#i think its relatively easy to get the gist of whats going on

[lokh]

watching the last episode of a series we've never seen and trying to guess what all has happened

[brycegaeareview]

Bryce Reviews: Demon's Souls (1 / 2)

Demon's Souls is a 2009 action role-playing video game made by FromSoftware under the supervision of Japan Studio. Releasing exclusively on the Playstation 3 in 2009, it was received pretty well, more so by Western audiences than in its home country of Japan.

Regional box art, North America and Europe.

Most people today know Demon's Souls as the predecessor to the infamous Dark Souls, which released two years later. Dark Souls was a smash hit, grew into a trilogy, and "Souls-like" is now an entire subgenre of action RPGs. Of course, this has led to Demon's Souls being a bit overshadowed by its relatives, even though it was the first to do it. Poor guy.

Personal History

I bought this digitally on the PS3 a long time ago. I tried beating it back then, at least two separate times, but it was too hard for me.

Years after I last touched Demon's Souls, I became a wind turbine of Dark Souls and played through all the games in that pseudo-series (Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, Bloodborne, and now Elden Ring). I avoided going back and beating Demon's Souls during this time, but I'm not really sure why. It's very rare that I don't finish a game I bought.

I finally decided to go back and beat it this year. It was a real hassle to get my dusty PS3 to stream footage to my computer (for screenshots), but it was worth it because I ended up actually really enjoying this game.

The Nexus, the main hub area of the game.

Last thing I need to mention before I get into the actual review part of this. I am aware that this game got a remaster/remake for the PS5. I am going to avoid talking about it. Just know that I am very angry about what they did to the art style of the original, and I hope that a remaster like that never gets made again. Just terrible.

Overview

Demon's Souls is primarily an action and exploration game complimented by role-playing elements. The whole gist of it is pretty straightforward. You enter a level, clear out enemies, find items, defeat a boss at the end, and use the Souls you gathered from all of that to level up and get stronger.

Exploring the Nexus' upper levels.

It can also be pretty difficult, but never in a ridiculous way. It's not an uphill battle, just regularly challenging. It's rare you're put in a fight that is outright unfair. But you should know I'm probably not a very good judge of difficulty since I played this only after playing through all the other Souls games. The learning curve might be nasty, I can't make any comment on it.

Muted but distinct color palettes help cement the tone of the game.

The setting is one of the things that I find most interesting about Demon's Souls. It's a dark medieval fantasy, but most of it leans more towards supernatural than magical. I think the best term for it would be horror-fantasy. The Dark Souls series has a similar dark fantasy setting, but Demon's Souls' world feels completely distinct from it. I'll go further into this in the Presentation and Story sections.

I played through the game twice with two different characters. You'll notice some of my screenshots are a guy wearing the armor from the box art and others are a lady magician. I didn't have my screenshot button set up during most of my "box art guy" playthrough, so I took most of his screenshots in New Game+.

Gameplay

If you're familiar with Souls series gameplay, it works largely identically. You can block with shields, use light and heavy melee attacks, roll to dodge incoming attacks, and lock the camera on to enemies. Magic-users get a variety of spells that range from buffs to attacks. If you're going to play this, I recommend you read the manual before starting. I miss when games came with manuals. They're so helpful.

Fighting soldiers on a bridge. Enemy aggression range is short, so it's easy to lure out individual enemies from groups to avoid getting dogpiled.

The role-playing part of this role-playing game is growing your stats and customizing your playstyle. "Souls" are your currency both for shops and for leveling up. Every level costs a bit more Souls, when you die you drop all your Souls on the spot of your death, et cetera. The usual FromSoftware format.

My magician casting the powerful "Point" spell. The special effects you get from wearing certain items are shown by both icons under your stamina bar and (annoyingly) colored auras surrounding your character.

Something I noticed early on is that shields are very useful in this game. Most enemy attacks are bounced back by a shield block, and enemies take more damage if hit during the bounce animation, so defensive playstyles are in for a cozy experience. Of course, some enemies use heavy guard-breaking attacks (although it's rare) and giant enemies might ignore shields altogether.

The main way to heal yourself in this game is by eating different types of Moon Grass, and the main source of those are random enemy drops. It's one of those old game approaches to self-healing that's been getting phased out recently. It's not terrible, but there's always the problem that players who are already having a hard time end up running out of heals.

I ended up raising my Luck stat to the teens at the beginning of the game when levels were still cheap just to get around this. That way enemies were always dropping enough supply for my demand. Once I was decently into the game, I could use the increased amount of Souls I was getting from later levels to buy Moon Grass in bulk from merchants and never had to worry about running out again. That's a thing I've noticed after playing a lot of older RPGs. By the end of it you become a kind of medicine stock broker.

Passing the time by reading item descriptions in the game's storage box. Upgrade stones can be used directly from storage at the blacksmith (thank goodness). Note the "Item Burden" count on the right.

There's an Item Burden (inventory weight) mechanic which might surprise new players since the game doesn't seem like the kind that would have one. Dark Souls and all subsequent sequels completely got ride of it and it's never once returned. I can't argue with that decision. This system really got on my nerves sometimes. At least the dedicated storage NPC is a nice guy.

Levels have lots of verticality. You're usually traveling up and down just as much as you are traveling forward.

Exploring the levels and learning to navigate them is the best part of the game. Levels are very winding, dense paths to a single goal: the boss. There a tons of short and sweet side areas to reward exploration while on the journey there. I noticed that if you ignore those parts the levels themselves can be pretty short. That's probably why shortcuts are kinda rare.

Demon's Souls differs from a traditional RPG in that once you've completed the first level of the first world, you can travel to any of the four other worlds without having to go in a determined order. The level scaling of the areas might nudge you towards a certain track, but with clever play you can get past all the enemies and grab valuable items early. This makes for some absolutely wonderful replayability. I took full advantage of this system when I began my second character, completing level 3-1 early to learn one of the best spells in the game before having to fight enemies that were weak to it. Very satisfying.

There's no way to jump, but some flat ledges actually can be climbed. You just have to press against them for a second and your character clambers up. Novel idea, really surprised me when I found out. I can't shake the feeling that if Dark Souls 2 had that the whole game would be five minutes long.

Battling the boss "Adjudicator." This screenshot was taken the exact moment I realized he was able to hit me from down there.

Bosses in Demon's Souls, very much unlike the Dark Souls games that succeeded it, are often not straightforward battles. Most bosses are gimmick/puzzle bosses, usually with a weak point that needs to be exposed before you can do real damage. Kind of like Legend of Zelda games now that I mention it. As a result, a good handful of bosses are easier than the levels you have to get through to fight them.

In the event that you die as a human, you come back to life in Soul form. Your health bar is noticeably capped, but nothing else is lowered. It's a weird system that all the Souls games do that I still don't really get. I've found it's best to just get comfortable being a Soul and pretend like that extra part of your health bar doesn't exist. Human form is mostly for multiplayer features anyways, and the servers were shut down in 2018. I found a ring in the first level that raises your Soul Form's health cap from 50% to 75%. I put it on and never took it off.

Chatting with Graverobber Blige. You rescue him from a prison cell when you first meet him, after which he decides said prison cell is actually pretty comfortable and starts running a shop out of it.

The game has a nice cast of non-playable characters, most of which are some kind of merchant. In addition to shopping, they'll talk with you a bit about the backstory of the level you found them in. This is the kind of game where you press "talk" on a character until they start repeating themselves if you want to hear everything they have to say. Most of them also react to events that happen as you progress with new dialogue, so it's good the check in on them every so often.

Blacksmith Boldwin plays a vital role in keeping the player well-equipped, but he's also kind of an asshole. I appreciate that about him.

I've mostly only covered the positives, so I need to mention the negatives. There are parts where Demon's Souls is very rough around the edges. For one, movement feels floaty and just... off. You spend a lot of time in this game walking, but you never once feel like you're actually making contact with the ground. Of course, the game is chock full of bridges without guard rails and drop down platforming sections.

The lock-on camera can be a pain in the neck as well. The point of view is too high up and looks down too steeply. Any kind of low ceiling often ends up with you not being able to see what you're fighting. I recommend playing the game unlocked for the majority of the time, but some weapons like thrusting swords and ranged magic basically require an enemy lock to connect.

Use your lock-on camera near a doorway at your own risk.

And don't get me started on the goddamn dragons. I hope whoever approved all the dragon sections in this game gets shot. Now I understand why Gwyn in Dark Souls killed all of these assholes. I'm getting furious just remembering those parts.

I guess it doesn't matter too much though, because in the big picture, the positives of Demon's Souls' gameplay outweigh the negatives. And I know it might sound weird, but I kinda like that those janky, crummy parts of it exist. New games are too polished nowadays. Where's the heart? Where's the soul?

Before I wrap up this Gameplay section, I need to mention one last mechanic that I think is bizarrely stupid. I can't decide if it objectively sucks or not, I just know that the way it was implemented doesn't make any goddamn sense. It's called World and Character Tendency, and it's unique enough and weird enough to warrant its own section later on in this review.

Presentation

There are not a lot of cutscenes in the game, but they all have great framing and camera movement. Reminds me of Resident Evil 4.

Lately, ever since I emulated Monster Hunter Tri earlier this year, I've been falling in love with the look of old 3D graphics. Not the super old stuff like those blocky character models from Final Fantasy 7. I'm talking about the era of PS2/Gamecube to early PS3, right before realistic visuals became widely available. Video games were a little ugly but in a charming way. Demon's Souls' visuals fit neatly into that category.

The first thing that makes me uniquely fond of Demon's Souls' graphics is the textures. The game has this smoothed-over finish to most materials. It gives everything this kind of unnaturally perfect look. It's appealing in an unrealistic way, like model train sets.

The loading screen renders give a perfect demonstration of what I mean when trying to describe the textures. Yurt's armor is smooth like marble and seems to diffuse rather than reflect light.

And the second thing that makes me uniquely fond of Demon's Souls' graphics is the lighting. It's not a very advanced lighting system. I think it's fair to say that the engine treats light more like a colored fog than actual rays. That being said, it still works well. Light sources are soft and glow-y but also vibrantly colored; environments feel very ethereal, which works with the whole "soul" theme the game is going for. And of course I need to mention the bloom. I love a game with heavy bloom, and Demon's Souls has enough bloom to rival a Team ICO game.

Even an objectively dull room looks good with strong, intentional lighting.

Is there a thing as too much bloom? In this instance, yes.

Furthering the ethereal look of the lighting is the fact that the game uses plenty of darkness. And I'm talking real dark, like close to pitch black dark. It's good stuff. Light sources are always visible regardless of distance, which I feel is pretty impressive for this era of consoles, and as a result they can be used as landmarks for navigation in some of the more wide-open and darker levels.

I don't really know anything about how video game graphics were put together back in 2009; for all I know, the visuals are like that because of hardware limitations. But what matters is that it does look like that, and it gives the game such a unique look that perfectly matches its tone. And I know I was going to try and avoid talking about it, but goddamn did that PS5 remaster ever butcher this part of the game. The lighting looks incredibly generic, like it was ripped from every other AAA game that came out in 2020 and pasted in. Just terrible.

Now I can move on to the art design of Demon's Souls. It can be a little inconsistent sometimes, but I like it overall.

The game's art has two sides: grounded medieval and fantastic horror. Sometimes it even goes all the way to eldritch horror. Most things in the game are visually realistic, like the armor, clothing, and weapons, but that just paves the way for the other stuff to really stick with you. There are enemies and environments in Demon's Souls that wouldn't feel out of place in a survival horror, and I think that's wonderful.

The environment design might just be my favorite part. I just can't get enough of this stuff. The lights. The architecture. Makes me wanna jump through the screen and just start gnawing on the scenery. It's not the most screenshot-able game, but I did my best.

Boletarian Palace has a surprising amount of different environments despite all of it taking place within one giant castle. It's also probably the most realistically arranged fortress in a FromSoftware game.

Fictional castles tend to be very ornate, but it looks like King Allant went for a "less is more" approach. Those tower tops in particular make me think that Italian castles were used as reference.

Stonefang Tunnel starts strong with a cool and really fun first level, but it becomes more of a generic lava zone as it goes on, which is a bummer.

As you travel deeper, you'll find some things that predate the mines.

Tower of Latria is a scary place. Even out in the open air you feel trapped. It's that kind of primordial, biblical fear.

"Abandon every hope, all you who enter." For being so cool, I give Tower of Latria the esteemed title of Bryce Level.

Shrine of Storms is a cliff complex surrounded by nothing but overcast sky. The whole area feels dead, and I think it's on purpose. I just love the look of it all.

From clifftops to catacombs, this area has it all. Please also mark down Shrine of Storms as a Bryce Level. An impressive two Bryce Levels in one game. That's quite the feat.

Striking a pose in The Gutter the Valley of Defilement, an archetypal Souls game "wooden shantytown built over a toxic swamp" zone. The noisy texture in front of me appears to be rain, but to be honest with you I can't say for certain. There's no rain sound effect and it shimmies side to side more than it falls.

There's an odd rendering glitch in the giant swamp where the top half of the atmospheric effects is blurred. Being able to see the glow of torches all the way from the other end of the valley is oddly cozy.

It's a real bummer that this game doesn't have anti-aliasing. Lots of the nice visuals end up looking pretty crunchy.

Moving onto audio, I wont spend a lot of time on sound effects since I don't know a lot about them. Most effects sound a little stock, but they're put to good use making immersive ambience. Also I find it funny that your character doesn't make footstep noises in Soul form.

Voice acting is, strangely enough, very good. Every single NPC I encountered gave a good performance, and several actually stood out to me with how great they were. If I had to pick a favorite, it'd be Blacksmith Boldwin. This is one of those Japanese video games with exclusively English voices. That's an oddly common occurrence. I should find out why.

The music, which only plays in the Nexus and during boss fights, is one of Demon's Souls most memorable aspects for me. The game has a very understated, slow-paced orchestral score. There's prominent use of low brass and harpsichord, which are two sounds you don't hear a lot in video game music. If you're interested, I recommend checking out the tracks Armor Spider, Tower Knight, Old Monk, Fool's Idol, and my personal favorite, Souls of Mist (the main menu music).

Demon's Souls' music was surprising to me considering the incredibly grandiose scores that the Souls games after it eventually came be known for. Looking back at it, Demon's Souls' more passive style of music partially stuck around at first, but was gradually replaced over the years. The DLCs for Dark Souls 2 were the tipping point, then by Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 the series had a whole new music identity.

The music in the PS5 remake... uh... nevermind.

That about wraps up the Presentation section.

End of Part 1

This website limits the amount of images that can be put in one post, so I'll need to split this review into two parts. The second part will be named: "Bryce Reviews: Demon's Souls (2 / 2)" Link directly to next part.

[canmom]

Animation Night 139: Hiroyuki Okiura

Hi friends, running late so please accept a brief writeup today - on a subject that deserves a lot more, but probably best done after the film. I'm also planning a followup film night for the rest of the 'Kerberos Saga'.

So remember those 'realists' of the 1990s? I speak about them now and again here, leaning hard on the writing of Matteo Watzky and, now and again, Animation Obsessive. It's the latter who gave me the material for this night, in their article The Anime Realism of Run, Melos!.

'Realism' is a subject that demands endless examination. For there to be a 'realism', you need something that is not real, and then to bring it 'closer to' realism in some respect. I've talked in the past about Matteo Watzky's The Purpose of Realism in Animation, where he looks at the three realisms of Takahata, Kon and Yamada, which each go to different purposes. To these we could add many more takes on the idea in animation: the Disney 'realism' derided by the Zagreb School, the HDR hyperrealism of Shinkai.

And we can tie that to a discussion of 'realism' in literature. Psychological realism, sci-fi/fantasy verisimilitude, magical realism... or in art, socialist realism and all that. It's a term that is polyvalent as fuck.

My mum recently asked me what sort of animation I'd want to create, and oddly enough it turned out the examples that sprang to mind often weren't the realists. Alongside clips from Tokyo Godfathers and Ghost in the Shell, and James Baxter's scenes in The Prince of Egypt, I pulled up much more stylised bits like the transformation sequence from PMMM: Rebellion, the chase from Tekkonkinkreet, a fight scene from Fog Hill of Five Elements... I didn't show her Aeon Flux because lmao but it would have been fitting too. There's many dimensions beyond realism, e.g. the choreographed and theatrical.

So why realism then?

The easy and not very helpful answer is that 'realism' in its many forms is a device that can be used (well or badly) to different purposes. 'Realism' in animation is especially challenging, and thus by default prestigious, or perceived as such - a sentiment that's evident in the recent 'chainsaw man vs bocchi' discourses lol. Yet there's a certain intrinsic, intuitive appeal in realist animation - it's one of the first things people move to praise.

The longer answer, to try to go beyond what Watzky wrote... I'm still thinking about.

