s always how your dad was, making sure to accommodate you. Anything for the princess.

“So!” Your father announces, clapping his hands together, causing you and the blonde one to jump slightly. “Don’t be shy, introduce yourselves.” You roll your eyes at him, thinking that he sounded more like a grade school teacher than a yakuza boss with hundreds of skeletons in the closet.

The 4 men stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, not knowing how to start. Everyone except the silver haired guy wore a bomber jacket, with names printed on the back. The brunette wearing a white bomber jacket spoke first. You noticed the teal lettering on his jacket that read ‘CYPHER’.

“Tooru Oikawa, sir. Cypher.” He says, bowing at your dad.

“Uh, Kenma Kozume. People call me Snake Eyes sometimes.” the bleach blonde spoke next, his voice quiet and skeptical.

“Kita Shinsuke, aka Sly Fox.” The silver haired guy in the plain black hoodie says, giving your father a slight head nod.

“And obviously you know me.” Kuroo says. He turns to face you, flashing his signature grin. “Your turn.”

“(y/n).” you introduce yourself, giving them a small wave. “If you haven’t figured out who I am then you’re pretty slow.”

“My daughter, everyone. Excuse the attitude.” your father remarks, shaking his head at you. “So, I assume you filled them in on the details?”

“Yes sir, they’ve all been filled in on the job. Kenma running point on logistics, the control tower of the team. The three of us running the cargo from the ports to the warehouse. Basic rules, don’t be dumb, and don’t get caught.” Kuroo says. The other men looked at him, nodding slightly in agreement.

“Excellent, I knew I could count on you to take the lead here. Keep this up and you may find some more jobs like this in your future.” Your father gets up from his chair, pulling more files from his cabinet. He hands each of the men their own file, which they all take and begin looking over. “You’ll find all the smaller details in there, as well as numbers to contact in case you run into trouble. You’ll also find a receipt, with your pay for this job highlighted. I hope you find it accommodating to your work.” He says, studying each of them as they flip through the files.

“Definitely accommodating.” Kita comments, nodding his head as he peers down at the file. You begin to wonder when you’ll be able to see the fine tuned details, to truly see everything your father does in a day. So much of who he is still remained a mystery to you, and perhaps you found some comfort in your own ignorance.

“Thank you sir, our teams greatly appreciate your contributions.” Kuroo says, bowing once again to your father.

“It’s really no problem, after all, who doesn’t like a good street race.” Your father says with a smile. “And, in a way, I feel as though keeping your teams afloat helps me remember my son.”

“You have a son?” Oikawa asks, looking up.

“Had a son, yes.” Your father replied sadly. You winced, not expecting to have to relive these memories. “He passed in a racing accident. It was a few years ago. I think it was before your kids’ time.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what was his name? Or, what team was he on?” Kenma asks.

“Keishin. He used the last name Ukai when he raced, to get away from our family name. I believe he raced for Karasuno?” Your dad says, bringing up more and more painful memories.

“Karasuno Killers? They’re getting back on the scene nowadays. I remember someone talking about how they stopped coming to races a while back, but they just recently started racing again because they have a whole new team.” Kuroo says.

“Really? Well, I might just have to come watch a race one of these days. For old times sake.”

‘Old times sake my ass.’ you thought to yourself, knowing the truth about your father and your deceased brother’s relationship. Your father hated racing, and resented your brother for choosing Karasuno over the Sakanoshita name. At the time of your brother’s death, you couldn’t help but wonder if your father was truly upset, or if he was putting on another facade, the same way he was now.

“Well, speaking of races, you wanted to see our cars, right?” Oikawa says, clearly trying to redirect this depressing conversation.

“Oh yes, of course! I want to see for myself what you’re all going to be working with tomorrow.” Your father says, walking out of his office towards the front of the home.

Outside, there were 3 cars parked in the driveway. You recognized the models, and you could guess which cars were Oikawa and Kita’s just from the colorways, white and black, just like their outfits.

“Mi amor.” Oikawa says, looking at his car. “Mazda RX-7 Veilside Fortune. ‘97.”

“He would marry his car if he could.” Kuroo comments, tilting his head towards you. You laugh, looking up at him.

“Nissan Silvia. 2002.” Kita says, walking up to his car and opening the door. The smell of smoke was strong, and he grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the middle console. “Mind if I smoke?” Your father nods, and Kita proceeds to light one and take a puff.

“Kenma, no car?” Your father asks, turning towards him. Kenma seems caught off guard by the sound of his own name.

“Uh, no sir, not tonight. I have cars, but I don’t drive all that often. I don’t see the point in risking my investments.” He says, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah, he’d rather be in the passenger seat with me driving and risking my car.” Kuroo says, playfully shoving Kenma’s shoulder.

“That reminds me, I have a proposal for you Kuroo.” Your father says, getting everyone's attention. “Would you be willing to let (y/n) ride with you on this job?”

“Excuse me?” You say, interrupting the conversation. “Why am I going? You never let me go anywhere, but suddenly I’m running drugs for you?” You raise an eyebrow at him and cross your arms across your chest.

“Well, sweetheart, I figured it was time.” Your father says, taking a step closer to stand in front of you. “I was around your age when your grandfather started allowing me to learn the ropes of our family’s business. You are the only one who can continue the Sakanoshita name. I think this is a good first job for you.”

“For the record, it's no problem. She can ride with me. I promise she’ll be safe.” Kuroo says, inserting himself into the conversation between you and your father.

“So, does this mean I finally have something to do? I can start leaving the house again?” You ask, hopeful that this decision from your father will mean more freedom. Things haven’t been the same since Keishin died, and your father kept you under a microscope, claiming it was for your safety.

“We can talk about new safety rules after this job. Deal?” He asks, holding his hand out for you to shake.

“Deal.” You say, taking his hand and shaking it firmly.

“Looks like the princess is growing up.” Kuroo comments, smirking at you.

“Hope we don’t scare her too much.” Kita says jokingly.

You scoffed at him, excitement growing inside of you as you realized this will be the start of you growing into a leadership position in the Sakanoshita family, becoming the face of this giant organization that ruled the Tokyo underground. “Nothing scares me.”

You stared at yourself in the mirror, trying to get your head together before the job. ‘What does a person bring to a drug smuggling? What does someone wear? Fucking jeans?’

‘No.’ you thought to yourself, grabbing a pair of leggings. What if you needed to run? Well then you need sneakers too. And a warm jacket, just in case. Do you bring a phone charger? Would it be weird to ask Kuroo to plug your phone in while you’re smuggling drugs together?

“What the fuck am I doing.” You say out loud to yourself, beginning to question your own sanity. You let out a deep sigh, trying to clear your head.

You eventually decide on leggings, sneakers, and a cross body fanny pack to hold your phone and smaller things. Before exiting your room, you hesitate.

You make your way to your bedside table, opening the drawer and reaching to the back, pulling out a small handgun. You take it out, along with a note that was tucked underneath it.

‘Stay safe. -Keishin’

This was a gift from your brother, before he passed. You kept it close by, both as protection and a heavy reminder. Your family name carried a lot of weight, which the both of you felt smothered by. You both understood the dark side of the luxury you lived with, saw the blood that stained your family’s money. But now, with him gone, it all fell on you. Everything depended on you.

You make the decision to take it along with you, holstering it to your thigh. ‘Better safe than sorry’, you thought to yourself. A regular night could turn deadly in an instant, something that you were very familiar with given the way your brother passed.

You exit your room and descend down the stairs, walking out the front door to where everyone was waiting with their cars. Oikawa was busy on his phone, and Kita was further away smoking a cigarette. Your father stood with Kuroo, most likely discussing the job.

“Where’s Kenma?” You question, walking up to stand with Kuroo and your dad.

“He’s back at the garage. Don’t worry, he has eyes and ears at us at all times.” Kuroo says, pointing at the earpiece he wore. “Here, one for you as well.” He hands you an ear piece, which you put in, immediately hearing the sounds of a video game, most likely from Kenma.

“Are you ready?” Your father asks, turning towards you. You nod in response, and he looks over you, stopping and furrowing his eyebrows when he sees your gun. “Is a gun really necessary?”

“Keishin would have wanted me to bring it. Better safe than sorry, like he used to say.” You say, knowing that bringing up your brother was the easiest way to get your father to comply with whatever it was that you were doing.

He nods, giving you a sad smile. “You’re right. He was always the cautious one.”

“The smart one too.” You say, smiling nostalgically. “Are we all ready to go?” You ask, turning to Kuroo.

“Yup, all set.” He replies, swinging the passenger car door open for you. “I’ll have Snake Eyes let you know when we reach the ports, and again at the warehouse.” He says, turning to your father.

“Perfect.” Your father says. He turns to look at you once more, then back at Kuroo. “Bring her back in one piece.” He says, holding out his hand.

“You can count on me, sir.” He says, giving your father a firm handshake. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, the business your family was involved in was always so masculine, so formal. It was something you would have to adjust to when you begin taking part in it.

Kuroo closed your car door and nodded to the other two racers, who immediately got into their cars, turning their engines one. He climbs into the driver’s seat of his car, turning the key in the ignition, the loud roar of the engine startling you. He chuckles, realizing he made you jump.

“Mic check. Roll call.” You hear Kenma say in your ear.

“Tap once to speak, twice to mute.” Kuroo says, pointing to the earpiece. He taps once, and speaks. “DK here, with Princess in the passenger seat.” He says, grinning at you.

“Ew, keep it PG-13 dude.” Kenma says, making you laugh.

“Cypher, ready to roll.” You hear Oikawa say.

“Sly fox.” Kita says shortly.

“And Snake Eyes. Ready when you guys are. All clear on the short route to the ports, I’ll let you know if that changes. Stay safe everyone.” Kenma says, muting himself.

“Alright, we all know the route, I’ll take the lead, Sly Fox you take rear. You already know the rules, don’t be stupid, and don’t get caught. I’ll check back in when we’re 5 away from the ports.” Kuroo says, taking the parking brake off and switching gears, the car beginning to move.

Everyone mutes themselves and begins driving off, away from your wealthy neighborhood and towards the city’s industrial district. The Tokyo skyline was in your rear view mirror, and your heart beat faster and faster as you went further away from your home, the place that you’ve been stuck in for years now.

“You don’t get out much do you?” Kuroo asks, breaking the silence.

“Not really, no. My father doesn’t allow me to go many places now, ever since my brother died. He says it’s too risky, which I think is bullshit.” You say, shrugging your shoulders.

Kuroo laughs. “I knew you weren’t just some obedient princess. Look at you, all rebellious.”

“I’d be more rebellious if I were able to do anything. This...is my first time out of the house in 6 months. The last time was just for the dentist.” You say, awkwardly laughing at yourself.

“Well, then we better make the most of it, right?” Kuroo says, switching gears, now going 105 km/h on the expressway.

“Kuroo what if we get pulled over?” You ask nervously, knowing the risks he was taking just to show off.

“Relax, (y/n), I know what I’m doing.” Kuroo says, flashing his signature grin at you. Everything about him drew you in, made you want to keep looking, to reach out and know him as more than just your father’s employee.

