#in a way desperation to shape his own future and how he is perceived in a deterministic universe by trying to forge disasters

[dye-it-rouge-et-noir]

Chaos Theory - The Butterfly Effect

[ID in alt text]

[ships-n-bats]

I’ve been mulling over all my thoughts on the topic for a while now, trying to type out all my thoughts and feelings on Inspekta and Capochin’s whole dynamic. Trying to come to an understanding of exactly why their dynamic bothered me so much and why I’m not fond of the Inspek//chin pairing in a romantic sense. And I think I’ve finally managed to put it all into a comprehensive set of words that isn’t just complete gibberish or the ramblings of some random hater.

So, before getting into the discussion, I should first preference this by stating that I've never been into the whole "toxic ship" dynamic fandoms seem to have latched onto in recent years. Not because of any “problematic” reasonings or anything like that. My main issue with toxic pairings isn’t whether or not their fictional situations are ethical or healthy when applied to real world similar situations. No, it has more to do with whether or not their relationship is beneficial and equally mutualistic for both parties involved. Specifically, I look for whether or not both characters are happy in the relationship they’re in and whether their overall relationship actually makes both feel fulfilled.

Most toxic pairings don’t fit this bill, typically relying on the core idea that one or both characters are unhappy in some way and will never become fully happy or fulfilled in the relationship (or, in some cases, one or both characters just settle because breaking up or cutting out each other seems like the “harder” choice, so they go for one that’s perceived as the “easier” choice). And while not all toxic pairings are outright abusive, they typically are unhealthy in some way, shape, or form and derive intrigue from shippers by utilizing certain “taboo” things to “spice up the dynamic.” All of which I completely understand and respect, even if it’s not my own personal cup of tea.

In the specific case of Inspek//chin, I find their overall dynamic to be intriguing, tragic, and just a tad bit sadistically funny. Platonically, I have no issue with their relationship and feel it opens the door to many possibilities for current and future fanworks. But to see their relationship become more romantic just leaves me feeling more dread, frustration, and even slight anger. Because Capochin and Inspekta’s relationship doesn’t feel fulfilling or beneficial from either side. If anything, canon has shown just how one-sided and self-destructive this pairing really was, specifically on Capochin’s end.

Capochin’s love towards Inspekta was an obsessive and passionate type of love. The kind of love that consumes and plants itself deep inside you. The kind where it wraps tightly around one’s heart, like a weed or vine, squeezing and tightening until nothing else in life matters except for that one single object of affection. And normally, I'm all for this brand of obsessive love in romance. I love it when two characters are so deeply loyal and absolutely devoted to each other that they become the most important thing in each other’s lives. That they become irreplaceable to the other as some form of soulmates.

But… The tragic thing with Capochin’s devotion was that it really was a one-sided affair that left him feeling more empty than fulfilled, both literally and figuratively.

He was literally carving out pieces of himself in a desperate attempt to gain acceptance and to “fit in” to his role. Slowly chipping away, bit by bit, just to feed a greedy, bottomless pit of a god who was never going to be satisfied with what Capochin was giving anyways.

It was never going to be enough, because Inspekta wanted to be appraised and remembered by everyone, not just by his most devoted follower. It was a fruitless endeavor from the get-go, where neither would have been happy just relying on the other.

And while there is debate over whether or not the burgers were actually made from Capochin’s own flesh, or if it really was just one big, artsy metaphor, the meaning behind it still remains the same. That the takeaway is supposed to be that Capochin is hurting himself repeatedly in an attempt to get recognition from his god who gave him purpose, even if that means erasing parts of yourself until you've stripped away your own identity almost entirely.

(Although, personally, I would argue that the symbolic route packs more of a punch than the cannibalism one, since I like to view the "pieces" he’s removing as direct parts of his personality and identity, rather than just his literal meat and flesh. Yeah, it'd be more fucked up if it was literal, but it's more tragic and universally relatable to me to think he'd destroy himself on a mental level rather than a physical level. More layers to consider with losing yourself as a person.)

But what makes this even worse is that Inspekta never seemed to actually reciprocate or return Capochin's same level of devotion back.

Just reading the dialogue Capochin says before, during, and after his fight reveals that the two really weren't on the same page with their end goals. Capochin talks as if the two were going to become partners and be together, like a couple would... He really believed he was special to Inspekta...

"I'll rule da humans while you rule da skies!"

"Even in da apocalypse… I'M da only one Inspekta will protect!"

"I thought that if I did what he told me, I could rule by his side!"

There's no mutualism or give-and-take to their dynamic. Capochin was doing all the giving and never took, while all Inspekta did was take and take and take. We see that Capochin has romantic feelings for Inspekta but denies it to others and himself. Meanwhile, we aren't really given a clear indication of whether Inspekta has romantic feelings for Cappy, outside of a few lines of dialogue that shows he somewhat cares for him on some level (says he needs to take a nap and may have too much responsibility leading the other Bizzyboys).

Godpoke has to convince him that Inspekta doesn't really care for him and that his ultimate goal only involved himself as the sole god. That his boss was using him and taking advantage of his devotion to further his plan. Effectively, showing that Capochin wasn't important enough to Inspekta. His devotion wasn't enough. He wasn't enough.

To me, the pairing could have been salvageable had Inspekta actually planned to include Capochin by his side in his rule, as an equal. Had it been made clear that Inspekta did reciprocate Capochin's feelings and was just as devoted to him in return. That the relationship was equally obsessive and equally devoted.

Instead, it all feels hopelessly and worthlessly unrequited.

Neither seem to actually be gaining anything from the relationship in any significant way. And neither's life is improved or fulfilled by having the other be a part of it. Both desire similar things, to feel like they belong, to gain praise and attention, to be recognized for their efforts, but neither were really getting that from the other and both were self-destructing in their attempts to gain it. Inspekta didn't bring out the best in Capochin, he brought out the worst, and vice versa.

And Capochin finally realizes this fact at the end. That all that praise he was receiving from Inspekta were empty and didn't really mean anything. They lost their meaning once it was revealed that Inspekta only did so to gain loyalty so he'd get attention and praise.

“I supported him! Cause he made me feel like I’M IMPORTANT! …but I was never as important as him. Always praised by Inspekta but never respected.”

Which does also bring up the concern over exactly how long this whole Inspekta using and manipulating Capochin has been going on for. We do know that Capochin has known Inspekta for the longest and was his first and most devoted follower back when the Bizzyboys first formed. We also know that back when Inspekta was still Hector, he was shown to care for people and was a bit of a people pleaser (i.e. obsessed with being liked and seen as useful), and that it’s noted he’s changed during the events of the game. But that still doesn’t completely confirm whether or not Hector/Inspekta has been manipulating Capochin from the very beginning or not. I’m just left wondering how deep this manipulation goes in their dynamic.

Were these two ever really friends, let alone equals, or was it just all business on Hector's end?

Did Hector ever really, truly care for Capochin as a person, or as a devote follower?

I think the best way to put it is like this: Even if Hector and Capochin did manage to make amends and become better people, I can't really see them forming a long lasting, mutually beneficial romantic relationship. I don't see what these two have to offer each other specifically in a relationship. I can't see how these two dating would improve each other's lives after the events of the game. I don't see how the two are "good for each other" as it were.

It doesn’t help that both struggle to understand themselves as people after having wasted literal years emotionally rotting and losing themselves as individuals. I don’t think either really know who they are, what with Capochin removing parts of himself for Inspekta and Hector at the end even admitting he needs to work on himself because he felt lost and needed to make amends with others and himself. Having them be in a romantic relationship would only hinder any future growth they both need because they’d just continue with what they’ve been doing for years without changing or growing for the better (probably falsely believing they’re both finally getting what they wanted without realizing it’s not what they both need). They’d just fall back onto past bad habits and rot even further. i.e. They’d end up just settling into an unfulfilling, self-indulgent relationship.

*Not to mention that this type of outcome to their relationship would imply that cutting out toxic people from your life isn’t an option. And that you should just forgive the person who manipulated and used you for years, essentially wasting all that time you won’t ever get back. And that you should just date that very toxic person, and ignore all the red flags. Not saying Capochin should or must completely cut out Hector from his life, just that the implications with them becoming that fandom toxic old man yaoi pair comes with even more consequences the two probably should hold off on for now.*

Anyways, in conclusion, at the end of the day, Yugsy did say that fans could play dolls with the characters however they liked. That it's all for fun, so I respect how other fans choose to play with Inspekta/Hector and Capochin. But for me, personally, I just can't convince myself to come around to the two of them as anything other than strained friends with a history shared between them.

[sapling-hoshii]

Pro-Curetember, Day 13: Fan-made Cures!

AT LONG LAST! I've prepared so much for today, and I'm beyond excited to share my first ever (and possibly only) FanCure. For more context: I've been working on this FanCure for about four months after experiencing continuous dreams that had the PreCure in it. These dreams created an interesting storyline that eventually got me and a few friends from Discord to discuss what would eventually become the idea for this character before it ultimately blossomed into what it is now. So sit back, relax, and maybe grab some snacks and drinks while you're at it, 'cause this will be quite the long read! Oh, and one more thing - a surprise awaits at the end of the article, so I hope you read through its entirety!

Hoshimachi Haruki // Knightly Astra

"The Man With Two Lives"

A 19-year-old boy hailing from the "Waking World", Haruki lives a simple life he deems "boringly mundane", working part-time at his mother's flower shop and going to college, where he not only engages in his collegiate studies but also manages his block's organization as its current president. Unable to both see a future with his current way of life and envision a path to a future he desires, Haruki forces himself to continue down the life he is stuck in. Unbeknownst to him, however, his life would begin to change from a single, desperate wish and a Guiding Star.

Appearance

Haruki is a college-age man of fair complexion and slender body type. He dons shoulder-length sky-blue hair, with the strands on his face combed in a side fringe. His eyes are of a monolid shape with grey irises. He often wears a plain white collared button-up shirt, with a grey, long-sleeved sweater covering most of it, only leaving the collars exposed. His bottom garments consist of a pair of denim pants and white sneakers.

Personality (Post-Story)

Haruki is a relatively calm and placid man who shows a composed and collected demeanor among peers and acquaintances alike. He is a hard-working person who focuses well on his studies and hobbies, steadfast in completing tasks and learning new things. While sometimes impulsive and reckless, Haruki always tries to do what he can in good faith, further amplified by his positive outlook in life and his belief that "hope is born from the mind of a dreamer."

Relationships

Asahina Mirai: She and Haruki met by chance as Cure Miracle when the latter was being attacked by a Voidwraith. After she takes Haruki under her, Riko, and Kotoha's jurisdiction due to him being the holder of the Linkle Stone Azurite, the two gradually form an inseparable bond, which eventually blossoms into infatuation and soon enough, into romance. After confessing their feelings for each other, the two act like a lovey-dovey couple.

Izayoi Riko: Haruki respects Riko, not only because she is the headmaster of the Magic Academy (where he studies), but also because he perceives her as a good mentor figure and an even greater friend. After he was taken under her, Mirai, and Kotoha's jurisdiction, Riko offered to help him refine his magical capabilities and his control over the Linkle Stone Azurite, which served as the progenitor of their bond as mentor and student. He finds her pieces of advice inspirational and claims that they have helped him push through the trials and tribulations of his own life.

Hanami Kotoha: Kotoha perceives Haruki as an older brother figure who is always willing to spend time with her despite having to put up with her antics. She appreciates his hard-working nature and grows proud of him when he reasoned out with Nyrr'morha after the final fight, aspiring to be like him in keeping a positive outlook in life while also acknowledging its many lows and sorrowful moments.

Mofurun: Mofurun and Haruki get along fairly well, with the former almost always playing with the mage whenever he is available. Haruki enjoys Mofurun's more simple-minded and childlike nature, which fondly reminds him of how he used to be when he was younger. Haruki grows to fondly appreciate the sapient teddy bear when he is exposed to her more caring and responsible side later on in the story, remarking that her kindness is nothing short of heart-warming.

Nyrr'morha: Nyrr'morha is the polar opposite of Haruki/Knightly Astra, being a personification of his own despair and negative emotions. He wants the Linkle Stone Azurite to "rewrite and reshape reality" and to twist the future to his desires.

History

Before the Dimensional Link

Born into a simple family, Haruki once lived a life reflective of its nature. While successful academically and earning a stable amount from his part-time job in his mother's flower shop, he feels a lack of fulfillment in life, unable to envision a future in running the flower shop while simultaneously experiencing difficulty picturing a future he desires.

However, on one fateful night, everything would change.

Wishing upon a shooting star, Haruki desired change - to hopefully find his calling one day and pave the way to the future he wanted. The mere strength of the man's will would eventually reach a different world - one where an alternate incarnation of Haruki lived: the World of Magic.

As an azure glimmer fell from the sky, this version of Haruki quickly grew curious about the mystery object. Following its shining trail to the source, he would come across a peculiar pendant, which - unbeknownst to him - is a powerful totem called the Linkle Stone Azurite, which can conjure wishes into reality. Picking up and wearing the pendant, the mage-in-training unknowingly linked himself with his alternate incarnation, roping the latter into what would soon be the adventure that would change his life forever.

The Dimensional Link

Shortly after wishing upon a star on that fateful night, Haruki grew heavily sleepy, which he would eventually succumb to.

That night, he would dream an impossible dream.

While his consciousness registered the unfolding scenario as a dream, the reality was that Haruki was in control of his alternate incarnation in the World of Magic. Living as an academically outstanding student studying at the Magic Academy, his consciousness found itself exposed to concepts only seen in fairy tales - that being magic and the legendary warriors of light of this world: the Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure. Remnants of Haruki's alternate incarnation would also find themselves bleeding into his earthly presence; due to the influence of both incarnations' consciousnesses, there would be times when he would get into awkward situations, like trying to cast spells or recalling lessons from the Magic Academy, to even going outside at evening to fly atop his broomstick - in a world where such fantastical concepts were not present. His connection with his alternate self brought in a sense of confusion where either consciousness feels that they both do and do not have control over themselves, manifested by their different trains of thought.

Meeting the Pretty Cure

On one fateful school day, Haruki's Magic World incarnation would be separated from the rest of his class by a stray cat. Unbeknownst to him, it was under the control of a Voidwraith - an entity of Dark Magic that possesses inanimate and animated objects and contorts them into ravenous monsters. Only when he was alone and defenseless did the "cat" reveal what it was, and it took no delay to attack the mage-in-training.

While Haruki held his own against the rampaging Voidwraith (thanks to the Linkle Stone Azurite's ability to boost magical powers), he wasn't unscathed either, ending up heavily bruised and wounded. But before the beast could lay a hand (or claw) on him further, the legendary Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure came to the rescue, exorcising the cat of its monstrous possession.

In the battle's aftermath, they revealed to him that the pendant he was wearing was a Linkle Stone, which these Voidwraiths want to acquire for reasons they do not know yet, and thus asked the mage-in-training to hand it over so they may protect it from those entities. While Haruki obliged at first, the moment his fingertips met those of Cure Miracle's, the Linkle Stone began to glow, revealing a vision to the young mage-in-training: a split-second flash of the future where the Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure would be overpowered by a particularly powerful Voidwraith, with the Linkle Stone robbed of their possession. Overwhelmed by a sudden influx of magical power and additional mental overstimulation, Haruki passed out. Regaining consciousness in the Waking World, Haruki checked for his wounds - only to find out they were gone. He held his chest to see if he still had his Linkle Stone - it too was gone, because he was back in the Waking World.

Meeting Mirai and Riko - Untransformed

The following night, Haruki once more entered his consciousness in the Magic World, finding himself in another person's house - which turned out to be the house of none other than Izayoi Riko, the current Headmaster of the Magic Academy. Concerned for the well-being of the mage-in-training, she - as Cure Magical - took him back to her place, informing his parents (or rather, their alternate incarnations) - also as Cure Magical - through a crystal ball that she would be taking Haruki in until the Voidwraith issue was resolved, due to him not only holding a powerful magic item but also because of the degree of the threat. Not long after waking up, Haruki also meets two close friends of Riko's - a blonde witch named Asahina Mirai and her sapient teddy bear named Mofurun. The three quickly grew well-acquainted with each other, and, as more days went by, they eventually became close friends. Together with Riko and another friend of theirs named Hanami Kotoha, Haruki would train under their wing every evening, learning more about his Linkle Stone in the process - especially the latent powers that sleep within. It was also through these sessions that Mirai, Riko, Kotoha, and Mofurun learned about Haruki's ability to see quick glimpses of the future, in turn realizing how important protecting him and the Linkle Stone from the Voidwraiths was. After all: the greater the power, the more dangerous foes would want it.

Becoming Knightly Astra

As the days and weeks passed, Haruki's bond with Mirai, Riko, Kotoha, and Mofurun blossomed into a close friendship - but even more so did his friendship with Mirai, which had grown into infatuation. However, due to his uncertainty about how he feels for the blonde witch and the possible consequences that taking their bond a step further may entail, he downplays these feelings to preserve his friendship with her.

But little did this mage know that the strength of these feelings would lead to a pivotal moment in his life.

During this fateful day, an Alpha Voidwraith wreaked havoc on the Magic Shopping Street, endangering the lives of many. But when there are Voidwraiths, there are also the PreCure. Arriving at the scene of conflict, Cure Miracle, Cure Magical, and Cure Felice face the threat head-on. While they initially thought the Alpha Voidwraith was of a similar threat level to the Voidwraiths they fought before (specifically because it looked like a bigger version of these Voidwraiths), they would be proven otherwise through its escalated power and its ability to summon Lesser Voidwraiths to aid it in its mission. Furthermore, it exhibited high intelligence and synergy with its subordinates, capable of launching coordinated attacks that mimic those done by the PreCure. Due to these unforeseen abilities, the PreCure would get easily outnumbered and outmatched to the point of struggling to stand their ground.

From the sidelines, Haruki watched as his friends got battered and beaten up by the Voidwraiths, a heavy heartache befalling him at the sight of a badly wounded and injured Mirai. Time slowed down and his heartbeat rang deafeningly in his ears as he stood there, helpless. As he always was. As he always felt he would be. At that very moment, memories flashed in quick succession within his mind of every encounter - of every battle - of every moment he had alongside his friends. Alongside that woman he so truly loved. And of every moment they got beaten, got hurt, got ever so close to the hereafter. Once more, his heartbeat rang - no, drummed to the reverberating beat of his feelings; feelings that he had attempted to set aside - to disregard.

And in that moment...he understood everything, and he embraced it.

Before his mind could even process things - before he could even regain his grip on reality - his body moved on its own, charging into battle like a mighty soldier. The Voidwraiths that had once frightened him are the enemies he now faced head-on. With every swish of his wand, with every "Cure Up・RaPaPa" he yelled, the spark of light in his heart shone brighter and brighter. As he approached the Alpha Voidwraith, he declared with all the love in his heart that if they were to hurt his friends, they would have to go through him first.

...And then, the spark of light in his heart erupted into a spectacular supernova as two consciousnesses linked into one - and as the powers of the Linkle Stone Azurite unleashed in full force.

Wreathed in the magical item's auroral light, the mage revolved around an after-image of himself, just as that same after-image started to do the same. As the two incarnations joined hands, from the depths of their joint consciousness arose a set of Magic Words attuned to their very essences.

“Cure Up・RaPaPa! Azurite! Radiant・Starlight・Aurorale!”

From the brilliance of the multicolored light in the sky came not a man, nor a mage - but a little bit of both, and something more: a warrior of light. A beacon of hope. A guiding star of change.And his name...was Knightly Astra.