All that said, let's go visit Hiroyuki Okiura! Alongside Toshiyuki Inoue, he's among the best known realist animators, with a list of amazing credits including the spotlight chase scene in Akira, the spider tank scene in Ghost in the Shell as well as (nsfw) some astonishingly 3D-like animation in the opening sequence, the 'everyday life on Mars' opening credits of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, the running scenes at the climax of Your Name, the lotus eater scene in Magnetic Rose, a groundbreaking fight scene in The Hakkenden... I could easily keep going. It's a very traditional sense of realism, reliant on extraordinary solid drawing and carefully observed movement more than fancy compositing effects.

He's worked as a director as such twice, but he's also worked as animation director in a few other cases. One of these is Run, Melos! (1992), a relatively obscure work which I'd never have heard about if not for AniObsessive's article. As such, I'll let them introduce it:

Run, Melos! adapts a short story by Osamu Dazai, a Japanese author from the 20th century. By the time this film premiered, Dazai’s original was already a near-universal reference point in Japan — the kind of thing that everyone had read in school.

The gist: a rural peasant named Melos is sentenced to death by the ruler of Syracuse. Melos begs to be allowed to attend his younger sister’s wedding back home before his execution. As collateral, his friend Selinuntius (shortened to Seline in the film) gets put in his place. If Melos doesn’t return in time to be executed, Seline will die.

It’s a classic. But Masaaki Ōsumi, who wrote the screenplay as well as directed it, took liberties with the original short story. He wondered, “Why did Seline become a hostage so easily?” In Dazai’s version, it’s unexplained. Ōsumi wanted more realism.

And thus he brought in Okiura, who had just previously worked as animation director on Record of Lodoss War (1990) and animated on Roujin Z (Animation Night 118). They took scouting trips to the Mediterranean and made a point of trying to draw their characters looking Greek rather than Japanese. A young Satoshi Kon followed Okiura, and anecdote has it that he would drink until the early morning, ranting about the anime and manga business. Mitsuo Iso, not yet the star he would become after Eva, animated a very carefully grounded horseback fight scene. The result is sometimes animation by figures like Inoue that feels 'more real than live action film'.

We can compare the 'realism' demanded of the animation with the story. Although Ōsumi hoped to expand on and flesh out the characters and motivations, it's adapting quite a brief parable, and this tends to be the sticking point. I want to see what purpose the realism serves though, and regardless, I'm sure we're going to see something beautiful.

At the end of the decade, Okiura got the chance to direct his own film, courtesy of Mamoru Oshii. As well you know, Oshii is well known for his near-future scifi animated films like Ghost in the Shell and the Patlabor series, and of course he's come up on canmom.gov before, e.g. Animation Night 38 (which currently mistakenly credits Jinroh to Oshii) and 39 and 115, and Toku Tuesday 39. Back then I talked briefly about his 'Kerberos Saga', which is as best I can understand, about an alternate future Japan ruled by the Nazis. The first two films in the franchise are The Red Spectacles ('87) and StrayDogs: Kerberos Panzer Cop ('91), both tokusatsu; there's also about a million spinoffs.

Anyway, despite all appearances at first glance, Jin-Roh was directed not by Oshii but Okiura. Oshii had hoped to do a sequel for a while, and the success of GitS made it possible, but conflicts with scheduling his other works forced him to give up directing the film to someone else.

That someone else ended up being 'allergic to computers' Okiura, judged the most promising of the studio's younger generation and eager to direct a serious drama film. Okiura made many decisions that Oshii wouldn't; his take on the story put a bit more emphasis on the romantic relationship, and he ambitiously decided to do a film with no CGI whatsoever at a sprawling 80,000 cels.

By all accounts, he succeeded. His film is heavily in an Oshii idiom: very slow and contemplative, morally ambiguous, set in the near future, about cops. Its story tells of a member of a counter-terrorism unit in the context of widespread protests, who decides not to gun a girl who turns out to be a suicide bomber, and later encounters someone who claims to be her sister. There's infighting among the security arms of the fascist regime and its main character Fuse performs increasingly inhuman acts for the sake of preserving his unit, all framed through a metaphor of Little Red Riding Hood.

It became a well-regarded classic (at least among the small segment of people who have heard of it), and now if you introduce Okiura it's usually as 'director of Jin-roh'.

I've long aspired to watch Jin-Roh in the context of the other two Kerberos films, to finally come up with my own answer on the whole 'what is it doing with all that fashy imagery' question. There certainly isn't time for that tonight, but I think it might be possible over the weekend. So for this reason, we'll save further discussion of Jin-Roh for now...

Okiura returned to key animation - I'm not sure why! maybe he just liked it more - and it would be another 12 years until he'd direct another film. That film is A Letter to Momo (2011), about a grieving girl who encounters three yōkai who have been transformed by divine punishment, who are tasked with protecting her as she comes to accept the death of her dad.

Although the premise is fantastical, visually it has a lot of the feeling of one of Takahata's very grounded films like Only Yesterday, with astonishingly naturalistic movements drawn by the hands you might expect - Okiura himself, Inoue, Shinya Ohira, Takeshi Honda and Masashi Ando. In a way it's kind of the realists reuniting to make a 90-style film once again, but there's also shades of the experiments we'd see the next year in the Animator Expo. It sounds like it's gonna punch me right in the heart in terms of 'anime about grief', but maybe it's going to be exactly the film I need to see.

So here's the plan for this week's Animation Night entertainment: tonight we'll visit Run, Melos and A Letter to Momo. On Tuesday I'll follow that up with a one-off special Toko Tuesday in which we'll watch the two live-action Kerberos films and Jin-Roh. And at some point I'll try and write something a lot more substantial than this brief intro.

It's 10pm now, but at least Run, Melos! is very short, so we won't be too late. Animation Night will be going live now at twitch.tv/canmom, hope to see you there!

[thechekhov]

Any opinions on the idea of a "universal language" one that simplified and designed for mass global communication? Are there any languages that you think would be good for this? or do you think one would need to be tailor made?

Oh boi. 

I’m not sure I’m ready for this can of worms to be opened, but I suppose in order to keep some level of intrigue, let’s crack it a bit and peek inside.

The short answer is: No. I don’t think a Universal language is possible on the scale that everyone dreams of. 

People have tried, and although we have discovered that we are relatively good at inventing languages, getting people to use them, and use them in the way that WE want, is nigh on impossible. You think herding cats is hard? Try telling humans how to say words.

The long answer is: 

Over the past 900 years, over 900 languages have been invented (source). Many of them have been invented with the explicit purpose of being a ‘universal’ language. 

Thus far, none of them have succeeded.

I think if you’re ready to delve into this full throttle, my first recommendation would be a book called In The Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent. It goes into detail about how, why, and what languages humans have invented since.. well... forever. It also details what happens when we get close to succeeding in a Universal Language - and why we fail anyway. 

One of the most obvious examples of this is, perhaps, Esperanto. 

If you don’t know what Esperanto is, here’s a wiki link. The gist is that in 1887, a Polish eye doctor with big dreams of creating a universal second language which would be less convoluted than English and French, easy to learn, and easy to speak. His hope was that it would bridge the barriers between other languages, make something that would be capable of crossing cultural barriers. Perhaps world peace was in there, somewhere. 

Here’s a sample for those interested:

And by all accounts, Esperanto has since then, grown into one of the most well-known constructed languages in the world! You can learn it online, they have annual conferences, and there have been parents who have taught their children Esperanto as a first language in an attempt to make it their native language! 

However, despite its incredible success, Esperanto has not become a Universal Language in its 100 years of existence. Why? 

Well, let’s go over some issues:

1) Despite the fact that it is advertised as a language that is ‘easy for anyone to learn’, it is still, at its core, a European language. 

Esperanto draws heavily from Romance languages such as Spanish and French, has some features of Germanic languages (English and German) and minor contributions from Slavic and Greek. It uses the latin alphabet, which may seem pretty neutral.... if that’s your alphabet to begin with. 

If your first language is not close to any of the above, Esperanto will be harder for you to learn. Its ‘universality’ is approximately what you would expect - not accounting for much of the world outside of the western one. 

In fact, creating a truly ‘balanced’ language would be incredibly difficult because all the languages of the world ARE so varied. They all have their own grammar and rules, and these rules exist on a circular spectrum. There is no ‘middle ground’, and regardless of what you choose to make it, your language will be similar to one system or another, and it will inevitably be difficult for some people to learn. 

2)   A Universal Language must remain universally constant, but languages, inherently, change. What happens when Esperanto speakers start to develop dialects?

In fact, this has already happened to some degree. Due to Esperanto’s popularity, annual conferences are often filled with people from all over the world who converge only once a year after having spoken Esperanto with their own Esperanto community for the over 364 days. 

What happens? They start to disagree and develop their own way of saying things, shortening words, adjusting grammar... you know, the stuff that MOST humans do with their own language.

We LOVE to have our own stuff. And as language is socially negotiated, every community of Esperanto speakers will come up with different solutions to the same problems. (See English speakers and their various way to specify a plural ‘you’ - ‘y’all’, ‘y’alls’, ‘yous’, ‘you guys’) What happens then is a natural evolution of Esperanto .... into different types of Esperanto. 

Which - not bad, necessarily, but it is perhaps the opposite of what one might imagine for a single ‘Universal’ language. 

3) You can lead a human to a language, but you cannot make them speak. 

At its core, a Lingua Franca - a universal language - has to be something we CHOOSE to use universally. 

Currently, the closest thing we have is English, because English is already THERE for many of us. It’s omnipresent even in countries where its got no reason being. 

If every one of your friends is already using the same messaging app, you probably won’t have much energy to campaign for a different, less known but far ‘more useful’ app. You’re going to go to the app store and download the app, even if it’s buggy and has an annoying interface. It’s already there. 

Anyway... this is all to say - a Universal language is probably possible, but only in the loosest sense of the word. 

Inevitably, we would probably need a Universal language FAMILY. One that is varied to suit needs of the speakers, but is still mutually intelligible in order to promote communication without falling into the colonialist ‘You MUST learn THIS language and you MUST speak THIS language!’.

And honestly, very personally speaking... I like learning more languages. But I would be pissed if I was forced to learn a Universal one without proper support and consideration to what my native tongue was. 

[theedorksinlove]

Hey Alice, I sort of want to start editing and making graphics and i LOVE yours, so I was wondering if you could teach me how you make those?🥺 like your edits and your things (these for example) If it doesnt bother you, of course. No pressure, thank you!

hey !! sorry it took me sO long to answer this, i hope you see it. and feel free to pop in and ask anything else, i’m happy to help <3 

for starting editing i would start maybe editing on your phone to just get the general gist and hang of things ... and then move onto something like photoshop after a while so its not as confusing. 

i'm also going to stick this under a read more because it does get rather long 

also i should probably add a quick disclaimer : i am by no means an expert, i edit for fun and have done so for just over a year, and i have only very recently started using photoshop and there are many other ways / applications to do this / use. now with that out the way lets dive in !! 

okay so i’m just gonna show you how i made each edit ... for the this one i used my phone and these apps ...

phonto is for adding text, you can also download your own fonts of dafont. and polarr is for adding colouring / filters whatever u wanna call it.

so firstly i downloaded my screencaps from homeofthenutty (which is unfortunately a very temperamental website but it’s the best screencap website i’ve found so far).

so onto the actual edit ... i started off my adding my colouring in polarr

then i added a light leak

(i couldn’t remember which one i used previously ahdkkf so i just picked a random one for this)

and i did the same for the other picture which i used (same colouring, same light leak - different angle) also you can save your colourings in polarr by saving it as a style

you will get better at colouring over time ... and there’s loads of presets and tutorials out there to help you as well !

lastly (as this edit was actually quite simple) i added my text in phonto which is relatively easy to use, and i would recommend downloading your own fonts ... you can always come and ask me for font recommendations bcs i lOvE fonts ajdkfkkf. you can just go and play around with the text until you land upon something that you like.

OKAY NEXT ! x

so this one i also did on my phone using these apps

same as last time but also using picsart as well which you can do various things on but i just used to place the images

so same as before i added my colouring for each screencap ... i think i used a different colouring for the middle one of i’m remembering correctly.

then to lay it out as i did i used picsart and went on freestyle :

and then i picked out my three edited screencaps and fiddled around a lot until i got them how i wanted

there is probably a way better application for this because it is very fiddly and requires a lot of patience to get it lined up evenly and the way you want.

after you do manage to get it how you want, i just cropped down my image size on polarr so it looked more even.

then i just added my text on phonto, and overlayed two fonts together to make it look a bit like a postcard or smth lol idk what i was going for haha.

okay last one ! x

this one was my first proper edit on photoshop / lightroom so it’s not the best ...

so i added my colouring on lightroom cc which has the same kinda layout as phonto ... kinda but it’s essentially the same thing.

i transported the coloured screencaps over to photoshop where i added highlights on dean’s face using the dodge tool on a duplicated layer which i put on the blend mode luminosity. i did the same on the screencap with cas in it and added highlights to the background and lighter parts to make it pop a bit more.

i also selected the background on both of them separately using the quick selection tool and went to filter > noise > reduce noise to make it a bit smoother.

then i just added the text on photoshop and voila done !!

if you have ANY questions AT ALL, want me to explain something in more detail or just want more tips, my ask box is always open <333

i hope this helped !! and i do hope you see it because it has been a few days ahsjkdkd

[rigelmejo]

Unrelated completely, regarding listening reading method:

I am genuinely so excited to test the listening reading method out wholeheartedly. When I looked up the method, few people were trying it with Chinese, and of the people I saw a lot were beginners with less vocabulary than I have which I think both made the task harder for them and made their progress look different than I imagine mine will.

For example, in my first attempts using listening reading method, I noticed I picked up a TON of words I could already read, and a TON of phrases I could already read but didn’t properly “chunk” until I heard them aloud. Whereas the beginners tended to document picking up entirely new words, and not understanding much of any paragraph for the first several chapters. Whereas again, because I had more vocabulary, my first chapters I listening reading method did I heard a TON of individual words/followed the main gist, and it took several chapters for me to start finally understanding full phrase chunks and sentence chunks together. I 100% think the listening reading method can work with mandarin, I just think since few people have tried it and shared the experience, I’m going to find out how much it can improve someone’s mandarin myself...

I saw people who did listening reading method with german, and Dutch, who like the creator of the method ended up going from 0 to B1-B2 listening and sometimes-reading* skill in 3-5 months (reading skill tended to depend on how much they focused on the actual text during target language audio/target language text portion). The people with the most success usually already had a foundation of several hundred or a couple thousand common words, and had seen some grammar summarized beforehand (both of which I have already done with mandarin). I’m extremely curious how far the listening reading method can take my reading skills specifically - since the method mainly improves listening, and reading is simply affected a bit as a consequence of picking up new words/reading target language text along with the audio during one of the steps. With Chinese I suspect I’ll have to do more Hanzi learning, and reading-only work like intensive reading, to supplement my reading skills. However I already do a lot of intensive reading, so maybe that will keep the skills relatively even.

I do know that only couple dozen hours of listening reading method already boosted my listening skills a TON. So listening reading method definitely improves listening skills, as it is intended to. The actual method suggests learners listen read through an entire novel in a week or two, then do another novel etc, at least 3 novels though potentially more - and redoing some novels again from the start if desired. For my kind of novels - like Guardian by Priest, that means 106+ chapters, 800+ pages, 30 minutes audio a chapter (53 hours for the English text-chinese audio portion, another 53 hours for the Chinese text-chinese audio portion, and lets say half as many hours to read it in English 26.5 hours). So that is 132.5+ hours to listen read to Guardian. The listening reading method assumes you do a few books, so let’s say around 3 books, 396 hours (roughly 400 hours). Well... no wonder people saw such improvements! 400 hours of listening to comprehensible input in a European language will get an English speaker quite far into learning. Most European languages according to FSI take around 600-750 hours for an English native speaker to learn. Listening reading method would fill a huge chunk of those hours, and if you focus on the reading portion too, then that should definitely at least be a solid foundation into B1 I can imagine.

Listening reading methods creator also tends to do these in 6-12 hour reading bursts per day - which I absolutely never do because I’m lazy and unable to focus on things for too long usually without switching things up. But like I’ve mentioned, even me just doing maybe 12 hours of listening reading method so far, in small 30 minute to 2 hour chunks, has been enough to make noticeable improvement in my listening comprehension. If someone is already intermediate and just wants to improve their listening skill, I think they’d see fast results like I have regarding their listening skill dragging up closer to their reading skill level.

When I read the listening reading method creators website, they sounded like 10 hours was about how long it took (for beginners in a language) to start parsing individual words and recognizing them, 30 hours to start hearing word chunks and phrases they could understand, and 60-100 hours to start comprehending a majority of the words.