“Kuroo, stop showing off. Just because there’s a pretty girl in the car doesn’t mean that you get to be cocky.” Kenma says in your ear, catching you both off guard.

“Alright alright, take it easy Snake Eyes.” Kuroo says, tapping his ear piece once, then double tapping again to mute. He begins slowing the car down to 80 km/h.

You let out a small giggle, looking over at him. “You think I’m pretty?” You say in a mocking tone, leaning in closer to him.

“I think you’re beautiful.” He says in a serious tone, catching you completely off guard. You begin to slowly back away from him, retreating back into your seat.

“What?” You ask, not sure if you heard him right.

“You’re beautiful. I’ve always thought so. As a matter of fact, if it wasn’t for my extremely deep fear of your father, I’d want to take you out on a date.” He says, laughing.

You laugh as well, suddenly a little sad about what he said. “Yeah, that’s too bad. I would’ve said yes.” You say, turning your face to give him a sad smile.

He smirks at you, but his eyes drooped, giving them a sad, tired look. “Would’ve been a great first date.”

After that exchange, you both remained quiet, lost in thought of what could have been. Thinking of the undeniable chemistry that drew the two of you together, but also the forces at play that kept you from colliding. What could have been, if circumstances were different, if the two of you were different. Normal.

“Can I ask you something?” You ask him, breaking the silence that had fallen between the two of you.

“Of course.”

“What would you be, if you weren’t racing and working for my dad? Who would you be?” You were genuinely curious, because all you ever knew about Kuroo was that he was dealing before getting pulled into the Sakanoshita business, and that he raced with Nekoma.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He says, a smile growing on his face.

“Try me.”

“Well, I would be a student. Right before I got recruited by your family, I was in college. Chemistry major.” He says, peering over at you.

“Chemistry?!” You ask, surprised by his answer. “You’re a science nerd?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say a nerd.” He says, laughing at your reaction. “In my senior year, I ran out of money. So, I started dealing. It wasn’t anything serious, but I guess I was pretty good at it. I ended up on your dad’s radar, and he took me in as a transporter and dealer. And so, here I am. No degree, but hey, I have a nice car.”

“I’m sorry.” You say, almost out of instinct. It felt like the only right thing to say, even if it wasn’t something that was expected.

“Sorry for what? Your dad giving me a job?”

“You never got to graduate.” After saying this, it seems as though Kuroo realizes it as well, that he never got to finish school. “You were so close, but you got stuck with my family. I’m sorry you didn’t get to finish your schooling.” You say, meaning every word. You were sorry, and you couldn’t help the guilt you felt. After all, it was your family that pulled him into this world.

Kuroo stays silent for a few more moments, thinking over what you just said. He appears to snap out of it, switching back to his usual easy going, casual self. “Nothing to be sorry for, princess. Without your dad recruiting me, I would just be a broke bum with a lame car and no money to my name. Besides, I can go back and finish things up someday. But for right now, I’m exactly where I want to be.” He looks over at you and winks, making you laugh. “What about you? Where would the yakuza princess be if she wasn’t a mob boss in training?”

You paused, not knowing how to answer. “I actually don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it, because there really isn’t a future for me outside of the family business.” You say, unable to hide the disappointment in your voice.

Kuroo frowned, thinking of a response. “Well, hypothetically, what would you be doing? Let’s say, in an alternate universe, where we’re just normal people, living normal, legal lives. What would (y/n) be?”

“A teacher.” You say proudly, without hesitation. “Or a professor. Definitely education.”

“A teacher?!” Kuroo asks, laughing. “How do you go from yakuza boss to teacher?”

You laugh, realizing just how ridiculous it sounds. “What, you said normal! If I had a choice to be normal, I’d want to be a teacher, in a small town. I think I’d be a good teacher!” You say, defending your choice.

“Okay, okay. I guess I can see you as a teacher.” Kuroo says, still grinning from ear to ear. “But, the hot teacher. With a gang tattoo.” He says, referencing the giant koi fish tattoo you have on your shoulder.

“No!” you exclaimed, laughing loudly with him. “I want to be the generic teacher, with cardigans and sensible shoes and house cats to come home to. I’d grade papers and mentor kids, and just be free to be as boring as I want to be.”

“Y’know, maybe I can see it.” Kuroo says, smiling at you. You couldn’t ignore the butterflies in your stomach every time he gave you that smile, the kind of smile that made your day so much better by simply existing. “Maybe someday we can be boring together.”

The profound silence that followed that sentence spoke volumes to the both of you, almost as a silent prayer to the universe, begging for a chance to be boring together. However, that silence was broken by Kenma in your ear, bringing you both back to the reality you both began to dread.

“5 minutes out, turn your headlights off.”

“Going dark. Thanks Snake Eyes.” You hear Kita say. Kuroo flicks his lights off, leaving only the street lamps to light the way.

“What container should we be looking for?” Oikawa asks.

Kuroo replies, reading out a series of letters and numbers. “The boss gave me an idea of where to go, I think we’ll have to get out to look around though. Snake Eyes, you got eyes on the port? Any trouble?”

“Nope, all clear. Limited street lamps though, you may need a car for some light.”

“Got it. I’ll let you know when we find the container. Let us know if anything suspicious catches your eye.” Kuroo says, muting himself once again. As you enter the industrial port, Kuroo begins taking a series of turns, leading you deep into the maze of containers. The further you got, the number of street lamps began rapidly decreasing, and you became very familiar with the reason why it’s called shady business.

Kuroo flicked his lights on, and you kept an eye out for the shipping container, or at least one that was close to the number you were looking for.

“I think I got something.” You hear Kita say, flashing his lights behind you, to signal for everyone to stop. Kuroo turns around, putting his car in park and leaving the lights on, pointing at a shipping container with the exact identification numbers you were looking for.

“Nice work Sly Fox.” Kuroo says, patting him on the back. You stood close by the car as the three men approached the container, Kuroo pulling a key out of his pocket and unlocking the giant lock that secured the container.

As he swung open the door to the container, the scent was strong, but familiar. It smelled like…

“Tobacco?” You ask, walking closer to the container.

“Cuban cigars.” Kita says, laughing as he walked further into the container.

“Hey Snake Eyes, let the boss know we’re in the container. 30 bricks right?” Kuroo asks into his ear piece.

“I’ll let him know. And yes, 30 exactly. He left a note in the file that said you may have to look around a bit for the cargo. Also, Sly Fox, don’t take any cigars.” Kenma says, right as Kita was stuffing a handful of cigars into his pocket. Kita reluctantly returns them to the pile they were taken from.

“Got it, 30 pieces of cargo. We’ll make contact again once they’ve been located.” Kuroo says, tapping his ear piece twice. “Okay, 30 bricks. Let’s start from the back and make our way out, whenever you find one, take it straight out to my car. Princess, you’re the look out.”

“Why do I have to be the look out?” You protest.

“You can’t reach the top of the containers, chica.” Oikawa points out, putting his hand on one of the shipping boxes that towered over you. Kuroo snickered, walking up to you.

“Just stay outside, kitten. Let us know if there’s any big bad guys coming?” Kuroo says, putting his arm around you and walking you outside.

You rolled your eyes and shrugged his arm off. “Whatever, just hurry up, it’s freezing out here.”

You stand outside, staring out to the distant city lights, listening to the quiet waves that lapped against the side of the port. Kuroo came and went, bringing cigar boxes filled with cocaine out to his car.

After the 12th box, he noticed you were crouched down with your arms tucked into your jacket, the arms of your jacket swinging in the breeze. He laughs, walking up to you.

“Cold?” He asks, looking down at you.

“Maybe.” You answered through chattering teeth. You stand up, looking up at him. He towered over you, meaning you had to crane your neck in order to meet his gaze.

“Here.” He says, taking the red bomber jacket off his body and wrapping it around you, using it as an opportunity to pull you closer to him. “Your dad might slice my head off if you catch a cold.” He whispers into your ear, making you laugh.

“How’re we doing guys?” Kenma asks through the ear piece.

“A little under halfway done. Anything we should be worried about?” Kuroo says.

“Nope, still all clear. Just let me know when you’re done and heading out.” Kenma says, muting himself.

“Back to work.” Kuroo says, pulling you in tighter for a moment before letting you go. You stood there, warm under his jacket, wrapped up in the lingering scent of his cologne that remained. You wanted to freeze time, to live in this moment of calm, feeling protected just by the residual presence of Kuroo.

They continued on, carrying cigar boxes out of the container and into Kuroo’s trunk. Every once in a while you’d hear hushed conversations from inside the container, too quiet for you to hear.

“This is the last of it.” Oikawa says, walking out of the container with Kuroo. They each had 4 boxes in their hands, which they placed in the back of Kuroo’s car.

“Ready to go?” Kita says, popping up next to you out of nowhere, causing you to jump.

“Jesus, where did you even come from?” You ask, startled by his sudden appearance.

Kita smirks, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “They don’t call me sly fox for nothing.” He says, walking back to his car. Kuroo was busy closing up the container, securing it and making it appear as if we were never there. Oikawa was leaning over the trunk of Kuroo’s car, arranging the boxes of drugs underneath a spare blanket.

“Snake Eyes, you there?” Kuroo asks, walking back to the car.

“Yup, all ready to go?” Kenma responds.

“Ready when you are.” Kuroo says, walking over to your car door and holding it open for you. You climb in, ready to get out of the cold. Kuroo closes the door, and continues to talk to Kenma through his ear piece. You figured out that Kenma had made it so their communications wouldn’t be heard through your ear piece. You couldn’t make out exactly what they’re saying, but you assumed it’s some info about the drive to the warehouse.

You watch as Kuroo leans in to tell Oikawa something, which he nods in agreeance to before walking back to his car and getting in. Kuroo then walks around to his side of the car, turning it on and beginning to pull out of the dark alleyway of the port.

“Ready to roll, princess?” He asks, turning to flash you a grin.

“The faster the better.” You say jokingly. He laughs, revving his engine loudly.

“Careful what you wish for.” He says, speeding up as the three cars leave the port and enter the expressway.

“DK, stop showing off.” You hear Oikawa say through the ear piece.

Kuroo rolls his eyes, taking his foot off the gas to slow down. “Buzzkill.” He mutters under his breath.

You rode in silence together, heading towards the warehouse your father owns. The warehouse was a front, being used as storage for the goods your father exported in his legal business. For the illegal business, it was used as a storage and distribution center for the underground dealings.

“DK, we have a problem.” Kenma says.

“Talk to me Snake Eyes.”

“We’ve got some cops heading your way. The boss texted saying someone may have tipped them off to tonight’s job. Apparently the king of Tokyo has some enemies.”

“That’s one way to put it.” You mutter to yourself. Your father had more enemies than allies, meaning that there was a constant target on the backs of every member of the family. It’s no surprise that something went wrong tonight.

“Which way are they coming from?” Kuroo asks.

“West. I think they’re gonna intercept you soon. At least 2 cars, and I’m pretty sure they’re looking for you.”

“Shit.” Kuroo whispers to himself. “Cypher, Sly Fox, you there?”