Encountering Nyrr'morha

Another Voidwraith attack unfolds in the Magic Shopping Street, an army of corrupted objects, people, and animals wreaking havoc across the district and endangering the lives of the townsfolk. While there were legions of mages defending their turf on the frontlines, none were as powerful as the rampaging creatures. Well, not until the PreCure and Knightly Astra joined the fray.

While at first, the PreCure - with the help of the mages - were able to outnumber and outsmart the hordes of Voidwraiths (including the Alphas), a mysterious force would soon make itself known. Alongside the distortions within the very fabric of reality came a figure - one who was cloaked in dark matter and wielded a giant staff, which held tremendous amounts of Black Magic. Easily disposing of the brave mages and the surrounding buildings, this malevolent entity mangled the Magic Shopping Street, rifts of dark matter leaking aimlessly across the skies and land. Threatened, but not dissuaded, Astra and the PreCure laid siege on the baleful villain, but to no avail as their ability to distort reality nullified their attacks. Outmatched, outsmarted, and heavily injured, Astra and the PreCure decided that it would be best to retreat. But with the fact that the world around them started to fall apart and contort, they knew that making it out unscathed was dire. And so, Astra resorted to their last known line of defense: the Linkle Stone Azurite's ability to conjure wishes into reality.

And so, channeling the power of the Guiding Star, Astra utters a spell attuned to his very existence.

"I wish upon this Guiding Star, the wish to keep the world at par. Help me cleanse this darkening blight, return the Void, hear our plight!"

Raising the Dawn Star Wand into the sky, a spark of auroral light shot into the distorted void above, erupting to form a forcefield. Cloaking the corrupted world around it, what remained of the Magic Shopping Street slowly pieced themselves together like a puzzle, and the rifts of dark matter were sealed shut. Despite Nyrr'morha's efforts to reverse the wish's effects, the power of the Linkle Stone Azurite forced him back to the singularity from which he came. However, with great peace came greater consequences. While Astra was able to save the Magic World from boundless darkness, the degree of the wish's power used up almost all of his magical energy. Nearly drained of his arcane essences, Astra passed out and de-transformed. After all, repairing reality is no easy feat.

Shining Lights and Beating Hearts

Not long after the fight with Nyrr'morha, Mirai sat on her bedside, where a slumbering Haruki lay. Watching as the mage took soft breaths in his sleep, the world around her seemed to slow down as she lay with herself and her emotions. Memories played like a film inside her mind of the times she spent with Haruki. Of the moments they had together. She monologued, looking back at the moments they shared - from watching him master different spells to the moment he recklessly rushed into battle against their first Alpha Voidwraith and even the battles they fought together afterward, hand in hand. And then came the little things: the way his eyes shone when he finally was able to do a spell properly. His smile, brimming with so much joy. His voice, which blew like soft currents of wind...

Her heartbeat drummed like a marching band in her ears, the rhythm of her emotions reverberating within the depths of her mind and spirit. This was the man she fell in love with - reckless, sometimes impulsive, yet brave and determined. He was imperfect, yes, yet it was these imperfections that made Mirai love him even more.

With a warm smile and wavering infatuation, the witch uttered those three words she had wanted to say for so long:

"I love you, Haruki."

And then came a voice."I love you too, Mirai."

The Final Battle and the Last Goodbye

After a few more confrontations and even more failed attempts at acquiring the Linkle Stone Azurite, Nyrr'morha came to conclude that his Voidwraiths were of no use. He realized that nothing would ever happen lest he do it himself.

And so, stepping out of his lair of anti-matter, Nyrr'morha sought to finish this long battle once and for all. Shrieking Astra's name and raising his arms, he ripped at the seams of reality, corrupting the entirety of the Magic World and shattering it like pieces of glass. Debris and people alike floated amidst the boundless void, and as the PreCure found themselves standing face-to-face with the malevolent entity, they drew out their wands, and the battle ensued.

Wands clashed, and dark matter and wishes collided, simultaneously repairing and breaking the very fabric of time and space. But unlike their past encounters, Astra, Miracle, Magical, and Felice were prepared, their will to fight fueled by the love and hope within their hearts. By the Guiding Star that bound them together.

Nyrr'morha was bewildered - how were the PreCure standing on their own? In a fit of confused anger, he summoned a horde of Voidwraiths, led by multiple Alphas. But somehow - in some way - they were defeating them faster than they ever did before.

Nyrr'morha questioned reality even more - how are the PreCure doing this?! A horde of thousands, reduced to nothing within a matter of a few seconds; heck, it may have only been a fraction of a second! Keep in mind: they barely were able to defeat their first Voidwraith!

And before the villain could even fully process things, four shining lights arose from the boundless darkness. Pointing their wands together, Astra, Miracle, Magical, and Felice unleashed blinding, multicolored bolts of energy, coalescing at the center to form a massive beam of light. Dumbfounded, and even more wrathful, Nyrr'morha intercepted the multicolored ray with his own - which was made of dark matter. Energy erupted where the two energies met like a powerful hypernova, causing ripples across the distorted space itself. Nyrr'morha was thrown aback, the dark matter cloaking his very being beginning to melt. And as he raised his head and subjected them under his glare, like a bolt, realization struck Astra and the PreCure, causing them to collectively gasp.

With locks of sky-blue hair and grey, monolid eyes, he who went by the name Nyrr'morha glared at the PreCure with immense fury - but his eyes were drawn to someone else. Someone who shared these same features. Someone whose despair led him down the path he now walked: Astra.

All this time, his greatest enemy...was himself.

Astra was bewildered. All the Voidwraiths they fought, all the conflict they endured...was caused by himself? At first, he was confused - did the enemy choose to copy his likeness to distract him? But then came a realization: he wanted the Linkle Stone Azurite because it grants wishes - no, conjures them - into reality. Because with it, he could see into the future. Because he wanted change.

Nyrr'morha was none other than a personification of the despair he once felt - the feeling of being so lost in life that he was helpless. As he once thought he always was. As he once thought he would always be.

He could've berated his evil alternate - let his rage consume him, and retaliate for all the times he's hurt Mirai. Hurt Riko. Hurt Kotoha. Hurt himself. Harmed thousands. But no - he smiled warmly, empathy radiating from the fabric of his very being. And as his wand's magical energies formed the shape of a greatsword, he uttered, just as the complex, yet heartfelt emotions leaked from his voice:

"I understand."

As magical blades clashed, Nyrr'morha taunted Astra, belittling him for the puny person he was - that without the PreCure, without the Linkle Stone...he was nothing. Without a purpose. Lost. Useless. But he forgot the reason Astra was here now, the reason why he now fights.

He was clouded by darkness...no more.

The little moments he had with Mirai, Riko, Kotoha, and Mofurun...changed him. From their little conversations to the big fights, Astra started realizing that even in the mundanity and chaos of life...hope still existed. These dreams were an adventure to find himself - to find a reason to keep going - and while it took him long to find these answers, he eventually did...because he worked hard to search for them. He realized that the future - his future - was worth fighting for.

As the argent light of the Guiding Star emerged from the Linkle Stone Azurite and cloaked his very being, Astra raised his sword, and - with a mighty, triumphant roar - he swished his blade, an outburst of blinding radiance erupting from the point of impact.

At first, there was a snap - the sound of a wand breaking. And then...there was a deafening silence as the weight of what had transpired moments prior began to take root in reality.

Nyrr'morha's weapon was no more, cleaved in half by celestial light.

Miracle, Magical, and Felice watched in collective awe, basking in the power that brimmed within Astra. This was a power they were responsible for - and a power that they helped blossom into what it is now.

This was the true power of the Guiding Star.

Awestruck at the powerful feat, Miracle's purple eyes twinkled like starlight, and everything slowed to a crawl. This was the same man whose voice was soft as wind; whose eyes were as grey as the storm that once raged in his heart. This was the same man who was lost in the flow of life. And now...he was reformed by hope.

But it wasn't the end quite yet.

As the wand broke, with it came Nyrr'morha's absolute control over dark matter and the Boundless Void. In the blinding burst of light from Astra's finishing blow, reality warped back into place - back into how it all was before the fight. But with one exception: a floating orb of darkness, high up in the heavens above.

Within this floating orb was Astra and his alter ego, the latter knelt in bewildered defeat.

Nyrr'morha questioned everything - why wouldn't he just finish the job and kill him? Why did the Linkle Stone go to him? The villain writhed in the despair of reality - his wand was broken. He was powerless. Defeated. Lost. Useless.

And so, he tried once more to berate Astra - albeit futile.

The man just smiled.

Kneeling to match Nyrr'morha's view, Astra laid a palm on his shoulder.

"There is still a way. A future...for you. For me. For the both of us. You wanted this Linkle Stone because you wanted things to change. And believe me when I say that I understand. After all, who are we but two halves of the same coin?

"You didn't see a future in that small flower shop - yet you couldn't even find one in the first place. This Linkle Stone...gave us both a purpose. I, as a Pretty Cure, and you, as my pursuer. But now...I don't quite think I need it anymore. I know what I want to be now - a doctor; someone who helps others in their little ways, even just by existing.

"Even if this means I don't get to travel this wondrous world anymore, I will not let this stop me from pursuing my dreams. After all, hope is born from the mind of a dreamer, am I right?

"Now come on - let's carve a future for ourselves...while there still is time."

And so, the two entities merged into one - darkness and light, yin and yang. After so long...there finally was balance.

Just like that, the dark orb in the sky cracked like an egg and Haruki floated down, back to his allies - the heroes he was lucky to call his friends.

For a moment, there was victory and smiles. But as the man with two lives blinked, he saw a golden light, shining down on him in the shape of a window. There wasn't much time left for him. Mirai noticed something with Haruki at that very moment - he was fading away, outlined by an argent light that dissolved into tiny particles, which floated to the heavens above - where that window-shaped starlight was. While saddened by this truth, Haruki smiled, offering that they all take a walk together one last time. Holding back tears and masking their sadness with warm smiles, the three witches happily agreed to join him. And off they went, on one last stroll across the Magic Shopping Street.

Roaming peacefully through the district's walled streets, the four heroes reminisced - looked back at all the big and little moments that ultimately led them here. Those of the greatest joys, of the deepest sadness, of the harshest conflict, and they laughed through all of it.

But time...was not so merciful. Soon enough, the chirping of birds and the sounds of the city rang in Haruki's ears. Reality seemed to be merging in his vision; he'd see images of his room, and then of the Magic Shopping Street. Mirai, Riko, and Kotoha were but translucent figures in his vision at this point. It was almost time to go.

Tears that they had tried to hold back burst into rivers as the reality of the situation started sinking in. Riko was sad to see a good friend go; Kotoha was downcast that the person she called her "big brother" was no longer here to stay; and Mirai was devastatingly heartbroken to be separated from the man she held closest to her heart. They did not want it to be so, but alas, fate had other plans.

One last time, Mirai's lips met those of Haruki's - a final goodbye to an important person in her life, and in her friends' lives. Her arms wrapped themselves longingly around his waist, not letting go of Haruki. For a moment, the sky-haired man kept his eyes open, sharing his gaze with the three witches. And, with a deep breath, he accepted Mirai's kiss, and with it, the end of a long journey. The sound of his alarm clock rang, deafeningly so, prompting the man to awaken with a tired groan. His eyes fluttered open, met by the sunlight radiating from his window. He sat up and looked around - he was back where everything began: his room. For a moment, he was confused, thinking back on the memories he had in a world of magic amidst the company of friends and a lover. He felt as if he had been taken away from the most pleasant dream he ever had in his life. Yet, he knew deep down it wasn't that: the man with two lives had lost a connection.

Epilogue

A year later, Haruki had managed to get back to the rhythm of a regular life, as mundane as it was. He had found his calling in being a doctor, pursuing the field of Medicine at the state university. He was satisfied with the direction of his life. But even if he had found a place in the real world, he never forgot the magical world; never forgot the adventures he had shared with four important people. And truly did he miss them, but what can he do apart from missing them?

But one fateful night, the stars would align themselves once more.

Watching a meteor shower race across the midnight sky, Haruki would be reminded of the night he wished upon a star. The night when his voice would reach another world.

Reminded of the woman he loved, her sapient teddy bear, the school headmaster, and the pink-haired deity, Haruki clasped his hands together and closed his eyes, chanting the very spell attuned to his very essence:

"I wish upon this Guiding Star, the wish to reach a world so far. To see the ones I hold so dear, to once again hold them near...

"To live my days with the woman I love, be with the friend who made me soar above, to chaperone the deity who was heaven-sent, to play with the bear of sweet scents..."

Tears welled up in the corner of his eyes and fell in streams that ran down his cheeks. Nevertheless, he continued the incantation, even as his voice quivered in longing.

"So please, please...hear my heartfelt plea...! Please, please, please...bring me where my heart longs to be!"

And as if the heavens itself answered his call, an azure light traveled across the sky, slowly growing brighter. And in a quick flash, all Haruki could see was white. For a moment, he felt like he was floating...and then gravity set in - he was falling.

descending from the clouds, he found himself in a sunny, afternoon sky. His eyes widened in awe - he recognized this sky. He shifted his figure to look below; he saw a hexagon drawn across the earth. He was back in the World of Magic - he was back home.

But as his mind was processing what had been transpiring, he felt a hand - a familiar warmth. And from it came a voice he knew all too well.

"Easy now - you might've used up a little too much magic!"

A woman with blonde, short curled hair remarked jokingly, chuckling joyously as she did so.

The sky-haired man's mouth widened to form an overjoyed grin, his cheeks turning rosy at the sight of that familiar person.

"Mirai!" And so, the man reclaimed the life he once lost, free to transcend between the two realities. And for the rest of his days, it would remain so.

Conclusion

Hoo-kay! Quite the long read, wasn't it? Don't tell me I didn't warn ya, ahaha! I am so, so proud of how Haruki's/Astra's lore and render turned out. To have shared his story - albeit heavily summarized - with you, the reader, means A LOT to me, and I hope you enjoyed it all throughout! Now, time for the surprise announcements:

Surprise #1: Haruki has a page!

Yep, you heard me right - I made a wiki page containing everything listed here as well as some more tidbits of information, lore, and trivia! If you're interested in learning more about him, click this link here: https://fanmade-precure-series.fandom.com/wiki/Hoshimachi_Haruki

Surprise #2: I'm writing a Maho Pri fanfic!!!!!

MHM! I have decided to not only bring Haruki to life with his own little page, but with a narrative fanfic of his season - Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! Starlight of Wishes! Episode 1 is currently released for everyone to view - with the second episode currently in production! As such, you may click this link if you wanna give it a read: https://fanmade-precure-series.fandom.com/wiki/Mahou_Tsukai_Pretty_Cure!_Starlight_of_Wishes

Once again, thank you so much for reading!!!! Sincerely, ~ Sap

Procuretember Event by @pro-curetember

[forthegoodofamerica]

The Election Is Only Fair If My Candidate Wins? A George Magazine Deep Dive

We all know how heated elections can get. Strong opinions fly, and sometimes, it feels like the only way to see things as “fair” is if your person wins. But what if there’s more to the story? What if the way we see elections – the fairness, the process, the whole shebang – is shaped by something bigger than just the candidates themselves?

Dave Blaze, a respected voice in political commentary, tackles this very question in his insightful George Magazine article, “The Election Is Only Fair If My Candidate Wins.” He explores the powerful roles the media and political leaders play in how we perceive the electoral process. It’s a conversation we desperately need to have.

The Media’s Role: More Than Just Reporting the News

Blaze expertly highlights how the media, and especially social media, can heavily influence our views. Think about it: the news we consume, the comments we see online – these things build up our understanding of what’s happening. When news sources or social media influencers push a narrative that suggests fairness is tied to a specific candidate’s victory, it plants seeds of doubt. It chips away at our trust in the entire system. Blaze’s article digs into specific examples of this kind of biased reporting, showing how seemingly neutral coverage can subtly manipulate our thinking. He argues that true journalistic integrity means presenting accurate information without favoring one side. It’s about allowing people to form their own conclusions.

Political Leaders and the Power of Acceptance

Political leaders, too, have a massive responsibility. They set the tone, influencing how we view the democratic process. When leaders reject election results that don’t go their way, it throws a wrench in the gears of democracy. It destabilizes everything. Blaze points out that accepting the results, even when disappointing, is essential for a healthy democracy. A peaceful transfer of power is the bedrock of our system. The article doesn’t shy away from examining the consequences when this fundamental principle is ignored.

Why This Matters to You

So, what’s the big deal? Why should you care about the media’s influence or a leader’s acceptance of results? Because it’s about more than just one election. It’s about the future of our democracy. It’s about ensuring that everyone feels their voice is heard, that the system works for everyone, not just for those in power. Blaze challenges us to look beyond the surface-level drama of elections and see the deeper mechanisms that shape our perspectives.

Get Your Free Copy of George Magazine

Dave Blaze’s article is just one of the many fascinating pieces you’ll find in the latest issue of George Magazine. It’s a magazine that asks tough questions, explores complex ideas, and presents different viewpoints – all with a clear aim to encourage thoughtful discussion. It’s not just politics; it includes sections on faith, business, finance, travel, and luxury living – offering a well-rounded mix of thought-provoking content.

You can get your free copy of this issue right now! Just visit this link to access it. Don’t wait – this offer is limited! You will receive a link by email to access the magazine.

To truly understand how media and political leaders shape our perception of elections, and to uncover the deeper meanings within the process of choosing our leaders, a thorough read of Dave Blaze’s article is a must. You can get the entire article and all of the other incredible features within George Magazine by accessing your free copy here.

The reinvention of George Magazine, originally established by John F. Kennedy Jr., aims to continue his vision of unbiased journalism, offering readers diverse perspectives. In a time when the integrity of elections is consistently questioned, Dave Blaze’s contribution will make you consider what defines a fair election. The issue is available for free—grab yours at this link.

A Deeper Look into George Magazine

George Magazine isn’t just your average news publication. It’s a revival of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s classic, combining the best of pop culture and political analysis. But today’s George expands its horizons, exploring faith, business, finance, and travel. The magazine is known for presenting diverse viewpoints, encouraging readers to form their own informed opinions. It’s an experience that challenges, informs, and leaves you thinking. You can explore the world of George Magazine and receive your free copy by clicking here.

[gorekissed]

Relief, that traitorous fluttering sensation, settled into Sayuri’s chest at the sight of Ryujin turning around to face her once more. She let go of a breath she hadn’t even realized she had held in as a feeling of something akin to self-ridicule crept up on her — how had she let herself become so irrevocably affected by this man? The mere thought of him leaving her, of his absence painting her future a deep shade of blue, had put her in a state of physical distress, the idea already like a vise around her heart, squeezing it with cold, unwelcome hands. 

Listening to his words, she tried to dissect them, to make sense of their underlying meaning — his assertion that he wasn’t her opponent rang in her ears with bittersweetness woven into each syllable. Could that be true? Or had he become just that, the ultimate foe in her innate battle against her own self? She couldn’t shake off the gnawing feeling that he, in fact, held the most dangerous power of all over her — the devastating potential to shatter her heart into the tiniest of pieces and plunge her into the deepest, bleakest state of despair with a simple cruel word, a dismissive glance, or his untimely absence. Withholding what she craved most in this world was entirely within his graps, now more than ever: such a cruel, twisted fate she would have never willingly chosen for herself.  

How could she not see him as an ambiguity residing somewhere between utmost love and dwindling dread, a foe in the captivating shape of a lover? Truly, his words surprised her, even startled her to some extent; the thought that affection shouldn’t reside within an inner battlefield, that it shouldn’t feel like a loaded gun pointed to her temple, simply hadn’t ever occurred to her before. Her expression betrayed much of what she genuinely was — a girl who had spent her life under the rigid impression that affection and trust were weaknesses to be fought against, vulnerabilities planted into the armor of her perceived superiority. 