I am therefore very curious what my rate of improvement will be. I do feel chinese study using the listening reading method at least for listening skills will see similar levels of improvement. I’m wondering if my listening skills will improve a bit faster, since I’m already past the “progress at 30 hours” mark expectations wise - I can hear many individual words, can hear many sentence chunks/phrases, and just struggle to follow some full sentences and catch brand new words until I’ve heard them several times. I do very much want to completely go through Guardian with this method - for many reasons lol. 1. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in english and I’ll have a chance to use that for study which is cool, 2. Because I’ve been wanting to read it in chinese and this makes it doable/more comprehensible for my current skill level (aka following along to the audiobook I will read at a less slow pace/comprehend more since the English will be fresh in my mind, compared to if I just read it extensively on its own), 3. Avenuex made a beautiful audiobook I adore and I’ll have an excuse to listen to it while actually comprehending everything since I’ll have the English and Chinese novel to look at while o read! So... once I’m through Guardian, I’ll be able to answer for myself what over 100 hours of progress doing the listening reading method produce, how well it works when using a book with a more complicated/high vocab style - which is sort of priest, reading challenge wise, and the kind of novel the listening reading method creator recommends using. Also, I’ll have read Guardian! ovo)/ and I will have read a full priest novel, so I’ll have picked up words by my favorite author that will hopefully make other priest novels easier to read (the same reason Tian Ya Ke may be helpful).

———-

Another thing people who have tried the listening reading method suggest doing first (particularly if studying a language much different than your native language, but for any language tbh). The creator of the method suggested: knowing a few hundred to a few thousand common words, and having looked at a grammar guide or overview prior. That’s something anyone who’s already a bit of a beginner, to low intermediate, probably has done or is doing. In addition, some people who have done this method suggested using something like sentence audio flashcards (in English and target language audio) and listening to them a few times, repeating them, until one felt comfortable with them. Generally common word/grammar ones, and you could do “listening reading” with those sentences too (reading them while listening to the audio). This would serve as a primer to learn the basics comfortably before going into listening reading novels. They suggested doing yjis would make the method work better - they got to B2 in Dutch in a handful of months of intensive listening reading by doing this beforehand and they think it helped a lot. While I think it’s not necessary, I do think of listening reading is hard, then getting a basis beforehand as a beginner and/or covering a easier basics common language material first will help. I use the Chinese SpoonFed Audio files which basically amounts to the same thing but no reading (if I used the flashcards still, it would include reading). So I do have some sentences/phrases/words I have a good listening foundation for already. Also, as mentioned, I do read, so for many common words and Hanzi I already can read them. I do think this advice is very good for beginners though, if they want to see noticable results sooner (versus 30-50 hours into listening reading before they start learning significant amounts - basically it just means they’d do 30-50 hours prestudy instead of basic common words/grammar, to make the listening reading initially less difficult). A total beginner could dive right into listening reading (just like my chaotic self first started to try to read Chinese knowing 500 words and brute forcing mdzs and guardian a few paragraphs at a time), it just means it’ll feel more difficult at first for a while, and they’ll be mostly learning basics for a while first before they build enough of a basis to comprehend more. Which is fine. It all just comes down to how much incompréhensibilty can you personally tolerate without giving up. The creator of the method? Can tolerate a TON. Me? I can tolerate a brutally large amount, surprisingly, but usually I need to comprehend had least the main idea and that’s a minimum of like 40-60% depending on which parts I’m comprehending. Most people will feel it’s unbearable until they can comprehend at least 80-90% (and I certainly PREFER material I comprehend that much of). And most people ideally are comfortable once they understand 95-98% (think reading a book in your native language with some unknown words you can figure out easily from context, or graded readers made to feel this easy with around this many unknown words for you to figure out in context, or maybe manhua/manga/comics once you’re a pretty decent intemediate level in a language etc).

[isuckatwritingmyfriends]

The 5 times Eddie doesn't know Buck speaks spanish +1 he finds out. Be gentle,, I used google translate lmao

1.

"Ni siquiera ves lo que me haces, ¿verdad?"

Buck's eyes are startled up from his phone, lifting to meet Eddie's where he was sitting next to him on the couch, hand rubbing soothing circles into his bad leg. Buck tilts his head, confused, and that's where Eddie makes a fatal mistake.

He laughs softly, "You'll ruin your eyes, staring at that thing so intensely."

Buck, still confused, opens his mouth to ask, but the bell rings and Eddie is gently placing his leg down to rush off to the trucks. He has no choice but to follow.

Sitting across from his best friend, Buck tries to think back on every interaction they've had since they met and- holy shit. Eddie doesn't know I speak spanish.

The call was relatively easy, but the shift had been long nonetheless and when they get back to the fire house, Buck's too distracted to remember to ask Eddie about what he said, before he's off to the showers. And why he lied about what it meant, he thinks. He narrows his eyes down at his boots, it's not like it was anything bad. Why lie?

And Buck gets close, so close to threading a very important needle when Eddie clangs his locker shut. "We'll see you for movie night tomorrow?" he asks, almost to the door already. Buck, mind elsewhere, nods distractedly at him. And he's gone, running off to pick up Christopher on time.

2.

Buck tells Maddie. Because of fucking course he doesn't think about the consequences of his actions. She grins at him, and immediately he knows he's made a mistake. "Oh? What do you do to him, Buck?"

He groans and tries to shove his hand in her face. "Stop, it's not like that." She gives him a flat look. He sighs. "Its not that I don't want it to be, you know that, I just don't want to mess it up with my feelings."

"Really though? What if he feels the same?"

"What if he doesn't?" Buck looks down at his plate, pushing his food around with his fork. "I can't risk losing him and Christopher on a what if."

Maddie frowns at him, but doesn't push much harder. "Well, you're going to tell him you speak spanish then?"

Buck shrugs, "I mean, yeah. I just don't get why he'd hide something so simple."

Maddie looks at him, thoroughly unimpressed, but before she has the chance to tell him that he's the smartest idiot she's ever met, his eyes catch the time on his phone. "Oh shit," he grabs his jacket and keys, fumbling around the table to kiss her cheek. "I love you, I'm gonna be late to movie night!"

"Bye, I love-" The door slams and she hears his quick steps fade down the hall. With a small smile, she pulls out her phone. Chimney's gonna love this.

--

Buck makes it barely on time, maybe speeding a bit through the less busy roads, but no one can prove it. He arrives two minutes before 7, bustling through the door without knocking.

He manages to close the door behind him before he catches an armful of Christopher. "You're here!" he shouts.

Buck grins down at him, lifting him for a squeeze and a twirl. "And I wasn't even late!"

Eddie walks out of the kitchen, smiling, "Just barely. Are your tires smoking?"

Buck sticks his tongue out in response.

Eddie's eye roll is instant, "¿Cómo estoy enamorado de un hombre tan inmaduro?"

Buck fumbles, almost dropping Christopher. He plays it off by setting the kid down, and asking "What'd you pick for a movie?"

Christopher, oblivious to Buck's small heart attack, happily takes his hand and leads him to the living room, rambling about how The Little Mermaid never gets old.

"Hey, how about you help me get the popcorn and drinks, buddy?" Christopher obliges, moving for the kitchen and releasing Buck. Eddie watches him until he's out of earshot, then turns to Buck. "Was that your leg? Is it bothering you any?"

Buck shakes his head, face turning red. "No it's just-" you literally just told me you love me, I think I'm allowed to freak the fuck out!

"It's okay, you go sit down and we'll be out in a sec."

Then Buck is left staring after his best friend, some weird feelings clenching in his chest.

3.

"HE SAID WHAT?!"

Buck slaps a hand over his sister's mouth. "Shut the fuck up! He'll hear you!"

Both pause and lean to look into the living room of Buck's apartment where Eddie and Chimney are aggressively mashing buttons on controllers. Chimeny looks over and smirks. Eddie glances over with a soft smile aimed at them. Buck waves.

He turns back to Maddie, still smiling, but frowns when he sees her face. "Stop it."

"I didn't say anything." She's grinning though, and Buck has been on the receiving end of that grin too many times to be so naive.

"Leave it."

Maddie looks like she's going to burst, so he takes her arm and pulls her over to his front door. "Oh was it so cute when you told him? Was he embarrassed?"

Buck mumbled something under his breath.

"What was that?"

He shot a quick glance back towards the couch, letting him have a moment of mourning for his poor game before turning back. "I didn't tell him."

Maddie's eyes went wide, her mouth opening to presumably start shouting at him, but cuts herself off with a garbled noise. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to compose herself. Buck braces himself. "So you're going to stand there and tell me that he told you, to your face, that he loves you-"

"More implied I think."

She slaps his arm and he winces. "Boy if we were alone, I swear to god!" she whisper-shouts. "Are you trying to ruin your friendship?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid!"

"How is this avoiding anything but your feelings?"

"Because he doesn't know I understand what he's saying!" Maddie gives him her best were-you-not-just-paying-attention-to-the-whole-ass-conversation-we-just-had look. It's very good. She's had a lot of practice. Buck pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to explain himself better. "He isn't comfortable enough to tell me when he thinks I'll know what he's saying. And it's different, he has a kid to think about. And I respect whatever choice he makes."

Maddie puts her hands on his shoulders. "You need to tell him. The fallout will be much worse if you let it continue." She smiles reassuringly at him, then walks back to their drinks on the counter.

--

It's after Maddie and Chimney have gone home for the night that Buck and Eddie have a few more drinks and chat. Eddie's talking about the sleepover Chris is at tonight while Buck zones in and out. How does one even begin to explain the thought process that lead him to keeping this secret? Oh god, he thinks, this is gonna be one of those little white lies that snowballs until I have to take it to my grave-

Fingers snap in front of his face, his eyes managing to focus on the smile on Eddie's face as he looks at him. "You okay?"

This is it. This is when you tell him you speak spanish. Buck opens his mouth, "Um actually," he pauses. Eddie looks at him, expectantly. "Uh, yeah, just tired." Damnit.

"We can turn in for the night," he suggests.

Buck nods, "Wanna spend the night? I've got clothes you could use?" NO. Absolutely not. Because you will share a bed and he will be wearing your clothes and you are a serial cuddler. So NO.

Eddie's smile grows, "I'm more concerned about how you hog the blankets."

Buck gasps in mock offense, shoving at him playfully. "I do not!"

Eddie just laughs.

Fuck. I'm so screwed. He just doesn't realize how screwed until they're laying in his bed, Eddie sprawled out on his stomach and Buck on his back, every muscle coiled tight. It's quiet for a while, long enough that Buck thinks he might have drifted off, but he shifts and his voice comes muffled from the pillows. "I can actually hear you thinking. Please sleep."

Buck rolls his eyes. Jokes on you, I'm not thinking, I'm panicking.

Eddie moves again and now he's looking at Buck. "Is it your leg?"

His heart twists in his chest and he shakes his head. "It's nothing. Probably you rolling around so much."

Eddie's quiet, so Buck turns his head to look. "Podría acostumbrarme a esta vista."

Buck's eyes widen. Then he sees a moment of small panic where Eddie thinks 'what if-?' But it's gone as soon as it arrives. "Just enjoying the blankets while I still can."

He huffs, but it's lighter between them and Buck starts to drift off.

4.

When they wake up, Buck finds he has taken another victim. Eddie had rolled onto his back sometime while they were asleep, and had Buck tucked in close, wrapped around him. Buck doesn't immediately panic because it feels too right. But when he wakes up more, he knows he should move before Eddie wakes up.

Buck tries to be subtle, slowly pulling his limbs back to himself, trying not to wake Eddie in the process. Except when he looks up, Eddie is watching him with a small smile. Buck's heart roundhouse kicks his ribcage and he let's out a startled "Oh."

Eddie just laughs, "Eres tan hermoso."

Buck's mouth falls open, but he doesn't say anything as Eddie extricates himself from Buck's grasp and starts for the stairs. "I'll make breakfast."

Once he's out of sight, Buck throws himself back on the mattress, slapping a hand over his eyes. "Fuck me."

--

He doesn't want to tell Maddie. Partly because she'll lose her shit, but mostly because he knows she's right. He's waited too long already, if Eddie finds out- When. When Eddie finds out. I can't keep this up forever.- he's probably going to be mad.

Buck ends up telling her. Obviously. She has the same reaction he thought she would. "He called you beautiful and said he wants to fall asleep to you?!"

Buck winces and holds the phone away from his ear for a moment. "Uh, basically I guess that was the gist of it."

"THE GIST?!" Buck grimaces, brings one hand up to scrub his face. "And you still didn't tell him?!"

Buck sighs, because he knows, okay? He really does, but he's scared too. "Mads I-"

Her voice is softer. "Buck, I know you're nervous. But you've said it before, you're basically family. Anyone could look at the two of you and Christopher and see how in love you are, see how much you'd do anything for them."

"Yeah but not Eddie." Bucks spins in his chair, he's tired and doesn't know what he's going to do. "If everyone can see how much I love him too, why can't he? Why doesn't he tell me all this? Why does he only say it when he thinks I don't understand?" Maddie sighs, but Buck continues. "I have to assume there's more here than I can see. If he doesn't want me to know, then I don't."

Maddie's quiet for a minute, just the sound of her breathing comes over the phone. Her voice is gentle when she says, "What happens when he finds out?"

Buck kinda just wants to cry. "I don't know, Mads. I don't know."

5.

Buck and Christopher are playing with legos in the living room. Well, Buck is playing, Christopher is actually building something. He's talking about his day at school and that he's excited for the weekend because he gets to see the rest of his family. Buck's listening attentively, asking questions where it matters and nodding along, until he hears a snippet of what Eddie is saying.

The other man is pacing back and forth behind the couch, on the phone with his family in El Paso. They're talking about the barbeque this weekend, presumably what Chris meant when he talked about being excited to see his family. But I'm not supposed to know that.

He's tense when he stops at the farther end of the couch, talking quickly into the phone. "-él debería poder venir, prácticamente está criando a Christopher conmigo." A pause. "No es justo. ¿Has hablado con Abuela?" He's quiet for a few minutes, then, "Christopher ama él. Lo amo él. Él viene, lo quiero allí, y eso es todo."

Eddie hangs up the phone. With his back still to the boys, he lifts his hand to rub his face with a sigh. When he turns around, he meets Buck's gaze. Okay? he mouths. Eddie nods back, and finally smiles. "I'll go grab some snacks, then we can watch some tv?" Buck grins and Christopher celebrates.

It isn't until after they put Christopher to bed and are sitting together on the couch that Eddie tells him about the barbeque.

"I want you to come. I mean," he scratches the back of his neck. "If you want to come, I would like you to."

"Is that what the phone call was about?"

Eddie gives him a long look and Buck thinks, this is when he realizes. But he doesn't, just sighs and says, "Yeah. Some of my cousins are... well, I'll just say difficult. My parents thought it would be best if it was just Christopher and I, but I told them that we want you to go."

Buck is, well, he's- I'm fucked. I love them. Eddie mistakes his silence. "No pressure though," he laughs.

Buck smiles and nods. "Yes. Yeah, I would love to go."

Eddie's smile lights up his face. "Good, cool, that sounds- uh good."

Buck just smiles back.

+1

What Eddie failed to mention when he told Buck about his cousins was that when he said 'difficult' he really meant 'homophobic'. And just as Maddie predicted, it was getting harder to hide that he knew Spanish. Curse her and her intelligence. Luckily, most of the family were happy to see Eddie and Christopher. And, if Buck was feeling less than modest, most of them loved him.

It started out great: playing with the kids until they all tired him out, eating around a huge table filled with family, chatting around. Buck was finding out many blackmail-worthy stories of Eddie when he was a teenager. With each new piece of information, he had to restrain himself from calling the team and telling them everything.

Buck was also finding out that almost everyone in the family thought they were together. Discreetly of course, they let most of it slip in Spanish, so they probably figured he didn't know they were talking about him. Unfortunately for Eddie, he talked about them all the time, and now Buck knew.

After the initial wave of guilt subsided, Buck made a plan. He went to the kitchen to grab Eddie and him another drink. I'm going to tell Eddie when we get back home. Buck was too busy thinking about how to break it to him, when two of the 'difficult' cousins walked into the kitchen behind him. He didn't notice at first, not until they started shit talking in Spanish.

"Es como él no respeta a esta familia." Buck doesn't turn. He's not supposed to understand what they're saying. Calm down. Leave it alone.

"¡Lo sé! ¿No entienden lo asqueroso que es ver eso?" Wow, that was incredibly offensive. He pushes around a few cans, looking for the drinks they had earlier.

"¡Y ahora Christopher está expuesto a eso!" Buck's hand tightens on a glass. Breathe. Don't say anything you'll regret later. It's not your place.

"No me sorprendería que juguete chico de Eddie corrompa al pobre niño."

Buck stands abruptly, smacking his head off the top of the fridge in his haste. His knuckles are white and he has to force himself to turn and smile. "Found it," he tries to make his voice light. With forced casualty, he walks past them to the counter for the bottle opener.

"Es una pena, él podría haber resultado genial." They continued, or more accurately, tried to continue.

Buck spun on them in an instant. "I know it's not my place to say anything to you, but the two of you are cruel and I genuinely don't know how you come from such a kind and supportive family." The women stood there stunned. "What goes on between me and Eddie is none of your business. And Christopher is growing up to be a kind and caring person. If he turns out to be even half the man Eddie is, he'd still be three times better than you." Buck sucked in a breath and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I think it's time you leave." The voice came from behind Buck. He felt his blood run cold when he heard it. He'd know that voice anywhere.