“Heard it all, DK. What’s the next move?” Cypher asks.

“Sly Fox, take the lead. Take the back route, go straight to the warehouse, fast as you can. Cypher, take the rear behind Sly Fox, if you run into any trouble you’re the diversion. Got it?” Kuroo says, his voice taking on a new tone of authority.

“Roger that. When should we check in with you?” Sly Fox asks.

“I’ll make contact when we’re free. Just get in touch with Snake Eyes when the delivery is made.”

“And (y/n)?” Kita asks. Kuroo turned toward you with an expression of deep thought on his face.

“She’ll stay with me. We’ll be fine.” Kuroo says firmly, turning his eyes back to the road. You weren’t sure why, but you trusted him. Given the circumstances, you probably shouldn’t, but some part of you just impulsively put all your faith in him, trusting that being in his car was the best place for you to be.

You hear Oikawa chuckle. “Have fun princesa. I hope DK doesn’t scare you away.”

“Shut your mouth, amigo.” Kuroo says mockingly. “I’ll see you both later. Be safe.” He says, muting himself.

You look behind you to see Kita’s car already in front of Oikawa’s, and you see them both exit off of the expressway, their engines revving as they sped off, out of sight.

“Maybe I’m pointing out the obvious, but aren’t you the one with the delivery to make?” You say, growing worried by Kuroo’s plan.

“Don’t worry about it princess. Just trust me.” Kuroo says, revving his engine loudly, rapidly increasing speed.

“You have 20 bricks of cocaine in your trunk and you’re telling me not to worry?!” You exclaim, turning your body to face him.

“Or do I?” He asks, glancing over and smirking at you. This question caught you off guard, making you wonder if this guy was crazy or stupid, or both.

“On your left!” You hear Kenma say, moments before two police cars appeared behind you two, struggling to keep up with Kuroo’s speed.

You slumped back in your seat, trying to find it in yourself to trust Kuroo. The police sirens grew louder and the red and blue flashing lights started to draw closer, but somehow, Kuroo remained calm, not even bothering to increase speed.

Your heart raced as the police cars began getting closer and closer, nearly pulling up right beside you.

“Hey princess, ever wondered what DK stood for?” Kuroo asks calmly.

“Fucking Donkey Kong?!” You yell at him, having no patience for his games.

He laughed at your stressed demeanor, throwing his head back and shaking his head. “Nope. Not even close.” He switches gears, causing the car to slow down quickly and making the cops draw far ahead of you. He veers off to the side, seemingly to take the ramp that curved to exit the freeway. Suddenly, he speeds up yet again, turning his wheel suddenly as the car begins drifting on it’s side.

“Drift King.” He says with a smirk. The car drifted down the ramp, screeching as Kuroo pulled the emergency brake up and maneuvered the steering wheel to keep it steady. You were familiar with drifting, due to the fact your brother was involved in street racing before his death. You knew that it was something that only experienced drivers could do, and it took a certain level of skill and a lot of practice to perfect. You realized that this meant Kuroo was a skilled driver, far more skilled than you realized. No wonder they called him Drift King.

By the time the two of you reached the end of the ramp and began racing down the industrial district street, the cops just began heading down the ramp, trying their hardest to keep up.

The chase continued on for several blocks, Kuroo barely breaking a sweat. It seemed as though this wasn’t his first chase. After some time, Kenma’s voice comes through on the ear piece.

“Hey DK, you may want to end this chase. They’re calling for backup soon.”

“Got it, I’ll pull over now. Thanks Snake Eyes.” Kuroo replies, beginning to slow down.

“Pull over?!” You ask him.

“Just trust me! You think I’d put you in danger?” He asks you, grinning. The car comes to a stop, and the two police cars quickly pull over as well.

“Give me your ear piece.” Kuroo says quickly, the two police officers quickly approaching the car. You quickly hand it to him, which he shoves in the inside pocket of his jacket.

“Sir, please exit the car. You as well, ma’am.” The officer says, shining his light in Kuroo’s car. The two of you exit the car, standing in front of the headlights.

“Now, what in god’s name were you doing?” He asks, as the other officer begins searching the car.

“He was just being a show off.” You say, lying on the spot. Kuroo looks surprised by your sudden statement, but plays it off, acting natural.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Just trying to impress a pretty girl.” He says, putting his arm around you and kissing the side of your forehead. Although it was just an act, your stomach still did somersaults just with that one simple action.

“I see.” The officer says, shining the light at your gun. “You have a license to carry that ma’am?”

“Yes sir. Just a personal protection piece.” You say, pulling your driver’s license as well as gun registration out. You hand it to the officer, who looks it over.

“Sakanoshita?” He asks with fake surprise, looking up at you.

“Yes, my father. I’m sure you know him.” You say, knowing that the name Sakanoshita held a lot of clout in the city.

“We're familiar with him.” He says shortly, handing the papers back to you. “Anything?” He asks, turning towards the other officer who was peering into the car.

“Nothing. Mind popping the trunk?” He asks Kuroo. Your heart begins to race, knowing what they would find. Kuroo however, remained cool as a cucumber, sauntering over to the car to open the trunk. He walks back to you with a grin, standing behind you and draping his arms over your shoulders, pulling you closer to his body. You grab his hands, bracing yourself for the big reveal.

“Now what do we have here?” The officer says, ripping the blanket off of the boxes. You close your eyes, preparing yourself for the worst. The officers pause, opening one of the boxes.

“Cigars?” They ask. You open your eyes, looking up at Kuroo as he continues to grin at you.

“Yes sir, we were on our way back to her place, to deliver them to her dad. You know, the infamous Mr. Sakanoshita.” Kuroo lies with ease.

“They’re gifts, for some associates of his.” You say, joining in on the lie. “He’s hosting a little get together tomorrow. I believe your boss, the police chief, will be there. It’d be a shame if he heard you pulled over a Sakanoshita.” You knew exactly what you were doing, using your name for your own benefit.

“I see.” He says, closing the box of cigars and putting it back down. “Just some Cuban cigars I suppose.” He closes the trunk, walking to where you and Kuroo stood.

“And I suppose the speeding was because the old man is waiting on these cigars, huh?” The other officer says, standing next to his partner.

“Exactly.” Kuroo says. “Not exactly the best idea to get on the bad side of your girlfriend’s father, right?” He jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

Surprisingly, the cops laugh. “You got your work cut out for you kid. Sakanoshita is not an easy man to win over.”

“Yeah, his daughter isn’t any easier.” Kuroo says, pulling you closer. You laugh along, wishing for this interaction to end already.

“I’ll tell you what.” The officer says, taking a few steps closer to the two of you. The headlights from the car streaked behind him, casting a dark shadow over you and Kuroo. “You two can go ahead home, just make sure not to mention this to your dad. Or our boss. Sound good?”

“Perfect. Have a good night you two.” You say, hurriedly pulling Kuroo back to the car.

“Sorry for the trouble!” Kuroo calls out as the two men walk back to their patrol cars.

Once the two of you are back in the car, you breathe deeply, staring into space.

“You alright princess?” Kuroo asks, turning towards you.

You snap out of it, punching him in the arm. He jumps back in pain, looking shocked at your outburst.

“Cigars?!” You question him, unable to form a full sentence. He laughs, throwing his head back.

“Yes, cigars. I told you I didn’t have any drugs back there, didn’t I?” he says, grinning slyly at you.

“Then who the hell has the coke?” You ask sternly, adrenaline still pumping from that run in with the cops.

“Think about it.” Kuroo says, turning his whole body to face you. “Where do you think the drugs are?”

You thought about it, the entire night, all the interactions that occurred. Only one person stood out to you, which was-

“Sly Fox.” You say, realizing the stunt that they had just pulled off. “Kita. I never would have seen him take anything to his car, he’s too sneaky. I had my back turned to his car because it was up against a container, no one could have come from over there. That’s why you had him go straight to the warehouse. It’s all in Kita’s car.”

“Well look who figured it out. Good job princess.” Kuroo says, leaning back in his seat.

“But why take the cigars? And why not tell me the plan?” You question him, not satisfied with the answer you had come up with.

“In case of a situation exactly like this. Insurance, in case everything went wrong. An alibi.” He says peering over at you. “And, well, I wanted to test you. See if you could take the heat.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted to see how you’d handle yourself, with your back to the wall. I wanted to see if you trust me.” He says, with a small smile on his face.

“Didn’t really give me much of a choice but whatever.” You grumble quietly.

Kuroo laughs, looking over at you. “You did great, princess. You’ll be a mob boss in no time. I hope you’ll let me keep my job, though.”

You let out a tired scoff, exhausted by the adrenaline rush that had come and gone. “Just- please keep me in the loop about things like this. If you can do that then maybe you can keep working for me.”

“DK, everything good?” You hear Kenma say through the ear pieces that were still in Kuroo’s pocket. He dug them out, handing you one which you placed in your ear.

“Yup, crisis averted. Have you heard from Sly Fox and Cypher?” Kuroo asks.

“We’re right here boss. Delivery has been made, just waiting on your order.” You hear Kita say.

“Meet us back at the boss’s house, me and the princess have one last loose end to tie up and then we’ll head over.” Kuroo says, starting the car.

Kuroo heads back in the direction of the ports, and you assume it’s so that the 20 cigars could be returned to the container. Once again, the two of you ride in comfortable silence, your mind wandering as you gazed at the distant city lights.

“What’s on your mind, princess?” Kuroo asks, bringing you back to reality.

“My brother.” You answer without hesitation. “If things were different, it’d probably be him doing this job with you. Maybe not in the passenger seat, but still. The family legacy would be his.” You felt a pit grow in your stomach, your eyes suddenly tearing up. You always had these lingering feelings of doubt, but you never realized it was because of Keishin, having to be in his shadow. No one ever bet on you, or thought you were going to be the one inheriting the empire. Regardless, you were there, because your brother wasn’t.

“Well, no offense to the great Black Lung but I for one am glad you’re here. No one else I’d rather have in my passenger seat.” He says, giving you a sincere smile, one that you haven’t seen before. It was different from his flirtatious smirk, or his arrogant grin. It was just a simple, kind smile.

Black Lung?” You questioned.

“Your brother’s racing name. Y’know, like DK, Cypher, Sly Fox. He used to smoke like 6 packs a day, even more than Kita. He was kind of a big deal in the racing scene. After he passed, Karasuno didn’t race for a long time because there was no one that could replace him. They’re slowly getting back on the road, but your brother is definitely still a driver people remember.” Kuroo explains, pulling into the port once again.

“He smoked?” You asked, trying to remember a time you saw him with a cigarette. You assumed it was because he only smoked when he was away from the house, because it was something that your father would have never approved of. You were pretty sure Keishin would’ve been disowned if he smoked or drank in front of your father.

“Yeah, all the time. That was his whole thing. Did he not smoke around you?” Kuroo asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“No, I guess he never smoked around our family. I don’t think my dad knew either if he only smoked when he raced.” You pause for a moment. “Do you know anything about it? The accident?” You ask, growing more and more curious about what Kuroo knew. Your brother’s death was always explained to you by members of your family, and you wondered if there was something that they didn’t know that the racers did.