With a slight tilt of her head, she looked at him — really looked at him, her gaze stripped bare of any prejudice and preconceived notions that had defined her interactions with others; an attempt to internalize his words and see him as someone who, for some inexplicable reason, genuinely wanted what was best for her. A war between her heart and her head, one that had been raging for the majority of her life, slowly eclipsed within. Saying it out loud, admitting to such a profoundly human feeling, to what she perceived a fatal error, would be like betrayal against the radical, ruthless logic that had gotten her through life thus far — yet, the way her heart ached in its desperate attempt to draw closer to him again prevented any further false cruelty from slipping past her lips. Instead, all that she could cling to was a faint ember of the anger she had once felt. ❛ Do you think I want this? ❜ A pause, punctuated by a shaky breath. ❛ Do you think I like being this messed up over you? Over us? ❜

Self-awareness, a fleeting moment of clarity, could seem like a good thing, a sign of progressive thought — if it hadn’t been so heavily laced with self-directed scorn. ❛ I’ve spent my whole damn life making sure no one had the power to break me ever again, Ryujin. And then you walked in and ruined that in record time. ❜ At that admission, her voice cracked — only so briefly, but her eyelids fluttered involuntarily, too, allowing a fleeting glimpse into her inner struggle.  

A truth clung to her; it clawed its way into her realization, heavy, frightening, an underscore to her lack of control. She had dictated her own narrative, not too long ago — but by then, she found herself clinging desperately to his lips and the path they laid before her. ❛ But if you go now… I’ll pretend I’m fine. I’ll play it off. And I’ll hate myself for it. ❜ Finally, then — quieter, her voice uncharacteristically low, as if part of her still clung to the miniscule hope that he wouldn’t hear an admission so raw, so vulnerable, so completely at odds with the persona she usually displayed. ❛ So don’t go. Not yet. Not like this. ❜

He stopped mid-step. Not because the echo of her voice pierced through the silence like a knife, nor because the use of his name sounded more like a plea than a reprimand, though both struck a chord so sharp it reverberated through his chest. It was the weight of the grief buried beneath her words, thinly veiled by defiance, that rooted him in place.

A breath. Then another.

Ryujin didn’t turn around immediately. Instead, his fingers curled at his sides, slow and deliberate, as if restraining the urge to lash out or reach back, he wasn’t sure which instinct was stronger anymore. His shoulders rose with a quiet inhale, the motion laced with tension that was too old for someone his age. When he finally turned to face her, his gaze was unreadable — eyes dark and laced with a tiredness that went deeper than exhaustion. There was a long, unbearable moment of silence between them, one that hung heavy in the air like a storm refusing to break. And when he spoke, his voice wasn’t loud, but it was steady, deliberate, and laced with a softness that made every word sting sharper than any shout could. ❝ You think this is about who gets the last word? ❞ he asked, quiet but unwavering. ❝ You think this is about control? ❞ His gaze searched hers, not with anger but something closer to ache. ❝ I’m not walking away because I want power over you, Sayuri. I’m walking away because I see what this is doing to you. To us. ❞

He took a step closer, slowly, deliberately, as if careful not to spook something fragile, something already wounded. ❝ Do you even hear yourself? ❞ he asked, voice low. ❝ You say you’ll decide when we’re done, like it’s a game, like it’s about winning. But I’m not your opponent, Sayuri. I never was. ❞

Another pause, longer this time, and when he spoke again, it was quieter, almost hesitant, as though each word was being pulled from somewhere deeper than he meant to go. ❝ I see you, ❞ he said. ❝ Even when you pretend I don’t. I see how scared you are, how hard you’re fighting to pretend that you’re not. And I get it. I do. I know what it’s like to be afraid of losing something good because you’ve already lost too much. ❞ His voice caught just slightly, just once, but he didn’t let it stop him. ❝ But I’m not here to break you, Sayuri. I’m not here to leave you like they did. ❞ A bitter laugh escaped him—small, sad. ❝ Hell, if I wanted easy, I would’ve been long gone. ❞

He took one final step closer. Close enough now that if she reached out, her fingertips might graze the edge of his sleeve. But he didn’t move to touch her, not yet. His hands remained by his sides, open, empty. ❝ I don’t want to be done, ❞ he admitted, simply. ❝ But I can’t keep standing here while you tear yourself apart trying to decide whether I’m a threat or a promise. I’m not the enemy, Sayuri. I’m the guy who stayed… until now. ❞ His voice grew softer still, threaded with something fragile and far too honest. ❝ But if holding on to me means you have to destroy yourself to feel in control again… then maybe letting go isn’t walking away. Maybe it’s saving us both. ❞ He let the silence settle again, this time not as a weapon, but as a space — a quiet, aching offering. ❝ But I’ll ask you once, ❞ he murmured, ❝ without pride, without control, without anything but this one stupid, human truth: do you want me to stay? ❞

And for once, Ryujin didn’t hide. Not behind teasing, not behind bravado, not behind the walls he’d spent years perfecting. Just a boy, with a breaking heart in open hands, waiting.

[ichayalovesyou]

The Needs of The Many

The First Servant, COVID-19, Pike, Spock, and SNW’s Overarching Themes

So, yesterday’s episode of Strange New Worlds was very… heavy.

Strange New Worlds overarching themes this far have been fate, perspective, and sacrifice.

Even the audience knowing who lives and who dies based on having seen TOS actually SERVES that narrative! Uhura, Spock, Chapel, M’benga, even Pike, they have no idea that they can’t die until after TOS and it’s films. While Samuel Kirk has no idea he’s going to die by the end of TOS’s first season. They don’t know, but we do, and even then, crazy things could still happen. Nothing is set in stone, nothing is exactly as it appears.

The pilot’s most blatant message is that the future is what we make it. That we can choose whether we live (warp drive) or die (warp bomb). As well as that growth can be found even in the most inhospitable and unknowable environments like the vacuum of space.

Children of the Comet declares that just because we know something will happen, doesn’t mean it’ll do so in the way we expect. Whether or not it will br at immense cost to ourselves is undefined (Mahanit does not perish destroying Persephone 3 thanks to Enterprise’s intervention).

The Ghosts of Illyria establishes life after being forcibly changed shape, and the message we leave behind when we go where others cannot follow. What appeared monsterous was only there to help the crew survive what they themselves did not. It also establishes Rukiya, who in some ways is going through something similar to Pike. Instead through the outside perspective and grief of Dr. M’Benga, her father who is desperately trying to save her life, sacrificing much in doing so.

Memento Mori celebrates a Starfleet holiday where those who were killed in action are remembered, and La’an takes her first steps toward actually acknowledging her grief over what happened to her and her family on the Puget Sound at the hands of the Gorn. We also get Hemmer’s Aenarian perspective on death, and Uhura being uncertain what her purpose is in the face of it.

Spock Amok forcibly changes Spock and T’Pring’s perspectives on each other’s lives through an accidental body swap. The R’Ongovians are won over to the side of the Federation by Pike using their own radical empathy tactic. Neither Spock or T’Pring’s lives, or the R’Ongovians, are what they appeared to be to the other side.

Now, Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach, asks us whether the sacrifice of a small child enduring a slow and painful death at the hands of a machine beyond its creators’ comprehension is worth the comfort and stability of an entire civilization.

In this case, do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one?

In this particular case, I think the answer is no.

I believe this will profoundly change how Pike perceives his own, seemingly, inevitable sacrifice and the reasons that he does it for. I think with every passing episode of Strange New Worlds, it’s going to prepare him for that moment in its own unique way. Hopefully, by the time he reaches it, he will be sacrificing himself with a sound heart and mind (which is something he does not have right now but we’ll get into that later).

If we can extrapolate from the dialogue and facts of the episode, Magellus isn’t at all the enlightened utopia that it pretends it is. The guard that Alora kills calls their society a hell. They refuse to help others in need with their technology, including colonies of their own desperate people. The blood of generations of small children is on the hands of everyone who is complicit in The Ascension of The First Servant. The whole thing is very Those Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin. At least in this case, those who are walking away (namely, The First Servant’s father) intend on returning with reinforcements.

All I can think of is our culture’s attitude toward front line essential workers and disabled people even now as the pandemic rages on. How our culture and our government is so desperate to return to a sense of “normalcy” that in the US we have the highest rate of COVID-19 deaths in the world to date.

Our normal was never good, and in our insistence to return to it, immunocompromised people die in droves, the comorbidity of being a minority, for the greater “good” of our civilization. The victims are in the minority, and no matter how much we call it a noble sacrifice to our sense of normalcy or our economy, it is unprecedented, horrendous, and worst of all unnecessary. Most of all because the people who die from COVID don’t choose to, just like raffling off a child to become The First Servant. They don’t consent to their deaths, the society that sustains the bloody cycle does.

It is not the minority that should be sacrificing itself, but the majority that should change so that everyone can live, no deaths required. Whatever the discomfort may be, it’s better than the alternative. The Magellans could leave their city, their so-called paradise if they really cared that a child had to be murdered every few years to sustain their way of life. But they do not and have not, and may never unless a great unrest takes place.

Now how does all of this apply to Pike’s journey?

I keep mulling over in my head the key similarities and differences in the Magellan edict and Pike’s mantra from Through The Valley of Shadows.

Science, Servitude and Sacrifice VS Service, Sacrifice, Compassion, and Love

What the Magellans lack that Pike (and in turn the Federation) does not is the additions of compassion and love. Which is why the First Servant’s sacrifice is in vain, as it is to a unloving and unsustainable culture. It is also, ironically, what Pike lacks regarding, not other people, but himself.

It’s something we have seen him struggle with since the very beginning, as in The Cage. As in Dr. Boyce saying “damnit Chris you treat everyone on board like a human being except yourself!” When he says he serves the living and the dying, he is absolutely referring to Chris, who lives like he’s dying.

Pike, like many other captains we know, has a serious Martyr/God complex. He’s depressed on an existential level, he is looking for reasons worth dying for rather than for reasons to live. He’s even treating his eventual disability like death so he doesn’t have to think about living! Even though he will very much still be alive after the radiation takes his voice and mobility away from him. “If I don’t save them who will? If I don’t die for a cause who will? Surely, I am the only person who can do this, this is the only way I can do this, and there’s no unforeseen consequences to this action I’ve yet to take! Sounds convenient!”

He’s clinging to terminal deadlines because he doesn’t want to think about the future, the real future, the one he’s a part of. He’s constantly, constantly looking for a good enough reason to die so that the people who love him will stop arguing with him about it. Pike is using his paragon of martyrdom persona and his captaincy to hide that he is incredibly depressed. He doesn’t want a future that he can’t imagine, so he’s decided it’s going to end with the only answer he’s received, regardless of it’s context.

He puts very, very little value on his own life. Constantly hurling himself into immediate danger throughout his time on Discovery, out of guilt and out of principle, and out of his own unaddressed emotional struggles. I think the only reason he’s (mostly) stopped doing that in Strange New Worlds is that he is holding out for the big one. He has to live so he can “die” later. He’s got “I give my life for you” down pat, has learned to tolerate “you give your life for me” but severely lacks in “nobody gets left behind.”

Spock ends up following this pattern too under a veneer of logic, and as much as both of these characters preach that the needs of the many outweigh their own, and that that mantra holds truth and nobility to it, that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy of saving as well.

Spock puts himself at great risk to ensure Pike lives a full life in The Menagerie (messy/problematic metaphors aside), Kirk and the Enterprise crew risk their lives to bring Spock back from the dead in The Search for Spock. Nobody gets left behind, the needs of the few motivate the many to change themselves, often for the better. ‘You gave your life for us, we give our lives for you’ ensures everyone lives, not that one person dies. Even when that one person believes their purpose is to die for others.

My hope is that tragedy Pike witnessed in Magellus puts things into perspective for him and that other episodes continue to do so. So that when the time comes, he doesn’t sacrifice himself because he doesn’t think his life is important, or at least, that it’s only important because of that moment. Hopefully before the end Pike figures out the most important things to him about living. Learning to value himself before the accident permanently changes him and his capabilities. That when he does sacrifice himself it’s because he loves life, and loves who he is as a person, and gives of himself in spite of that. Or perhaps something else may come into play…

Given the overarching themes of perspective in Strange New Worlds, I don’t think his fate, or where his storyline appears to end in The Menagerie, are exactly as they seem. And I am greatly looking forward to seeing that narrative spun if SNW continues to move in this direction.

[yjwhatif]

MY (LATE) YJ EPISODE 19 NOTES (spoilers)

I’ll be honest I think most of these notes are me just writing down quotes from the episode and saying that I liked them… let’s do this…

MY BOY FINALLY SPEAKS! It took 19 episodes but we got there and I couldn’t be happier - he is still as awesome as ever! Every line he speaks is just on point - I love the way Jason Marsden voices Bart - there’s so much personality in everything he speaks… Bart we have missed you!

Another thing I’m really loving about this season is how they’re using time - things aren’t just happening all at once because the plot needs to keep moving - the show puts effort into establishing that things do take time to set up and cumulate into something worth actively exploring. This is especially important with the mental health aspect of this season - feelings and trauma can take a while to actually manifest into something noticeable by the people around you. For me it’s what makes this universe feel so real and the characters so complex - time is taken to make them that way. Time doesn’t stop just because we’re not following a certain character - their story’s still moving and developing in the background - just like life.

"That's why you came to me." Bart knows his value to us all.

If Bart can essentially repurpose the legions time machine into a completely new one - does that mean he always had the ability to fix his own but chose not to - he must be getting new parts from somewhere if its taken 3 and a half months to get what's needed? Also what happened to his original time machine - was it destroyed in the cave or was it moved somewhere to be studied - I have always wondered?

"Only a fool goes into a mission blind” - parallels between M’comm and Bart - neither are naïve enough to get manipulated - which actually makes me reconsider my ep18 thought that M’comm’s desperation for Darkseid’s help will blind him to ultimately being manipulated by him.

Also it is ridiculous how many watches of that opening scene it took for me to consciously realise both Bart and M’comm say - “So spill, or we’re done” - that was a serious facepalm moment 🤦‍♀️

KILOWOG! I always liked him in the Justice League Animated Series - him and Flash were always fun together

“You want nothing done - form a committee” - I have definitely heard my uncle say that before

I love a good hug moment!

“It’s as I feared, I am dead” - I already love this dude. Also Kilowog & Razer definitely have sunshine and grouch energy ☀️🌩 I’m here for it!

Tell her how it is Vykin - Raquel you need to look beyond the rage and find the hope - Orion is not a monster! Also this officially answers the question I had about who knows about Orion being Darkseid’s son

I love YJ Kilowog - gotta love the caring friend giving the angry lecture about keeping in contact when they go off into the unknown without word… I can see one of these in the future headed for Bart.

Yeah that deal sounds a bit too good to be true

Forager x Forager’s bug romance is cute - don’t know if I really needed it but I won’t deny they are very cute with each other.

I feel like there’s an interesting post to be made about whether Bart truly perceives everything like some game or whether it’s all just an act…

That’s a lot of food! I do love that it changes with every scene. Also I really liked the idea that he’s carbo-loading ready to go off into the time stream as soon as they finish their story — he’s always thinking ahead - ready for anything

Ahh, inherited hatred - the foil to progress and corrupter of minds.

LOSH vs ZOD — Hope vs Rage. The legion represent hope for the future while Zod embodies rage for the past

That is a perfectly shaped table for the current situation

Yep I still love Orion! I love how blunt and direct he is - but you still get moments of emotion that come through - “You should all be afraid of that fight.” His tone changes just enough to emphasise how serious he feels about a war against Apokolips and how grave his warning is to a ignorant Rocket.

Also there are 3 moments in this ep that really made me laugh and Orion is in all three of them… the first one: “Why are there so many Green Lanterns from Earth?”… basically, Earth sucks. I love when this show directly questions the logic of the original comics.

“And you though that would be enough to revert the timeline… been there, didn’t revert that.” Is that the reason why the future still looked grim for Neut in Bloodlines? Or could it be reference to things like Blue still getting put on mode? Or something else?

What if Bart decides to secretly say his goodbyes to everyone before leaving - most don't notice anything strange about it - but some do - to which Bart just waves off their concerns because everything's fine. It doesn't quell their suspicions...

Bart now knows what happened to Conner and why - could he tell Gar if he bumps into him whilst doing his rounds of goodbyes? Bart has been noticeably absent from all the Gar content - does he see something in Gar that he doesn't want to acknowledge in himself - so he's been avoiding him?

Noble’s a good dad and it’s nice to see!

Metron is such a jerk (I was going to use a stronger word but I thought I'd keep this family friendly) I'd forgotten what he was like in s3 - now I remember and I appreciate the hate all the new gods have for him... Like, Razers just destroying everything and he really couldn't give a damn!

No Forager!! Imma be honest, there was a genuine moment here where I thought they’d fridged Forager and genuinely killed her… and then my video started working again and I realised they hadn't to either point and all was good again.

Now, moving away Forager and onto Forager… hearing Forager so distraught is not a fun experience - it’s something I didn’t realise we’ve never seen before and hope never we never see it again! He doesn’t deserve such pain!

Whilst watching Razer destroying shit in response to his rage for Metron, I realised something… the idea of hope verses rage kinda applies to the stuff I said in episode 18’s notes about the train altercation with Raquel and the old woman verses Jay and Highmothers handling of Orion. Both Raquel and the old woman follow the path of rage, while Jay and Highmother show hope that Orion will reconsider his perspective regarding Rockets tech - as a result one ends in Raquel being the bad guy as the woman storms off in offence, and the other ends with Orion reconsidering his ask and everything carrying on as it was. One was a very negative experience which accelerated unnecessary and definitely caused a lot of emotional distress for many people - including onlookers, the woman, Raquel and Amistad - possibly in a way that he might not even fully comprehend yet. The other avoided all of that. When Razer is trying to attack Metron, the only thing he’s listening to is his rage and the only thing it’s saying is hurt Metron - it blinds him from acknowledging the consequences of such a response. In trying to hurt Metron he only resulted in hurting others - ultimately creating more pain than he quelled - similar to the train altercation. Rage is reactive while Hope is about trust. Jay shows trust in Orion by not criticising him, Highmother show trust in Orion by not making decisions for him - as a result Orion is never made to feel foolish or like there’s something wrong with him for simply being the way he is and possibly making an error in judgment. The old woman shows no hope in Amistad by immediately confronting him and no trust in Raquel by criticising her and ultimately not letting her handle her own sons behaviour. It’s safe to say the train altercation was a total train wreck. I’m gonna guess this hope vs rage thing will possibly continue throughout this arc and I’m intrigued to see where they go with it. (I had intended to do this as a separate post, but because I never got round to it, I figured I’d just leave it here.)

I love that Razer finds balance between rage and hope - there truly is strength in balance as there’s a greater sense of stability and control - instead of having to commit to being one way all of the time. The sequence also looks great. I do think it’s funny that Razer’s had 4 costume changes in the space of one episode - yet they don’t even draw highly depressed Garfield without shoes on in his own apartment.

I love love love the design they go for - especially how his hair become centre parted to match the balanced aesthetic - its a nice touch. Though I’ve gotta say it really makes him look like Wally… also whilst I’m on the topic of look-a-likes - how is it possible that Bart suddenly looks the spitting image of a young Jay - like it makes no sense because neither of them have new designs, yet throughout this episode I was just looking at Bart thinking - you genuinely look like Jay’s offspring - yet that doesn’t even make sense because they’re not biologically related in anyway. Seriously Bart look more like Jay than he does any of Allen’s and they’re not even that distantly related. How does that make sense?!

Metron gets punched in the face AGAIN - he absolutely deserves it!

2nd moment that made me laugh: “Razer was gonna talk to some poozer named Metron” *Vykin and Orion just sigh understandingly* - “say no more.” 🤣🤣 so funny!