Buck turned to see Eddie standing in the doorway, arms also crossed, expression hard. He watched his cousins walk past him, embarrassment clear in the way they couldn't meet his eyes. He watched until they made it all they way down the hall and back out to the yard.

As soon as Eddie turned back to him, Buck asked, "How much of that did you hear?"

Eddie didn't uncross his arms, expression now cautious and confused. "You know Spanish."

It wasn't a question. Buck nodded anyway. "I know I said things I probably shouldn't have, but when they started talking about Chris I- I don't even know. I just got so mad because you and him are the best people in the world and-"

"What you said is not the problem," Eddie interrupted. Fuck. He was hoping he wouldn't notice. "Why didn't you tell me?" His expression cracked into one of hurt. Buck's heart twisted. "The things I've said- oh my god, Buck, have you known the whole time?!"

A nod.

Eddie ran a hand through his hair, he looked terrified. "Was this a joke to you? See how much I'd say so you could laugh about it later?" Buck tried to intervene, but Eddie seemed to realize more. "Oh my god, I told you I love you. I told my family and- oh my god you were sitting right there!" He slapped his hands to his face. "Everything my family has said, I can't-"

Buck jumped forward, grabbing Eddie's hands in his. "No, no! It wasn't a joke to me! I'd never- I wouldn't- I could never have made this a joke."

Eddie shook his head, but didn't pull his hands away. "Then why?"

Buck ran a hand through his hair, bringing it down to rub his face before grabbing Eddie's hands again. "You have to understand, I tried to tell you. I thought you knew and then the thing you said on the couch made me realize you didn't. Then I told Maddie and she kept telling me to tell you but-" he let out a sigh. "It was just scary, okay? I didn't want to lose what we had, I didn't want to lost Christopher."

"Buck," Eddie's voice was softer. "I literally told you that I love you. How would you making a move ruin anything?"

Buck tried his best unimpressed look. "You only said those things when you thought I didn't understand. I just thought, maybe you needed time. That you'd tell me when you were ready."

"Oh my god. You're an idiot. I'm an idiot. How do we ever get anything done being so stupid?"

Buck laughed quietly. "That's not nice to say when we just had this really emotional moment."

Eddie just rolled his eyes before pulling Buck for a kiss. When he pulled back, he was grinning. "We can't tell the team about this. We'll never know peace."

Buck let his head fall on Eddie's shoulder. "I told Maddie. They definitely already know."

---------

Here are the translations in case y'all were wondering...(if they're not right, blame google, I did my best lol)

Ni siquiera ves lo que me haces, ¿verdad?- (You don't even see what you do to me, do you?)

¿Cómo estoy enamorado de un hombre tan inmaduro?- (How am I in love with such an immature man?)

Podría acostumbrarme a esta vista.- (I could get used to this sight)

Eres tan hermoso.- (You are so handsome)

-él debería poder venir, prácticamente está criando a Christopher conmigo.- (-he should be able to come, he's practically raising Christopher with me.)

No es justo. ¿Has hablado con Abuela?- (That's not fair. Have you talked to Abuela?)

Christopher ama él. Lo amo él. Él viene, lo quiero allí, y eso es todo.- (Christopher loves him. I love him. He comes, I want him there, and that's it.)

Es como él no respeta a esta familia.- (It's like he doesn't respect this family.)

¡Lo sé! ¿No entienden lo asqueroso que es ver eso?- (I know! Don't you understand how gross it is to see that?)

¡Y ahora Christopher está expuesto a eso!- (And now Christopher is exposed to it!)

No me sorprendería que juguete chico de Eddie corrompa al pobre niño.- (I wouldn't be surprised if Eddie's boy toy corrupts the poor boy.)

[kerra-and-company]

14 from the angst/fluff prompts! -Knight of the Thorn

Heya! Thanks so much for the prompt! :D @knight-of-the-thorn Have this thing that got way longer than I expected! (Fic continues below the cut!)

14: “I can’t do this on my own.”

Warnings: self-deprecation, emotional denial, a semi-unreliable narrator in places, spoilers for HoT

i. 1323 AE, somewhere in Maguuma

“Hey, Nish!” Rel called.

Xe stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“One of my lute strings snapped,” he said, holding up the offending instrument, “and I need to restring it. Could you help me?”

An utterly transparent request. Rel’s fingers were nimble, made to stitch wounds together and weave patterns with his magic. He would have no problem restringing his lute. He wanted xyr presence, not xyr help.

But xe was exhausted. Xyr Mother’s concern pressed in on xyr mind, and the Itzel near Rel looked at xem with too-wide eyes, and it was too much. Xe would break, and that couldn’t happen. Xe had to be strong.

“I need to sleep, Rel. If you are still having trouble in the morning, I’ll help you then.”

Nisha headed towards xyr hut on the village outskirts, pretending xe couldn’t feel xyr brother’s gaze burning into xyr back.

ii. 1325 AE, headquarters of the Durmand Priory

Rel had left, on his way to Caledon. Nisha had let him go because xe had to.

But xe felt like xe was balancing on the lip of a deep well without him. Xe could fall at any moment, and xe might never be able to climb out.

Xe was so distracted by trying not to cry that xe nearly missed the asura just inside the Prior entrance. Xe skirted around her, but xe brushed just a little too close to her fiery hair and leapt back with a quiet “Ow!”

The Archon spun around, dropping her stack of books on the floor. “Oh, by the Alchemy! I’m sorry, Nisha, I didn’t notice you—are you—”

“I am fine, Archon, but thank you,” xe said, unable to keep a tremor from xyr voice and cursing xemself for it.

She was about to bend down to pick up the books, but she paused and narrowed her eyes. “No, you’re not.”

“I am…uninjured,” Nisha rephrased. Xyr voice was steady this time. Xe was thankful for it.

The asura’s eyes narrowed further. It made Nisha feel far too seen, and xe barely resisted the urge to lash out. But she stayed silent for a moment, simply retrieving the novels from the ground and standing up again. Then she snapped her fingers, the sound muffled by her gloves.

“Nisha. Every time I reshelve these books, I have to get on a stepladder. I hate stepladders, and you need something to do. Come help me.”

“You don’t need me, Archon.” Politely dismissive.

“No, I don’t. But I could use your help,” she said. Her eyes were bright. “And I, in fact, want your help.”

Nisha wasn’t sure what to think or say. A small part of xyr mind whispered, Maybe this is okay. Maybe it’s all right to let her help you. She wants to help you. She’s not upset—

“As long as we don’t make small talk,” Nisha blurted out.

The Archon grinned. “Fine with me.”

Shelving was surprisingly straightforward—xe was certainly tall enough to make it easy. At the end of it, the Archon asked Nisha to call her Cio.

Xe agreed.

iii. 1326 AE, a hut in the Wayfarer Hills

Nisha felt like xe’d been through one of the clothes ringers humans used. Xe sat on the bed next to Kerra, who had tear tracks on both cheeks and a bandage on her side. Felix was curled up on the floor to their left, truly calm for the first time since Nisha had arrived.

“I can’t do this on my own, you know,” Kerra whispered, the faintest shadow of a smile curving her lips upward. “Will you stay with me?”

“I just found you,” Nisha said, quiet but firm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Kerra smiled in earnest, then. “Good. Because you can’t do this alone, either.”

“I beg your pardon?” Nisha said, eyebrows raising as if xe hadn’t just had an emotional outburst capable of leveling a small village.

“Neither of us are okay. And we have other people—other friends, our siblings—but…” Her glow flared for a moment. “I’ll help you, when you need it, and you’ll help me when I need it. That’s the deal.”

“I wasn’t aware we were making a deal.” Nisha was struck with a completely unexpected urge to laugh.

Kerra’s head bobbed, and her eyes met Nisha’s. “We are.” A flicker of amusement. “You know, you really shouldn’t question your Commander—”

“You are aware that I’m not technically part of the Pact, right?” Nisha interrupted.

It was barely even a joke, but Kerra burst into slightly broken (but still genuine) laughter, the calm after the storm. It must have pulled at her stitches, but she didn’t seem to care.

It took Nisha a few seconds to realize xe was absolutely beaming, and it took xem another thirty to even consider stopping.

iv. 1328 AE, the middle of Tangled Depths

It was one moment. One second. But Mordremoth roared, and Nisha stumbled.

OBEY.

NO, xe roared back, silently. MY head, mine, my own, get OUT! I will not submit; I will NOT let you kill me like you killed my mother—

A hand on xyr shoulder, fingers squeezing, and xe’s eyes snapped open to see Canach standing in front of xem. Nisha distantly wondered how he’d even reached xyr shoulder; he was so much shorter than xem.

Then xe realized that xe was on xyr knees in the dirt.

“Nisha?”

He was afraid for xem, and Nisha hated it. But at the same time, he was there. He was there in front of xem, and he was trying to help. It was too close and too far and too much and not enough.

Xe forced xemself to raise xyr head and meet his gaze. Behind him, xe could see Marjory’s outline, fidgeting just slightly in a way that reminded Nisha of her girlfriend, Kasmeer.

“I’m still me. I apologize for scaring you, both of you. I was…caught off guard.”

“You are not the only one who can hear Mordremoth’s voice, you know,” Canach said, voice as dry as the Silverwastes. His face was impassive, but his eyebrows were furrowed.

“I was not trying to lie,” Nisha replied. “I really am okay.” Xe searched his expression, looking for clues. If there were any, xe couldn’t read them. “Are you?”

Some of the cockiness came back, and he smirked, but it was tense. “I assure you that I am also still myself.”

“You’d better be,” xe said, and then hesitated. “And tell me if you’re not. Please.”

He just nodded, and xe noticed his hand was still on xyr shoulder.

And then Kerra came stumbling out of the jungle. A very ruffled Felix followed in her footsteps.

Nisha was on xyr feet in under a second, as was Canach.

“Ran into some trouble,” the Commander said, relief and terror in her voice.

“Out there, or in here?” Canach asked, gesturing to his head.

“Both,” Kerra replied, eyes shadowed. “And you?”

“We did, too,” Nisha said, strong and clear. “But we’ll be all right.”

Marjory said something about a sylvari code that she didn’t understand, but Nisha was much more focused on a strange feeling in the back of xyr mind, spurred on by Kerra’s half-smile and Canach’s steadfast presence at xyr side.

In this jungle, full of danger and bad memories and an Elder Dragon, xe somehow felt safe.

v. 1328 AE, the Pact base camp in Dragon’s Stand

Nisha stood next to Kerra as the Commander strapped her dagger to her side. “I want to check with you one more time. Are you certain you want me to lead the assault on the Mouth?”

“Nish, you’ve fought for these soldiers since we reached Maguuma,” Kerra said, twisting slightly to fasten the buckle on her belt. “They know you helped defeat Zhaitan and Scarlet, and they know you personally. You’re not from an individual Order, so this isn’t favoritism. You’re the logical choice.” She grinned, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Besides, you’re trusting me to keep your brother safe. I trust you with this.”

“Do you think they’ll be comfortable with having sylvari head both arms of this operation?”

The Commander’s grin stretched just a little wider than it should have, and she slid her bow into its holder on her back. “They’ll have to be.”

Nisha took a deep breath and settled xyr shoulders. “All right, then.”

The two of them left the tent and emerged into the crowd. Kerra went to join her strike team—Rytlock, Braham, Caithe, Canach, and Rel. Nisha met the gazes of xyr friends and xyr brother and thought with all xyr being, If any of you die, I’m going to kill you.

Kerra, who could pick up the emotional gist of that message, let out a snort that she barely managed to turn into a cough and nodded. Canach and Rel nodded too, the first with an odd set to his mouth and the latter with a distant but determined look in his eyes. Braham stared back with a specific type of steadiness xe recognized, Rytlock didn’t stare at all, and Caithe’s eyes slipped away from xyrs.

Xe inhaled and exhaled quietly one more time, and xe climbed atop a stack of crates. Xe’d never been one for speeches, but xe’d thought this one through, rewritten it three times, and practiced it over and over again. Xe knew what to say.

“Defenders of Tyria!” Nisha shouted, and the camp went utterly silent. The soldiers’ focus was entirely on xem, and xe focused on a tree just over their heads. You can do this.

“When the Pact fleet flew over Maguuma, Mordremoth brought it down—brought us down. We lost leaders, allies, and friends.”

“But we are still alive. We are not beaten. We live, we breathe, and we fight!”

The Pact let out a noise somewhere between a cheer and a scream, and Nisha gestured to Kerra, whose eyes were wide.

“Our Commander goes to defeat Mordremoth’s mind. We must defeat its body.” Xe glanced over the crowd now, meeting the eyes of each sylvari amongst them. “The dragon is a dangerous enemy. But I tell you this—we are not afraid! We will never kneel!”

Nisha unsheathed xyr sword and thrust it into the air. “TO VICTORY!”

“TO VICTORY!” the Pact roared in return, waving daggers and rifles and maces above their heads. Nisha jumped off the crates as the soldiers dispersed to their lieutenants and made xyr way to the Commander’s side.

“Time for both of us to go, I think,” xe said.

Kerra shook her head as if to clear it. “Yes, it is. Is everyone ready?”

“Yes, Commander,” came the chorus, and “Yes, Kerra,” said Rel.

“Are you ready, Nisha?” Kerra asked, turning to xem.

“Yes,” Nisha said, slightly surprised to find it to be true. “I know I can’t do this alone.” Xe smiled.

“Luckily, I am anything but.”

[skaliciascribbles]

Almost Like Somebody Else is There

Blue’s lucky the ludonarrative dissonance isn’t strong, or else he’d be having more problems.

Moon Blossom week - Change Moon Blossom au belongs to @somebodyalreadytookthis2

It was subtle enough that Blue hadn’t noticed it at first, but as his time as part of this adventure went on it became harder to miss and ignore. The first time he’d experienced it was long before he’d first actually noticed it. It was the first time he met Cross actually. Cross had been against him joining and was trying to talk him out of it, so when he eventually agreed to let Blue join, the pastel pink that tinted his right eye and the way his speech changed just slightly were completely missed in Blue’s small celebration.

He probably wouldn’t have noticed the strange moments where Cross just didn’t seem to be fully himself for even longer than it had already taken him to notice if it weren’t for Ink. The first few times they’d met Ink, Cross would say he didn’t want something from the merchant, but seemed to get talked into buying it in the end anyway. So it all seemed relatively normal. He’d caught glimpses of a pink colour in Cross’s right eye, but always thought it was some trick of the light.

“Look, this is a key item. Not like item management is a problem, but this is one you need and thus won’t have to dig as much for,” Ink had stated, his eyes looking somewhere beyond both Blue and Cross. Blue had begun to turn to look to see if somebody else was there, but he only turned far enough to see Cross’s face and his right eye had been something between a faded red and a dusty pink while he paid without any more complaints.

When asking Cross about the strange encounter, Cross had been confused. He didn’t remember buying it, and was sure Blue had given in to pay for the thing himself. That made Blue concerned about his new friend and travelling companion. If it had just been for random seemingly mundane decisions, he probably would have let it go, but now that he was aware of it he easily began to notice that it didn’t stop there.

Cross would act and speak differently whenever his eye light left its white colour behind for anything from pink to a vibrant red. Normally he’d find it just as easy to get lost and confused in the castle as the rest of the group, but when his eye light changed colour he had a higher chance of going the right way or picking out the solution to a puzzle. Some encounters with demons kept the white light, but when facing one of the demon lords, Cross’s eye light had gone the most vivid red Blue had seen from him. That fight had Cross doing things Blue wasn’t sure he’d be able to replicate once the colour left. Sure enough, when asked about the fight, Cross couldn’t recall the specifics of it.

It was by accident that he’d realized that the same thing happened to Dream some times as well. The whole thing was harder to notice for Dream physically as his eye lights would both change to a lighter yellow that had a bit of a peachy colour in it as well. Strangely enough, the behaviour he picked up when acting strangely matched Cross’s strange behaviour. The same mannerisms in speaking with some of their actions even lining up to match.

As he kept notes on the similarities between the two, he began to wonder if somehow Nightmare’s supposed ailment was similar to this. The only problem with that theory was that Nightmare would vanish during the time his memory failed him, whereas the other two would stick around. There was also the fact that the two would remember the gist of what had happened even if specifics didn’t line up, whereas Nightmare had holes.

Eventually, Blue got fed up with knowing nothing. He knew barely anything, Nightmare knew less than him, and Cross and Dream somehow knew even less. It was frustrating and he wanted answers. So, he went to the only person he figured might have them.

Ink was lounging in his shop that was luckily still in the same spot Blue could remember last seeing him. The magic merchant was playing his flute along to the strange noise that seemed to be a song somehow played with multiple grass whistles that was somehow always present. The other noticed him quickly, perking up as he put his flute down. “Here to buy something? It’s an odd time for you to be doing so.”

Blue shook his head. “I have questions that I think only you will be able to answer.”