Kuroo paused, an expression of deep thought in his face. He looked as though he was trying to figure out the exact sentences he would say next. “All I’ve heard is that…there was an explosion. I think his girlfriend was near it at the time, and she got injured. That’s all I know though, no one really talks about it much because of how bad it hurt everyone. A lot of people cared about him.”

“He had a girlfriend?” You ask, turning towards Kuroo as he puts the car in park.

He looks at you, eyebrows furrowed. “Yeah, some chick named Saeko. I think she has a younger brother that races nowadays. I’m pretty sure she’s still a mechanic for the team.” Kuroo pauses, looking out towards the port. “Look, I don’t know too much about the accident. And I assume your dad doesn’t want you looking into it too hard. But if you do want to know more, just let me know. I’ll talk to some guys from Karasuno. Sounds good?” He asks you.

You nod in agreeance, knowing that there had to be a reason why Keishin was so secretive, and why your father is still keeping secrets about his death to this day. “Okay. If you end up talking to Saeko, could I come along? I just...I feel like I’m getting to know my brother all over again. I want to know the side of him that he hid from our family.”

“Of course. Now c’mon, let's get these cigars back where they came from.” Kuroo says, getting out of the car and popping the trunk. You follow him, getting out and standing next to him.

The two of you silently put the cigars back, working quickly to get the job completely finished. By the time Kuroo was closing the container door, Oikawa came through in the ear piece.

“Hey love birds, are you heading back to the house soon?” he asks. Kuroo rolls his eyes and unmutes himself.

“We’re heading back now from the port. Snake Eyes, you told the boss the delivery was made already, right?”

“Yup, I let him know. He’s waiting for you guys at the house.” Kenma replies.

“Sounds good, we’ll be there soon. Cypher, Sly Fox, go ahead and start heading over now.”

“Will do. See you soon DK.” Sly Fox says.

“C’mon princess, let’s go home.” Kuroo says, throwing his arm over you as the two of you walk back to the car. You take the hand he had on your shoulder into your own, squeezing tightly. It was strange how natural it felt, being with Kuroo. It was almost as if it was where you belonged, with him, wrapped up in his arms.

You climb back into the car, watching Kuroo as he starts the car and begins driving off once again. Your head was spinning trying to make sense of everything that had occurred that night, as well as processing all the new information Kuroo had told you about your brother. You knew this day had to come, when you would have to jump in head first into the world your family operated within, when you would have to fully take on the Sakanoshita name and all the responsibilities that come with it.

As Kuroo rolls up to the driveway of your home, you see Oikawa and Kita standing outside with your father, smoke billowing from where the three of them were conversing.

“Tetsurou! (y/n)! I was beginning to wonder when you’d be back!” Your father says, cutting another cigar and handing it to Kuroo, motioning for him to join the group.

“Cubans? What’s the occasion?” You ask your father, standing next to Kuroo.

“Your first job, sweetheart. And with no casualties, no arrests, a clean job deserves a little reward.” Your father says, grinning at you, holding out a cigar for you to take.

“Dad, I don’t smoke.” You say, laughing.

“Oh c’mon, the most powerful man in Tokyo offers you a cigar, you take the cigar.” Oikawa says, smirking and letting out another cloud of smoke.

You roll your eyes, taking the cigar and allowing your father to light it. You thought more about the cigar as you drew the smoke in, about what it meant for you to be invited to smoke with your father. It meant that you were finally owning your family name, you were finally a true Sakanoshita.

You stood there silently, listening as Kuroo explained to your father the decision he made to use Kita as the real transport and to make himself the emergency decoy. Your father listened as well, nodding along with an expression of deep thought on his face.

“Great thinking Tetsurou. That is exactly why I keep you on my payroll.” Your father laughs, smacking his hand against Kuroo’s back. Kuroo laughs as well, putting on his usual submissive attitude that he uses with your father to gain his good graces.

“Let’s just hope your daughter keeps me on when she takes over.” Kuroo jokes, nudging you with his elbow.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve earned your place with the whole family.” Your father says, smiling at you. “Say, isn’t that Tetsurou’s jacket?”

“Oh, yeah.” You say, realizing you still had it on. “It got cold at the ports.”

“It’s funny. You’re starting to look more and more like him.” Your father says, eyes squinting as he smiles sadly.

“Like who? DK?” Kita asks with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

“Keishin. The racing jacket, the gun. Even the smoking.” The hairs on the back of your neck stood up, remembering the conversation you had with Kuroo about your brother. Your suspicions about your father kept growing, and it became harder and harder to believe his mourning father act, the smoke and mirrors he used to deceive everyone.

“Well, you know how much I adored him.” You say, taking another puff from your cigar. You and your father both pause, staring one another down. There was noticeable tension, but with no clear reason. Nothing more than a gut feeling.

The staredown was cut off by Kuroo clearing his throat, getting both yours and your father’s attention. “It’s getting pretty late, we don’t want to keep the two of you from a good night’s rest.” He says, finding a way for the three racers to leave.

“Yes, it is getting rather late. Oh! Better not forget these. Tetsurou, I put your friend’s pay for tonight with yours.” Your father says, moving away from the staircase leading up to the front door to reveal three paper bags with names on them, which you assume was full of money.

“Thank you sir. I’ll make sure to get it to Snake Eyes.” Kuroo says, bowing to your father. Kita and Oikawa follow suit, bowing before grabbing their bags.

“Pleasure doing business with you.” Kita says, walking back to his car.

“See you next time boss. You too, princesa.” Oikawa says, waving to the both of you before getting into his car.

“So, you’ll let me know when there’s another job?” Kuroo asks as Oikawa and Kita begin pulling out of the driveway.

“Absolutely.” He nods, turning to face both of you. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I better get inside before your mother comes out here and drags me back in. Have a good night, Tetsurou.” He says, going back inside. It was once again just you and Kuroo.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” You say, beginning to take off Kuroo’s red bomber jacket.

“Keep it.” He says, taking a step closer to you. He places the jacket back onto your shoulders. “I’ll be back for it eventually.”

The two of you pause, staring into each other’s eyes. It felt like a moment that you could live in forever, relishing the comfort that Kuroo gave you.

“Thanks for having my back tonight. You sure know how to think on your feet.” Kuroo says.

“Not like I had much of a choice.” You say, remembering the moment earlier in the night. A part of you wished it wasn’t a lie, that you and Kuroo were just two lovers out for a drive. Nothing illegal, nothing scary, just a guy with a car and the girl in the passenger seat.

“Come here, princess.” Kuroo says, pulling you into a tight hug. Your heart skips a beat, startled by the sudden act of affection. You wrap your arms around him, feeling perfectly at home in his arms, being squeezed tightly against his body.

“Please be careful. I don’t trust your father.” Kuroo whispers into your ear. You realize the real reason why he hugged you, so that he could tell you this message in secret. “I’ll talk to some people from Karasuno Killers and see if you can meet Keishin’s girl. He’s hiding something, (y/n).”

“How do you know? What are you talking about?” You ask, holding him tighter.

“(y/n), how would your father know that Keishin smoked? If he lied about that, then we don’t know what else he’s hiding.” Kuroo responds. Your breath catches in your throat, remembering what your father had said, about your sudden resemblance to Keishin.

Racing jacket, gun, smoke.

#haikyuu #kuroo #kuroo testuro #kuroo tetsuro x reader #deciphered #hq #fanfic #kuroo tetsurou #kuroo x reader #haikyuu fanfic #haikyuu fanfiction

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anonymous-ace72 · 3 years ago

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So let's talk about Tokyo Mew Mew New

So first of all, apologies to everyone who followed me for anything else because I’m gonna be reverting back to 13 year old Sam for the duration that this show is going for lol.

Second of all, I’m just honestly ecstatic and my inner child is screeching.

When I first found the original anime, the series had already been finished for like, ten years. An old friend of mine found the first episode on youtube and sent me the link via email. There wasn’t much of an active fanbase in 2013 from what I could see, but I like to think that it was my first internet fanbase. It was also the first anime I was exposed to (aside from a few episodes of Pokémon from a vhs tape back when I was like, 4). I wasn’t much for fanfiction but you can bet your ass that I consumed just about every youtube amv, took about every quotev quiz (and even made a few myself) and dug through every page of google images. A good chunk of my early oc’s came from this show, and I still use most of them (though they are mew mew’s no longer. I might be willing to draw a few of them again with modifications). I have many fond memories of roleplaying and making up stories of said oc’s with my friend (even though we no longer speak), as well as pretending to have a crush on Kisshu because my friend had a crush on him and I wanted to feel like I was hip and cool (I wasn’t). My first official piece of fandom merch was Ichigo’s bell collar, I made my dad buy me the original Tokyopop manga set, and I just recently was able to get myself the first Kodansha manga at a con. I tried to make a Littlest Pet Shop version to post on youtube, using that manga set as the script and stayed up till 3 AM making props and figuring out which of my little plastic figurine’s would be who (fun fact, I got two episodes in and then promptly deleted my youtube channel when people from school found it. I still have the videos on my old laptop. No you cannot see them). I made tons of fanart on drawcast, most of which has been sadly lost to time when the app shut down a year or so ago. I made one of those truth or dare stories that for some reason got really fucking popular (look it up. It’s the first option on google, somehow. No I don’t know how that happened, it’s on wattpad under the user spirit_writes).

I’m super excited to see where this reboot is going to go. I already love how everyone looks and how the characters are being presented. I’m glad Aoyama is more than just a wooden puppet (I never understood the hate for him, but yeah he was a bit bland looking back). I feel for Lettuce, because back in middle school I was her, and sometimes I still feel like her even now. We love our chaotic alien bastard child, and I can already see he’s going to be particularly unhinged and I love it.

Seriously, look at this little shit. Iconic.

I’m curious for Deep Blue's appearance, because he scared the shit out of me as a teen, and I am mildly curious to see how they work with him this time around (I can’t being to explain why he scared me so much, maybe it’s because of those crazy-ass faces he was pulling in those final episodes, maybe it’s because I had a nightmare where he was strangling me to death. Maybe it's because I was a little bitch. But seriously, wtf man).

I can’t wait to see what stays the same and what may change; even though I pretty much know what’s going to happen, it’s like watching it for the first time. It somehow feels very special to see it as it airs and watch the events unfold week by week. I like feeling like I can finally be a part of this series that consumed so much of my life when I was a young teenager, rather than watching it all over a decade after it ended initially.

The first few episodes are definitely promising. I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

#tokyo mew mew #posts from the void #tokyo mew mew new #tmm #tmmn #anime #magical girl #shut up sam

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itsnothingofinterest · 4 years ago

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So with the end supposedly approaching (relatively speaking), people have started giving some thought as to who the final threat is really going to be; Tomura Shigaraki or All For One. It’ll definitely be one of them, they’re the strongest and most established villains by a mile; but both have their own reasons for people to think they’ll be the “final boss” of the series. And far be it from me to keep my opinion to myself; I really think it’s going to be Tomura.