I do like how the only one who blames/criticises Razers actions is Razer - it’s also interesting that Rocket never looks on him as a monster after his rage outburst just nearly flattened Forager and destroyed a load of buildings - possibly hurting others unseen

Forager still shows no anger or ill will towards Razer for the mistake he made — truly a good little soul.

The new statue! I hoped he’d do that! A celebration of all! Which leads us onto funny moment no.3: “That’s not how it was before!” Orion complaining about the new statue - possibly more for the fact it’s suddenly been changed rather that because of what it’s been changed to(?) - while Foragers grinning like the Cheshire Cat and clapping with so much joy at being represented along side Highmother and Highfather in such a way. Love it!

Rainbow power Razer - I wanna see that!

“We turned to the one other capable of replacing superboy in our timeline…” “oh, uh, me?” - That is the reaction of someone caught off guard/a little flustered by the prospect of being a symbol. He’s shocked then reverts back to confident goofball.

He was always going to help them - but he was never gonna go in blind - and he’s certainly not gonna let 2 strangers off into the time stream without his supervision — he certainly isn’t stupid.

It’s Jay’s birthday! He’s 102 yet somehow looks young with each season. The bugs have a happy birthday song - does this count as the song of s4. Cute though I’d keep getting it stuck in my head. Also could they not extend it a bit more as to avoid filling the extra space with character sounds that sound a bit cringy and unnatural - especially the Orion line which just makes no sense to be there. Though the image of Orion standing there as everyone enthusiastically sings to Jay is highly amusing.

A really great episode- this is shaping up to be my favourite arc of the season. At this point we’ve only had two episodes and with that I’ve wound up purchasing both the original Kirby run of new gods and the green lantern animated series - all the characters are so compelling and I just wanna know more.

Also to all who have been sending me asks about the episode and all things Bart this week - I really appreciate all of them - it’s been a new experience that’s really kept my brain functioning… and to those who I’ve yet to respond to, I assure you I will get round to them - it just takes me a long time to do anything and the order I’ve been answering them has been totally random. So don’t worry I’m still on with them - I promise!

LB

[ofthepuzzle]

The news collapsed on him with the weight of a stone wall and no way out. His father has been feeling unwell to the point of becoming physically weakened and put on bed rest. Atem desperately was asking what was wrong, what could be done to help this ‘sickness’. How did his father suddenly become terribly ill? One specific thing the heir noticed was that there’d been constant sadness in the Pharaoh’s eyes despite him outwardly showcasing the opposite. And that sadness one day came streaming as a painful cleanse, breaking the façade of pretense. Never had the boy seen his father kneel and beg— beg he did for the mercy of his son, so that he would take the suffering instead. That this was on his account and his son shouldn’t bear the consequences. Atem could only watch as his father was breaking apart. He was not informed of what these consequences are and was refused an answer. An answer… he won’t get personally from his father. The day had come when the Pharaoh was announced dead.

There was a scream coming from the depth of hurting lungs, of the soul aching. It was the kind of scream that bypasses the ears to speak right to the heart. Disbelief, grief, hysteria. It would be the three things that cut into Atem’s mental state. Emotions had gone haywire. He was not taught how to perceive death properly despite being shaped into a strong figure supposed to ascend the throne once the time comes. But the time came too soon, way too soon. And when someone told him even with the gentlest of voices, “Prince, calm down”, he would lash out,“ How can YOU be calm??” and cling to his father’s lifeless form. His hands clutched onto his father’s, squeezing, almost hoping to somehow wake him up the same way he’d done before each morning. Shimon’s intention wasn’t to upset the prince further. However, no one had witnessed the prince this horrified before and could only watch helplessly. Seth never imagined seeing with his bare eyes the one person who could hold his ground effortlessly and rival his own strengths fell apart just now. It was that or he didn’t know how to help in this situation. Mahad had seen Atem show weakness before. It was not news that the prince used to cry at little inconveniences such as falling and scraping his knee. The difference was that this was no little inconvenience. The innocence in Atem’s eyes was replaced by fear and he was acting defensively. Like a great portion of his safety was stolen from him. And Mahad understood that quite well.

Taking the risk, Mahad approached the Prince and attempted to have a talk with him. No one else felt inclined to do so, or more so no one had the right approach. But Atem was stubborn, not wanting to leave Akhenamkhanen’s side. The dead body must not stay bare for too long and undergo a ritual so that the Pharaoh safely travels to the afterlife. As much as Mahad didn’t want to do this, he had to forcefully pull Atem away. And when he released him, the prince ran out of the room. On his way, he passed Aknadin who could tell what may have happened just from the state Atem was in.

Atem went into his room and didn’t come out for two days. He was given food and drinks as they were looking after the now-future king’s health. Atem hasn’t accepted the fact that they will have to plan out the coronation ceremony where he will become the new Pharaoh. A day after the death of the former king they officially announced the news to the public. The mummification was complete on the second day. On the night of the third day, Atem didn’t feel like sleeping. He was staring at the Millennium Pendant that he inherited from his father. If this is important for his father, then he would wear it, he thought. The Millennium Items were created to fend off attackers and save Egypt, he was told. But the way he looked at the item was in a way that it belonged to his father and nothing else. How he would use it, he doesn’t know yet. And hopefully, he wouldn’t have to. Atem placed the pendant around his neck. He couldn’t take the suffocating atmosphere in the palace and snuck his way out.

On the second day, Atem confronted Mahad that something was kept from him. But this lack of information and explanation irritated the prince. He didn’t forget to add the ‘consequences’ his father was speaking of. There’s more to this than what meets the eye.

---

Atem’s steps are rushed on the evening sand. While he is walking he is met with the thought, “What am I doing?” and stops in his tracks. Where is he even going? He is searching for something and doesn’t even know what. He seeks peace that is true but he won’t get it out here. Yet, the breeze feels nice on his face, making the blond strands sway against his cheeks. Even if a little, he feels a bit free from the responsibilities in the palace. He shifts in position to look back to the path he trod. And just then, his eyes grow wide. What he sees next is not what he expects. A person is behind him.

He can recognize this familiar ashen grey hair from somewhere. However, that isn’t the only thing he fixated on. The robe the man is wearing— it resembles his father’s. But that can’t be, can it…? The ritual should be complete and all of the king’s belongings should be secured in his tomb.

“… What are you wearing?” His first instinct was to ask these words instead of who he was. Maybe that was a mistake. “Who are you?” He adds right after. He’s afraid of the answers because he feels like he knows them already.

Into the Shadow - Closed Starter

@ofthepuzzle

The nights had bled into days and he had been terribly busy.

Filtering the mood of a whole metropolis and making it ready for an upheaval... a stir so to speak wasn't an easy task, but he would make it work.

The upstanding citizens of Waset were beyond unhappy as their Pharaoh had gone on to the afterlife, entered the Duat... but that was just what happened. Something like an icy splinter had wedged into his organs, since that day. Like the night sky of small clear splinters had sliced through him and left only dread and emptiness behind.

He had been desperate and empty... and so, so angry that the rage in his veins had felt numbing with how heated it was.

Certainly a strange kind of grief, but he had felt it nonetheless... That wretched person... the former pharaoh had gone on... had performed the one sole action that he had condemned his people to never reach and then had left a state that wasn't read for the departure.

Wild hair, golden glimmer and bright big eyes flitted through his mind for a tiny second, but he let the fleeting memory pass on, out of his system. One of these days their destiny would be decided... one of these days he would see, if he had done the world a favor... or made a horrible mistake.

His hands balled into fists as he slipped through the night, his new mantle fluttering in the night air and barely making a noise. Once the rites had been completed and the tomb sealed.... he had made it his penultimate business to desecrate it in the worst fashion.

It had almost cost him an arm and left behind a huge wound, but it didn't matter... the dead man should feel the same grief that the ripped up souls of his village felt... and he would wear the garments of the late pharaoh as his trophy.

He hadn't had the opportunity to best him in life... but he could still ruin him in death.

Something caught his attention and he slipped onto a rooftop, watching a smaller figure darting through the night... hidden beneath a completely clean garment... the rich smell of cinnamon and myrrh tickling his nose... He didn't actually want to step into the awareness of the public JUST yet... maybe the approach of this meeting should have been clear to him, but it hadn't.... The thing that beckoned him to follow, the one dying grace of the smaller human slipping through the night was a spark of gold.... that one splotch of light hitting a hidden cursed treasure.

He was well on his way to follow without a sound before he could even make the decision, his stomach filling with madness and icy dread.

Maybe he would destroy the honor and false virtue of a whole family tonight-

[kanene-yaaay]

Yellow, Black, Blue and Warmth

Kanene’s note: I am very proud of this sdfghjqswerty.

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* This characters don’t belongs to me! They all belong to the anime/manga Boku no Hero.

* This is a SFW tickle fanfic. ^w^)b

* This is Lee!Toshinori with Ler!Hizashi + Ler!Aizawa. Platonic or Romantic. Around 4.500 words.

* This has mouth tickles (raspberries, nibbles, tickly kisses...), teasy nicknames, use of the spotlight system (green, yellow and red) and baby talk. If there is anything that needs to be tagged just lemme know! 

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any and every advice is very very welcome! \(-w-)/

* Tell someone that makes you feel safe how much they matter to you. If you want, no words are needed. Sometimes just an emoji or ‘this reminds of you’ is needed. Don’t forget you’re especial to someone, as well. <33

[~*~]

“W-wait!”

 His arms twitched on their position above his head and, not for the first time, he felt himself starting to lower them in a desperate urge to hide his flaming face adorned by a soft, uncontrollable kind of smile that only a few people in the world could claim the happiness of seeing.

 A warm hand rested on the right side of his ribcage and nails positioned themselves under his toes, two playful gazes looking at him, warningly.

 “Let’s-” a quiet gasp escaped from his lips when he tried to make a placating gesture with his hands and lowered them further, making the nimbly fingers start to wiggle restlessly on his spots. “I aham sure we can think another solution for this p-problem!”

 Goosebumps ran freely across his body in a wave of warm and excitement as the concentrated, evil black eyes blinked lazily at him, their owner not dignifying himself with an answer before he shoved his face back on the right side of his stomach, nuzzling and humming calmly, his nose exploring, drawing shapes on the ticklish skin, the adult being extremely careful and attentive enough so every vibration seemed to buzz on every and any of his so, so sensitive nerves, leading his back to arch with the unbearable sensation and the “attacker” to smirk in his quietness.

 “I-I beg f-for you to reconside-eek!” He squirmed harder as a low ‘oh’ was pronounced, trying - with not nearly all his strength, if he was being honest, but no one needed to know that - to dislodge the other adult from the newly found sweet spot right next to his hip, which was currently being rustless attacked with soft, barely there kisses that, no matter how much he buckled, refused to move. “Please, please. Yohou don’t have to d-do this!”

 His barriers were starting to crumble, quiet sounds beginning to find their way out of his firmly pressed lips, red growing more on his face as an awed cooing researched his ears and the long, awfully long nails lightly scratched the arch of his feet, making themselves known. They prodded, scribbled and danced skillfully across his sole, circling the weak spots that, for the way the blonde’s grin widened every time he stumbled in a new one, wouldn’t be forgotten that easily.

 And then Toshinori giggled. 

 That was when he realized he was doomed.

“Aw, but I do think we do! Who wouldn’t want to hear more of that cute laughter of yours, my dear squeaky listener?”

 “Hi-hizashi-san!”

 “Yes, my wiggly wiggley bear? What is the matter? You seem rather smiley today. ~” Hizashi sing-sang, an only one finger focusing at that lovely spot right under the ball of his feet that made him squeal in a poorly hidden delight, his laughter starting to overcome his titters. Especially as Shouta decided to be a little more hands-on and weak, almost maddening touches were spidered on Yagi’s right side, not helping at all the flow of high pitched squeaks escaping from his mouth. “Does that tickle? Huh? Does that tickle tickle tickle you so much that it makes you want to give us all that amazing squealing squeals and cute yelps? Aw, isn’t that so kind of him, Shou?”

 “You think that after so much hero work the Symbol of Peace would have gotten at least a bit of a resistance.” Aizawa pointed, not bothering to lift his head so his words wouldn’t be muffled as they hit directly Toshinori’s tummy, not even a drop of remorse on his tune as his act made the aforementioned to crackle, kicking as a series of ‘nonono’s filled the room. “Don’t you agree, Toshinori? Just a few well placed tickles here and there and then All Might would be begging for mercy in a few seconds. Tsk. So ticklish, so helpless, so cute.”

 Aizawa didn’t call them cute often. He did, however, reconsider his choice when his gaze quickly locked on Yagi, a nice feeling bubbling in his chest with the other’s half whine, half giggle, his wobbly, happy smile almost disappearing under all the blush that consumed his features.

  “Right!” Yamada experimentally squeezed his calf, beaming when a guffaw answered him, the leg tugging halfheartedly on his grip, arms hugging himself to not push them away. “But that is no problem! We are teachers, after all. Teachers very capable of teaching him how to increase his endurance, and I think I have the perfect idea of a lesson to help him.”

 Yagi was dying. Part of himself wanted to flee away from all the attention, all the warm, caring touches and compliments and that absurdly insufferable sensation that still tingled his body even now, when Shouta and Hizashi stopped to loom over his form with matching evil smirks, making it almost impossible for him to not hide his face and curl in a silly, rather giggly ball.

 The words of the previous finally sank in his mind and he fiercely shook his head, not trusting his own mouth and trying to not let the amusement he felt blooming on him to drip on his move.

 “Awesome! Thank you for agreeing, tickly listener. It’s amazing to know you’re also as eager for this just as we are!”

 “But I did not-” A true shriek cut his words as Aizawa dug his fingers on his armpits, resulting in a sea of wild giggles to overtake him. The tickles being mean enough to be able to completely dissolve his protests, although also the right amount of light so Yamada’s teasy words would still be able to be heard above him.

 “So!” The Voice Hero clapped joyfully, getting even more excited at the other's reactions. “The best way to be prepared for any situation is to train! Practice! You need to be prepared to all resist to any and every trickys tickly tickle technique that exists, which means scribbles, scratches, squeezes, kneads, nibbles, nuzzles, kisses, spidering, nursery rhymes, and ooooh, of course, raspberries!” Hizashi nodded once, determined.

 “I can’t!” Yagi threw his attempts of forming entire, coherent sentences out of the window, his brain basically short-circuiting on Hizashi’s first examples. “Please, please, I swear! I cahahan’t!”

 “Oh, don’t worry my dear sweet, squirmy listener, it’s really a lot of work to do... But! You will not be doing it alone! Me and Shouta will be here cheering and helping you for hours and hours and hours until you master the whooole lesson. And," the blonde got closer, lowering his tune until his words were just a breath on Yagi's ears, teasing the sensitive spot no matter how much he shrugged and shook his head. "If you get something wrong all we need to do it's just start aaaall over and over again, right, Shou?!”

 “Oh gohod.”

 “Of course, I don’t waste my time with someone who doesn’t have potential.”

 Aizawa’s predator smirk and tone maybe would be scarier if it wasn't broken by Yamada’s loud cooing, the taller coming back to his previous position as he rested a quick squeeze on Shouta's hip, fishing a surprised snort and a warningly glance from the black haired man, who, on his turn received an innocent whistling as an answer. Toshinori chuckled in amusement at the scene, gratefully taking the breather.

 “Better be careful,” Yagi’s tune was innocent, with a titter dropping here and there, still, a dangerous shine gleamed intensely on his blue eyes, “so that lesson won’t backfire on you in the future.”

 Aizawa stared at him, the tip of his lips curling in a barely there grin that heavily contrasted and complemented Yamada’s dramatic gasp in betrayal.

 “Very well.” Eraserhead said, positioning himself on top of his legs, successfully pining him on the mattress. "Let's take care of any riot that might happen right now, then."

 Suddenly, All Might senses all the confidence he felt not a few seconds ago to transform in butterflies flying in despair on his stomach. Shouta’s shadow stood above him, the usual bored expression plastered on his features as his face lowered closer and closer of the blonde, stopping just a few centimeters from his ear.

  Toshinori held his breath in anticipation.

 “Green?”

 Something… something he couldn’t really nominate melted in his heart and for a moment he forgot how words worked.

 He really loved them both so much.

 “Green.”

 Shouta chuckled.

 "Good." He adjusted himself, resting their foreheads together and capturing those blue eyes to himself. "Giggles, titters, whines… every sound you make I will be able to hear clearly so be very, very careful and don't laugh.”

 Toshinori gasped when the feeling of skilled hands, scratching and kneading his side shoot through him. The offending fingers danced slowly, taking their time on each weak spots before switching to another one, a bit too close of his stomach or his spine, completely oblivious to how Toshinori's chest already shook with trapped sounds. Toshinori realized, maybe too late, how their new position prevented him to perceive where Aizawa would attack next, every time the black-haired hero changed his target to an unexpected spot adding a tear in his barriers, the squeaks and crackles getting stronger and harder to contain.

 “So, sweetpea, how would you rate your ticklish experience from one to ten, so far?” Yagi couldn’t help the way his body twitched and squirmed involuntarily at Yamada’s voice, his imagination unhelpfully whispering that, at any moment, any moment now, Hizashi would give up from his purely verbal teases and be touchier. “One being ‘That Is All You Can Do?’ and ten being ‘This Is Everything I ever Dreamed About Please Don’t ever Stop?’” 

 “P-p-lease!”

 “That is not a number.” Aizawa observed, jumping in his friend’s teasing at the same time he stopped, thinking about something until his eyes shone. His voice was velvety, almost as a purring. “But that can be helped. Here, I will refresh your memory.” A finger pressed on the lowest rib on his right and the blonde’s eyes widened, a snort flying from his lips, his head shaking from one side to other, a pleading gaze.

 “Wait! Aizawa, please, wait! I will do anything!”

 “What.” Suddenly the finger was replaced by the whole hand shaped as a claw, the spot where it touched tingled in anticipation. “Did you call me?”

 Aizawa was adamant about very few things, actually.

 Hizashi chuckled darkly, free of any pity, next to him. “I think he is asking for it, Shou.”

 Do not mess with his cats. Do not mess with his kids. Do not wake him up. Do not eat his jelly porches and, of course, if he gave you the permission to call him by his first name, use it.

 “No, no, no! I meant! I meheheant Shouta!”

 Of course, except for the first two, he didn’t actually care that much for when the others were ignored by his close friends, but - he curled his fingers, watching as Yagi continued to squirm and snicker at every twitch of his fingers - that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have his fun with this slip. 

 “And also,” again, Yamada pipped in, “he just giggled, didn’t you just said him to not laugh?”

 “I did.” 

 “Please! Anything! Anything you want! Just name it! I will givehe you anythihihihing.”

 Aizawa adjusted himself so his lips would rest on Yagi’s neck, he sighed deeply, relaxed. 

 “Then give me your laughter.”

 And he started.

 The fingers dug on his spot, prodding and scribbling in attacks which danced in a perfect synchrony with the fast nibbles assaulting all the sensitive skin he could reach, expertly dodging from all the trashing, the attacks seemingly to only be fueled by his shrieks.

 “An autograph!” loud, booming laughter exploded, snorts and an intelligible mix of half English and half Japanese painting his words stumbling and falling nonstop from his mouth. Yagi lost track of what he was saying the moment a raspberry was placed right under his chin and the hand tased his side, vibrating and vibrating and vibrating there for what seemed an entire eternity. “Rare merchandise! My house! Anything, I swear, anything but this!”

 “Oh my god.” Hizashi braced himself on the wall, his conflicted heart torn between cooing and teasing the other for how much adorable he was being and giggling in joy with his funny reactions. “Oh my god. Shouta, please, don’t ever stop tickling him, this is the most precious scene I witnessed in my whole life.”