“Ooo!~” Ink was leaning against the front of his shop. “What kind of questions?~”

“Questions about the strange things going on with Cross and Dream. They seem to happen when we’re around you a lot, and almost like you trigger them sometimes, so I want to know what’s happening.” Blue pushed himself to try and find some line between polite and demanding. The temptation to slip into the more casual speak he would hear more often while growing up was also there, but if he wanted to get accepted as a knight he knew he had to work on his more formal speech.

One of Ink’s ever-changing eye lights turned into an exclamation point while the other turned into a squiggly line. “Oh! You mean when-” a strange layered noise that had Blue cringing left Ink’s mouth “-is doing things!”

“Wh-what was that noise?” Blue couldn’t help but hunch into himself and reach to fiddle with his scarf.

Ink rolled his eyes with a huff. “I think the fourth wall is censoring me. I’ll have to break it for you sometime.”

“You… probably shouldn’t be breaking walls?” Blue wasn’t really sure what was going on right now.

“Aw c’mon, they’ll love it,” Ink said with a wink Blue had sometimes seen him throw towards empty space.

Blue’s face pitched into confusion. “Why are you giving me that look?”

“Because you’re sharing eyes,” Ink responded as if this was somehow something obvious Blue should already be knowing.

“You know what? I think I’m going to look for answers elsewhere. Thank you for your time.” Blue ducked out of the shop quickly, hoping he really wouldn’t have to go back to Ink for the answers. Trying to understand him was more difficult than trying to understand even the insane demons chattering. There had to be an explanation for what was going on that made more sense than trying to decipher Ink’s cryptic words.

[justjessame]

The Deal Chapter 70

It’s extremely difficult to get through to a child who has been beaten down, with fists AND words, to have a healthy understanding of how much worth they have in their family/community. That made the questions I had for Lydia about her mother and her mother’s role as Alpha damn near impossible to answer. Not that I stopped trying.

“Come on,” I took the keys down from the hook near the exit, unlocking Henry’s door first. “If you two so much as twitch and make me THINK you’re going to run, I’ll fucking make sure that running is the last thing either of you can do for the foreseeable future, understood?” I am forever shocked at how formidable I can sound standing at barely five foot tall, but watching Henry nod and swallow hard enough for me to hear it confirmed that he took my threat as seriously as I meant it.

Unlocking Lydia’s, I stood back and waited for her to exit. Before she could turn toward me, the main door opened and Daryl stood blocking the sunlight. Well played, I smiled up at him. “Taking ‘em for a walk?” I nodded and he stood back, waiting for our charges to join him outside.

This time, since he’d been listening to my issues with the current line of questioning, we worked in tandem. Trying to gather intelligence on how important Lydia was to her people, her mother, and their plans I let Daryl discuss it with her. Henry and I were, well Henry was moral support, I was a tagalong that wanted to tag my ass back home.

 I should have known, as the day grew longer, that my visit wouldn’t end happily. There was never a day that ended away from the relative safety of my own four walls that didn’t end covered in horseshit and sadness. Eventually, anyway.

I was inside, sitting with Tara, listening to her telling me all the reasons she didn’t want to lead Hilltop and was ill equipped for it reminded me of how Dad had felt so many different times over the years.

“You’re smiling. Why are you smiling?” She was staring at me like I’d grown a third head. And my smile grew.

“People who want to lead are usually ill suited for it, Tara, it’s the people who are forced to lead and do it reluctantly that are best at it.” I shook my head and then my smile dropped when we heard a commotion start outside. “What was that?”

That, it turned out, was Lydia’s people. Her mother, actually, since Alpha was the one who actually spoke. I stood beside Tara, looking down at the crowd of people who looked far more like walkers than humans, staring up at us as this lump of a woman demanded her daughter be returned to them. That they have two of ours, a man named Luke and Alden the blacksmith apprentice. A baby cried, and I felt my heart stop beating in my chest as Alpha mentions that we are all animals, and animals have babies. As the child cries, she demands its mother leave it, since it will draw the walkers and danger. Without hesitation, the woman does. My heart stops, seeing this person sit this completely innocent and fragile infant down and walk away.

The tears fell quietly from my eyes, even as the tiny infant’s arms waved, as its pitiful screams grew, and I felt the breath leave my body. Chaos, the cries, the mass of Alpha’s people, Daryl, walkers, Lydia- If I was asked later, and Negan did, I couldn’t say how long it took. Hours, minutes, days? I had no idea. Forever. No time.

I know that Lydia was greeted with a sharp slap by her mother. I know that Alden and Luke were back among our people. The baby, the tiny infant that was left to die as a distraction for beasts, was saved by one of the people that Judith rescued. Connie, a deaf woman, a woman who offered this baby to me as a gift as though someone told her that I would want it, that I would welcome it. I look at it like someone would look at poison ivy or the plague. Or I did if the look she gave me was any indication.

“She meant no harm, Jessi.” Daryl offered, standing next to me as I was preparing to take my leave the next day. Danger or no, I wanted to be home. I didn’t look at him, I didn’t dare. “Everyone knows-”

“That I’m broken?” I snorted, shaking my head and tightening the saddle on my horse. “Giving me a random baby because its mother is a genetic fucking asshole isn’t going to fix my broken uterus, Daryl Dixon.” I checked and double checked the saddle, I wanted nothing to slow my trip. “Can you hand me that-” I pointed at my bag and my bow. “The quiver is leaning next to-”

“The table, I got it.” He handed me each in turn. “No one said she was gonna fix ya, Jess.” He was careful not to touch my skin, remembering at least that much about my twitchy little self. “Can’t help but see how much it hurt ya to see-”

I laughed hard then, without a fucking hint of humor. “What fucking asshole wasn’t hurt to see it?” My eyes met his then, hot and hard. “Seriously? They left a BABY to fucking die, Daryl. RIGHT fucking there, daring us to watch.” I pointed, like he hadn’t bore witness too. “I CRIED. So fucking what?” I shook my head and after securing my bags, hooking my bow over the saddle horn, and getting situated myself, I put my quiver within easy reach. “I’m going home. Where people don’t usually randomly hand me infants as parting gifts.” I waved and headed out. Hoping like fuck I was finished with my part in this madness for a long while.

 I wasn’t home for more than a few hours, I fucking swear, when the entire bullshit showed up on my FUCKING doorstep. I wish I was joking. I truly do. I really truly do.

Teenagers. I swear, my dad got off so lucky with me. He might have teased that I had horrendous taste in the guys I dated, and I did, to be fair, but I wish he was around so I could point at Henry and go “REALLY?!”

First of all, he had ‘runaway’ with Lydia during her mother’s demands for her return at Hilltop. Then, once they were found, Lydia returned to her rightful place which I might remind everyone Daryl and I were NOT happy about, he decided to pretend that he was a knight in shining armor and go after her. I swear to GOD, someone (looking at you Carol) had better have a fucking conversation with Ezekiel about these grandiose ideas before they get someone fucking killed.

Which leads me to my doorstep. Or Alexandria’s gate. Daryl, Lydia, Connie (of the ‘here’s your new baby’ variety), and Henry (I came to rescue you m’lady, and oops I have a boo boo) all waiting at the gate. I was only excited to see Dog. And so was Mom.

 I was with Negan, who was listening to me as I railed against the entire fucking last hours of my visit to Hilltop, when Judith came to let me know we had visitors-AGAIN. Ugh.

“Go see,” Negan said, kissing my temple through the bars. “I doubt they brought the baby all this way,” he was teasing, I hoped. “Come back, tell me what’s going on. I love you.”

And after sighing heavily, reminding him that I loved him right fucking back, off I went to see what the high holy hell had gone fucking wrong again.

 The gist was our knight was wounded, our damsel was terrified and not sure she was worth it, and the adults were awkward (Daryl) and super unsure of me (Connie). But at least Dog was unscathed. While Henry got sutured in the infirmary, Connie and Mom bonded, Lydia kept her hero company and Judith got time with her uncle. That left me and my four legged pal, which I was pretty fucking pleased about.

I was playing with Dog, ignoring humans in general, when I overheard Mom giving Lydia a horrible nugget of advice that I felt the need to tell her my opinion on, since she insisted.

“Telling a young girl who is the victim of REPEATED extensive physical and emotional abuse that she should take her own safety into her own hands, is a pretty shitty way to lead, Mom.” I offered, keeping my eyes down as I ran my hands through Dog’s coat. “Don’t explain, you asked me to tell you my opinions, this is one.”

“She’s going to bring it down on our heads, Jessi.” Her voice was so low, I felt like her lips would barely be moving. “Can we afford more loss?”

I snorted. “Loss? Is that what we’re going to weigh now?” I shook my head and scratched Dog’s ears. “Humanity, Mom, count the humanity we cultivate.”

She came to me later, not much, just long enough that I’d seen Judith with Daryl and heard her asking him what our dad would do in Mom and the other leaders’ positions. Not a fair question, not really. She missed Daryl, I knew that, but I also knew that Daryl felt strained in Alexandria. Too cultured, which was hilarious since the first time it had been destroyed during the Savior War.

“Judith is-” She sighed, and I knew, I could feel it. The rebellion of my little sister. Her thirst for more understanding. To know more. “Negan thinks she’ll get it elsewhere if I don’t give it to her myself.”

“He’s not wrong.” I offered, handing her a drink. “I know you hate to hear that.”

“I do, but I want your honesty, and that’s what it is.” She smiled, and then sighed. “We’re going to The Kingdom. “Do you want to join us?” I shook my head. “Should I tell them to expect a long term visitor in his cell?” I laughed and asked if RJ was staying behind for me to take care of.

[fanfoolishness]

a world for the birds (2/10)

Andy DeMayo took up birding years ago, but his favorite hobby takes on new meaning when shared with his nephew Steven.

A series of looks at Andy and Steven’s growing family relationship.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

 ***

Chapter 2: complicated

Andy tried not to get his hopes up too much.  After all, Steven was a teenager, and Andy himself had been in his late twenties before he’d really started paying attention to birds.  Just wasn’t an activity you saw a lot of kids doing.  Most of the people he ran into on his travels with binoculars were older than he was.

He tried to prepare himself for the inevitability of Steven having lost interest since last month, for him to cheerfully admit he hadn’t cracked open the Sibley’s at all and would rather go to the arcade or hang out with his friends.  And that would be okay, the kid gave it a shot and he didn’t like it, and that was still pretty good, right?

He was utterly dumbfounded to walk up the steps to the beach house and see Steven sitting there, binoculars around his neck, the Sibley’s flipped open to hawks.  “Uncle Andy!  I’m glad you’re here.  Is that an osprey?”  Steven pulled off his binoculars and handed them to Andy, pointing out a ways beyond the surf.

It took him a moment to adjust Steven’s binoculars, but Andy grinned once he got the bird in sights.  The osprey hovered above the waves, white wings with black patches stretched wide, large keen eyes in a clever face watching for signs of fish below.  “Sure is.  You really been keeping up with this stuff?  I mean, you don’t have to if it’s not your thing.”

Steven smiled up at him.  “Well -- I mean, it’s something you really like, right?  And it’s something we can do together.  I dunno, I think that’s cool.  I love playing music with my dad, or helping the Gems build Little Homeschool, or training with Connie -- it’s something you and me can share.  And it’s fun.  I always thought animals were really cool, but I’m really getting into the life list thing.  Like collecting G.U.Y.S. and G.A.L.S. toys, but real.”

“Yeah, that makes sense, kid.  I think,” said Andy.  “Huh.  You’re a very positive person, you know that?”

Steven laughed.  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“So what’s this Little Homeschool thing?  You guys building something?”

Steven looked guilty for a second, a furtive wince.  “You remember Garnet's wedding?"

"I remember runnin' for my life when a spaceship showed up," Andy snorted.  "Yeah."

"You know we lost the barn then, right?”

"Nah, I just got outta there as fast as I could.  Didn't get a chance to reconnect with your dad until weeks after that."  Andy sighed, gnawing on his bottom lip with his teeth.  “I did notice it wasn’t there the last few times I’ve flown out this way.  Meant to ask about it at the wedding, actually, but something distracted me... don't remember what...."

"Aw, come on, Uncle Andy," Steven said, raising his eyebrows.

"So what happened to it?  Some magic stuff?”

“Yeah… my friend Lapis kinda ran off with it to the moon, then she dropped it on one of my Mom’s relatives.   They're the ones who were attacking us at the wedding.  The barn didn’t make it,” said Steven, looking sheepish.

“I don’t even wanna know how she took it to the moon.  The actual moon?  I mean, I know your space family, y’know, comes from space, but I thought they used spaceships and stuff. Not barns.”  Andy shook his head.  He had to figure out how to stop being surprised by the stuff that came out of this kid’s mouth.

“She has water powers and can fly,” said Steven matter-of-factly.  “Gems don’t need to breathe in space, so all she had to do was surround the barn with water and fly it up there --”

“Yeah, when you put it like that, it sounds so easy,” Andy chuckled.

“I know it’s weird,” said Steven in a rush.  “Who just flies off with a barn to the moon, right?  But anyway, since the barn didn’t survive the fight we had with my mom’s relatives, the land was free.  There’s a lot more Gems living on Earth than there used to be -- I mean, it’s complicated, but that’s the gist of it -- and they needed somewhere to live.  So they’ve started building a little colony near Beach City.  Mayor Nanefua did some complicated government stuff to make it all legal and it’s going really well.  We could go on a tour, if you want --”

Andy didn’t know why his chest felt so heavy so suddenly.  He’d known the barn was gone for a few months, didn’t know what had happened, but knew it had to be something related to the blue and green ladies that lived there.  He’d already made his peace with that.  So why did Steven’s explanation make him feel a little bit like crap?  He thought of his mom and dad tinkering in the barn, the smell of grease and metal, summers with Greg and the other cousins running around in the fields, and he blinked hard.

“Are you okay, Uncle Andy?” asked Steven uncertainly.  “Maybe we should have asked you first--”

“Nah, it’s fine,” said Andy.  And it was, or at least, it would be.  “I don’t have a lotta time this visit, but maybe next time we could go check it out.”  He shrugged.  “Why are there more Gems now?”

“Oh!  Well, there actually were a lot of Gems on Earth, but they were corrupted -- jeez, how do I explain that -- they were sick and that made them act really weird and look like monsters.  They didn’t know who they were.  But the Diamonds and I -- my mom’s relatives -- we healed them.  They’re just like Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl now.”  He considered.  “Okay, maybe not exactly.  They still look a little different and they lost thousands of years of memories, but they’re trying the best they can to get back into a normal life…”  His voice trailed off.

Andy stared, raising an eyebrow.  “That sounds, uh, intense.”

Steven held his hands out, shrugging.  “I guess it kind of does.”

“Why’d your mom’s folks help you with that?  I thought you guys were fighting so bad you dropped the barn on them.”  Andy leaned back against the railing, crossing his arms.

“I mean, that was Lapis, not me,” said Steven, laughing, but the sound seemed forced.  “It’s, uh,  really complicated.  They didn’t know I had my mom’s gem yet, and then when they did they didn’t realize that I wasn’t her just shapeshifting, and we -- they -- um, the important thing is they came around.  Eventually.”  His hand dug into his shirt over his stomach, like it hurt him.  

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Andy admitted.  “But family’s complicated.  Sometimes it ain’t easy, dealing with them.  You know?”

“Yes,” Steven said in relief.  “Yeah, that, exactly.”  He let out a long, shaky breath, lowering his hand and resting it in his lap.

Andy gave the kid a worried look.  He didn’t like how he’d looked almost… scared, talking about his mom’s family like that.

“So,” he said brightly, changing the subject, “you still wanna check out some summer birds?  Thought maybe we could find some nests around the woods.  It’s a good time for it.”

“Sure!” said Steven.  He scrambled to his feet and leapt in the air over the edge of the deck, and before Andy could cry out, he floated gracefully to the ground.  Oh, yeah.  The floating thing.  Andy knocked a fist against his chest, trying to fight back against the burst of adrenaline that had flooded through him a second ago.  Phew.

He took the long way down, bringing Steven’s binoculars with him, holding the handrail down the stairs, careful not to slip.

***

“Uncle Andy!  What’s this little fella?” Steven asked in a whisper, staring hard at a bird a few feet away, perched boldly on a log in the open.

Andy glanced at the bird, neat gray body, jaunty black cap, rusty rump.  “Gray catbird,” he said softly.  “They’re close to mockingbirds.  Not nearly as good as mimicking as they are, but they do their best.  Mostly they just meow.  Mew, mew. ”  The catbird flicked its tail, cocking its head at them.

“That is adorable!” Steven squealed.  “Aww, hey there, little buddy.”  The bird hopped off of the log, strutting around in the loam, bold as you please.  “I like this one.”

“They’re pretty common.  You’ll see ‘em all over.  Even in cities and towns.  The only place you don’t really see ‘em is out west.”

They watched the catbird for a moment before it flew off into the trees.  “You said they can mimic things?”

“The mockingbird’s the best at it,” said Andy.  “How do you think it got the name?  The males’ll sing anything they think might get a female’s attention.  They can sound like hawks, jays, shoot, I’ve even heard them sing car alarm songs in Southland City.”