I’m not sure if that’s some level of controversial among the fans hoping for Shigaraki’s redemption, as I do believe the alternative’s gotten a lot of traction lately. Because understand that I’m still expecting his redemption too, and don’t expect his hypothetical final boss status to really prevent that. (Practically nothing can, it’s as much a guaranteed outcome at this point as Deku getting his sixth bonus quirk.) Realistically, the only difference would be if he & Deku then team up to fight the evil potato head, or to...just start fixing stuff I guess.

On that note, the eventual redemption is actually one of the reasons I think he’s the better choice. Almost every point of comparison between the two villain I can think of makes Tomura seem like the better choice, actually...with maybe one or two exceptions. So I wanted to go over all those points of comparison & everything they’ve got going for them as endgame villains and why the comperrisons overall seem to favour Tomura as the final boss.

1. Someone who was defeated to the power of just one man

For one, just looking at pure power levels, AFO’s just not as threatening as Tomura; and there’s not really a way to bridge that gap.

Like, Tomura’s obviously more of a threat personally; he’s got the stronger body that was scientifically enhanced, and only he has Decay on top of the AFO quirk and the collection that came with it. It is just a fact that right now, Tomura is far more powerful. And before anyone thinks that AFO could become an equal threat by just taking over & fighting in his body; that’s not true because, along with just more combat experience that doesn’t rely on an arsenal of quirks, Tomura also has that Shimura trick where you remember your origin and become super bad ass. You know, the trick that All Might used to beat AFO in Kamino. In other words, the most dangerous individual in the series right now is the AFO!Tomura body with specifically Tomura in control.

And as long as the slight edge in mentality in Tomura’s favour exists, there’s not really a way to bridge that gap and have AFO take Tomura’s place as the biggest potential threat. Restore or enhance AFO’s original body? That’s just catching it up with AFO in Tomura’s body, which is still behind Tomura in Tomura’s body. Have AFO boost Tomura’s body with him in control? It would still be better with Tomura in control. There’s no scenario where Tomura isn’t the most powerful character in BNHA.

(Well, except maybe AFO weakening him by, say, stripping him of his quirks; but if he has to make things easier for the heroes to become the most powerful, I think that kind of proves my point anyway.)

But one person can only be so dangerous, so lets talk followers. Tomura has a close knit group of friends & allies on top of a vast army super loyal to him specifically that reaches a six digit figure, and AFO...just doesn’t. And I’ll get back to this later; but I don’t think he wants one either. He sticks to just a handful of people useful to him and what’s left of his Nomu. And while maybe that is the better way for him to accomplish his own personal goals, it’s simply not as threatening as the force which Hawks thought could’ve conquered the country if the heroes hadn’t struck first.

Tomura is a country ending threat, who in the right circumstances could fight literally all of the heroes with a chance of winning, and AFO simply isn’t.

2. His own little world

And to return to what I was talking about earlier, I’m not sure he really cares to be either. Like, people say he wants to conquer everything, and I imagine he’d think regaining lots of money & power would be great down the line; but evidence seems to suggest he doesn’t really care much for the country as a whole or any of the major themes being discussed by the actual main characters at the moment.

I mean if he did, he’d probably have rescued the PLF, that army capable of competing with all of hero society. And he probably wouldn’t have told ~10,000 dangerous and powerful villains indebted to him for their freedom to just run amok while he keeps contact with only the ones useful for his personal goals. And he definitively wouldn’t be laying low & sleeping through his enemies lowest moment & giving them a month to recover, also in service to those personal goals. That activity seems to imply those personal goals matter a whole lot more to him than societal conquest.

And what are those goals? Seemingly, taking over Tomura’s body so he can finally steal One For All. To what end, we’re not 100% sure of, but I believe it’s either a) a weird pride thing where he finally has control over his brother who’s rebelled against him for decades upon decades or b) an attempt at immortality as a sentient & transferable body-controlling quirk. Either way it’s some selfish personal thing he just gets others wrapped up in.

He’s incredibly disconnected from the greater themes and conflicts of the story. He seems to have no opinions on heroics besides how people are stupid for attempting them, and no opinion on society besides that it just naturally sucks. He’s mainly just a nuisance for the actual main characters. This self-important old man stuck in his own little world is supposed to be Deku’s final opponent?

Oh, and on that note-

3. Deku who?

We’re also talking about who’s going to be the final obstacle for Deku to face; and the problem with the being AFO is that...they don’t really have much to bounce off of with each other. You might be able to argue slight foil-ment, but they don’t really know each other, nor do they have any kind of connection to each other besides Deku having OFA so he’s AFO’s enemy by default.

(In fact their latest & 2nd convo, which came out as I was drafting this post out, kind of proves that with how AFO basically just shallowly made fun of him for trying to be a hero. That’s basically the extent of their antagonism.)

In fact, I’m like 80% sure this is a major reason for the Dad For One theory existing; just to give them some connection, something to talk about. Because otherwise AFO is just an evil guy known by people Deku knows/wants to save. He’s basically just another, more dangerous Overhaul; who Deku's already fought. And to AFO, Deku’s just another OFA holder acting all high & mighty; which we also already saw him face in the Kamino fight. So what little they do offer each other has already been done for both of them. And there’s nothing wrong with that for carrying a fight, I just wonder if that can really carry the final fight.

Compare that to Shigaraki, who foils Deku in ways so numerous & obvious it’s almost hard to talk about, such as: their position as successors, strategic thinkers, very similar origins, very similar core characters, team players, red shoes, they looked really similar as kids...just to name a few parallels. Contrasting AFO, there is a lot to work with here that would contributed to a good fight that’d double as a battle of ideologies. And admittedly, we know this because it already has, this is also something we’ve seen before; but there’s a lot more unexplored with their conflict, a lot left unsaid that we could see from them arguing their viewpoints. A lot more than from Deku & AFO anyway.

I mean for Pete’s sake; All Might & Shigaraki have more in common and more to talk about than Deku & AFO. That’s a major problem if those two are meant to carry the final battle; which is why I don’t think they are.

4. Just punch him

There’s also the fact that AFO doesn’t really challenge Deku in any real way; and I’m not just talking about how All Might solo-ing him (twice) should logically mean endgame Deku should also be able to solo him. I’m more talking about how...that’s kind of all he’d need to do. If you can just beat AFO up enough then...that’s it, threat over. Wrapped up in a neat little bow.

To compare, Shigaraki is the greatest threat the heroes have ever faced, the victim most in need of saving, and to top it off, he’s got the gall to be both of those things at once. What’s a hero supposed to do with that? That’s a serious question characters are going to have to think about when deciding how to deal with Shigaraki. His position is that of, not just the greatest challenge, but a set of the greatest challenges a hero could face. And that’s before you get into his side representing those oppressed by serious systemic issues that need to be addressed as well; quite possibly simultaneously.

No one needs to address systemic corruption or prejudice to beat AFO though. They just need to punch him real hard. The biggest challenge AFO presents the heroes is “how do we make sure this guy stops being a problem for good when neither our most secure prison, nor removing his head, did the job?”

(Personally, my answer is to have Tomura do it. Because unlike Deku, Tomura actually does have a proper antagonistic relationship with AFO, so he has reason to be the one to end him besides just being the protagonist. Plus he’s under no obligation not to kill, so there’s that.)

And like yeah, that does make AFO the easier guy to deal with, and thus write an ending around (to say nothing of how he's also the most satisfying person to see punched in the face); but does that really mean Horikoshi would want to use him instead of the more interesting option of Tomura? I mean I guess we can’t be sure, there is merit in writing the easy resolution; but I’d prefer the complex finale if I were in his shoes.

5. Horikoshi’s favourite

And lastly there’s just the issue of which of the two Horikoshi’s put more work into. Spoiler alert: it’s not the guy that spent like 200 chapters in jail being menacing every one in a while.

Tomura is by far the more developed between the two, having constantly evolved over the course of the series. And more than just as a character, as described above he’s been developed as the more threatening and challenging conflict for Deku while also reflecting him in a lot of important ways. We’ve seen the growth of his power & influence, we’ve gotten to know & understand his motives, we’ve seen how he’s been failed by heroes before. Everything about him has built him up as the ultimate villain, the most desperate victim, and overall greatest challenge for Deku and the story as a whole to face.

And AFO is...nearly one of those things. Which is pretty much what he was from his first appearance. He has not developed at all over the series, and from what we can tell from his flashbacks, he hasn’t developed at all over the past ~200 years either. (I’m half tempted to call him more inciting incident then character.) What we have with AFO, as far as a character and a villain goes, is pretty much what we’re getting until he’s done. And, well; if Tomura is a better villain & a better pick for final boss than he was then, that gap’s just going to keep growing.

Like, I doubt it really needs stating how Shigaraki is probably the character Horikoshi has put the most work into in the entire series. And a lot of that work, a lot of his development, has gone to the idea of him surpassing AFO or being a villain foil to Deku, who himself is mean to surpass All Might. For his roll to be usurped by the guy he’s meant to surpass just feels like it’s going against that. Like, it’d feel almost as wrong for his character and the story around him than it would for Deku is All Might got his powers back and took over for him as main protagonist. It just doesn’t feel right for Tomura not to be the final villain, is what I’m getting at.

6. ...One saving grace

Okay, but I will admit one thing AFO has going for him that I would be remiss not to bring up. Besides being the most hated character in a series that also has Endeavor in it, I mean. He’s got this one trait that makes him an effective antagonist to anyone in the series; his complete disregard to pretty much every major theme in the series.

I mean think about it; the major themes of Shigaraki’s circle all revolve around trying to fix the society that rejected them; but AFO believes Society just naturally sucks that way as part of human nature, so their cause is doomed. And the heroes’ major themes all revolve around how to become/what it means to be a hero; but AFO believes trying to do good in that society can’t really be done & also it’s ridiculous to believe comic books are real, so their cause is also doomed and they look stupid doing it. So despite not really interacting with anyone’s core conflict or goals in favour of wrapping them up in his own, he still manages a one-sided ideological opposition with nearly every major player in the series; and that’s not nothing.

But, and I completely understand that this is just a matter of opinion, that kind of just leaves him feeling to me like a good antagonist, not a good final antagonist. I’d still prefer it be Tomura even from this perspective, because he’s able to oppose the ideologies of his opponents on purpose & with proper ideologies of his own.

To summarize:

Shigaraki feels the better choice for final boss because he’s more threatening, more interesting, both as a person and as an opponent for Deku specifically, he’s far more directly tied into the themes of the story and their resolution, & he’s had far more set up. AFO is more hated, and his callous disregard for everything everyone else holds important is something I guess, but that’s pretty much all he’s got going for him in compression. I don’t know about you, but I know who I think would carry the conclusion to the series better.

But I also know this isn’t the most popular take among my villain fan colleagues right now. So if anyone disagrees, I welcome any civil discussion about these two & their viability as final boss.