 Shouta felt tempted to agree, however, after a couple of minutes, he stopped, shoving his face on the other’s shoulder to hide his own soft chuckles, being accompanied by the residual, bubbling giggles. They waited until his breath became steadier before the one with black, deep eyes stared at the watery, gleaming blue ones.

 “Shoutahaha…”

 “Just one more spot, okay?”

 Toshinori closed his eyes, nodding before trying to hide his expression under his hands, being stopped by Yamada, who took each one of them gently and gave a kiss on his knuckles, lacing their fingers, knowing very well Yagi wouldn’t attempt to pry them away like this. 

 “No hiding your beautiful face, remember?” Yagi wanted to huff in annoyance at the unprompted tease, but it was being said with such lovely care that he couldn’t help but melt under it, especially when Shouta began to bombard the place behind his ear with kisses and small raspberries, descending him in quiet titters and silent laughter sprinkled with sporadic guffaws.

 After a few more of kisses, tickles and fast, inaudible giggles he ceased his attack, giving a last nibble on his ear before getting up from him, letting the Symbol of Peace recompose himself between his blush and gigantic smile, offering a cup of water when his laughter stopped to fly across the room, all of them enjoying the silence as Toshinori drank the liquid, thanking Shouta.

 “Green?” Hizashi asked, stepping a little closer, a shy grin on his lips.

 “Oh my… Why do you have to make me say that?” Toshinori squeezed their hands, huffing and deviating his gaze. “Green.”

 The blinding smile that was sent in his way seemed to have enough shine to light up the whole house. “Let’s jam!”

 The Voice Hero tried to untwine their hands kindly, blinking in surprise when the other only held them more fiercely. He tried again, same result. Behind them Shouta snorted, amused.

 “Giggly bear, my sweetpea, you will have to let go of my hands.”

 “Absolutely not, you will attack me.”

 Yagi stared at him with a challenge in his face, daring the hero to do something about that.

 “Well…” Hizashi winked playfully. “I always have my mouth, and, you know? That wiggly wiggley yummy tummy of yours seems to be asking for a couple or maybe a dozen of raspberries… ~”

 “Wait, no!” Toshinori squirmed, instinctively sucking his belly. “Don’t!”

 “Aw, but that is such a pity! I was thinking about being a bit merciful today, you know? Maybe some skittering under your knees, being sure to give enough attention to every inch of both of them, I mean, we don’t want anyone feeling left out of the fun, of course! Then I would give one or two squeezes on them, a swift under your wiggly wiggley toes, a few scratches on your squirmy feet and voilá! A happy, silly, giggly Yagi ready to go. But, well, now I believe I don’t have another choice except place all the mean raspberries aaaall over your unprotected stomach and sides and ribs and sides and neck and ribs and-”

 “Stop, stop!” Toshinori let go of his hands in order to hug his tingling torso, curling in a defense ball, trying to stop the feeling of the imaginary tickles. “J-just get over it!”

 “Aw,” Hizashi placed a kiss on his temple, smiling softly for a piece of moment before letting it turn into an evil grin. “Your wish is an order, my adorably ticklish bear.”

 He positioned his hands in each leg, grazing his nails from the bottom of his calves and lightly scribbling their way up to the wonderfully sensitive spot under his knee, taking his time to draw spirals and rivers on the skin, being very content to feel the other squirm under his touches, huffs of laughter puffing from his lips. “Hey, Toshi, can I ask a question?”

 “Fuck,” he squeaked when an unexpected pinch was placed on his hip before Hizashi innocently continued his previous attack. “Y-you may.”

 “Right! But, first of all, let me take care of this two...” Yamada smiled, completely unfazed as he sat on the bed, holding both ankles and lifting before resting them on his shoulders. “There you go, squirmy toy! All comfy and unable to wiggle away from my curious, tickly fingers!”

 “He is going to kick you.” Aizawa rolled his eyes, getting closer until he could get a firm, yet gentle, grip on Yagi’s ankles, truly preventing him from moving them. “Here. Now ask your question.”

 “Thank you, babe.” Hizashi relished on the way Aizawa’s ears were painted in red before beaming again at Toshinori, who kept trying to pull his legs away from his predicament, and seeming to take the fact that he wasn’t laughing his head off as a personal offense. He rested his hands on his knees again, one of them squeezing them skillfully while the other scratched the sensitive skin underneath it. “So, Toshinori, what do you think it tickles more? When I squeeze, squeeze, squeeze those adorable ticklish kneecaps or when I tickle tickle tickle them silly?”

 “No, no, no!”

 “No?! Aw, I am afraid that isn’t really the answer I am looking for, darling… But that is okay! Do you know what I am going to do now, Toshi? Huh? Do you know?” 

 Yagi just shook his head, knowing pretty well that anything said would just fuel the evil words dripping freely from the other’s mouth.

 “Not even a guess?” He changed his technique to lightly tease with plentiful of scribbles the sensitive spot with just the tip of his fingers. “An itsy bitsy tiny guess? Awn.” A fake pout adorned his face. His fingers ascended a bit more, now tormenting the thighs, their owner smiling wide as the squirms began to get stronger, drawing circles around the little weak spots he knew that would fish the wildest laughter. “But I will tell you anyway! Because the Tickle Monster is feeling very kind today. I am going to get those sensitives calves riiiight here!” 

 “Hizashi!” Yagi tried to pull his legs again, his giggles becoming more frantic as he realized they didn’t even buckle from their spot. “I can’t. I promise you, I can’t! Hihihihizashi!”

 “But I do think you can! I believe in you, Toshinori. You’re such a strong, nice tickle bug. I think you definitely can take some good cootchie-coothie-coos right here!” He poked. “And here” Poke. “And here, and here, and here, here, here!” 

 Suddenly a sea of pokes - just that, just tiny, harmless, quick pokes that shouldn’t be able to make him feel even more ticklish than he already was - assaulted his calves, some surprising pinches and clawing also making an appearance and disappearing just as fast as they came.

 “Shut up, please, shut up!” Throwing his head with loud, squealing chortles, Toshinori pleaded, his mind overtaken with how much it tickled and how unbearable it was and how amazing all of this felt. 

 “Gasp! Toshi! How can you say that? The Tickle Monster thought you loved his teases. Why would you want them to ever stop? Do they make you feel more ticklish? Huh? Do they? Do all my silly teases and tickly attacks make the big, strong Yagi Toshinori become a very lovely and adorable mess of those cute sounds? Huh?”

 “Don’t you think how great would it be if we just stayed like this forever? Me, here, playing with you and your awfully helpless toes,” at the mention of the new spot Yamada changed his target, making the other to arch his back and shriek in belly laughter as fingers attacked under his toes, tickling and digging unmercifully at every single one of them. “and hearing this wonderful laughter! Don’t even make me start about your laughter! It is music to my ears.”

 When nothing but a series of snorts and loud laughter answered him, the blonde decided to stop his tickles, slowing them until his warm hands just rested there, peacefully.

 Toshinori wiped the single tear that traveled to his hot cheek, just a quick glance in Aizawa and Yamada’s general direction being enough to make his giggles start a-new.

 “I am not even doing nothing to you.” The tease couldn’t be helped, especially as his giggles got stronger and, consequently, quieter.

 “Your hands!”

 “My hands? What about them?” Hizashi shouldn’t be allowed to feel that much smug nor powerful.

 “They’re just…” A flow of intelligible noises fell from Yagi’s lips, and he decided to try again. “They’re just there! It tickles!”

 “Now, it does?”

 “I would never have guessed.” Aizawa deadpanned, watching as the other wiggled and squirmed in protest.

 “Right? I mean, they’re just chilling there. No moving, no tickling and Toshinori attacks them like that! I would feel wounded, but I guess he is really just a very ticklish giggle bug. Shouta, what are we going to do? The lesson clearly isn’t working… Oh, I wonder if there is something I could do to stop tickling him...”

 “Just take them off there!” Yagi gasped when the fingers started to skitter around his ankles, another newly discovered sweet spot that erupted a new round of snorts. “No!”

 “I don’t think there is anything that can be done. We could just stop and stare at him and he would be laughing uncontrollably in three seconds.” Aizawa remarked.

 “He is just too much sensitive, ya know? Just an itsy bitsy touch and you get him all giggly and blushy.” 

 “Am nohohot!”

 “And helpless too. Cute and helpless.”

 “Shouta, plehehease, let me go!”

 “Yean, absolutely.” Hizashi agreed, shaking his head with fake sadness, a tiny grin blooming on his lips. “I guess this is our fate, Sho, to hear him laugh and squeal and snort and giggle-giggle-giggle at anything we do.”

 “A pity.”

 “Enough!” Both stopped, hearing the light of tiredness painting Yagi’s tune. “That- haha, that is enough, please.”

 “Yellow?”

 “Red.” Toshinori smiled, feeling yet too shy to find their gazes with his. “I'm just an old man with one lung.”

 Hizashi snorted, offering him a bottle of water and heading to the kitchen to make his special tea - after all, no one knew a better recipe for tired throats than the Voice Hero himself, - and Aizawa just rolled his eyes, sitting on the mattress and massaging his feet, a calming gesture that helped both to relax as they enjoyed the silence with the phantom laughter and reminiscent giddiness that still ran on their veins.

 “Shouta,” Toshinori lightly hit the other’s thigh with his free feet until the black haired one turned his attention to him, not even slightly prepared for the soft, incredibly soft, expression and gleaming, energetic eyes which found his. “Thank you.”

 Aizawa scoffed, quickly trying to brush off the warmth engulfing his heart and smile that tried at all cost to appear on his features. 

 “It was very… enjoyable.” Toshinori pressed further, tipping his head to the side in an attempt to see his expression. “Your technique is very effective! You don’t rely a lot on verbal teases but the way you can mix different attacks and keep track of which spots bring the most reactions is very impressive! Not to mention-” A squeak broke his thoughts when a mean squeeze was delivered on his calf, Aizawa huffing before massaging the local to make the tingles go away.

 “Continue with this and I will not be above ganging up with Hizashi to wreck you, again.”

 “If it’s Complementing Eraserhead hours and you’re being too stubborn to accept the deserved nice words I think it’s very clear who I will end up helping.” Hizashi remarked as he got into the room, distributing the tea before squishing himself between them, almost spilling the drink as a warning tickle on his stomach made him jump.

 “Hey!” The one being called just quirked an eyebrow at him, almost challenging. Hizashi just shrugged. “It would still be worth it.”

 “Yagi,” Toshinori blinked, surprised at being pulled on their usual bickering, staring Aizawa above the rim of his mug. “Analyses about Hizashi as the ler.”

 An inhumane screech flew from Yamada’s lips. “Don’t you dare!”

 When he was over, sneaking one and other praise for Eraserhead here and there, they were all laid on the bed, limbs entangled due both the magnetism that seemed to pull them together and the fact that if it wasn’t for it, Yamada would have already fled from the room on the shine of Yagi’s first word.

 “I don’t like you.” The one with long, blond hair complained, grumbling when his sentence only made the others snuggle closer, snickering. “None of you. You’re both very mean and dirty traitors and I am going to scream.”

 “Don’t.” Aizawa slurred from somewhere behind Toshinori, his tune showing he was almost asleep. Hizashi, who already forgave them for their “betray” searched for his waist, resting his arm on it and very lightly scratching the base of his back, a spot he knew would make the underground hero absolutely melt. Toshinori captured his free hand, coming close and humming softly as his finger traced the lines on his palm.

 Soft. Good. Warm.

 At some point of the conversation, someone had turned the television on, and for a few pieces of moment the show playing in the background was the only thing that filled the silence.

 “Hey, Toshi.”

 “Yes?”

 “I know you don’t like a lot of attention when the tickling is over but… thank you.” A quick kiss was delivered on his forehead, happy to see no trace of discomfort on the other’s features, only a tiny, timid smile. “Thank you.”

 “Go to sleep, Hizashi.” And then he kissed his knuckles, just like Hizashi did back then, and Shouta murmured something, pulling them closer and Hizashi smiled and the television started to grow more and more silent.

 “Ok.”

 After that, everything was soft, good, warm.

[~*~]

Inspirations!

* That entire AllEraserMic tickle series that I absolutely live for

* The teases from the fanfics of that amazing author

* A very especific post about cute reactions when the lee is being tickled but I can’t find it so please enjoy Onion’s blog (the op)  instead. His blog is gold.

[avi17]

MK X Pacific Rim AU Concept

You ever get an AU idea in your head and go absolutely feral for a bit putting it all on paper?  Me neither, until now!  This isn’t so much a fic as just a detailed wiki-style outline, but hopefully it will still be fun to read!  I had a ton of fun figuring out how to translate all these concepts and backstories into the PR world. If anyone feels like doing anything with these ideas they’re absolutely welcome, just please credit me and link back to this post if you do!  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write this into some massive longfic, but I definitely hope to do some shorts in this ‘verse. I brainstormed this with a bunch of people, and got some fun ideas from @sxvethelastdance​, @bastardsunlight​, and @fallen-angel-lucifer- thank you guys so much for humoring all this!​

Pan Pacific Defense Corps Marshal Raiden was a legendary Mark 1 pilot dating back to when the program was first launched.  Based out of the Shatterdome in Tokyo, he and his brother Fujin, in their Jaeger Thunderbolt Gale, were the first line of defense from Kaiju attacks headed westward from the breach for five grueling years. However, they met their match in Motaro, the first Category 3 Kaiju to make landfall on Hokkaido, and when Fujin was torn from their Jaeger and killed, Raiden was forced to take down the creature solo- a feat replicated only twice since. The physical and emotional toll of that day led to his retirement from active combat, but he remained in the PPDC as a commander, as well as a mentor of other pilots.  When the Jaeger program was decommissioned, he was the last one to retain his faith in it, and took up leadership over the few remaining Jaegers at the Shatterdome in Hong Kong for one final stand against the Kaiju. Current Pilots:

Liu Kang and Kung Lao Jaeger: White Lotus Original base: Hong Kong

The home base heroes of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, pilots Liu Kang and Kung Lao are the top graduates and darlings of the Wu Shi Jaeger Academy.  Raised together in a martial arts sect before the first breach and drift compatible since their ranger training began, they are nearly inseparable- though Kung Lao has never quite forgotten how Liu Kang's scores just barely edged out his own in their individual skill assessments, and he strives constantly to prove himself his partner's equal (despite Liu Kang's insistence that such competition is unnecessary). Their Jaeger, White Lotus, is a well-rounded, powerful machine, featuring high-powered flamethrowers, as well as a system of fuel vents that allow it to set its fists alight and heat them to brutal temperatures in close-quarters battle. For ranged combat, it utilizes a circular blade mounted to its head, which can be thrown like a boomerang with enough force to slice through buildings. 

Kitana and Jade Jaeger: Edenia Glory Original Base: Lima

Interplanetary refugees, Kitana and Jade escaped to Earth after their homeworld was attacked and overrun by Kaiju invaders.  Their spacecraft crashed in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, and though they immediately searched for civilization in order to warn Earth’s people of what was to come, the first wave of attacks had already begun.  After making their way to Lima, they volunteered to put their combat skills and close bond to use as rangers in the South American Jaeger program. Together they have defended the coasts of Chile and Peru since the Mark-2 days, though between battles, they spend their time in communication with the PPDC and the U.N., sharing what information they can about the Kaiju and other alien life previously unknown on Earth. Their Jaeger, Edenia Glory incorporates technological elements from their original planet not used in any other Jaeger, and is lithe, fast, and deadly, with a style focused primarily on precision bladework rather than hand to hand brawling.  Its name is a tribute to their lost homeworld, and they use it to great effect to prevent Earth from suffering the same fate.

Sonya Blade and Jackson "Jax" Briggs (later Johnny Cage) Jaeger: Flawless Victory Original Base: Los Angeles

Both Lt. Sonya Blade and Maj. Jax Briggs had successful careers in the U.S military behind them when the first Kaiju came ashore and attacked San Francisco.  Though at the time, Sonya was in the field pursuing the criminal Kano, she returned to the states when her friend and superior officer, Jax, suggested that they might be good candidates for the newly-formed ranger program.  He proved to be right, and the two did time at the Shatterdomes in both Los Angeles and Anchorage, fighting off Kaiju from Canada to Mexico, and became well-admired figures within the military for their ascent.  Though far from unscathed, the ostentatiously-named Flawless Victory is the last American Jaeger left standing by the time the program is decommissioned and is a tank of a machine, sacrificing some speed for the greatest physical strength of any Jaeger still on the field. Like the other American Jaegers, for long range combat it favors plasma cannons and explosives- particularly a ring-shaped plasma blast with wider coverage than the usual single beam- but it is at its most effective when delivering a crushing beatdown up close and personal. Johnny Cage is the star of a popular series of action films dramatizing the battles of the Jaegers and Kaiju, and to many civilians at home, is as much the face of the Jaeger program as its real members.  He has a secret ambition to become an actual pilot and has an impressive record in simulations, but because of his celebrity status (and his personality), Marshal Raiden and the other Jaeger teams refuse to consider him as a true contender.  However, when a vicious fight with two Kaiju at once leaves both of Jax's arms shattered, taking him out of commission as a pilot for the foreseeable future, Sonya is forced to accept Johnny as her new co-pilot in order to keep Flawless Victory in the fray where it is needed. Despite her irritation with him, they turn out to be drift compatible, and become a formidable duo in their own right.

Hanzo Hasashi and Kuai Liang Jaeger: Phantom Vengeance Original Base: Nagasaki

From the Nagasaki Shatterdome, the bright yellow Mark-3 Jaeger Shirai Ryu defended the coast of the Yellow Sea across three countries.  Its building was overseen by its husband and wife pilots, Hanzo and Harumi Hasashi, and it was named for the legendary warrior clan from which Hanzo claimed descent.  It was in service for four years, though Hanzo and Harumi always spent as much time as possible between missions with their young son Satoshi, who lived with them in their quarters at the base so that his parents could still have a part in raising him in a world that would not guarantee a reunion for families who choose to separate. Across the sea based in Shanghai was an organization known as the Lin Kuei, a private military contractor funded by shadowy, unknown sources.  Though its bread and butter was anti-Kaiju weaponry, it also began to develop its own Jaegers- the only ones outside the PPDC, created from illicitly obtained blueprints, and hireable for the right price.  Its crown jewel was a small, stealthy machine called simply Sub-Zero, unique for its proficiency underwater and tendency to use coolant as a weapon rather than fire or explosives, and piloted by two brothers- Bi-Han and Kuai Liang. When the massive Kaiju Kintaro directly attacked the Nagasaki Shatterdome, Shirai Ryu was the only Jaeger left to defend it. Desperate, the Hasashis attempted to contact the Lin Kuei, as they were closer than the nearest other Shatterdome in Tokyo.  They received no response and were forced into battle alone, and though they prevailed, the price was too high- not only Harumi’s life when part of their cockpit was crushed, but Satoshi’s as well, buried in the wreckage of the base.  In his grief, Hanzo blamed the Lin Kuei- particularly Bi-Han, with whom he had never gotten along- for what he perceived as a failure to act due to greed and amorality. What Hanzo did not know that day was that they were experiencing the first double event in history, and Sub-Zero and the Lin Kuei were under attack by the Kaiju Sheeva at the same time.  The Kaiju hivemind had figured out Sub-Zero’s usual strategy of attacking from the water, and were ready with an acidic bite that tore a hole in the cockpit, which rapidly flooded.  After a similar failure to make contact with Shirai Ryu, Bi-Han was swept out into the sea and presumably drowned (though his body was never recovered), but Kuai Liang, despite a bleeding face and water up to his neck, managed to kill the Kaiju mere moments before Sub-Zero ceased to function. After his release from medical, a furious Kuai Liang set off immediately for the remains of the Nagasaki Shatterdome to confront Hanzo for his failure to respond to the attack, since Shanghai was within Nagasaki's area of coverage. Both blinded by rage, they nearly got into a fistfight in the middle of the base, but once they realized what had truly happened, their anger cooled.  They bonded over their grief, and the unfathomable experience of having to pilot a Jaeger alone after such loss- and in the process, discovered they were drift compatible, and that they both wished to continue the fight in retaliation for what the Kaiju had done to their families. Their new Jaeger, Phantom Vengeance, is a strange sight- constructed from salvaged pieces of both Sub-Zero and Shirai Ryu (along with some newer tech to fill the gaps), it looks as much like a walking ghost as its pilots. However, it should not be underestimated based on its appearance. Quick and light (for a Jaeger), it features a retractable grappling hook to drag Kaiju into the range of its blasts of powerful coolant, and a devastating grip to snap them like twigs once frozen. 