“It’s kind of like shapeshifting, but for birds,” said Steven.  “That’s pretty cool.”

“Steven,” said Andy seriously, “all birds are pretty cool.”

“Ha, of course, Uncle Andy.”

***

(Bird photos from the Cornell Lab's All About Birds site.)

[yue-muffin]

Why is it that the novels, visual novels, and manga that I’m interested in always have the hardest vocab, which is my weakness lol. Stories set in modern day, are easy to pick up a few new words (mostly related to specific settings like the office) because they’re presented in a sea of familiar language. But nope, I have to gravitate to stories set in the Taisho era or ones concerning Shinto or the supernatural, themes that have more advanced vocab you won’t necessarily see outside that context.

I wish I was good enough to translate things like Taisho Mebiusline. I have the psp version and I still haven’t played past the first 20 minutes of the common route because while I do understand the gist, I always feel like it deserves my full attention and not a half-assed skim read, but then I get bogged down because Mebiusline leans towards literary writing and gah. I know it’s because I approach it from a translation angle instead of just enjoying the ride, but I can’t help it lol. Same with Tsuki ni Hoerannee/Why Not Howl at the Moon, which is full of Japanese poetry. I’m not even good at poetry in English, lol.

I do have a weird approach to learning language, which is 1) passive listening, 2) talking to myself once I have a big enough vocab and grasp of grammar, and 3) translation because without a goal to work towards, I hop around and never do any focused study, and end up going back to passive listening/reading.

All of this came up from nowhere because I really want to translate...something, but aside from the one game novel I’ve been chipping at for years, I really want some other fun project to work on. Just can’t figure out what it is I want to tackle, given my interests. I’ve worked on a relatively easy visual novel before, but the way it approached its material was making me really uncomfortable to keep translating, so I dropped it.

I am thinking of doing a parallel text of Koshotengai no Hashihime since that has an official localization I can refer to and I’ve always wanted to read that VN. But that’s just a side thing, that won’t necessarily push my brain to work as it would in a translation project I don’t have a crutch for.

[antiquechampagne]

Antique Champagne - CH45 - Riding High

“How do you think Oswald got that little rad rat to sit still like that?” Hancock pulled out a chunk of funnel cake from a box and crammed it into his mouth. He shook the box at Payne. She smiled but refused more ancient sugary confection.

“Didn’t he say the little guy’s name was Murphy? I think you could train just about any animal if you get them young enough.” She gave the box in his hand a little poke. “Isn’t that your second box? You better put it away before you make yourself sick. This time you won’t be able to blame it on a ride.”

They walked together across the promenade as the sun set, the slender crescent moon glowing softly in the color-streaked sky.

After one more small piece of cake, Hancock handed the box to Payne to stash away.

“Where do you think we should head next?” she asked.

“I thought I told you that you were driving today… but since you asked so nicely, why don’t we go on a little safari?”

Something about his tone hinted at something more beneath his words, but Payne only let herself flash a coy little smile. “A safari, huh? That might be fun.”

Just inside the gate to Safari Adventure, they saw Nate talking with a burly shirtless man in a loincloth. Nate waved them over.

“Hey, guys! Did you enjoy Kiddie Kingdom? I’m guessing Oswald gave you the royal treatment given how long you were in there.”

“You were waiting for us?” Payne asked.

Nate glanced at them; a bit confused. Hancock looked at a nearby decaying fake tree before Payne could get a good look at his face.

“Never mind,” the Overboss murmured. He turned to the man next to him, introducing him. “This is Cito. He lives here with his family. Cito, these are my friends, Mayor Hancock and Payne. They’re from the Commonwealth.”

Cito seemed to be studying them, stone faced. He did not move.

Hancock extended a hand, but the man just looked at him. “Nice to meet you too, big guy. Is your whole family as welcoming as you?”

“Cito’s a bit leery of strangers. I’m sure he’ll warm up to you as we show you around. You might even meet his family, if you play your cards right.”

“Cito not play. Cito lead. Follow.” With that, Cito dashed off into the park.

“Ooo-kay then…” Hancock shrugged.

The group ran after him, stopping at a large building.

“Go see monster.” Cito ordered as he pointed to the doors. Nate grabbed a bucket filled with what looked like offal waiting by the front door. The three started to head inside.

Nate turned back. “Are you sure you won’t come in with us? It can’t get out. I promise.”

Cito snorted and stood his ground.

Once inside, the hairs raised on the back of her neck. Instinctively, Payne grabbed her weapon.

“It’s okay. The cage is reenforced. Plus, we feed her all the meat scraps we produce.”

Hancock seemed unconvinced. “Her?”

Though the entry way lay a gigantic cage filled with stagnant water. Payne caught a slight movement under the grime right before a large reptilian form rose from the water, splashing them. Its massive jaws snapped at the bars, exposing row after row of teeth. The creature’s huge muscular arms raked the metal as it hissed and sniffed the air.

“What the fuck is that?” Hancock jumped back. He had left his shotgun in the room, but his knife made a speedy appearance.

Nate motioned for them to lower their weapons. “She’s the last remaining gatorclaw.” He nodded towards the exit. “That’s why Cito won’t come in here. It’s a bit of a story, but the gist of it is Cito and his family were plagued by these monsters. They were all over the park, picking off anything that got near them. See, they were coming from a malfunctioning cloning facility under the building. I destroyed the machines and killed every gatorclaw I came across… but I couldn’t quite find it in my heart to kill her, so I kept her here.”

Nate stuck a hand in the bucket. “Feeding time, girl!” He put the unidentifiable organ on a long pointed stick. The creature quickly snapped up the bits, never taking it’s tiny eyes off it’s incoming meal. Payne watched curiously. She could tell the creature was immensely powerful under it’s armored hide but was starting to grow round in places.

“Gatorclaw…” Payne mused. “Let me guess… someone had the great idea to mix an alligator and deathclaw?”

Nate nodded.

“That’s one hell of a combination.” Hancock remarked.

“You’re telling me… you didn’t almost have your head bitten off by one!” Nate chucked. The bucket empty, the beast slithered back into the water, perfectly hidden in the murky pool.

When they left the enclosure, Cito was still waiting for them. When they got close, he grunted and sprinted off to the next enclosure. Nate explained that, given Safari Adventure was an exotic animal zoo before the war, he had it cleaned up and renovated to house some of the species found only in Nuka-World.

“The herbivores were the easy ones. Brahmiluffs and gazelles took to captivity relatively quickly. Rad-rats took a little longer. Even the gatorclaw, given enough to eat, has become mostly manageable. Cito has even started to work with some of the Pack members in charge of taking care of the animals.” Cito’s chest seemed to puff out the mention. “Some, however, are proving to be more of a pain than they are worth.”

They stopped in front of a metal cage with multiple layers of metal bars, many broken outwards.

“What was here?” Payne asked.

Nate frowned. Cito grumbled. “That was… a mistake.” Payne could tell Nate was not used to failure. “I tried to house a cave cricket there.”

“A cave cricket?” Hancock balked. “One?”

“Bug angry. Not like cage. Kick. Kill many.” Cito bowed his head slightly. “No more bug.”

“That’s right. No more bugs.” Nate agreed. They walked further down the path. Nate turned to Cito again. “So, Cito, what do you say? Can my friends meet your family?”

Cito stopped and thought. “Family de-cide. Come Hat Man. Come Pretty Lady.” Cito led them through a maze of cages to the Primate House.

Nate drew close to Hancock and Payne. “Let me go in first. They know me. We’ll see what happens from there.”

The Primate House was once a sterile series of concrete boxes and metal bars. Not much had changed through the centuries. They could hear movement and noise from inside, but Payne was not expecting to see a dozen or so squat dark furry bodies on the other side. She froze at the sight of, what appeared to be, a full troupe of completely healthy unmutated gorillas.

Cito was greeted warmly by a pair of females. One even had a small face peeking out from between their stocky legs. Cito grunted, sat on the floor, gesturing to them while they groomed each other.

“Those are his sisters. See the baby? He’s about a year old now. Cito is such a proud uncle!”

Payne was transfixed. As she watched she noticed something very particular and familiar. The baby extended two fingers to it’s forehead and gave them a quick twist before clinging to Cito’s calf. Something dawned on her. She started to study the rest of the family.

“They’re signing!” she exclaimed breathlessly to herself.

“What?” Hancock asked confused.

Ignoring him, Payne quickly scooted away, separating herself from the group, sitting quietly on a nearby concrete step before anyone could stop her. A smaller young adult gorilla had also been watching them intently. With Payne by herself, they crept closer, sniffing, vying for a better looking at the strange people.

Slowly, Payne began to sign. “Don’t be scared. I’m a new friend.”

The gorilla’s eyes widened in surprise, before they excitedly tried to answer her back. Unfortunately, the young one’s enthusiasm made it hard to understand, as they bounded excitedly back and forth.

“You can talk! Look! Look! The stranger can talk!”

More primates inched closer, encircling Payne. Even Cito came over, curious over what his family found so intriguing about her.

“You know hand talk?” Cito asked out loud.

“Yeah.” Even though her was thrilled, she knew better than to startle the powerful animals. She did her best to keep her voice calm. “Growing up, my grandmother lost her hearing. We learned ASL… um… hand talk to talk with her.” She couldn’t help but smile, some of the other gorillas seemed to be just as excited as she was. “I never thought it’d come in handy again.”

The young gorilla pulled on her pant leg to get her attention. As Payne turned to see what they wanted, a large commotion rocked the gathering around her. A huge beast of a gorilla burst through the crowd, scattering them. He stared menacingly at Payne, puffing out its barrel-like chest. Even Cito took a step back. This was the family’s alpha, the silver fur on his back like a shining badge of power and authority.

Nate and Hancock reacted quickly, both going to draw weapon until Payne motioned for them to back off. Payne looked down but calmly continued to sit, refusing to move. The leader of the gorillas paced by her, huffing, before eventually sitting a few feet away.

Reluctantly, he began to sign. “Do not speak to my family. Speak to me.”

Payne nodded. “Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to make new friends.”

He seemed unconvinced. Thinking fast, she thought of a way to hopefully smooth things over.

“I brought a gift.” Payne slowly reached into her pack and pulled out the funnel cake box and presented it to the agitated silverback. He sniffed it before snatching it out of her hand. Everyone, human and primate, watched with anticipation. Ripping the box open, he stuffed a handful of cake into his mouth, still eyeing her.

He put the box on the ground. “Too sweet,” he conceded, sat and relax his posture. At that, the situation was resolved. Some of the family fought over the contents of the box, others began to approach Payne. She was quickly flooded with questions from every side. She kept up as best she could. Not only was her sign language rusty after 200 years of disuse, but cross-species communication came with its own hurdles. Gorilla hands could not do everything a human hand could. Plus, over the centuries, some signs had evolved and changed, the intelligent animals even inventing a few of their own.

Payne could hear Cito taking with Nate and Hancock behind her, but in the drive to keep up with the gorillas, she let the men talk without her. It’s not like she could translate everything thrown at her for them anyway. Soon enough, she was being introduced to every family member, shown every resting spot, rubber ball, bucket… generally getting the inside scoop on everything going with the gorilla troop. As one of the older female members of the family asked her where her family was, the infant who had called Cito ‘Uncle’, climbed up her leg and into her lap. When he looked up at her with his gorgeous brown eyes, her heart melted.

“You are so handsome and brave!” Payne cooed as she stroked his fur, his mother looking on.

“Pretty Lady!”

“Hey, Payne?!” Nate called. Every eye in the Primate House looked over. “Um, we’ve got to get going. Can you wrap things up in there?”

Gently, she put the baby on the ground. “Sorry, but I have to leave.” Quickly thinking, she pulled something from her pack. She handed the stuffed sloth toy she had won in the arcade over to the tiny gorilla. “A special gift for a special friend.” The baby’s eye lit up, but he had to wait until his mother inspected the item before clutching it to his chest. He thanked her quickly before clinging, toy and all, to his mother.

Slowly, she made her way back to the door. Cito and a handful of family members showed them out.

“Well, you’ve quite the impression, now didn’t you?” Nate smiled. “I’ve never seen them that excited.”

“I never thought I’d do anything like that. Not in a million years.” Her grin reached from ear to ear. It was as damn near a pure magical experience as she had ever had. “That was amazing.”

“Well, damn. I can’t believe I got outplayed by a bunch of monkeys!” Hancock teased. “Guess I’ll just have to up my game.”

Stepping out into the night, the stars shown bright, twinkling in the dark beyond the lights of the park. As they walked, a raider ran up to them.

“Sir, there is a bit of a,” he eyed the pair next to the Overboss. “situation that needs your attention.”

“One second.” Nate turned to Hancock. “You shouldn’t need me; everything should be ready for you.” He nodded to them before rushing off into the night.

Hancock grabbed her hand.

“Wait! What are you doing? Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled her along leading her towards the heart of the Safari Adventure.

“It’s a surprise!” He refused to say another word.

A huge tree rose above a dilapidated hedge maze. Without Nate to lead them through, it took a moment to find the correct path. It ended at a rickety industrial lift at the base of the tree.

“Your chariot awaits.” Hancock motioned to the lift. All Payne could do was shake her head as she stepped on. It was obvious he had something planned. The metal contraption lurched to life and raised them up into the branches. They stepped out into what was once a well sized camouflaged viewing platform in the shape of an oversized treehouse. At one end stood a wide patio, open to the sky. The other end had a long counter with a raider stooped over a makeshift grill behind it. He angrily grunted as Hancock walked Payne out onto the patio. Under the stars, a single round table was set with a pair of chairs. There was even a long lumpy candle stuck in a Nuka-Dark bottle flickering in the light night breeze in the middle.

Sitting down, Payne looked around a bit confused. “You know you could have just asked me out on a date…”

“Where’s the fun is that?” Hancock has a misogynous twinkle in his eye. “Besides, I got to pick Mr. Pre-war-ice-cube’s brain what would make a proper romantic surprise.” He gestured lightly around them. “This is what we came up with… a quiet intimate dinner made by best grill master in Nuka-World.”

Almost on cue, the raider unceremoniously announced his presence with a single word “Booze” before plunking a bottle between them, then stomping off back to the grill. Payne stifled a giggle as Hancock momentarily struggled getting the corked out. With a satisfying ‘pop’, the bottle was opened, only to find there was nothing to pour the wine into. Taking it in stride with a shrug, Hancock took a quick sip before passing it over.

Payne sniffed it before taking a swallow. It was slightly acidic and crisp, with an almost fruity taste. It went down more easily than anything she had had in a long time.

“Where in the world did you find this?” she asked. “It’s divine.”

“Apparently, Nate got a prewar bottle from the Cabots.” Unaware of the name, she shook her head. “They are an old Boston family.” Hancock explained. “They’ve been living Downtown since before the war. If you take what some people say, maybe literally… but they take great pride in keeping their stuff in pristine condition.”

Payne took closer at the wine. The bottle looked immaculate, the only signs of age the yellowing along the edges of the label. “Well, it’s better than most of the piss people pass off as wine these days, I can vouch for that.”

“Food.” The grill master roughly placed two plates down before them. Just before leaving, he pulled out a handful of silverware from his grimy apron, tossing them on a pile in the middle of the table.

“Uh, thanks?” Payne called after him. His response was a quick middle finger before heading out of sight. “I don’t think he’s getting a tip.”

Looking down, she was met with a huge slab of seared meat, the juices oozing and mixing with the jumble of roasted vegetables. What it lacked in presentation was made up by the superb aroma, something between aged beef and wild game. Even the smell of herbs and garlic reached her. She felt her mouth begin to water.

Neither Payne nor Hancock waited on ceremony. They quickly picked up their cutlery and dug in. The tasty morsels stemmed any meaningful conversation besides a few words of praise and occasional sigh of pleasure.

Once they regained their composure, they caught their breath with sips of the delightfully sweet wine.

“So, how’d I do?” Hancock finally asked.

Between the calm night with glittering stars, the perfect meal and the thoughtful man across from her, Payne was awestruck. She had not felt this cared for by someone in a long time. That’s just not how the world was anymore. She didn’t realize how much she had missed it. Looking at him across the table, she could not help but smile. He was waiting for her answer, but all Payne wanted to do was drink it all in. Nights like this were all too rare.

Finally, she found the words. “All this… it was a lovely surprise. Never in a million years would I think I would be eating such a delicious meal with such a thoughtful man…” Her eyes drifted from his face to the candle casting shadows on it. She quickly realized that, over the course of their dinner, the candle had burned down, the wax melting into a remarkably realistic phallic shape... complete with translucent drops dripping down from the tip.

Her sudden silence and change in expression must have drawn Hancock’s curiosity, because he let out a hearty laugh. “And here I thought had a shot tonight… but looks like someone else has beaten me to the punch!”

They both roared with laughter.

Finally, Payne leaned back in her chair. “You’re not getting anything until all this settles.” Payne patted her stomach. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a fun idea to pass the time.”

Hand in hand, they slowly made their way back to Fizztop under the dim moon.