#bnha #bnha manga spoilers #all for one #shigaraki tomura #midoriya izuku #league of villains #lov #paranormal liberation front #PLF #all might #my stupid long term predictions

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holydragon2808 · 4 years ago

Text

Thoughts On Dragon Age II after Replaying (Massive Spoilers)

Hello fellow DA fans! It's been quite some time since I last posted anything here on Tumblr. Hope everyone has been safe during all of the world's craziness. Figured I'd post something to let people know I'm still alive.

Anyway, DA2 was first released back in 2011. I was 20-21 years old at the time. Back then, while I still acknowledged the lack of genuine player agency with Hawke (in comparison to the Warden before them), I did belong in the camp of people believing that people went way overboard with the DA2 critiques regarding those complaints, at least back then.

Now though? After replaying the game again a decade or so later, and also in light of the Inquisitor and DAI, I now personally believe that Hawke's story stands out as (overall), all the more unbalanced in comparison to both the Warden and Inquisitor.

Massive Spoilers for the franchise abound beyond this point. Last warning.

Despite a lot of the old critiques leveled at DA2, it isn't a 100% terrible experience, and despite the oncoming rant, I do love the game overall.

Even though I've personally always thought that DA2 story was centered around tragedy a bit TOO much, in light of the growing franchise and the directional tone of the other protagonists thus far, it unfortunately stands out even more to me, and not in a good way.

A shame really because DA2 could have been a better and interesting contrast to DAO in tone and direction had it been more balanced with meaningful successes and failures for Hawke as a character rather than veering too far over into angst and tragedy.

For example, in DAO, your Warden character is railroaded into success against the Blight no matter what. Regardless of the origin, regardless of what sort of allies you acquire, no matter if you live or die in the end or which warden gets the final blow, you succeed.

This sort of narrative framing gave the writers a much easier way to balance genuine tragedy and success throughout the journey without veering too far in one direction or the other, and also without making nearly everything the player does seem like an exercise in futility.

In other words, there were failures and successes more properly balanced throughout, from experiencing meaningful failures and heartache during the chosen origin stories, to failure at Ostagar, to having more balance with the party members and their struggles (they weren't too boring or too dysfunctional), romances that stood out as a light for the Warden amidst all the fighting and death and their massive burden, to succeeding with building the army to take on the Darkspawn, to potential personal sacrifice to save the world and so on.

The option to play a more tragic, angsty or "evil" character who alienates everyone around them and then ultimately dies in the end is there too. The point is that the game largely gave the player the reins and let THEM decide what sort of story they were interested in shaping within the confines of the narrative railroading.

This balance just isn't there with DA2 as the player progresses. Hawke is railroaded into failure in almost every way from start to finish, whether in their personal life or with the massive political struggles in Kirkwall.

I'm sure most people would have been fine with the main plot between the mages/Templars spiraling out of their control in the end (thanks Anders), the Qunari rampaging no matter what, and even the Hawke family being forcefully separated as the story progressed.

However, to me some of the railroaded bleak tragedy should have been offset by Hawke (and by extension the player) at least having the OPTION of being able to keep their family alive.

I'm fine with the tragedy of losing the whole family being ONE POSSIBLE option in the game, but when this tragedy along with the main plot failures, the dysfunctional party members that are too problematic to help ease Hawke's burdens (in fact, they all add to Hawke's worries, which if Inquisition shows anything, that it finally takes its toll on Hawke) is THE ONE AND ONLY OPTION in light of everything else wrong in Kirkwall, then that's a potential writing issue and could potentially alienate the player more than make them care about anything that happens and wonder why they aren't given the option to just nope out and leave Kirkwall to its fate.

Tragedy can be fine, don't get me wrong, but not everyone wants to role play a COMPLETE AND UTTER tragedy from start to finish with no option to deviate in any way from that narrative. Options in the way people progress (especially where people can break the story down and see the holes in the narrative where it COULD have possible but just wasn't allowed), should be presented in a ROLE PLAYING game.

I personally find it more realistic and relatable when a character experiences a nice blend of both MEANINGFUL success and failure. However, the writers seemed intent on railroading Hawke into just being at the mercy of the main plot with little to no agency.

In stark contrast to DAO, planning for the entire story in DA2 (or just in an RPG period) to end in failure no matter the player choices is already a bold enough risk on its own. It can definitely work with the proper balance of both positive and negative experiences along the way though in both the political and personal aspects of the player characters life, to keep the player actively engaged in a way that doesn't leave them thinking that their presence in the story amounts to little more than the equivalent of holding a book and simply turning the page rather than actively doing something.

But combining an already planned bleak ending with a very corrupt setting where the leaders on all sides are either completely moronic or passive, party members where the majority of them have too many burdens of their own to give Hawke a genuine sense of a reprieve from the madness even if romancing one of them (except for Varric, Aveline, and Bethany, if alive, everyone else is either a whiner or dysfunctional. It's very telling that Hawke's PET DOG gets more no strings attached visits from the party members than Hawke does. Just saying), railroading Hawke to lose the majority of their family in some way, AND having what little success and influence Hawke DOES acquire to come back and bite them in the ass in the end (Hawke struck it rich and became Champion of Kirkwall?! Awesome!.....right up until its revealed the red lyrium idol they found in the deep roads played a part in screwing up everything), then at that point, a serious argument can be made that the writers veered far too heavily into tragic overdone melodrama for some people.

How cool would it have been to be able to leave the game with "Well, okay, I couldn't do anything about the corruption in Kirkwall or the mage/Templar tensions spiraling out of control, but at least my whole family is alive and well"? There could have even been an achievement/trophy for this very outcome called "The pride of the Hawkes" or something.

Just one possible example of how the railroaded political failures could have been offset by giving Hawke, (and by extension the player), the OPTION for personal success in a more meaningful way. The option for extreme tragedy with some or even all of the Hawkes dying can still be there of course for people who want that degree of angst, but again having multiple OPTIONS is more likely to accommodate more people and their preferred play styles or stories, and thus, give more reasons to play the game multiple times.

As it stands now, sure, Hawke can save the life of one sibling, but they're still railroaded into losing one of them before the prologue is over, the other is either killed by the Blight or forced from their side in act 1 because the game said so, and the mother is forced to die in the most shock value induced way possible (nevermind not even being able to warn Leandra in act one or follow up on this quest until it's too late in act two or the guards and Templars being forcefully incompetent for this to play out like the writers want).

Those have just been my thoughts as of late. Some people argue that in a way, this is the entire point of the game. That sometimes only REALLY crappy choices exist and there may not be a third option. I agree with that to a point.

But "there might not be" and "there NEVER is" an option for an ideal third way are two very different things and IMO, DA2 suffered in veering far too heavily in the direction of the latter, often being too focused on heartbreak and shock value (looking at you "All That Remains") to really work as well as it could have.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts a decade later. Make no mistake, I still love DA2 for what it is, love the general concept and idea of DA2, just not the execution. It's just sad to me that this game could have been so much better with more development time, more options to shape Hawke's story on a more personal level (whether with an ideal outcome of everyone in the family living, or a semi tragic one where some can die depending on choices, or everyone dying), and not being railroaded into tragedy to nearly nigh ridiculous levels to the point where a giant spider nightmare residing in the Fade in a whole other game mocks Hawke for their "failure is the only option" status.

And just to further clarify my point here, true, Kirkwall was a ticking time bomb with or without Hawke being there. They made the tensions between the two factions apparent as far back as DAO. A Mage/Templar war was all but inevitable, as was Anders eventually losing himself to Justice/Vengeance and after exhausting all peaceful options, finally doing the unthinkable and "forcing everyone to choose a side". That part was fine. And it makes sense for this part of the story to remain static and unchanged no matter what (as I said before, the issue isn't necessarily that DA2 had a planned tragic ending or was framed as a set story within a story).

The issue is that, at the end of the day, regardless of whether this is framed as a recounting of events already played out, Bioware still chose to present this part of the story to the world as an RPG, not a novel. It's just too easy to pick apart the current execution of the narrative and find too many holes and inconsistencies, far too easy to see that Bioware wanted tragedy and completely railroaded the player into it regardless of whether or not it made sense to do so at times. Part of it is definitely that it was rushed, but not all of it.

" Genuine inevitable tragedy" (example: the mage/Templar rebellion) and "railroaded and just never given the option to question/change anything because the game/developers said so but still forcefully insisting and trying to frame it as an inevitable tragedy" are two very different things (outright confirming in Act 1 that the remains of the serial killer's vicitms did indeed belong to one of the missing women (Ninette's wedding ring) and he gave them white lilies but conveniently never given the option to bring any of this up to the guards/Templars or pursue the quest or warn Leandra until it's far too late). Leandra's death isn't the only example of this problem, but it definitely is one of the most prominent and IMO, takes away from the intended story of a good woman who met a bad end with their oldest son/daughter being unable to prevent it when the game failed to let them (and by extension the player) truly try.

DA2 could have been a great contrast to DAO. Rather than having the influence to shape the fate of the world like the Warden and succeed in their goal, they could have compromised in DA2 with having the fallout of the Kirkwall Chantry destruction and the rebellion still happening no matter what (i.e. Hawke "failing" to stop any of the madness and still ultimately forced to flee Kirkwall in the end after finally dragging the Amell line back into prominence) but still given the player the option to save their immediate family members across the story if certain choices were made throughout. I'm sure most people would have been fine with a more "bittersweet" option being presented for Hawke, (and by extension the player) in the game, especially where again, one can pick apart the narrative and see where it could have been an option, but just wasn't allowed for no other reason than seemingly because of the "True art is angsty" trope.

Bioware could still have their own canon (similarly to how Alistair is shown to be king in their canon no matter what as an example) of the ultimate tragedy if they wanted, but again, DA2 is still an RPG where players expect to have more meaningful choices reflected in how they progress, even with an inescapable darker and downer ending.

Complete and utter tragedy is fine, but I just don't think it was the best decision to have it as THE ONLY option in an RPG.

#dragon age 2 #da2 #dragon age origins #dragon age inquisition #marian hawke #garrett hawke #bethany hawke #varric tethras #leandra amell #leandra hawke #da inquisition #dragon age #carver hawke #dai

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laurelnose · 4 years ago

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Very New to your blog and the posts are probably way old but I saw you do Witcher Biology (??) rants sometimes and Id love to hear your take, if you have one, on what monsters (namely "naturally occurring" ones like draconids and insectoids) contribute to the ecosystem if anything and whether or not they should be hunted into extinction. I was discussing it w/ a friend last night after dealing with Iocaste, the last silver basilisk, and now its smthn I'm Invested in

re monster ecosystems: I just figure theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans but because theyve got no natural predators aside from eachother and arent hunted by anything but witchers , monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ? Ive little knowledge on the subject as a whole but the whole thing intrigues me

hi & extremely belated welcome, anon! my apologies for the length of time you’ve been waiting for this answer; I had to think carefully about how I wanted to respond to this ask, because: there’s a lot going on here. also, because I am a disaster, I ended up posting it to ao3 first while I was avoiding tumblr for a spell and then completely forgot to come back. oops. i’m sorry!! This one’s about 5000 words long, which is a lot for tumblr, so reading on AO3 may be preferable.