Other Players:

After the destruction of Sub-Zero and the defection of Kuai Liang, the Lin Kuei concluded that the problem with the Jaeger program was the human element of drift compatibility, which limited the number of possible pilots and held them back due to concern for their partners in battle.  Therefore, in secret, they began a series of horrific experiments, fusing subjects with their Jaegers to operate more like batteries than true pilots, and erasing their memories through drugging and electric shock in order to create blank minds that could operate together without the complications of emotion.  Assassins Cyrax and Sektor, along with Kuai Liang’s close friend Tomas Vrbada, were among the subjects of this initiative, forced to operate a three-armed machine called Triborg.

Shang Tsung is a scientist, shunned from the academic community and at times running afoul of the law for his unethical- if not outright twisted- biological experiments. He and Marshal Raiden have crossed paths in the past, and though no one knows the details, their enmity towards each other is clear. However, in his desperation after the decommissioning of the Jaeger program, Raiden had Shang Tsung brought from prison to the Hong Kong Shatterdome, and gave him access to whatever parts he needed to find a way to destroy the Kaiju- by any means necessary. Shang Tsung agreed partly because of the money offered, but mostly because the world's destruction would throw quite the wrench into his own personal goals. (And maybe because it was deeply satisfying- and perhaps useful- to have the Marshal in his debt.) Where his allegiance will lie at the end of the day, however, is anyone's guess. 

For such experiments, one needs a steady supply of Kaiju parts, and for contraband like that, Raiden had to look even lower- to the crime syndicate the Black Dragon, led by Kano and including his associates, Kabal and Erron Black.  Though once mercenaries dealing in everything from illicit arms trading to assassination, the Black Dragon followed the money and and put all their resources into the trafficking of Kaiju parts.  With demand so high, they have become immensely powerful, but their involvement with the PPDC in the name of greater profits ends up bringing Kano face to face with his old nemesis, Sonya Blade- with predictably violent results.

Nightwolf was the historian of the Matoka tribe, which had long ago predicted a great cataclysm that would bring about the end of life on earth.  Though he had been skeptical that such legends were real, when that cataclysm came to pass in the form of the Kaiju invasion, Nightwolf was not content to merely await a prophesied destruction.  He left home and applied for the ranger program, but although he trained toward being a pilot and had the necessary combat skills, he never found a partner with whom he was drift compatible.  Rather than dwell on this with resentment, he pivoted his focus into other ways he could help, and found his place as a technician and LOCCENT officer.  Transferred to Hong Kong after the decommissioning of the Jaeger program, he was the rangers’ primary point of communication with the base while in battle.

Though most of the world fears the Kaiju, there are also those who worship them, and such admiration has evolved over the years into a full-blown religion.  The shadowy high priest of this cult is Quan Chi, who claims that the Kaiju have been sent by the God of Death himself- to end the days of humans on Earth as we so richly deserve.  Recently, a strange, hollow-eyed man calling himself Noob Saibot has appeared like a shadow at Quan Chi’s side, serving as his personal bodyguard against all threats and a fellow ardent believer in the inevitability of humanity’s destruction. Mileena is a grotesque fusion of Kaiju DNA with that of Kitana, which was stolen against her will when she was injured and bled during the invasion of Edenia. She enters Earth as a general of the Kaiju, connected to their hivemind, along with the first Category 5 to ever come through the breach, Goro.  Together, they intend to ensure the will of their creator and the ruler of the Anteverse- Shao Kahn- is carried out.

[mc-critical]

Hello, I just found your blog and I like it very much, it’s very interesting to read!!!. My question is : what is your opinion on Ahmed and Kosem’s relationship? Do you think he truly loves her? What do you think about him seeing other women? And what do you think about his relationship with these women (Mahfiruz, Katerina, Gulbahar and Yasemin).

Thank you for liking my stuff!

I think that, just like Süleiman, Ahmet loves Kösem in his own way. It's not as toxic or problematic or often questionable writing-wise as Süleiman's love for Hürrem, but it still has both its ups and downs that make it interesting to explore.

Ahmet and Kösem is perhaps the love story where the writers made the most effort to mask the possible worse aspects of. It could even be considered actually romantic at points, with their amazing first scenes in the gardens and the amazing chemistry of Ekin Koç and Anastasia Tsilimpou, the beginning sense of wonder and "mystery" it started out with.... when she first met him, Anastasia didn't know he was the sultan and put all her trust in him - a certainly good first impression. Ahmet himself is also very far from Süleiman's direct endeavors and tests of loyalty, he tries his best to be respectful in his own way, despite that he fails to do that a bunch of times. That's why it's easy to miss the darker aspects of the relationship at first and it could be perceived as probably the only thing in the franchise that is remotely close to a "fairytale" of sorts.

However, when the curtains start to fall slowly, but surely, we come to realize that while, say, Hürrem learns to want what Süleiman wants, to be fully loyal to him and to cave to his demands just like he often caves to her own, Ahmet and Kösem as characters have entirely different values and needs throughout their whole relationship. The fact that Ahmet wanted Anastasia because of a picture, without him having ever met her, is incredibly telling: he has created an ideal of her in his own head from the start and he wants to consistently maintain it. When he's with her, it's as if he's living his own dream, his own perfect world that has place only for him and that young girl. (that's why the garden is so symbolic: Ahmet calls it a place of solitude, only for himself almost immediately after the audience is introduced to it; also that line from him: "The world is on one side, Kösem - on the other." - quoting by memory again, but the meaning is the same) Their world views gained from their past and present environments begin to clash from the moment she finds out he's a Sultan - she wants to desperately go back to her family, both because all of them are still alive and her free spirit that cannot bear to live in this golden cage. Ahmet doesn't let her go also because he lacks the understanding of this desire: he has grown in the strict Ottoman system and having people like Anastasia stay in the harem forever is something he finds perfectly natural; for him it's unthinkable to stand against it. But despite of that "minor offense", Ahmet's idea of Anastasia's "purity" and "perfection" was working for awhile, with her seeming to meet his expectations and slowly warm up to him. But the real truth is way stronger than your own made-up lies. Anastasia's pleas to let her go only get stronger until they reach their climax with her attempt to escape. And you know what? If it weren't for her contrived, yet convenient excuse to come back to him, he would've lost her. Helplessly, in a blink of an eye, he would've lost her, due to what she sees as sheer ignorance from his part. And when she gains her own bit of agency later in the season and becomes Kösem, when she develops and realizes the actual stakes of the game, beginning to play it herself due to survival by default and the will for revenge, Ahmet's "perfect picture" breaks apart and that apparently hurt him so much, he stayed mad at her for quite some time. This wasn't the person he knew and loved anymore, this was an entirely new, reborn woman. He didn't seem to love and respect her for the virtues she actually possessed, but for those that he had imagined her to always have in his head. That is another, more "subtle" level of toxicity than with Hürrem and Süleiman, but it's still toxicity, that's why this relationship is far from healthy and the "beautiful, but quirky" dynamic it sets the impression of.

Kösem's view of Ahmet is very interesting and complex, writing-wise. I actually don't think she grew to love him as much. The place she forcibly got in made her feel very limited by him mostly, since he was the reason she was here in the first place and he was calling the shots in terms of her future (whether she would visit her family or not?). What made her become a bit affectionate wasn't fully him himself, but rather the oh-so-prominent theme of adaption in the harem. She wanted to escape so desperately, but there were so many happenings and situations during the time she was in the harem that just demanded for her to get used to everything. So when Iskender gave her the chance to escape, she as become used to the harem's environment so much, she felt unsure of herself outside of it. Her return was out of necessity rather than love and even her standing up to the people when Ahmet was sick was done out of necessity, too (like I elaborated in another ask about Kösem). I'm not saying that she didn't feel any affection whatsoever, but the affection she felt for him was easy to let go of (E25: "Today I didn't marry only Sultan Ahmet, I married the country!"), because I don't think Ahmet did his best efforts to understand her and I don't think Kösem felt completely comfortable around him, all that contrasted with Kemankeş in S02, who according to her, understands her better than anyone ever could.

Ahmet loves Kösem, because even after his perfect picture with her was broken and his anger and denial and refusal to accept it passed, he did try to make things better. What I loved most about his dynamic with Kösem, is his open honesty with her that continued till the end. There have been scenes where they seemed like true companions, especially their beginning one in E21 with all the kids gathered around them. I loved that despite of his mistakes, he did try to set things right. There was this sudden protectiveness that activated in him when Kösem told him the truth about the death of his father and why she acted the way she did and that could mean she now became something of a "cinnamon roll he just protect" and that is certainly a flawed mindset to have in many aspects, but that showed he could actually care for her beyond his idealistic perspective of her.

Am I okay with Ahmet having other women? Honestly, I'm glad that MCK lowered the concubine arcs to a minimum and with the way they did it, it doesn't offend me as much. I would even love some of them to be more developed for a change, because they did turn out to be solely drama tools, thanks to their lesser episodes and MCK's different themes as a whole, that basically did their purpose and left, instead of stretch out and outstay their welcome and that is just the other extreme in a bad disguise.

I won't talk about the relationship he had with his other women as much, because they just aren't fleshed out. I would've liked to see more of Ahmet and Mahfiruze: I believe he was way more decent with her than say, Süleiman was with Mahidevran, and their scenes weren't half bad. Too bad that would've demanded Mahfiruze herself to be fleshed out more as a character and the writers to give her more of a place in the narrative. Katerina was present only for an episode (or was it two episodes?) and we don't have as much conclusions to drive here. We only have his mild infatuation with her and... that's it? We have no idea what Katerina actually felt or how their dynamic would play out in the long run. We can only speculate. Gülbahar, by contrast, also had the least screentime of all his women who have comparatively minimal screentime, but her exploration in S02 helps us gain a better idea of how it went between them. I have the impression that she was the least favourite concubine of Ahmet's, ever. She did succeed to get pregnant and have a child, but it probably was a one and done thing and she didn't seem to get any other grasp of manly affection since then. Which is why, along with them taking away Bayezid from her by exiling her, she was so focused on scheming for one particular goal and this became what defined her. But then again, that is still a speculation in my part. Now, with Yasemin we have much more on-screen chemistry and interaction: that relationship felt very similar with what Süleiman thought of Firuze - infatuation, massive infatuation, but still not love, because just like Firuze, Yasemin also gave him poison and we don't know how much the poison affected his psyche, along with the sickness it brought upon him. These relationships have the opposite problem MC's concubine arcs had: these women were all unfavored or favored very temporarily in the span of an episode or two, which made them very stale and lacking in material.

Lastly, while MCK in its entirety, isn't very big on love stories, Kösem and Ahmet's relationship still had an evolution throughout S01, even if that evolution was more "condensed" than the others similar to it. It still remains the most fleshed out love story in the show, along with Kösem and Kemankeş's, and it was a very important part of the story that helped shape much of the narrative that succeeds it.

[oumaheroes]

Wind Walk

Word Count: 2389

Alba- Scotland

Cymru- Wales

Albion- England

Ériu- Ireland

---------

Cymru sits in the grass, overlooking the sprawling valley below. Where he sits it is almost an overhang- just underneath the ground carves away to a dizzying drop that makes him feel as though he is soaring above it; light and weightless. There is nothing underneath him but air so he dangles his legs over the edge, kicking into the wind and feeling it tug and push at his bare ankles.

It’s a strange morning- stormy and roiling. The clouds race through the sky above him, a churning grey blanket that chases flashes of blue before tumbling over into dark. The storm itself hasn’t broken yet but the air is thick and heavy and Cymru has been watching it ever since he first set out this morning, looking to see where it will spill and hoping it moves further away from where he is sitting.

He had taken himself to the highest point he could see nearby, the crest of a large hill that grows rockier the higher you climb and where the air is cooler. He has always found it comforting to be up high somewhere and his land provides this opportunity aplenty. The more you creep north, the more the earth lists and tilts with sweeping valleys that chip into combes- craggy, pockmarked tops that tip and puddle into deep gorges of soft green grass.

Maybe the sky is matching his mood. Mama would know.

Mama isn’t here.

She faded away recently, going somewhere no one knew to find her. She had been doing so for years, for as long as Cymru can remember, if he is being honest with himself. Some of his first memories are of Alba whispering to Ériu that she sleeps for longer than he used to, or Ériu tugging on her tunic and asking why she won’t play with them as much anymore. But she had always seemed fine to Cymru.

She would run and play, throw them up in the air and tumble with them down banks to splash in streams. Even when Albion appeared, the newest of them all, she still felt strong and sure, as steady as the land on which they walked. They had all watched her charge into battle, switching sides halfway through a clan war to show her allegiance to all of them. She sat and wove both metal and wool: strands of hot, solid gold forming intricate torcs to cover their necks and dyed woollen fibres emerging into blankets to enfold them when the air grew cool. She danced with the young, whispered with the old and lamented the fallen with as much life as she had ever done.

Mama, for all her long life, had always wandered, moving from tribe to clan, from settlement to kingdom- scattering herself amongst her people so that all knew who she was and what she stood for- us. We.

Most of the time her children would follow her, collecting themselves around her ankles or on her back, soaking her up like a sponge.

Maybe that was the problem, maybe they took too much.

Alba seems to think so. Seems to think that the more of them there were, the less of her there could be and maybe he’s right. As they all grew, she seemed to diminish, wandering less and less frequently, resting more each place she settled. Quick visits turned into monthly, then yearly stays, merging into her people like a faceless, nameless creature who wore a torc of status and cloth of the gods but only shone with the dulling, pale vivacity of a mortal woman.

She was still there, though. Still healthy. Still was present and alert and ready to talk or comfort or hold. Albion was too young, but Cymru picked up on Alba and Ériu’s worry, felt it bleed through into him so that he became watchful for change and anxious to find it. And it was there, if he looked, small things that made him turn away in denial and fold himself into her arms, press close to her body to take in as much of her as he could.

Lavender and honeysuckle, roses and earth. The salty sea wind and grass after rain. Home.

In the last few years, she took to walking alone.

She never asked them to come with her when she roamed across the land, never asked them to stay when she left for somewhere new, but they had always followed her anyway, for the most part. Sometimes they travelled to places on their own, Alba and Ériu more so -older, stronger, surer of themselves and who they stood to be in the march of mankind- but mostly they remained together, following her like tiny, spinning comets around a star.

But these last few years they had known that she wanted them to stay. She had never said so explicitly but there was a feeling, a deep calling that they understood was not for them. Young though he was, even Albion knew this and would curl up next to Alba or Cymru when she went away, burrowing into them as if desperate for something that wasn’t his to hold.

Mama would walk and roam, would return in a few days and then collect them up again to move on together. Maybe that was the new way things were to be, Cymru had caught himself thinking, (deceitful moments of hope and innocence- cruel terrible things he should have known better than to permit), maybe now that they were older, this is what she expected of them- to let her be whilst they themselves learnt to stand alone.

This was true, in a way. He knew that beneath that hopeful wish there was a grain of something hard and cold, something that needed swallowing but was difficult, no matter how sweet it was coated.

Mama wandered and walked, returned and slept- longer and longer each one. Longer disappearances, longer rests afterwards, longer stares off into unknown, forgotten horizons.

And then, one day, she did not come back.

It hadn’t felt different, hadn’t felt anything special, but as the days crept into months which blurred into years they had all known, eventually. That had been her last walk, her last goodbye, and she would not be returning.

Ériu had gone off first. Not in search of her but in search of himself, who he was to be to the people that were now solely his- across the choppy, tempestuous seas that divided their lands to cloak himself in his mountains of emerald green. He returned occasionally, but less than he used to and Cymru felt the absence of him with a keening emptiness he hadn’t expected to feel.

Alba kept the rest of them mostly together, corralling them from place to place, clan to tribe, in a similar fashion to the way Mama had, maybe in stubborn denial of change or to entice her back. Cymru didn’t know. Alba is oftentimes as rough and coarse as his highlands, sparse and blunt and dangerous, if you didn’t know where to tread and his moods change from dark to light so quickly it is hard to catch them and pin them down.

Cymru was at least old enough to understand, could appreciate enough that Alba was hurting, is hurting, and that was his way; he was scared and angry, lonely and confused, and he was coping the best he could to keep them all together. Albion, however, did not understand, could not comprehend why he was so snappy, so distant, would not play with him and would shout when he did wrong or cuff him for accidents he didn’t mean. Albion knew Mama wasn’t coming back but didn’t know why and resented the perceived abandonment and the abrupt thrust into a new way of things.

So, Albion comes to Cymru, to wail into his side or beg for attention Cymru doesn’t want to, can’t give. Albion wants comfort, wants something soft and safe- he wants Mama and no one can give him that, so he needles and acts up which causes a cycle of repetitive arguments between oldest and youngest as Cymru fades into the shadows and tries his best to soothe them both.

This pressure builds in his chest like a storm, hotter and tighter until the shape of things unsaid and feelings forbidden clog in his throat and begin to choke him. When this happens, (ideally, before it happens) Cymru tries to get away, to take himself off to a place where he can cry and feel his own feelings, rather than those of everybody else. There is no one to untangle his ball of confused emotions but that’s okay, all he needs is time and space and he can smooth them out on his own.

Up here in his own lands Cymru can feel and breathe as himself, rather than as a part of a fractured family. He feels himself in the stones under his feet, can listen for his songs in the whispers of wind, can see his clans dot the hillsides and collect into pockets of himself- Cymry. Now that Mama has gone, the distinction between himself and his brothers feels more clear- this part is his, now, rather than theirs or Mama’s. This feels more like him, that over there feels more like Alba. Albion certainly feels more south- chalky cliffs and rolling meadows. Just as each loaf of bread tastes somewhat like its baker -personality baked into it as it rises- they are becoming more hewn into their land and it feels somewhat stark now, more foreign than it ever did before.

Cymru does not like to think of what that means for them in the future, so he tucks that away in his mind to ruminate on later, for another walk alone when he yearns for space. Alone in his lands he can be alone with his present, can reminisce on the past and dream about the future to come in a detached peace that he craves more and more these days.

A crack of thunder booms a welcome in the clouds and he sighs. He cannot stay up here. Long living he may be, but he does not want to chance a broken neck in sodden isolation.

Picking himself up and dusting himself off, he begins his walk down the hill, moving up and away from the edge first and then carefully picking up the trail between loose rocks and hidden dips in the earth, feeling the ground innately as he goes. He is surefooted and confident, so he descends quickly and with unnatural ease. It begins to rain when he is nearly halfway down, fat spots that darken the ground with round, large circles and the air grows muggier. The sky rumbles again- a warning. He won’t have too much longer before the heavens open fully to catch him where he stands.