[elizzawrites]

Elizza’s World Building 101: Character Names

If you follow me, you’ve probably been seeing my posts where I explain the different naming systems for countries in my WIP, The Paper World Society. A lot of writers are under the impression that character names are separate from world building and complex naming systems are unnecessary, but that’s not the case. While you certainly do not need to be as extra as I am and come up with an original and complex naming system for every single country in your world, names are an important aspect of a society and tell you a lot about its culture. Having a naming system also creates a unifying factor to a fictional culture, so all of the names have a similar sound or feel to them. That being said, let’s go over a few easy ways to come up with a naming system. I am primarily going to use examples from my own work because that is what I am most familiar with (duh). If you want to learn more about a particular naming system, click the links.

1. Use real world inspiration

This is a common bit of advice, where people will tell you to combine or alter real names to create fantasy names. If you combine “Hannah” with “Valerie,” you get “Vannah.” While this is a good starting point, such names don’t tell us a whole lot about the culture they come from and make it more difficult to create cohesive sounding names.

Instead consider using real world naming logic to create names. What I mean by this is that you need to ask yourself why certain cultures name their children a certain way and apply that logic to your story. For example, in Western European tradition, people have middle names because witches supposedly need to know your full name in order to curse you (yes, this is real). So, people gave their children secret middle names to protect them. I took this logic and applied it to a made up country called Stranginar. You can click on the link to learn more about the naming system, but the gist is that people in this country add, drop, and swap letters in their names so that witches can’t know the proper spelling of their name and then curse them. Strangine people also never spell their names out loud for the same reason. So, someone named “Yulie” might spell their name “Ylie” to throw off any witches.

You can see how I took a real world example of a naming system and used its logic to make an original naming system that is unique from the one it was based on.

2. Create “rules” for naming characters

This one is easier said than done because you want your names to sound cohesive without sounding the same. The best way that I have found to do this is to not only pick a few sounds or letters that are common in a fictional country’s names but to assign meaning to those sounds and decide who uses what kind of names (i.e. is there a class, gender, religion divide in the names?).

I will use another country in The Paper World Society as an example. For the naming system of the Siinri Islands, I started with a few simple rules to guide myself: there is a difference between male and female names, the wealthy or upper classes have slightly different names, and every name has a double vowel to show which syllable is emphasized(ex. “oo” or “ee”). With those things in mind, I had to decide how I could make them all work in tandem. I decided to separate the vowels into “feminine vowels” and “masculine vowels” with “a” and “e” being feminine and “o” and “u” being masculine. This left “i” out, which I then made “the divine vowel” to add a religious aspect to the naming system. To create the upper class names, I just created an expansion of the previous rules, where more elite-sounding names only used one vowel (ex. a name only uses the vowel “u”). This made it easier for me to not only come up with new names but to make them sound like they came from the same culture.

A lot of authors do this by picking apart the sounds and meanings in real world names and rearranging them to make new but still significant names. This is another way to think of this tip (and use the first tip).

3. Think outside the box

Don’t be afraid to create a very out their system for naming that doesn’t necessarily adhere to conventional concepts of names. I was curious what a society that didn’t have any names would look like , so I created one. In Vacah people don’t have names and instead refer to each other by their relationship or how they know each other. I’m not going to describe this in detail because it would take forever and you can click on the link to learn more if you’re curious. The point is that you can throw all conventional wisdom out the window and create something entirely from scratch, even if it wouldn’t function in our world.

4. Ask yourself a few obvious but important questions

Does this society have last or familial names? If so, are they matrilineal (passed down from the mother) or patrilineal (passed down from the father)?

Are given/first names passed down?

Are children often named after relatives?

Are there middle names?

What order do the names go in? Does the given name go before or after the family name?

Are names gendered in this society? If so, what makes for a feminine name? What makes for a masculine one?

Are there multiple cultures/religions/groups in this society that have different ways of naming their children?

How does the society’s superstitions and beliefs affect how they name their children?

Have names changed over time? If so, are there “traditional” or “old-fashioned” names?

At what age are children named?

Do names change when a child gets older?

Do names change when someone gets married? If so, who’s name changes? What part of their name changes?

Who names the children? The parents? The grandparents?

Do people address each other by their given name, family name, a title, or something else?

These are just a few things to consider and this post is by no means exhaustive. Let me know how you name your characters and if you have any advice.

[gunnerpalace]

YourIchiRuki (Neapolitan Ice Cream): The BattleTech AU

SUMMARY

A very slow burn (500,000+ words just for setup) of Yoruichi, Ichigo, and Rukia trying to figure out how to deal with feelings and making a relationship work in a universe beset by war and political intrigue, as complicated by the fact that they are A. mercenaries, B. members of the nobility, and C. more than a little incredulous as to how they wound up in this mess in the first place, as set within a Bleach-y adaption of the BattleTech setting.

SETTING OVERVIEW

It is the year 3016. The Inner Sphere, a region approximately 1,000 light-years in diameter encompassing some 2 million stars and 2,000 inhabited planets, is split among five Successor States of the defunct Star League, each ruled by a Great House:

The Lyran Commonwealth, ruled by House Kuchiki

The Draconis Combine, ruled by House Shihōin

The Federated Suns, ruled by House Shiba

The Capellan Confederation, ruled by House Fujita

The Free Worlds League, ruled by House Hasegawa

The Periphery and Deep Periphery beyond their reach remain comparatively disorganized. Earth and the Sol System are ruled by ComStar, currently headed by Primus Sōsuke Aizen.

The Third Succession War, one in a series of conflicts waged nominally to restore the Star League, rages onward and is entering its 150th year. It is fought through all available means of combined arms warfare, but the premiere platform of the conflict is the BattleMech, an armored walking war machine piloted by a MechWarrior.

The young Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, Byakuya Kuchiki (26) has come to learn of the acquisition by the Federated Suns of the so-called Halstead Collection, a trove of Star League-era documents recovered during a military strike against a Draconis Combine staging area that was under construction. Realizing that House Shiba is nearing completion of their New Avalon Institute of Science to study the collection, he devises a plot to infiltrate the institution and gain access whatever secrets might have been found.

The linchpin of his plot is the world of Edo[1], a massively developed commercial and industrial hub. The cosmopolitan nature of Edo provides an easy means of inserting an agent into the society of the Federated Suns who can assume the identity of a native and then work their way onto the staff of the NAIS without raising suspicions. To this end, Byakuya dispatches his "adopted" younger sister, Baroness[2] Rukia Kuchiki (22), on an infiltration and reconnaissance mission, in order that she might prove herself. She is afforded a BattleMech[3] painted in Draconis Combine livery for the sake of additional deception and self-defense should anything go wrong (the Draconis Combine long having had designs on Edo).

After analyzing available data, Rukia decides that the best method of completing her mission and winning his approval is to infiltrate through what she reasons to be the soft underbelly of Edo: its countryside (or what passes for one). She selects the relatively sleepy city of Karakura, on the continent of New Tama, as her entry point.

Unbeknownst to either of the Kuchiki siblings, or indeed anyone in the Federated Suns, this is exactly where a former Duke of the Federated Suns, Isshin Shiba (from a branch of the main Shiba line, and now going under the adopted surname of Kurosaki) chose to flee from his responsibilities and raise a family. Although his wife died tragically some years prior, his son Ichigo Kurosaki (21) is in college, while his daughters (and fraternal twins) Karin Kurosaki and Yuzu Kurosaki (16) are in high school.

Likewise an unknown factor is that Kisuke Urahara (29) and his mercenary company (the Urahara Wild Cards) are in the same place. They have been reduced to the sorry state of having only two pilots, his chief officer (and former Coordinator of the Draconis Combine!) Yoruichi Shihōin (28) and Tessai Tsukabishi (34), as a result of most of the others having decided to go their own way (to form a company of their own called Visored). His company is actively recruiting.

The stage is set for a most curious complex of circumstances to unfold...

INITIAL PLOT SUMMARY

The idea behind this is that, although the setting features mecha, war, and political shenanigans (especially what with at least three people from the Great Houses about), I really wanted to use that as a framework for developing interpersonal relations. So, the general gist of the timeline would be that it starts off sort of like Bleach. 

Rukia shows up in Karakura and starts conducting her mission, but things quickly get out of hand. The canonical Federated Suns present themselves as being as honorable and democratic (or, at least as much so as an aristocratic system could be) but there are still vast wealth inequalities and social stratification in their lands, so my feeling is Rukia sees something or other which flips her chivalric and noblesse oblige switches, and she gets involved (eventually using her 'Mech), which draws the attention of the local military forces.

This results in a Fishbone D-style fight, which Ichigo and his family get dragged into. (Perhaps Rukia's 'Mech winds up being pushed into a residential area as she tries to retreat?) Rukia takes a hit to the cockpit while trying to shield Ichigo, getting injured by some shrapnel, mostly in her right arm. (Whoever she's fighting gets knocked down by her counterattack at the same time.) Ichigo clambers up into the cockpit (probably one side of it being torn open) to try and get to her, and finding her injured, decides he's got to fight in her place after getting her out of the ‘Mech[4].

Since he's the child of a Shiba, Isshin has probably subtly been training him to do something like pilot a 'Mech over time somehow, even if it wasn't obvious that's what it was training for. So, Ichigo is fairly naturally able to work with the 'Mech despite no prior official experience, and manages to take out the opposition without destroying the entire neighborhood in the process. He then passes out from heat exhaustion because Rukia's 'Mech is overheating and he doesn't have any kind of cooling gear on.

This is when Kisuke shows up (as in Bleach), having observed this battle from a distance and sensing an opportunity. He and his team scoop up Rukia and recover both her 'Mech and the Federated Suns one that continued pursuit, basically scouring the place for obvious evidence. Things go from there.

Ichigo wakes up the next morning in bed. Isshin, Yuzu, and Karin are fine (maybe they were knocked out through concussion or falling debris or being thrown against walls or something, but are alright; this is a bit handwavy but whatever, no one really cares that much) and seem to think it was a gas main explosion or something. The authorities are basically covering it up as exactly that. Ichigo remembers, but dismisses it as some kind of nightmare.

Until he meets Rukia on his college campus.

She's been patched up enough to be ambulatory but her arm needs time to recover and she can't pilot properly, and so she enlists Ichigo to help her with her infiltration mission by helping her with school and generally blending in and pretending to be a Federated Suns citizen. He refuses at first, but as she saved his life (and he is rather politically disaffected) and he finds there to be a charm in her notions of what honor and chivalry mean, he eventually comes around and grudgingly assists her. (It later turns out her 'Mech is in the care and repair of Kisuke, who is essentially billing her for the services and making her trade on token favors in the meantime.)

A month passes, much as in Bleach, with Rukia living out of Ichigo's room. During this time they converse quite a lot and grow close (as in Bleach and more especially its live action movie). Rukia comes to appreciate the comparative freedom of life in the Federated Suns (even compared to being a noble in the Lyran Commonwealth) and starts to genuinely doubt her mission and cause, finding them to be incompatible with how she interprets chivalry. During this time, she assists Ichigo in getting revenge on a criminal who was responsible for the death of his mother years prior (Grand Fisher equivalent, probably personal combat rather than a 'Mech fight). This is the final straw in her deciding to desert her mission and go native. She stops sending reports back to the Lyran Commonwealth.

Although Kisuke technically owns the Urahara Wild Cards, the reality of the situation is more complicated. He and Tessai were formerly retainers and subordinates of Yoruichi’s from her time as the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine; when she deserted her post to save them from certain execution (due to a convoluted conspiracy), they all wound up as dishonored ronin. Still, he shows her all due deference (if sometimes playfully) from their former lives. He prefers to take an administrative and executive role, leaving day-to-day operations to her, and logistical matters to Tessai.

It is around this time that Yoruichi returns from elsewhere on the planet, her own independent recruiting efforts in more populated areas not having yielded any results. Finding out what's been going on in her absence (with Kisuke having determined Isshin's real identity in the meantime), she's pretty stunned. (As the former leader of the Draconis Combine, finding out that both the sister of the Lyran Commonwealth's Archon and a plausible claimant to First Prince of the Federated Suns are present on such a world is pretty wild.) She joins Kisuke in taking an immediate interest in this situation, but takes care not to make her presence known around Ichigo or Rukia, reasoning at least the latter might be able to deduce who she is (or rather, used to be).

There is growing involvement from Ichigo's college friends and acquaintances (i.e., Chad, Uryuu, Orihime, Tatsuki) who get drawn into matters for personal reasons. (I'm leaning toward including them for contrast, use as sounding boards and interaction for the mains, additional pilots, and for side stories and subplots.) Of these, Uryuu might have his own (Light) 'Mech[5] already, with the Quincy perhaps being some sort of independence movement or armed militia group. (I find it debatable whether Keigo and Mizuiro should be included, but for once they rather plausibly could be.)

Another month passes, and Rukia decides it's time to leave, having come to reason that her mere presence puts Ichigo and everyone else in direct danger. Unfortunately for her, she is too late: shockingly, Byakuya himself arrives on Edo, along with a rising LCAF military commander, Renji Abarai, in order to retrieve her (again with Draconis Combine-styled 'Mechs). Byakuya has come to view her "failure" as a matter of personal honor.

This is where things start to diverge much more heavily from Bleach. Although Uryuu and Ichigo intervene, their ‘Mechs are no match for Renji's 'Mech[6], let alone Byakuya's[7]. All hope seems lost until Yoruichi, Kisuke, and Tessai deploy into battle in heavy and assault 'Mechs[8]. Suddenly outnumbered 2:5, Byakuya and Renji are forced to withdraw and retreat. However, this skirmish draws the attention of the local military much more heavily than even Rukia's initial actions.

The Urahara Wild Cards immediately make ready to leave the planet, and extend an offer to Ichigo, Rukia, and company to join them. Faced with little choice given the attention about to be brought to bear, Ichigo and Rukia choose to leave, prompting the others to join them too. (Rukia having already been prepared to leave, and Ichigo really not wanting to be apart from her but openly reasoning he was planning to leave home anyway after college. The others perhaps view it as more exciting and amenable than staying behind)

They all depart the planet and, after returning to Kisuke's orbiting DropShip (the Geta-Boshi[9], which is too large to make planetfall) soon also leave the system behind. Although Rukia initially finds the idea of becoming a mercenary distasteful for cultural reasons, a speech by Yoruichi[10], who chooses this moment to properly "introduce" herself, results in the six (or eight) deciding they might as well apply their skills as mercenaries under Kisuke's employ, bringing Urahara Wild Cards up to (at least) two full Lances worth of pilots.

The next several months are spent training and taking odd jobs. The young adults from Edo (Ichigo, Tatsuki, Chad, Orihime, and Uryuu [and maybe Keigo and Mizuiro]) come under the supervision of Yoruichi and Tessai for proper basic 'Mech training. Rukia, having received LCAF training, also gets roped into this as a co-instructor. Ichigo winds up being the star pupil of this program by virtue of his history, although Uryuu is not at all far behind.

They settle on a force structure that roughly balances out relative skill while still affording a strong main team and a good reserve team, yielding Alpha Lance (Yoruichi, Rukia, Ichigo, Chad) and Bravo Lance (Tessai, Uryuu, Tatsuki, Orihime). (If Keigo and Mizuiro are there, they're basically backbenchers until the Urahara Wild Cards get at least two more pilots[11] to form a third Lance, Charlie Lance, which would bring them up to Company strength.)

Rukia and Ichigo continue on much as they had before, on Edo. Although they both, along with everyone else, are issued fairly comfortable and private quarters (owing to the size and nature of the construction of the Geta-Boshi), more often than not Rukia chooses to spend her time in Ichigo's quarters, often falling asleep there. It relatively quickly becomes common for them to share a bed, although their relationship remains nebulous and unofficial; almost everyone else treats them as though they are a couple, but they remain very emotionally and personally intertwined rather than lovers.

The Ichigo-Yoruichi and Rukia-Yoruichi reactions are from the outset established on the basis of mutual respect, but as time goes on admiration, care, concern, and physical attraction start to creep into them. Ichigo winds up often getting additional training and instruction from both Yoruichi and Rukia, though more often from the former. He winds up becoming good friends with Yoruichi off-duty as much as on. They have sort of similar interests and approaches to things, and often wind up talking shop about hobbies or knowledge. Yoruichi and Rukia become fast friends due to a mutual background and lifestyle focus; although the Kuchiki and Shihōin are nominally bitter enemies, it turns out they have a lot more in common than it might first seem. They swap more advanced piloting techniques and train together frequently to keep each other sharp. They also spend time together when off-duty, and in the process also become closer with Tatsuki and Orihime, as there are relatively fewer women aboard the Geta-Boshi and the MechWarriors tend to stand apart from the ship's crew and the engineering staff.