The two main thrusts of your first ask (how do monsters interact with the ecosystem and should they be eradicated from the Continent) are questions of invasion ecology, the study of non-native/invasive species and their effects on the environment. Monsters, having arrived on the Continent about 1200 years ago during the Conjunction of Spheres from entirely alien dimensions, are indeed technically non-native species!

However, invasion ecology is…somewhat controversial, to say the least—there are a lot of invasive species, who have a lot of different & complex impacts, and a lot of different ideas about what we might do about any of this, and it’s basically all arguing all the time, so I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to approach the topic. Not to mention that for reasons I couldn’t initially put my finger on, it seemed wrong to apply theories of invasion ecology to the Witcher monsters. We’ll get into it! There are also a couple of common misconceptions/oversimplifications of how ecology works in your second ask which I want to unpack. Hopefully I pulled this together into something that makes sense, and feel free to ask me for clarification!

Some important background facts:

Species have always been moving to and “invading” new places on their own; humans and globalization have accelerated this process into a Big Problem, as the sheer number of invasive species being introduced all over the globe strains ecosystems already under pressure, but “native ranges” are always shifting, sometimes more dramatically than you might expect. If you go far enough back in time, all species are “non-native”.

Because of this, the very definition of “invasive species” is hotly contested. This is why you’ll hear dozens of terms like introduced species, injurious species, naturalized species, non-native species, etc.; these all have slightly different connotations, but all refer to a species that did not originate in a particular location.

An introduced species is usually classified as “invasive” as opposed to “non-native” or “naturalized” if its presence significantly alters the ecosystem it invades; some people define this more narrowly as a species that causes harm to an ecosystem. “Harm” can take a lot of different forms, as every non-native species interacts differently with the ecosystem they were introduced to.

Aside from various potential impacts to human economic activity, most forms of ecological harm by introduced species involve the decline of native species, by a variety of mechanisms; invaders might eat natives, outcompete them for food, interbreed with them, carry novel pathogens, etc. Invasive species are primarily a threat to biodiversity.

Now, here’s my Hot Take:

The Conjunction of Spheres is analogous to real-life ecological cataclysms such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, and thus monsters are not invasive species.

The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event saw the extinction of 75% of all species on Earth after the Chicxulub asteroid hit, including the non-avian dinosaurs. The Earth has had several disasters like this, of varying severity—the Great Oxidation Event killed almost literally everything on Earth except for the cyanobacteria who caused it. These cataclysmic extinction events completely upended existing ecosystems, altering habitats beyond recognition and leaving swathes of niches emptied of life that the survivors could evolve to exploit.

The most recent Conjunction of Spheres on the Continent is supposed to have thrown everyone living on the planet at the time into chaos and darkness; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the interpenetration of multiple spheres caused mass extinction of species living in the pre-Conjunction environment, similar to Chicxulub or the GOE!

But Socks, you might say, evolution works on a massive timescale! It took millions of years to fill the niches left open by Chicxulub, but it’s only been 1200 years since the Conjunction of Spheres! And you are absolutely right*, but the Conjunction of Spheres canonically came pre-loaded with new species. We actually have no proof that any of the animals we see originated on the Continent: if humans are a post-Conjunction phenomenon, why not also dogs? Why not bears? Who’s to say any of those were actually there before-hand? (The elves, I guess, but as they have not, actually, said so, there’s no proof!!)

* FTR, 1200 years is a shockingly short period of time to go from cataclysm that plunged the world into darkness and chaos to functioning medieval-era society considering how long it actually took humanity to build 13 century Europe (horses had been domesticated for at least 3000 years by that time), even if we’re not assuming that most of the ecosystem was destroyed, so, my timeline concerns here are minimal, lmfao. TIMELINE WHAT TIMELINE.

…and actually now that I think about it the three options for the origin of dogs are a) elves or dwarves domesticated them, b) humans brought dogs with them during the Conjunction, or c) dogs have existed for less than 1200 years, and I refuse to accept that dogs are practically a new invention in the witcherverse, wtf.

Anyways: we really have no idea which species are truly “native” to the Continent, or what the physical environment was like prior to the Conjunction. While monsters are not native to the Continent, monsters are also not invasive—there cannot be decline of pre-Conjunction biodiversity or harm to the pre-Conjunction ecosystem because there is no pre-Conjunction ecosystem anymore.

should monsters be hunted to extinction?

So, the thing is, I think we should try to eradicate invasive species from non-native ranges if we can; the biggest problem with that is feasibility, not morality. It’s much more difficult than one might think to eradicate an invasive species once it’s established, and we have to be very careful that the methods we choose don’t have other impacts, but invasive species are a huge threat to the biodiversity of Earth! If monsters are invasive species, then the answer is yes, they should be eradicated from the places they are not native to.

(Notably, on Earth this kind of eradication is not the same thing as extinction; it would be a local extinction, or extirpation, where the species is totally wiped out in the places it invaded but still exists in its native range. This does get way more complicated if the invasive is already extinct in its native range.)

However, I have just outlined a possibility that would make it plausible for monsters not to be invasive species. Let me also outline why I prefer this interpretation. Here is a book conversation between the sorcerer Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt:

“Our world is in equilibrium. The annihilation, the killing, of any creatures that inhabit this world upsets that equilibrium. And a lack of equilibrium brings closer extinction; extinction and the end of the world as we know it. … Every species has its own natural enemies, every one is the natural enemy of other species. That also includes humans. The extermination of the natural enemies of humans, which you dedicate yourself to, and which one can begin to observe, threatens the degeneration of the race.”

“Do you know what, sorcerer?” Geralt said, annoyed. “One day, take yourself to a mother whose child has been devoured by a basilisk, and tell her she ought to be glad, because thanks to that the human race has escaped degeneration. See what she says to you.”

–The Bounds of Reason, ch. 6

This is a, uh, incredibly unsubtle reference to a debate that has been ongoing for decades; Geralt’s stance here is one of the key arguments in opposition to wolf and bear reintroduction. What do we do about large predators that may pose a threat to humans? How do we balance preservation of the ecosystem with the safety of people who have to coexist with these predators?

I can’t fully agree with Geralt, because large predators are integral to the ecosystem, which I value for its own sake and because humans depend on healthy ecosystems. But I can’t fully agree with Dorregaray either, because Geralt is right: human life is valuable and worthy of protecting. This is an issue that India has been running into in the past ten years; as their tiger conservation efforts yield fruit, people become more likely to encounter tigers, and thus more likely to have a bad encounter with a tiger. It’s become a political struggle as rural people who have to actually live with the possibility of a tiger attack come into conflict with urban conservationists who just really want to preserve tigers (& in some incidents, some of those conservationists have been Western, which is a whole additional level of fuckery). The fact is, there isn’t a good answer to this yet! We certainly should not drive tigers, wolves, or any other large predator to extinction, but we also have to figure out a way to keep people safe. It’s something humanity still has to wrestle with.

Under this framing, which CDPR reinforced when they chose to have the Count di Salvaress defend Iocaste as an endangered species while making significant provisions to minimize the damage she could do to human life, there’s far too much baggage attached for me to say yes, monsters should be hunted into extinction. If you’re going to make monsters analogous to wolves, of course I do not think we should get rid of monsters entirely!

And frankly, Geralt doesn’t think so either, despite his hardline stance about monsters that eat humans. Sapkowski isn’t exactly an anti-conservationist; though Dorregaray is shown as out of touch in this passage, at another point the narrative sides with him calling Philippa out on exterminating a species of ermine for her fur collar, and it’s consistently put forth that Geralt’s best quality is that he doesn’t want to perform violence for the sake of it or destroy things without cause, and one of the representations of that is that he refuses to kill endangered species even at cost to himself:

“What should I say about you, who rejects a lucrative proposition every other day? You won’t kill hirikkas, because they’re an endangered species, or mecopterans, because they’re harmless, or night spirits, because they’re sweet, or dragons, because your code forbids it.”

–Eternal Flame, ch. 2

If monsters and other post-Conjunction creatures are invasive species, the nuance in this conversation is flattened, and Geralt’s refusal to kill mecopterans and hirikkas becomes a flaw rather than a virtue. Boring! I also think that one of the strongest themes in the witcherverse is the idea of all monsters being human ills; wraiths are manifestations of hatred, necrophages multiply because of human bloodshed, cursed ones are created out of malice, mages like Alzur and Idarran of Ulivo go out of their way to straight-up create monsters from scratch*, etc. Iocaste attacks humans and takes livestock because the traditional prey of the silver basilisk, roe deer, has been extirpated by human destruction of their habitat. The aeschna in Blood of Elves attacks humans because humans have altered and polluted the flow of the Pontar, hunting the aeschna’s previous food (seals) to extinction. The true monster is the actions of humans. Monsters that appeared unbidden from another dimension into a previously functional ecosystem to invade and cause problems undermines this theme; monsters that are integrated into the ecosystem and subject to the same social and ecological forces as other animals supports it.

* Idarran’s “idr” monsters from Season of Storms absolutely should be eradicated. Did the world not have enough man-eating arthropods, Idarran? Did you really have to mutate horrible new ones and release them in populated areas?? Mages are a scourge, lmfao

Additionally, one of the biggest reasons I felt like I couldn’t actually apply invasion ecology to monsters was that, whether you accept my Conjunction theory as sufficient biological justification for this or not, monsters just don’t really behave like invasive species. It’s hard to explain this because the setting is pretty brief about its ecological details, but aside from the fact that the narrative frames them like just part of the ecosystem of the world, there are never any details like “that type of flower doesn’t exist anymore because giant centipede tunneling destroyed the soil they needed to grow in.” When monsters are the aggressors, their victims are always humans, not the environment or other animals, and again monsters are themselves often treated as victims of human actions.

So I say monsters aren’t invasive species!

Which means that monsters are, regardless of their strange origins, now a part of the Continent’s ecosystem just as much as bears and wolves.

So let’s talk monster ecology.

what do monsters contribute to the ecosystem, if anything?

So, the phrase “contributing to the ecosystem” is actually super loaded, and I want to unpack that before we go anywhere else. Ecosystems are made up of organisms, and organisms interact with and impact ecosystems, but they don’t necessarily contribute to ecosystems! The implication of “contribute” is that it is possible for an organism to not contribute, and it follows from there that some organisms are not useful. This is functionally nonsensical, and also dangerous.

Conservationists talk a lot about “intrinsic value,” which in this context is the idea that we should want to keep species around just because their existence is valuable! Biodiversity is intrinsically valuable. This is important, firstly because I do believe that all species are intrinsically valuable, but also: ecosystems are so enormously complicated that we do not know the full extent of any species or individual organism’s impact, and we can’t predict what the consequences of removing any given species might be. Treating all species as intrinsically valuable is hedging our bets. All organisms affect the ecosystem, because it’s impossible for them not to, and while some species definitely have outsize impact, none of them are “not contributing,” and frankly even if some of them weren’t, it would be the absolute height of human arrogance for us to decide we could tell which ones were useless when we barely even know what most species eat. Mosquitoes are the base of the entire goddamn food chain, and you still get assholes claiming they don’t “contribute anything.” Of course, most people don’t really mean all of these implications when they use the phrase, but I don’t find it useful to talk about what species “contribute,” and avoid using that language if I can!