He and his brothers are camped not too far away. Alba has been taking them all over, following Mama’s old routes and greeting all as they approach. The welcome is slightly different now, warmer for one of them and more distant for the others. Their people are changing how they feel, too: ‘We’ and ‘Us’ growing smaller and separated, ‘Them’ growing larger and more frightening.

Cymru adds this to the collection of thoughts he does not wish to think on at the moment and carries on, faster now as lightning bursts free from the billowing sky and washes the land white, forcing him to be more cautious of where he treads.

Near the bottom he stops, seeing a shape.

There is something perched under a tree, huddled in on itself and building a meticulous tower of stones from a large pile of them that has been collected in a heap. The thing- the person- is familiar and Cymru frowns to see him there.

‘Albion?’

At the sound of his name and Cymru’s approach Albion snaps up his head to look at him before looking away, back to his rocks. He is concentrating deeply, furrows drawn into his brow as he scrunches his face up to gently place a large one precariously on top. It sits there solid and his face splits into a wide, happy grin, finally turning to give Cymru his full attention.

‘What are you doing here?’ Cymru crouches next to Albion and brushes his hair away from his face, some mud from his cheek. Albion leans into the touch automatically and Cymru sits close to him, making himself comfortable. Now he is down from the hill and on flatter ground the danger has passed- they might as well wait here until the rain lessens or moves on. It is coming down in earnest now, a proper shower from an unsure beginning, but it is warm and sticky with summer, so not unpleasant.

Albion stares at his stone mountain, assessing it, ‘Alba sent me after you- he said it was going to storm so I should bring you back.’

Cymru frowns. Although not far, the clan they’re staying near is still a good hour’s walk away for Cymru with his longer legs. With that information, and the number of stones scattered about the tree base, he knows Albion had been here a while, ‘Why did you stop here? I was only further up the hill.’

Albion shrugs, ‘You go away to sit up high by yourself.’

He reaches out to pick up another stone, turning it over with small, fat fingers to search for imperfections, and Cymru swallows, a lump suddenly in his throat. He hadn’t thought anyone noticed, ‘You can always join me, if you like. I won’t ever mind if you want company.’

Albion shakes his head and gingerly places the new stone on top of his mountain, ‘That’s something you do. I’ll do this,’ it wobbles there for a moment, oddly weighted and bumpy, but stays and Albion turns to him in glee, hungry for his approval.

Cymru smiles back, ‘You’re good at it.’

Albion looks proud, self-satisfied in a way only small children can manage- unashamed and bright, ‘I’ll build bigger ones, everywhere I go.’

Warm breeze catches the leaves overheard and curls over their hair, ruffling it and tugging. It smells like earth, like grass after rain, like home.

‘I can’t wait to see.’

---------

AN:

So, this was supposed to be a quick and easy writing drabble but it ended up rather longer than I planned, as is always the way.

As a challenge to myself, to stop myself from continually rewriting things after I have posted them, I’ll keep this to ferment for a while on Tumblr where I can rewrite and edit with reckless abandon until I’m happy with it and it’ll move to AO3. If you have any feedback or critiques, feel free to let me know!

(1) the identity of Celts and England is a very interesting, messy research field both linguistically and historically. ‘Albion’ is an ancient name that technically refers to the whole of the British Isles but, as it’s been picked up by the fandom as an ancient name for England (and this is a mere teeny fan fic drabble rather than an accurate historical source), I’ve used this to make England recognisable.

[panharmonium]

@dreamersscape​ please forgive me for tagging you in a post to respond to your comments; tumblr’s reply feature is hard to have an extended/coherent conversation on, and I’m so excited to talk to a kindred Naruto spirit that I knew I was gonna write too much for it all to fit in that space XD

re: hinata - Oh my gosh, YES, my sister and I were so frustrated by how they just completely never addressed that moment again.  I wasn't surprised, because it's been clear from the beginning that this show doesn't really care much about women, so the female characters' storylines getting dropped or never explored in the first place is pretty much what I've always expected, but it's still infuriating.  

Honestly, the only good thing about this show's general disinterest in women is that it means that I don't place any blame on in-story Naruto for never addressing what Hinata did for him, because I know the fact that we don't see him dealing with her confession isn't actually intended to communicate anything about his reaction/non-reaction/level of investment; it's literally just a function of the fact that the writer doesn't care about her story.  It's the same way I feel about how we see so much less one-on-one time between Kakashi and Sakura - her lack of screentime with him isn't something about which a person can credibly argue "Oh, this means Kakashi doesn't care about her enough and he's a bad teacher etc etc," because the imbalance isn’t a deliberate writing decision we're supposed to analyze for characterization.  It's a reflection of the fact that the entire show is super sexist. XD

re: danzo: It’s one thing to have your villain believe himself to the hero of his own story, and like, another to have Danzo basically tout having darkness in your heart being a great thing and encouraging it’s presence/cultivating it - lmao YES!  And honestly, this is why I actually find Danzo LESS infuriating than the Third Hokage.  Like, Danzo is Super Evil and every time he exploits another child I want to watch him die all over again, but at least he like....owns his horribleness?  Whereas Hiruzen is the biggest hypocrite on the planet - when I rewatched the Shonen Jump stuff a while back (my sister and I took a little break prior to Season 11 and rewatched some old stuff), I couldn't stand listening to Hiruzen go on and on about how the entire Leaf Village is his family and it's his role to protect all of them etc etc, because like - he literally covered up the genocide of Sasuke's entire family and let the perpetrator remain in power (and that was before I even knew about all these other crimes he allowed to go unpunished!!!)  Danzo may be the Worst, but at least he's not pretending to be anything other than what he is.  Hiruzen is still acting like he's everybody's sweet old grandpa, and that makes me even more angry than Danzo's straight-up horribleness.  (And I do agree with you, they definitely lean harder into the "Lord Third is amazing" stuff pre-Shippuden, I just still feel confused about what the show is ultimately trying to say about him because we haven't gotten an explicit enough condemnation of his choices yet, and I feel like it's way overdue XD )

re: minato - Hard agree that Minato is an enigma.  I don't feel like I fully understand him either - and not in a bad way, just in the sense that he's hard to read.  The toughest thing for me to parse was always how distant he seemed with his students, which was surprising to me at first, because he'd been built up as sort of this "ideal shinobi" figure for such a long time, but to me, an ideal shinobi teacher looks more like...well, Kakashi, to be honest.  And it took a while for me to reconcile with the fact that Minato and Kakashi really do just relate to their students very differently.  I think Minato has always been a soldier, and I think he sees children as soldiers, too - not in an evil way at all, just in the sense that this is how the shinobi world works, and how it has always worked.  It's not a "wrong" way to perceive shinobi kids, in the context of the story's universe.  And so when things happen to those kids, he absolutely cares, but it's also sort of just a grim fact of life for him.  It's like when Kushina tells him she doesn't want to make Naruto a jinchuriki, and she asks 'why do we have to do that to him, why does he have to suffer that way for the sake of the balance of power between nations,' and Minato's response is “Because our family is Shinobi.”  That was a really telling moment for me in terms of how he sees the world.  It's not something I'm interested in condemning him for, like you said; I don't think the story is ever asking us to do that, it’s just a philosophy that's very different from how Kakashi sees things and what he thinks children's experiences should be like.  

I guess what I ultimately think (from the material we’ve seen so far, at least) is that Minato seems to perceive the loss of his students as something that Kakashi is struggling with, not something he himself is agonizing over.  It’s a very sad thing that happened, of course, but it’s just part of the way their world works/a function of the times they live in.  It's not something Minato is tormenting himself about.  Whereas I think that if Kakashi ever lost a kid, it would have killed him.  And I don't think this fact is in any way supposed to paint Minato as a bad person.  He's not!  All it means is that there is a generational difference between the world Kakashi and Co. are trying to create and the world Minato always knew, and people like Minato are doing the best they can with the framework they have.  

I do like the guy a lot - and I wonder what he might have been like if he had lived to see a permanent peace established.

re: little Yamato - oh boy, those episodes nearly ended me.  I am already very, very, VERY weak for Kakashi and Yamato’s friendship, and seeing Kakashi rescue Yamato from that horrible place (literally and metaphorically) was too much for me to handle.  Kakashi’s silhouette replacing Danzo in Yamato’s memories of being rescued from Orochimaru’s lab - that slew me.  And the way Danzo tells Yamato “you have no past, no future, no name” juxtaposed with Kakashi introducing Yamato as Tenzo because he remembers from three years ago how Yamato once rebelled at being called Kinoe and yelled “MY NAME IS TENZO” - Kakashi just using that chosen name without hesitation, without question, without needing to be told...it all ties back into the recent thematic throughline the show is working with about Identity - the importance of the Tailed Beasts having names, Kabuto’s desperate and misguided search for “who and what he is,” Itachi reclaiming his true self by undoing the reanimation justu and declaring “I am Itachi Uchiha of the Leaf Village,” Obito claiming that his real name doesn’t matter anymore, that he’s Nobody...it’s fantastic how they’re pulling all this together.

re: Kakashi and little Naruto - oh man, the feelings.  I agree with you that Kakashi was in no place to be dealing with this, but certainly under different circumstances I think he would have loved to be a part of baby Naruto’s life.  I actually think the reasoning behind “let’s put Kakashi in a situation where he’s in close contact with someone bringing new life into the world” is sound - I think that would be a really good thing for him!  Just not in the sense of “you’re Kushina’s personal bodyguard, so if anything happens to her and the baby you can blame yourself for it.” XD  Like...Minato could have invited Kakashi in for dinner sometimes, instead of having him constantly stand guard under their window???  If it had been more “we care about you and we want you to be a part of our family”....ugh, that would have been amazing.  Kakashi is already SO good with Naruto (who is NOT by any means an easy kid to manage) - he just has such good instincts about how to talk to that kid and teach him in ways that work WITH Naruto’s particular brand of high motivation/low frustration tolerance, ping-pong emotional extremes, explosive energy levels, zero impulse control, and an inability to process more than one thing at a time.  Handling Naruto effectively would be a challenging project for any teacher, never mind taking care of Naruto and two other kids, but Kakashi is a natural at it.  It would have been awesome to see what Kakashi was like with Naruto when they were even younger...though the Feels might knocked me out.

[also, you mentioned Naruto and Obito - I cannot even tell you the Extremest Agonies I was in when the big reveal happened and I had to hear Naruto blankly go “who is he” - utterly clueless, without the faintest idea that he’s looking at the person who shaped his entire moral philosophy.  The amount of things that these kids don’t know...that fact that Naruto has been quoting this very person all his life and making all his major life decisions based on the lesson Kakashi relayed to them on Day One - Obito’s words - oh boy oh boy I was not capable of handling that even the littlest bit.]

[comicaurora]

I love your characters and how they're written so much. What's the most difficult thing about scripting them? Do you tend to wrangle them if they want to go offscript or do you let them play out of the lines even if it might knock some future stuff?

Ahh, jeez. Okay, so the thing is, the scripting phase never lines up with how the storyboards go, because these guys take on a life of their own the minute I sit down to actually draw them. Usually I know how a character is feeling, but not necessarily what they’re going to say or do as a result, so that can change the minute I start putting the stuff on paper. The script stage is essentially writing out the story beats - what happens when, who does what in response, etc - but once I start storyboarding and laying out the dialogue, things go totally out of control. Sticking to the script would mean sacrificing the more genuine character dynamics, so I usually let it play out to a certain extent - but that doesn’t mean sacrificing the entire plan.

The way I see it, whenever something happens, the characters have a number of ways they could plausibly respond. There’s never just one way for a scene to play out. Sometimes I write out the same scene a few times from memory just to explore those variants, because depending on my headspace, different character reactions make more or less sense, and the scene plays out totally differently. If I just go with the first way the scene plays out, sometimes the conversations end up going on too long, or spiraling in unhelpful directions. Sometimes it’s better to actually let the characters run more wild, since that gives me several different possible approaches to work from.

For example, when I was laying out the initial conflict between Kendal and Falst, I knew that he and Kendal were going to fight, the situation was going to escalate, the others would show up, and it’d eventually culminate in the Jolon reveal. In the longer term, I also knew they were going to clash over their mirrored life experiences. But it wasn’t until I started actually laying out the scene that I realized three more unexpected factors were going to come into play:

Kendal saw how everyone was jumping to conclusions about Falst and had the thought “wait, he’s like me” for the first time in his life.

Falst fights smart, not hard. Unless he’s desperate, he doesn’t overextend himself, and he carefully gauges his potential enemies to determine the danger and how he should respond.

Kendal is sympathetic and curious, not angry. He’ll defend himself, but he won’t escalate because he doesn’t want to fight.

The conclusion? That fight was going to be a lot shorter than I anticipated, because these factors made one thing clear - the minute Falst realized Kendal wasn’t fighting back, he’d stop attacking. Suddenly the character clash got moved up the timetable, and I’ve got these two very different nonhuman characters discussing their similarities and differences in a surprisingly candid context when I expected to be choreographing an acrobatic nighttime skirmish.

But that conversation was very emotionally loaded! There were a lot of ways it could play out, but I had one plot requirement I had to work around - Falst couldn’t reveal why he needed the lacrima yet, because that’d blow the reveal too early when the stakes were still too low. Going into this conversation, I had a few factors that affected that specific requirement:

Falst has no reason to outright lie to Kendal. However, he is very proud, and wouldn’t volunteer something he considered shameful without a really good reason. Unless Kendal asks him directly, in a tone he wouldn’t register as judgmental, he will not want to explain his most deep-seated insecurities to this odd stranger.

Kendal thinks he already knows why Falst has the lacrima. Because of this, he’s unlikely to ask him outright what he’s using it for unless Falst says something that shakes that assumption.

They are discussing their experiences being perceived as human and inhuman respectively. It would be very easy for Falst to casually drop something in that context that conflicts with Kendal’s information about his goals.

So while writing this conversation, I had to make sure that neither character would say anything that’d reveal to the other character that they weren’t entirely on the same page. Falst had to apparently confirm Kendal’s suspicions, and Kendal couldn’t outright accuse him of anything, because he’d angrily deny it and blow the reveal. Having Erin interrupt the conversation earlier was one possibility, since that’d stop the potential reveal-blowing, but that had one major character downside - it wouldn’t let me build into Kendal snapping later on.

See, Kendal was primed not to want to hurt Falst, and Falst was primed to back down once that became obvious - but Erin and Alinua came out of the gate swinging, so Falst was going to reciprocate, and Kendal couldn’t convince anyone to stop. There was going to be a fight. And Kendal's character wouldn’t allow that to go on for very long, because his friends were getting hurt. Once he reached that “enough” threshold, he was going to end the conflict as quickly and efficiently as possible - but if Kendal was still uncertain about Falst, that’d slow the process and make him less effective. So I let the conversation end with this:

Falst is saying something completely truthful, but because of how he phrased it and what Kendal is already primed to think, Kendal thinks it’s confirming that Falst is using the lacrima to make chimeras, and further confirming that he isn’t interested in talking more. This primes Kendal to build up that “this has to stop now” attitude when the fight escalates so he can shut it down, like so.

I also didn’t plan this, by the way. I figured it’d be a bit more evenly matched. It wasn’t until I started boarding it that I realized Kendal wasn’t going to indulge any dramatics at this point, and he was probably boiling a bit at how Alinua and Erin had been hurt because he didn’t put a stop to this sooner.

But this scene could’ve easily played out very differently! If Kendal had said something as specific as “creating monsters isn’t the answer,” or if the lacrima’s safety had been threatened earlier and Falst became desperate enough to reveal his motivation, or if Kendal had discussed his own inhumanity in a way that didn’t imply to Falst that reshaping himself to look human wouldn’t actually fix his problems and thus hadn’t unintentionally made him more angry and confrontational, this scene could’ve untangled itself much faster. But then it wouldn’t be connecting the key plot points, and it’d been much less interesting.

I feel like writing these characters is kinda like pruning trees. You can’t make it grow exactly the shape you want, but you can cut off the branches that are moving in unhelpful directions. Sometimes that means the shape you end up with is very circuitous.

[aineirisha]

What I confessed while daydreaming

It all started that night, that dreadful night. It all started with their threatening voices of fake silk. It all started with their eyes on you ready to devour you, ready to take away what was rightfully yours. 

It all started with ignorance. 

Myths and legends and things that are not human.

It all started...

Or perhaps it started centuries ago, you couldn't tell. You never really knew...

Things that are not human...

Stories that don't belong to humans...

And yet... 

You were...

Human...

...frightened by their energy, by the way they looked at you.

You couldn't trust them. No matter how they tried to convince you, you wouldn't trust them, your instincts told you not to. All your senses screaming at you, 

"RUN!!" 

But you couldn't move. You didn't understand. 

Why were you so scared? Why weren't your legs responding? Why couldn't you stop quivering? Why were those men...?

"Do not worry Hime-sama, we will not hurt you"

"We are just here to please you"

"Let us please you, Hime-sama"

"We are just going to play a little game, shall we Hime-sama?"

But they did not carry toys with them. No dolls or balls, no wooden horses.

What were four men trying to play with a seven year old girl?

Why are these men trying to play...

... With me?

You raised your eyes to meet theirs and fear took over. Thirst for power dripping from their gaze, running through their veins. 

You shed no tear, you voiced no scream, you made no expression. 

The moment their hands were over you, your chakra unfolded, piercing their bodies, breaking their bones, and exploding their organs. 

A lot of blood was shed that night, not one single drop was yours.

It all started that night with that dreadful feeling. 

The power of destruction. The drunkness that comes with it. 

 It started with you, with all that you never really knew... 

Urging you to flee...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Working at that restaurant had turned out to be an excellent choice. It gave you enough money to sustain yourself and the opportunity to meet the daily life in the village. Every day you got the chance to practice all that you couldn't practice on the training grounds. Your power was about sensations and emotions. To recognize those emotions you had to be around living things, preferably humans, and what better place than a restaurant. 

Dozens of different chakras came into the restaurant daily. Each time they became easier to identify and distinguish. Bit by bit colors started to appear and, if you concentrated enough, you could even perceive each one of the 7 pools of chakra. 

It was very challenging at first. Allowing yourself to be affected by other people's energy was a burden really heavy to handle. Lots of emotions were mixed in that closed space. And it could hurt, to feel other people's feelings as if they were your own. It was overwhelming.

Some time ago you had found your peace extending your own chakra around you far enough so that other's energy couldn't reach your core, you strengthened your vibrations to a point they were stronger than everybody else's, preventing your energy and emotions from being polluted with those around you and prevailing over them. And now that you needed to move forward, that you wanted to learn about control, you had to make your peace aside to prioritize knowledge. Ironic. 

It was an exhausting exercise, way more exhausting than shinobi training. But it was rewarding, what for so many years you did by pure intuition, now you were doing consciously. 

Besides, it wasn't all dark and gloomy. Your power gave you the possibility to have things your way if the situation turned out to be more than you could handle. That usually meant, as a result, a feeling of tranquility, a feeling of certainty that it was all gonna be ok.  The power was way easier to bear when people's energy was bright, so it was kind of for selfish reasons but the results were convenient for everyone. If needed, making other people feel at ease was the easiest thing to do; it didn't hurt, it protected your core from other's pain or low-frequency emotions -usually negative- and it always ended up working in your favor.  All you had to do was extend your chakra and sync your vibrations to the ones of the human in question. Truth was, you didn't have to do it on purpose anymore, your vibrations were so strong everyone else just synced to them almost by accident. 

Lots of clients came to the place when you started working there for that exact reason. Unconsciously, everyone kept coming back to feel that lightness, that warmth.  

Nevertheless and despite everything, manipulating emotions wasn't your favorite thing to do even if it was for a good purpose. Life felt more real when you let others be honest. 

That and... maybe if you didn't fear your wounds that much you could... 