A bunch of little incidents also take place that heighten their growing closeness. Two examples: 1. Ichigo winds up walking into Yoruichi's quarters to ask her a question and accidentally catches her in a state of undress; he retreats in (appreciative) embarrassment, but Yoruichi also realizes she doesn't mind that he saw anything. 2. Yoruichi, deducing during an R&R stop on a planet that Rukia is more than a little repressed, and inexperienced to the point of not even knowing how to please herself, offers to show her how as a fellow woman, then reveals she didn't know what she was doing either the first few times she tried.

If the initial time in Karakura were to take roughly 75 chapters (at about 4,000 words each), then this all would probably take at least another 75 chapters, and probably more.

Eventually, one evening Ichigo winds up joining Yoruichi at the only bar on the Geta-Boshi and they trade stories and talk about themselves and each other (although only he drinks). Yoruichi gradually realizes over the course of the evening that she enjoys the sense of connection they share, and that she genuinely finds him attractive, and has the sense that he feels the same about her. Although she's (very) well aware of Ichigo and Rukia's "not-a-relationship," she's also discerned they're not actually lovers, and although that leaves her a bit conflicted, she still chooses to act on her impulses, reasoning she's not doing anything wrong by pursuing him.

After they leave together, she gets him alone (in his 'Mech rather than in either of their quarters, not wanting to make it about power) and reveals her attraction toward him. Her understanding of her feelings is often physical, and she comes onto him, even though she knows that what she’s feeling isn’t purely lust; it’s something more emotionally meaningful and leaves her vulnerable, and the way she takes control of it is by being a bit forward. Ichigo has a kind of similar attraction and doesn’t fight her, having a sense of her perspective and emotions. They have sex, both wanting and needing it, but it’s not just that, and it’s great. Feeling awkward about just doing it and then going their separate ways, Ichigo goes back to her quarters with her, where (despite some innuendo) they probably just shower and fall asleep together (with maybe more in the early morning). This has been prototyped out as about two chapters.

Although Yoruichi initially only considered the idea of it as being a one-time thing, despite her feelings, it keeps occasionally happening over the next few weeks (maybe about every 3-5 days or so) as both of them enjoy the physical comfort of their connection, and the pillow talk afterward.

Meanwhile, Ichigo often spends his other nights finding Rukia asleep beside him, and starts to think about how deep his emotional connection to her is, and how comforting that is too. It leaves him more than a little conflicted and he starts to focus that feeling in on himself as he tries to figure out what to do.

POINTS OF DISCUSSION

This is where my sense of the plot becomes a bit less certain, and where I felt that input could be particularly insightful.

My sense is that Rukia, smart cookie that she is, would figure out what is going on very quickly. (Probably having a sense of it almost immediately, and piecing it together within a week.) Considering the undefined nature of her relationship with Ichigo, I don't think she'd be mad at him or upset with him. I do think it would also make her reflect on her feelings toward him, and together with her own growing recognition of her sexuality, would lead her to be curious and to want to try and have a physical connection with Ichigo too.

So, I think that she would prepare herself mentally and wait until a night when he was in his quarters, and make the first move. And Ichigo would not resist and quickly start to cooperate, wanting to make Rukia feel good. It'd be different between her and him than with him and Yoruichi, but just as intoxicating.

Probably the next morning, Rukia would slip out early and go to see Yoruichi to try and discuss things, having some sense of Ichigo's emotional turmoil and not wanting it to go on further.

I think they'd talk in Yoruichi’s quarters (as I don’t think Rukia would be intimidated by talking there), but they might also go somewhere private on the ship, maybe a kind of industrial or disused area as neutral ground.

Rukia would begin with just a frank admission of, "I've slept with Ichigo," not wanting to make the talk confrontational or anything.

Yoruichi would say something like, "Good. It's about time."

"That's all you have to say?" Rukia would be surprised more than anything.

Yoruichi might maneuver closer and get in her personal space, assessing her carefully and critically. Rukia might tense up a little but would hold her ground, not afraid.

Eventually Yoruichi gets closer still and leans in to just softly kiss her.

Rukia's stunned, then like, "What are you doing?!"

Yoruichi would pull back and consider her, then cross her arms over her chest as she looked away. She'd say something like, "I know you will, but make sure you take care of him," making it clear she approved.

Rukia would be stunned for a moment, giving Yoruichi the opportunity to begin to gently quiz her on the experience. Did she like it? Did Ichigo? Was it good? Where do they want to go with their relationship?

I think Rukia would see through it, and although she would answer, she would press Yoruichi on her own feelings. It would turn into a kind of Self-Sacrifice Olympics because Yoruichi would be willing to step aside, and Rukia feels bad about that because she can tell that it wasn't purely physical on Yoruichi's part, and back and forth.

They would talk through things for longer than they might have thought they would, with Rukia discerning Yoruichi's care for Ichigo and Yoruichi truly grasping how considerate Rukia is.

I think Rukia would be moved, personally, and she'd eventually return Yoruichi's initial smooch but for a different reason, to make it clear how heartfelt her respect was.

Now, of course, the goal here was to set this up together gradually, so I think that given their shared history to that point, Yoruichi would return it and it would turn into something more, more mutual and a bit handsy.

By the time they pulled apart and looked at one another, they'd both have expressions like, 'Well. What do we do now?'

I think it'd be Rukia who said, "We'll have to see what he says... together."

I don't think they would immediately become a trio from there, it'd be a lot rockier than that, with each having their doubts about the matter before them. 

Ichigo would be worried that they were just doing this for his benefit and that he didn't deserve either of them. Rukia would be less confident in her newfound sexuality and lack of experience and might have a bi crisis (or recurrent bouts of it). Yoruichi would be secure in her sexuality but be worried about hurting them and how that could affect them all professionally (to the extent of even getting them all killed).

I also think it'd take them a fair amount of time to try anything all together, even just cuddling. So it'd be a drawn out process of discovery rather than them all just jumping into it. Movie nights, hanging out, going on dates in pairs and as a trio, and splitting off to take turns as duos (Rukia and Yoruichi at first having an understanding, and eventually taking the step of trying being with each other). It would probably take almost as much time to process through as it did to set up before they finally fully settled in together. 

Meanwhile, the surrounding situation would also obviously be growing more complicated...

In addition to mercenary adventures and dealing with the continuing wrath of Byakuya and the Lyran Commonwealth, there is an even larger picture owing to the Third Succession War.

While, obviously, this does not slavishly follow BattleTech's history as it is, nor will it going forward, taking elements and using them seems prudent. In BattleTech canon, the Third Succession War ends in 3025 with the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns signing a defensive pact (in 3022) which is ultimately designed to unify them (into the "Federated Commonwealth"). The Free World League, Draconis Combine, and Capellan Confederation then ink their own agreement to counterbalance the threat of this.

My feeling is that the FedCom pact could have an interesting basis in Ichigo and Rukia coming together (and, because I'm a basic and predictable bitch, Byakuya and Kuukaku getting involved), although Yoruichi's presence would make things more interesting and complicated. Regardless, I think that with three Great Houses being represented (by Yoruichi, Rukia, and Ichigo) the crew would wind up playing some sort of role in the Third Succession War's resolution.

Other characters can be integrated variously throughout in different ways as well.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Likely standing in for Robinson in the actual BattleTech setting. [2] Rukia's official title of nobility is quite low considering her relation at this time. [3] Rukia, operating on behalf of her brother, has a rare customized 'Mech: an FS9-H Firestarter with 3/4 of the Flamers replaced by Medium Lasers, changing its BV (2.0) from 694 to 883. The rear-facing Flamer is the one retained. This would give it decent staying combat power for something so light. Looks something like this. [4] In BattleTech, the Successor States lost the knowledge of many Star League-era technologies ("lostech"). One of them was cooling suits for MechWarriors; "typical" garb is instead a cooling jacket and as little clothing as possible, usually a sleeveless leotard. So this could be a kind of funny scene if that's kept. (How hard is it to turn a vest into a suit though...) This would make Yoruichi's preferred taste in attire in Bleach fairly normative, though. Alternatively, the standard could be more like what was envisioned in one of the latest video game adaptations. [5] Probably a bog-standard LCT-1V Locust, the most common sort around. Looks something like this. [6] Perhaps an HBK-4G Hunchback. Looks something like this. Renji can have an ugly 'Mech to start with. [7] I'm thinking of a stock VTR-9B Victor. Looks something like this. [8] I think Yoruichi might have a TDR-5SE Thunderbolt (looks), Kisuke might have a MAD-3R Marauder (looks), and Tessai might have a BLR-1G BattleMaster (looks). [9] Kisuke, Yoruichi, and Tessai have somehow found (and renamed) the Argo. [10] It's notable that the Draconis Combine hates mercenaries, so that Yoruichi is here (with Kisuke and Tessai) doing mercenary work also Says Something. [11] As I am constantly saying Fullbring should’ve been introduced early in Bleach, maybe they meet (and beat) rival mercenary group Xcution and take on the remnants (probably Jackie, Yukio, and Riruka) as pilots?

[disegnidipizzo]

finally some decent refs for these two messes on legs/fins

the whole story under the cut, prepare bc i got carried away and i am not sorry about anything, at all, ever, in any circumstance.

SALVIA NUNARI

Salvia Nunari would rather tend for their forbidden plants garden than the troll grubs and would sneak out a lot to do her thing in the very dilapidated greenhouse their ancestor left behind, along with all the books on plants, herbal medicine and poisons (and some interesting things about jades). They know that jades Shouldn’t stray from their path but if their lusus taught them something, it’s that sometimes, you need to do things in the dark. 

Considering that they’re a racoon, they also say a lot of things about finding solace in what one has left behind. It wasn’t about trash, but you got the gist. And they have a pope hat, but you don’t know what a pope is. Still, they look funny with it on. Like a monarch or a ruler of All Things Unwanted and Abandoned.

As they got more experienced, they started making new breeds of plants and crossbreeding some relatively harmless carnivores to create a poisonous/venomous strain, in the very faint hope that MAYBE they could be somewhat employed by the Empire. It wasn’t that much of a plan but. It worked. Sort of. When the baby plant opened its trap, Salvia got poisoned to death thanks to a bite to the neck. Turns out that the new strain can move rather effortlessly and quickly and that it consider food most things that move. 

The first death allows em to ascend to rainbow drinker. 

Follows a minor freak out due to “HOLY FUCK IM GLOWING HOW DO I TURN THIS OFF” and “I’m dead. I’m so dead im still alive.” 

Conveniently, their ancestor’s Very Interesting Things About Jades handbook does contain info on rainbow drinkers and how to turn off the glow. Salvia doesn’t die twice for another day! Good thing it was all in the next chapter.

They had to hide the deathly wound lest being found out (and most likely culled in .5 seconds) before going back to the caverns, hence why they wear the neckpiece. It wasn’t really theirs in the first place, it was one of their ancestor’s ones that had gotten too small for them (but was kinda part of their uniform). 

TIAMAT KIITCH

Tiamat Kiitch enjoyes being eccentric. When you rank so up high, it’s only fair to flaunt your taste, even if it’s not the most accepted by you signclassmates. Sucks to be them, not everybody can understand what it means to Really be a patron of the arts. Or of the artists. Maybe this is why everybody sees you as unfit for the imperial army and would rather shove you on a planet so that they can get some sensory relief. Because a Violet that supports so many painters, sculptors and even musicians of all classes, even below cerulean? Sacrilegious. Or maybe they really just don’t like it. Violets aren’t exactly social with one another. Call that a competitive environment, ay.

As her Departure Day to said planet of Thank God Sound Can’t Travel In The Void of Space, she has to make preparations. A whole sweep ahead is not too early. She’s going out with a bang, mofos.

Also, it’s only fair she would pick the best trolls to be part of her new, off planet hive estate staff. And she is NOT going to cheap out on the good stuff. Going full crew over here, from the doctors to cleaning staff and doctors for the cleaning stuff. Don’t worry, she can afford it.

And she goes to Personally pick the heads of each branch of people who work for her. Since jades make for the best doctors and caretakers, she pays a visit to a few caverns that have great reputation. Which is a good amount of them.

Among the (very few but very capable) jades that have been picked, she just had to have an eye for the one that has that something of mystery and secret but also that knows how to make medicine out of most plants (how did they learn?? Who cares, they can do that and i want them. Get in, we’re going off planet.). Also the one that looks like they’re up to Trouble.

And that’s where the problems begin.

The Actual Plot

Rainbow drinkers need blood, which is easy enough to get on Alternia, since trolls are canonically very violent as a species and all that. Just using dead bodies lying around is easy, there’s also the culled grubs in the caves that need disposing. Yes it sounds bad because feeding babies to carnivorous plants is objectively bad. Also, soil which contains troll blood/ is watered with troll blood is very good for most plants, but leads to fun mutations. Some of them are learning how to “talk” by opening their petals, leaves or traps. Not great conversation partners but you’ll take anything.

Life with Tiamat would mean increasing the chances of being found as a drinker and being culled, blood harder to find and less chances to experiment with herbology independently.

BUT staying wouldn't be better, as once they are cloistering age, they won't be able to even see their garden anymore.

You start to wonder if this is how your ancestor felt. 

You also start to wonder how long has the violetblood been staring at yo-AFJDGN

When Tiamat has an eye out for something/someone, she gets super into observing them. From a distance at first, to understand how they work their magic. Not that she needs to, but she feels like a documentary worker. If she knew what those were.

During the picking process she was surprised by Salvia: despite being rather small, even for a midblood, they had fast reflexes and overall sharp senses, which kind of doesn’t sound right. The hivemaster and some hivemates described them as more aloof and not particularly outstanding outside of average efficiency.

Im realising this could be a disney channel vampire movie plot minus the violence.

They aren't scheduled for leaving for around a sweep, as the colony tiamat is gonna be overseeing will need time before its declared operative and ready for aristocracy to live in. This gives Salvia ample time to transfer books, notes and plant seeds/stems into more easy to carry media. Paper does take up a lot of space. It’s easy enough as books can be digitalised quickly. Technology is great.

More importantly, they need the SOIL. Which needs to be fertilised with special sauce. Which is blood. You decide to get a snack.

Now, you imagine being a fish lady that is following one of your most brilliant but most mysterious doctors around, only to find out they are a vampire and that they water the soil of their plants with troll blood. And that feeds dead grubs to the carnivores. (And that they look kinda cute while glowing in the dark and with a splorch of blood dripping down their lip wait what)

Now imagine hearing a gasp mixed with a glub and seeing your employer which could have you killed on the spot or kill you herself while you are in the middle of getting a snack with your plant and glow on.

Remember that Tiamat is a good 40 cms / one foot and a few inches taller (minus shoes). So you do the math that, even if you run, you won't have much and also run Where? If you fight? Might die. Neither? Also probably die.

So what happens is a very intense stare off. And i mean neither blink for a solid 2 minutes. 

And then Tiamat, slightly intrigued of having a rainbow drinker (super rare and so unjustly or maybe not so unjustly feared) just goes. "So.. that’s your special sauce."

And Salvia just confesses, accepting a death that was gonna come anyways. This was a stupid plan. 

But that death doesn't arrive, Tiamat could never kill or let die something so unique, so completely unruly and also potentially deadly that is by her side die on her. That is the embodiment of what she wishes to keep alive with her patronage, you think having a forbidden vampire scientist is out of the question? Nuh-uh. They are Gucci. So Gucci they’re Supreme.

With time the bond strengthens and they slowly go quadrant

Well, its a sometimes sorta vacillating quadrant but they are into each other.  

They share half a brain cell each

That Gay Shit (tm)

The love part is mainly on Tiamat because hey, its intimate yknow? Being the only one knowing about something so personal. It escalates into giving salvia special treatment/privileges such as better meals, a small lab of their own, a supply of dead trolls to get the blood from (executed political dissidents or criminals but thats another story). Eventually it grows more to being about their personality and their knowledge but also a bit about how they can make an amputation go clean as a bottle of disinfectant, but they will forget to eat a bunch of times in a row.

Salvia does sorta reciprocate the red feelings, but at the same time they lean more on the blackrom side. Constantly making subtle remarks they havent tasted violet blood before. Sorta leaving thankful notes with a lipstick/bloodstain and a small caption of "wish this was yours <3<"

Also salvia purposelly red flirting in front of tiamat with other staff ("But i just thought they look cute :(( cant you see they look like a snacc ")

But theres also days in which the roles are reversed bc thats how fluctuating quadrants work! 

During those days, Tiamat will be taking up a good chunk of extra space around Salvia, just as a reminder that she is not only above them on the hemospectrum, but also a whole lot taller and stronger. Also that she can take away those privileges. Temporarily. Unless they can earn them back.

On the other hand, Salvia in red is super affectionate, loves doing Tiamat's hair and makeup and letting her do the same. They leave occasional small kisses which are more like pecks or "hey feel my fangs".

So in short: 

Red Salvia: the datemate that gives you a makeover in the morning, calls you "princess" and spoils you with gestures and cuddles.

Black Salvia: little shit, messes with your stuff, reminds you that you look delicious when alive.

Red Tiamat: spoils materially, gives plenty of time, shares meals and listens carefully to all that you have to say.

Black Tiamat: would keep you with the hanmibal mask on if she could, keeps you on your toes, stay in your place and be good.