What I assume you mean by “what do monsters contribute” is a combination of “what roles might monsters play in the ecosystem” and “are monsters actively harmful to the ecosystem, i.e. do they cause loss of biodiversity?”

And this is difficult to answer! As I’ve said, I don’t think monsters are invasive species, and thus don’t harm the ecosystem, though we know that monsters can be harmful to humans. However, when it comes to the role they do play in the ecosystem, there isn’t enough in canon for me to do more than wildly speculate! Also, there are so so many of them, and the role of a hirikka is going to be wildly different from that of a draconid.

Just offhandedly, most of the big predatory monsters can be assumed to fill the same roles as Earth’s big predators, one of the big ones being overpopulation of prey species, which has ramifications throughout the ecosystem. Some of them are canonically ecosystem engineers, or animals that physically alter their environment (think beavers); for instance, shaelmaar and nekker tunneling. Additionally, the big insectoid colonies can’t be relying solely on naturally-occurring caves for their homes; they’ve gotta be constructing some stuff themselves. These tunnels can be repurposed as habitat for other organisms, from giant centipedes to sewant mushrooms. Necrophages, like corpse-eaters in our world, likely limit the spread of diseases from decomposing flesh (and really wouldn’t be as much of an issue if everyone would stop, you know, doing war and mass murder, lmfao). Arachasae use tree trunks and organic plant material to conceal themselves, which is likely contributing to plant reproduction in a few different ways—but the arachasae decorating essay is a different topic that I swear I will finish one day oh my god—

…anyways, feel free to ask about any specific monsters or niches if you’re curious, but if I tried to go into detail with every single potential niche/ecosystem service all of the monsters we know of might fill, we would be here all day!

Let’s talk about a couple specific things you brought up in your second ask.

> theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans

I mean…maybe! That is, yeah, they’ve definitely settled into niches by now, but feeding is way more complicated and interesting than that.

For instance: orcas can eat basically whatever the fuck they want—orcas are fully capable of bringing down everything from fish to seals to gray whales to great white sharks. But they don’t. In the Pacific Northwest, the resident orca pods almost exclusively eat salmon, while the transient pods largely feed on seals. Orcas are kind of an extreme example, but this is something called resource partitioning and it’s a big part of how animals limit competition with one another and what enables lots of predators to coexist in one place!

We see a big fuck-off dragon thing and we assume that it’ll eat anything it can fit in its mouth, and definitely some predators work like that. But just because an animal is technically capable of eating something and deriving nutrition from it doesn’t mean that it will. Silver basilisks made roe deer the staple of their diet before the destruction of beech forests meant they had to turn to humans—which is a pretty specific dietary restriction when there should be multiple species of deer running around, not to mention everything else a draconid could be killing! And given how many types of draconid there are…I have to assume there’s some kind of resource partitioning going on to prevent them all from conflicting with each other! For instance, if basilisks prefer roe deer, maybe forktails prefer wild goats, while wyverns are mostly kleptoparasitic (stealing other predators’ kills).

And of course, not all monsters eat humans at all; harpies steal from and attack humans, so they’re a dangerous nuisance, but they don’t seem to eat them. And in the books Geralt mentions plenty of monsters which are totally harmless.

So yes, there are lots of things monsters could be eating, but it would strongly depend, and there’s a lot of interesting places one can take monster diets! Netflix decided their strigas only eat specific organs, leaving the rest of the body untouche, & I love that for her. More monsters that need a particular kind of nutrition that leads them to take only specific body parts from some kills!

> because theyve got no natural predators aside from each other and arent hunted by anything but witchers, monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ?

Absolutely—invasive species whose populations rapidly increase once they’re away from their natural predators cause the decline of native species, often by eating natives directly or competing with natives for resources. And in fact, even native species who become overpopulated can seriously damage the ecosystem (see: white-tailed deer in the United States, whose overpopulation has such negative ecological effects that some people argue we should classify them as invasive, even though they have definitely been here this whole time).

However, even if we grant that monsters are invasive, it’s a little more complicated than that for a few reasons!

Despite the apparent preponderance of them in the witcher games, most monsters are supposed to be strongly on the decline, like witchers themselves. Geralt’s profession is falling out of necessity; human development of the Continent is going to be the biggest suppressing factor in monster populations in the future. Monster overpopulation is just canonically not a problem in this universe! But even in the scenario where the Inevitable March Of Civilization isn’t threatening monster populations, there are a lot of factors that could and would limit monster populations.

(TL;DR for this next part: yeah I definitely think they’ve figured out their own little circle of life—the term you’re looking for is ecosystem equilibrium, btw!—& I’m going to take the next 1.2k to talk about how.)

For starters, predation is only one among many limiting factors that affect populations & prevent them from ballooning out of control:

food availability: If there’s not enough food, there’s not enough food! It also matters how adaptable the animal’s diet is—silver basilisks moved from deer to humans, but if the eucalyptus went extinct koalas would not switch to eating cycads.

illness and parasites: Some people argue these are more important than direct predation for limiting populations, and I am often inclined to agree. Basically, if a population becomes very dense, illness and parasites spread more quickly, creating a natural limiter on how many animals can live in any one place. The greater susceptibility of some individuals to illness or parasites also winnows down populations. Non-native species often escape a good portion of their native diseases by moving to a new range—however, given how fast bacteria and viruses evolve, 1,200 years is a pretty decent amount of time for new diseases to arise. Also, just going to drop a link to my treatise on monster parasites here. It’s gross, mind the warning at the start of the post.

mate availability: If only a certain percentage of the population is actually able to reproduce, that’ll eventually bring the total number down. RIP Iocaste’s boyfriend 😔

territory/shelter availability: Animals need a certain amount of space and certain types of spaces to survive, and space isn’t infinite! It again depends on how adaptable an animal is; rats find ways to thrive nearly everywhere, but pandas can only live where there’s bamboo. If there’s not enough space to hide from predators, reproduce safely, store food, and avoid adverse weather, the population again limits itself naturally.

natural disasters: Wildfires, drought, flooding, tsunamis, storms, etc. pick off significant portions of wildlife populations. Disasters are sporadic rather than directly linked to population like most of the other factors but these periodic blows to population and the other impacts of fire or flooding are often integral to the ecosystem (see especially: fire regimes and fire ecology.)

Now let’s talk predation & monsters! (Genuinely, I think predation is one of the most interesting things in ecology; people tend to simplify it down to things eat other things, which—yeah, but there’s so much more going on there!)

First, I wouldn’t underestimate the effects of monsters eating other monsters! Even if it’s rare for a draconid to snatch up a nekker and carry it off, the threat of a draconid doing so can have dramatic impacts; researchers found that just playing the sound of dog barks on a beach stopped raccoons from foraging for crabs for over a month after the barking stopped, leading to an increase in crab populations, even though no raccoons ever encountered a dog. This is called the ecosystem of fear (which as a term is metal as hell) and it theorizes that just the fear of predators can lead to chronic stress for prey animals, decreasing reproduction and making them more susceptible to disease. Maybe draconids in Toussaint eat only a few dozen nekkers a year, but that might cause thousands of nekkers to have fewer offspring or fall to disease. When it comes to ecosystems the direct effect is usually only a small part of the story!

Second, when we talk about a species not having natural predators, we’re usually talking about an animal that would have a predator back in its home range—lionfish, for instance, have plenty of predators in their natural range (the Indo-Pacific), but no natural predators in their invasive range (the Caribbean), so invasive lionfish, suddenly freed of a limiting factor, can run amok. However, a great white shark has, aside from orcas (who do not actually eat white sharks, they’re just assholes sometimes) and occasionally other white sharks, more or less no natural predators anywhere once it reaches maturity, and that’s fine! Lack of predation of great white sharks did not cause their populations to explode and consume the ocean. White sharks are limited by other factors.

So: it is possible that wherever draconids originated (and it’s entirely possible that “draconids” came from multiple different places, tbh) there was something bigger that preyed on them, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they were also apex predators in their previous dimension (I mean…look at them), and that adult draconids were never really preyed on by anything else! It isn’t necessarily an issue for there not to be predators of certain monsters on the Continent.

(Though, of course, we also shouldn’t forget that most apex predators are prey when they’re young—baby white sharks are snack-sized for a lot of fishes, and bear cubs and wolf pups are similarly vulnerable. Based on the size of the eggs you see in TW3 draconid nests, a basilisk is hatched around the size of a little dog, which is the perfect size for small, ballsy predators such as wolverines to sneak into a nest and snap them up—predators such as more wolverines or raptors like eagles and hawks might also come directly for the eggs.)

When it comes to smaller monsters such as nekkers, who likely weren’t apex predators in their original dimensions and would thus be subject to that lack of natural predators—there are usually specific reasons why prey species manage to avoid predation in their introduced range. Lionfish confound Caribbean predators because lionfish are covered with huge poisonous spines that Caribbean predators don’t know how to deal with.

Drowners, on the other hand, are basically just man-shaped fish; they don’t have any adaptations or defenses that would really stump a bear or a wolf. Again, bigger monsters are still probably checking the populations of smaller monsters no matter what, but there’s really no reason a bear couldn’t figure out how to eat a drowner! Unless a monster has a unique defense (e.g. scurver spines), is actively distasteful to eat (rotfiends, probably), or is just difficult to take down (nekkers in packs), most of the non-monster predators* on the Continent will have incorporated various monsters into their diet by now, or suppressed monster populations indirectly with the threat of predation or by competing with them for food. It has been over a thousand years, which is nothing evolutionarily but is still a decent period of time for mammals, who pass hunting techniques down to their babies, to figure out how to eat ghouls—especially if we’re considering that the Continent’s mammals may also be a result of the Conjunction and would thus have to have been just as adaptable as the monsters to establish themselves. And I’ve also actually talked before about how wolves specifically might be preying on necrophages!

* For reference, the non-monster predators are, considering the Continent is more or less Europe, most likely lynxes, brown bears/polar bears (in Skellige), wolverines, foxes, badgers, and a variety of large birds of prey.

So—yes, if monsters were truly overpopulating, then that would damage the ecosystem. However, canon tells us they are definitely not doing that, and there are also many factors that would prevent that from happening!

(Though I will say that some of the reasons white-tailed deer are overpopulated are that we got rid of cougars and wolves and human development creates a lot of extra habitat of the type that deer like. Given that we know many of draconids are for sure in significant danger of going extinct, and the trajectory that Europe’s wolf and bear populations followed in real life, it is possible that the Continent will have to contend with an overpopulation of some of the smaller monsters at some point as they continue to try to eradicate the larger predators, both monster and non-monsters—you think the drowner problem is bad now, wait until the bears are gone and city development has tripled the number of sewers. Yet another of those humans-make-monster-problems-worse things I am fond of in the Witcherverse!)

��whew. that was a lot of words. In conclusion: ecology is really cool & there’s a bunch of ways monsters can fit into it!!

#kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #and a bit of #witcher book blogging #asks #anonymous

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