Maybe if you could let go of the past... 

Maybe if you weren't so scared of your own darkness...  

When it came to your power you were always careful. Perceiving chakra and observing its behavior was a safe zone and you found the way to work from there. It was like experimenting. Sometimes you'd try with certain words or phrases, other times facial expressions, and you awaited the reaction. It was particularly interesting when you found an energy that changed with the presence of another person, whether it was a loved one or a hated one. 

********

The afternoon was perfect. The sun was up, shining bright and warm, only cooled by the blowing of the wind. The sky was blue and eventual clouds floated miles above your head. The day went by at work without much to worry about. Megumi-san was kind of a weirdo and you two got along perfectly. She was teasing and playful. You were always joking and laughing. 

You took a deep breath and looked up to the sky. Some birds were flying by. You smiled. The sound of your steps on the ground made everything feel real. 

The buildings were all painted with messy patterns that seemed to have no order or purpose. Maybe there was going to be some kind of festival or something... 

No, the paintings were too messy to look good. That couldn't be for decoration. 

What happened here?

And then you bumped into him. Green goggles on his forehead, blonde spikey hair, evil giggles, with a bucket and a painting brush on his hand. 

 You had felt his energy a block ago. 

Was he trying to get revenge?

Was he just playing games? 

It felt like both. A dark type of amusement. A mischief. He knew he was doing wrong and he was enjoying it. 

As you approached him, the feeling of mischievousness increased. 

Intrigued by the kid, you walked towards him and stood by his side. With your hands in your pockets, you contemplated his painting. 

"Is that a hat?" you asked, tilting your head trying to get the shape of the drawing.

He turned around to see you with a defensive attitude, used to people scolding him for everything. 

"Maa maa, nee-chan, it's not a hat, it's a snake, see? It has an eye" he said while pointing at the spot on the lower edge.

"But why does it have a...That?" you were certain that you had never in your life seen a snake with a bulge, that looked more like a camel with no legs. 

Or a hat...

"It's fat cause it ate the entire bowl of ramen, dattebayo," the blonde said while nodding, a huge smile on his face. He seemed really proud of his creation. 

You laughed noisily, completely amused by the kid's imagination. 

A neighbor came out of the building, shouting.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, LITTLE BEAST?!!" He threatened as he started walking towards the child furiously.

The blonde stared back at him for an instant and panicked. 

"RUUUN!!" He shouted at you as he sprinted to get as far away from there as possible. 

You did as told not giving it a thought. That man seemed terrifying. 

When you two finally stopped, you were safe, many streets away. You paused to catch your breath. He was already searching for his next victim with a malicious grin. 

He was punishing the people, you realized, and by doing so he was getting himself into so much trouble. 

Punishing them for what?

"Hey kid" you called him. "I know of a fence that is in desperate need of some painting" your house wasn't that far away. 

He followed you ready to attack, wielding the brush like a kunai. 

Your fence was wide enough to keep him entertained for a while. 

You took the lead, dipped your fingers in the bucket, and started doodling on the wood. His mesmerized gaze fell on you like a stray of sunshine. Finally, he had a partner in crime, and it wasn't Choji or Shikamaru, it was an adult. 

He didn't feel like the enemy anymore. 

You two started playing. Your clothes were probably going into the trash after this, the paint wouldn't wash off. 

"Too bad we don't have other colors," you sighed, enjoying your time with the kid. He had a nice laugh and three marks on each of his cheeks that made him look adorable. It had been a long time since you last played with a child.

"Maa, maa; when I become the Hokage I will have all the colors I want and people won't tell me what to do" he smiled satisfied. "You can come paint with me"

The Hokage?

"Why are you painting fences?... and walls?" 

That's not exactly something the Hokage would do... or maybe but not like this.

"I want everyone to acknowledge me," he said decisively.  

His energy amazed you. It felt like he was... broken?... but more than broken, cracked. It was like cracked glass refusing to shatter. His determination and wishes holding him together, helping him stand (like a tape or a band-aid). There was no nostalgia in him. Only the hopes that things would be better in the future. No, it wasn't hope... it was... 

Certainty.

You smiled to yourself with a lump in your throat and resisted the urge to hug him.  

What could have happened for a child to be so fractured?

And yet he seemed so brave, so strong. 

For a moment you forgot about his malicious shenanigans. His vibrations were so strong they were competing with yours. 

"You missed painting here" you teased him, passing your dirty fingers over his recent doodle. 

He pouted. "You need a little color too, nee-chan" his brush painted over your lines. "Now it's a clown" he giggled.

You burst in laughter. He looked at you surprised by your reaction. You hadn't scolded him or criticized him once. You were definitely a weirdo. 

He started laughing too. 

The game began, whoever covered most of the fence would win. He was already winning.

"That's not fair!! You have a brush!!" you complained. He stuck out his tongue to mock you in response.

"Naruto!!" you heard Iruka shout at the kid. "What do you think you are doing??!!!" he quickly grabbed the child's hand. 

You signaled Iruka to stop, your hands over your neck telling him to cut it. Naruto didn't know that was your house. As far as he was concerned you were manging a mischief together. 

Iruka looked at you startled and let go of Naruto's hand. 

"Iruka-sensei hi" you waved at him. It was time for your lesson. 

"You know each other?" Naruto was suddenly very confused. He stared at you and Iruka back and forth.

"Yeah, he's my sensei" you smiled. 

"You are a student?!" he was shocked.

You nodded. 

"But you look old"

"Hey! I'm not that old!" you put your fists on your waist, pouting.

Naruto thought about it. Maybe you weren't that much of an adult, not of the same kind as Iruka at least, or as the villagers. Old people don't do funny things and they don't paint fences. 

"Naruto go clean yourself" Iruka took the bucket and the brush away from him and sent him home. 

"YN-san I apologize for Naruto, he's just... I'll make it up for you" he said.

"Don't worry" You giggled "I bumped into him while he was using the village as his canvas and a man came out to beat the crap out of him so I thought it would be better if I just..."

 Teamed up with him. Take him out of there. Be friendly. 

"I'm sorry," he repeated while looking at your dirty fence.

"Don't be. It has potential. This right here looks like an eagle, and if I fix these, they could be mountains, and these right here..."

He just looked at you and smiled. You were kind and tender. Not ruled by people’s ideas of how things had to be done. You always... behaved unexpectedly. It was as if you could see beyond things. Whether it was a landscape behind the doodles or a friend behind a missbehaved boy, you never settled with appearences. 

 There is always more than meets the eye. There are always things we don’t really know.

But you wanted to know...

"Is he the student you always talk about?" Of course Iruka had told you about him. Sometimes you didn't even train and all you did was talk about your lives. Whenever any of you had a bad day you would always put support first. It was pretty comforting to have someone to talk to. Iruka's energy was one of the warmest, sweetest, most compassionate you've ever met, you admired that. It made you feel safe. 

"Yeah" he scratched his head.

"Oh, I get it now" you laughed as you got into your house. 

************

CH 4  CH 6

Masterlist

A/N: Ok, guys so first of all sorry for my grammar, spelling, syntaxis, and everything that has to do with writing structure. English is not my first language and boi this is harder than I thought (I'm better at writing in Spanish I promise)

Second: reader has been through a lot and I mean A LOT. She's been through so much I have enough material to write an entire ff about it like hell maybe even two who knows, so I'm struggling with how to tell you all that information. Maybe you won't get to know everything, just the important things. Bottom line she's had a rough time. (I'm actually a little bit scared to write that part cause it's pretty angsty, like right now she chooses peace and nice feelings but back then she didn't and turned her life into hell but I don't feel my writing is good enough to do justice to all that so... hope I get better) that doesn't mean there won't be angst i mean, there's no way to avoid angst when it comes to kakashi, so wish me luck.

And third: I suck at drawing so I can't show you what her power, energy and vibrations and all look like. I hope I was clear enough to give you a general idea (I'll probably get deeper into it later) but if I wasn't please let me know and I'll explain it better, it would be soooo helpful to know what you understood. 

And last but not least: THANKS FOR READING. let me know if you want to be added to the taglist :3 <3

@femboyneji @spnningtop @strawberrycakesstuff @cosplayartponypoli @ren-hatake

[puddygeeks]

Dusk Till Dawn - Dragon Age Inquisition - Cullen/Inquisitor

Masterlist

Rating: Suitable for all

A/N: This is actually my first ever piece of writing from the perspective of an existing character, especially a male so cut me some slack whilst I experiment with this new venture. I also do not tend to write in the 3rd person, so this piece has been a learning curve for me. However, I felt hugely inspired to write a fluffy piece about my fluffy boy, so enjoy! Let me know if you’d like to see more DA based content from me in future.

Summary: Commander Cullen struggles to maintain a professional, working relationship with the Inquisition’s fearless leader. As the realisation dawns on him that his thoughts linger on her, he begins to question whether the feeling is mutual.

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Cullen Rutherford/Lavellan

My writing is entirely fuelled by coffee! If you enjoy my work, feel free to donate toward my caffeine dependency: will work for coffee

Warnings: Perhaps some mild spoilers?

Standing across the war table, hand placed comfortably on the hilt of his sword, Commander Cullen focused on remaining professional. 

Their fearless leader assigned missions and plotted political manoeuvres that would shape the very fabric of all the Kingdoms in Thedas. Despite being plucked from relative obscurity, she rose to this responsibility as if made for it and led the rapidly growing Inquisition with grace and wisdom. 

Without warning, her large, almond shaped eyes met his and he felt his very spirit stir at the subtle connection between them. Buried in the deep hue of her eyes, he could always sense some hidden power that was disguised by her petite frame and seemingly harmless appearance. 

He felt himself fidget on the spot, an involuntary movement that had escaped his carefully controlled facade and he noticed a slight smile lurking in the corners of her mouth. 

There was a hint of playfulness in the way that she viewed him, he thought, before she swept from the chamber, leaving it notably colder by her absence. Surely he must have been mistaken. She was an icon, a force of nature in the crumbling world and would never view him as anything more than her lieutenant.

“My, my. Are you blushing, Commander?” 

Leliana’s sickly sweet voice drifted from his side, tainting the drafty space with her sly implications. 

It was not the first time that suggestions of this nature had been made about him, but each time caused him to bristle with embarrassment in a manner that was entirely more revealing than intended. He made a sound that almost resembled a scoff at the absurdity of her statement, but it strangely combined with an awkward splutter that filled the bard’s usually pale face with a smug satisfaction. 

“I do believe you may be correct, Leliana. Our dearest Commander certainly does seem rather flustered. Why, I could not possibly suggest a cause for such a reaction.” Josephine taunted, her words coated in a barely concealed enthusiasm as she studied him over the top of her papers. 

Cullen cleared his throat in a joyless bid to regain some composure, as his colleagues gazed past him at each other with mischief gleaming in their eyes.

“Surely you both have other matters to attend to? Nobles to pamper, or spies to train?” He countered, a poignant lack of authority in his voice, as the women crossed their arms and met his suggestions with a blatant disdain.

The Inquisitor inspired courage and determination in the recruits, each viewing her as a symbol of hope and light in the darkness. For Cullen, however, she was a constant distraction and a trigger for his most regretful, tense behaviours. 

As time passed, he found that he was able to recognise traits within her that others were blind to. He was stunned by the depth of her kindness towards him. Regardless of the shame that he felt when presenting his issues with addiction for her judgement, he was always met with understanding and compassion. These were new experiences for Cullen and the emotions that they provoked in him were completely unexplored territory.

On the battlements of Skyhold, he embarked on his regular stroll to examine and assess their sustainability, when an unfamiliar sight caused him to pause in his tracks. Standing by the edge, staring out into the mountains with an intense expression was the Inquisitor, clearly deeply lost in thought. 

She didn’t seem to notice Cullen’s arrival, as her gloved hands gripped onto the stone wall and he recognised that the usual strength that radiated from her was absent. In what she believed to be a solitary moment, her defences were lowered and she had allowed herself an opportunity to be vulnerable. 

Cullen felt awkward witnessing this, feeling the familiar sensation of invading upon a sacred space as he’d often experienced throughout his youth in the Chantry.

“Are you going to stand and stare all day, or would you prefer to join me, Commander?” 

His stomach churned as her words cut through the tense silence and she turned to glance at him over her shoulder with a gentle smile. He blanched at her casual offer, feeling pressure compressing his chest and she returned to her pondering, blissfully unaware of the nerves that her presence summoned in him.

“I apologise, my lady. It was not my intention to intrude, nor to stare.” He managed to force the words out through the block in his throat, but as they left his mouth, he acknowledged the deeply ingrained formality in the way that he addressed her. She smiled fondly at nothing in particular. 

There was a stifling atmosphere as he realised that there was not another soul in sight and inwardly, he scolded himself for not recognising the absence of guards earlier. He knew that they had likely already shifted their positions out of respect, to allow her a moment of peace and he felt embarrassed at his perceived social blunder.

“You’re not intruding. You don’t need to tiptoe around me, you know. I don’t bite.” She commented idly and Cullen tightened his grip on his sword in stress. 

The instances of flirtatious remarks were mounting, an overpowering suggestion in his already cluttered mind and each new addition increased his difficulty in denying their presence. They were an ever present force, haunting him at all hours of the day with their desire to be acknowledged. He pushed it away, desperately pleading with his heart to allow him to remain focused and appropriate. The Inquisitor regarded him with an amused disbelief, as he remained at his cautious distance.

“Do you ever simply stop patrolling, or working, and allow yourself a few moments of peace? Our surroundings are idyllic. It’s wasteful not to appreciate them.” She urged, gesturing for him to join her and, unable to deny her request for a second time, he reluctantly marched over to her side with his legs feeling as heavy as led.

The view from the battlements was breath-taking, but it was difficult to fully realise it’s wonder beside the simple splendour of her beauty. She sighed wistfully, the pleasant sound causing a flutter in his stomach and he relished the circumstances that allowed him to witness her in a more relaxed state than he’d ever been entrusted with in the past. 

Surrounded by snowy mountains and without the usual bustle of demands pressing against them, the silence was no longer tense and Cullen allowed his shoulders to gradually lower into a comfortable slouch.

“We filled this empty shell with purpose and belief.” She began, breaking the silence in a sour manner. 

“The halls are bustling with people determined to bring change to our world and the courtyard has become a home to the faithful. Undeterred by all theories to the contrary, we’ve proven it possible to unite mages and templars against a common enemy, under a single, inclusive banner that fights for the freedom of all.” She detailed, as she listed achievements that should have filled her voice with pride, but instead the words rang hollow and her tone remained lacklustre. 

Cullen was unnerved by her raw, unenthusiastic demeanour that existed in stark contrast to the invigorating personality that she displayed in the company of her comrades. 

“And yet, at the head of this mighty cause is a single elf. Inquisitor Lavellan. Despite all of the titles, followers and respect, I am still merely a Dalish with a strange light imbued in my palm. My value is awarded as a result of missing memories that humans have interpreted as a symbol of divine intervention. Tell me, Commander Cullen, what certainty can you possess that I am worthy of such duty?” Lavellan turned to face him, her eyes alight with a storm of emotions that blazed from the inside and he was lost under the intensity of her doubt.

Words failed him as he floundered in search of an answer that could provide her with the peace that she so desperately desired. 

In his heart, he knew that his belief in her was greater than any other within this fortress, or indeed all Thedas itself. He knew that if he allowed himself to be honest, he could list all of the admirable qualities that he had long admired about the awe-worthy being before him. 

Regretfully, his terror of unveiling the depth of his devotion prevented him from granting her with honesty. Instead, he beheld her with a barely concealed state of adoration and she sighed in disappointment.

“I’m sorry. I’ve posed a question that you couldn’t possibly answer. I suppose I should know better than to burden others with my own insecurities.” She excused, turning her face from him with an unsatisfied void in her eyes that would remain with him for as long as he lived. 

The cool, crisp air tore through the gaps in their defences, carrying the loose sections of her silver hair out behind her like wings and only exaggerated her appearance to him as some kind of ethereal being. 

As his gaze explored her features, he noticed that her nose and cheeks glowed in a delicate shade of pink that spread to the tips of her gracefully pointed ears and he wondered how long she had been standing here, allowing her exposed skin to grow cold. He ached to lighten her burden, to remove the knot that formed between her brows as she battled the responsibilities that threatened to crush her beneath their weight and against his better judgement, his answer began to flow freely from his lips.

“In all of my years as a templar, I have followed leaders of many different titles. Each of them possessed their own approach, their own qualities that influenced their choices and shaped their time in power.” He recounted, uncertain of the confessions that might escape his lips as he spoke without restraint.

“Never have I known any other to rise from the ashes as you have, nor for the people to elect them with such fervent belief. They follow you with unshakable faith, as do I, not because of your origins, your race or your rumoured holiness. They follow because of your decisions, because you lead with a grace and wisdom that comes from deep within and is unique to your formidable soul.” 

“You are the Inquisitor not because of the anchor that you wield, but because there is no other who could fulfil this duty as you have. You are indisputably, unfathomably, exceptionally more than ‘merely a Dalish’, Lady Lavellen.” He spoke with conviction and with every shred of reasoning, he observed her becoming increasingly humbled by his confession. 

Of course, Cullen knew her name, but he wouldn’t dare to address her by it, believing that it disrespected her journey and consequent struggles to earn the title which she now held. Her eyes grew wide and it was clear that she was shocked by the passion of his words, whilst he waited in a terror ridden state, fearing that he had absolutely revealed too much.

“It is incomprehensible to me that you are capable of such earnest insight into others, whilst believing yourself to be scarcely more than a failed ex-templar.” She surveyed him with a sympathetic, yet frustrated expression and as often would occur in her company, Cullen found himself lost for words. 

When under her gaze, he felt unworthy of the praise that she often bestowed upon him and could not fathom her unwavering faith in him. Even when he had suggested that Cassandra replace him, Lavellan refused to allow him to relinquish his position and insisted that he could defeat his demons to abstain from the use of lyrium once and for all. There was no doubt in his mind that she made him a better person, but in spite of all his improvement, he still could not even begin to imagine himself as deserving of her fondness.

Lavellan turned from the wall to face him fully, closing the distance between them until she was nearer than he’d ever had cause to be. In such proximity, he could smell the natural scent of flowers and herbs on her skin, admired the sun that glinted in her eyes and his face flushed with a heat that exposed his exhilaration. 

For longer than he could ever truly admit, he had laid awake at night, imagining what a privilege it would be to touch her, but he would never be so bold as to attempt such a sin. Involuntarily, he gulped as she pouted her plump lips thoughtfully and his heart pounded with such intensity that he felt concerned that it could cease to function at any given moment. 

She leaned forward at a painfully gradual pace and had to shift her balance onto her toes in order to reach him. With ice tinted lips, she placed a single delicate kiss on his cheek, contrasting sharply with the burning of his skin. 

Instead of immediately moving away she lingered there, her breath tickling his neck as her mouth brushed his ear.

“Your faith extinguishes my fear, unlike any other.” She whispered, her words burning into Cullen’s mind like a brand from an iron that could never be compromised. 

All of his senses seemed to be intensified, as he committed every minute detail to memory for fear that this experience may not occur more than once. When she leaned back into his field of vision, her features glowed with fondness and he simply gawped at her in amazement. 

“You put my heart at ease, Cullen. Thank you.” She admitted with a relaxed sigh and without a further word, or any indication that she would explain the meaning behind this statement, she parted from him. 

As Lavellan’s delicate steps echoed down the stone staircase, Cullen remained rooted to the spot, obsessively analysing the conversation and wondering if he’d perhaps misunderstood. Perhaps the mountain of comments in his mind that he’d long considered to be indulgent, self-delusion had accumulated into something more significant than he’d ever dared to imagine.