#Presumably this would be set before Everything Terrible(? Does such a time exist? Probably not if he's wearing that shirt haha)

[sysig]

It clearly wasn’t important to you (Patreon)

[thekingofwinterblog]

It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do. 

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child. 

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice... Touya... Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another. 

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did... from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15. 

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings. 

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

[nyerus]

Hi Nyerus and hope you are doing well.

My question is related to He Xuan impersonating the Earth Master and the real Earth Master being a spy of Jun Wu and then him getting discovered by Hua Cheng.

What's actually bothering me is: at what point in time does all this happen??? How come He Xuan befriend Shi qingxuan as the earth master without Jun Wu noticing...since it was him who sent the real earth master to ghost city to spy on Hua Cheng....does that mean he and Hua Cheng was already aware of his existence and was just waiting for an opportunity to catch him?...Sorry if it sounds a bit confusing.

Hi there Anon! I'm doing well, thank you for asking. I hope you're well too!

This is actually a pretty confusing part of the plot, so no worries, I'm happy to explain it to the best of my ability!

First things things first though: the real Earth Master -- Ming Yi -- never actually "made it" to heaven. He was yanked just before his ascension, and He Xuan masqueraded as a god in his place.

After his death, He Xuan went on to become a Supreme, and then waited for an opportunity to infiltrate heaven. He knew that a god was responsible for switching his fate and causing the suffering and death of his family, as well as his own suffering. (Later, he found out it was Shi Wudu, and he wanted vengeance against the perpetrator, no matter the cost.)

So, the real Ming Yi was kidnapped by He Xuan and kept somewhere for decades, presumably Black Water manor. He Xuan needed access to him to copy his mannerisms, and use his knowledge so as to not be suspected or found out. He Xuan thus infiltrated heaven and was masquerading as a god for a very long time, while investigating. It was a terrible coincidence that he happened to befriend Shi Qingxuan in that time, of all people, though he knew by this point that Shi Wudu may be involved. (It’s probably why he stuck around, too.)

One of the reasons that He Xuan wasn't able to find out what really happened is because only three people knew: Shi Wudu himself, Ling Wen, and Jun Wu. Shi Wudu was able to convince Ling Wen to conceal all records that could potentially lead back to him. She did, but Jun Wu knew the entire time. (It's unclear when Ling Wen started working "for" Jun Wu. If she already was by the time Shi Wudu did all that, it's possible that she told Jun Wu. Otherwise, he simply knew anyway.) He kept that information to himself through, because he knew it would be advantageous to use at a later time. If Shi Wudu at any point became troublesome, Jun Wu could easily "leak" the information and get rid of him. And... that's exactly what happened, later on.

But in the meantime, Jun Wu just let everything be as it was. Years later, present time, he would be the one to assign Earth Master -- who he had known was He Xuan for ages -- to "spy" on Ghost City. Likely, he ever expected to receive any actual information from He Xuan, and didn't really care about that.

I do not think it was a coincidence at all that the real Ming Yi escaped right when he did. We have no idea how he escaped, just that he did, and set off a self -immolating Dragon Flare nearby Ghost City. (We don't know for sure how he got there, but there are portals between Black Water Lair and Ghost City, so it might've been through that.) What we do know is that He Xuan did not expect this, and neither did Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng received word that such a flare had gone off outside Ghost City -- either from He Xuan or Yin Yu -- and went back to check it out. It's probably why he vanished the night after Hualian got back from Banyue.* Then, Hua Cheng and He Xuan colluded to "imprison" He Xuan to be found and "rescued," so that heaven would not find out about the real Ming Yi. It worked because He Xuan was sent as a spy to Ghost City anyway, so it gave them a reason to say Hua Cheng had discovered him and tossed him in a dungeon. Yin Yu was able to draw Xie Lian's attention to the portals, so that he and Shi Qingxuan could "find and rescue Earth Master," and would be none the wiser after returning to heaven.

The timing was excellent for Jun Wu -- who was probably behind it all -- because he could take out multiple birds with one stone. Ming Yi escaping forced He Xuan on the defensive. He had to retrieve the remains, keep them hidden, etc. Thereafter, leaking the truth to He Xuan meant that Shi Wudu would be taken out, or they would both take each other out. Meanwhile, sending Xie Lian into Ghost City to "investigate" was done in an attempt to break whatever positive bond Hua Cheng and Xie Lian had. Jun Wu didn't like that the two of them were on friendly terms. If Xie Lian was caught spying and trying to retrieve yet another spy, then the Hua Cheng would not take it lightly. Potentially they would come to blows. It didn't end up going that way, but the intent was there.

Also, it doesn't seem like Hua Cheng knew about the real Ming Yi until after the flare happened. Even if he did know that Ming Yi existed in some capacity, he didn't have anything to do with him.

Hua Cheng played along with everything so that Xie Lian's involvement would be limited. He'd just take """Ming Yi""" back to heaven -- mission complete. What Hua Cheng wanted to avoid was Xie Lian potentially getting caught up in He Xuan's revenge plot. But again, terrible coincidence that Shi Qinxguan befriended Xie Lian, and came to him for help shortly thereafter....

And if I remember correctly, it was following the Ghost City arc where Jun Wu leaked Shi Wudu's involvement to He Xuan, setting off the Black Water arc.

Anyway, I hope this helped, Anon! It's definitely a bit confusing and I wanted one day to make like an actual timeline for this hahaha. There's actually still a fair few gaps that remain a mystery (e.g. how Ming Yi escaped) even to the end. Check out chapter 124 & chapter 220 (fan translation version) for a lot of info on this topic! That's where the bulk of the revelations are

(*Interestingly enough, in chapter 59 of the manhua, there's a panel where Hua Cheng is standing in the background while Xie Lian and Ban Yue are talking. He has a finger up to his temple, like he's receiving message through a communication array!)

[flowerflamestars]

I'm in a very angry-with-the-IC-and-Rhys-in-particular mood, and since I'm just rereading Daylight I was wondering, what is going through Rhysand's mind throughout the events of Daylight? Because it's basically his entire life CRUMBLING around him and I'd love to see the mental gymnastics he does to fit it all into his "I'm the good guy, actually" narrative. Or just his general reaction.

this is a FABULOUS question, thank you!

Daylight! Rhys is, in my opinion, the closest to a canonical (pre-acosf) character representation that I go for. He's so SO fucked up, and sublimating and burying all that trauma has, of course, failed, and it's all manifesting, in all these different directions.

To understand the level on which Rhys is losing his shit, it's important to go back to the very beginning: Rhysand, to Rhysand, is always, always the hero of the story. The down on his luck knight with truth in his heart. The struggling, just man.

He CANNOT seeing beyond himself for even a second. He casts himself in the most important role, as the only person whose personal consequences exist.

His mother, at probable great risk, takes him to Illyria to be trained- the precious, first-born, godly son of Night. To learn to fight- to learn, presumably, her culture- to see what that culture is reduced to, a harshness he will on day have the power to change. Rhys had to be, at some point, a great hope for Not High Fae denizens of the Court.

What does Rhysie learn? Illyria is harsh. Illyria is bad. Backwards and cruel.

He hates his father for...presumably, the crime of being a pretty traditional High Lord? Rhys hates the cruelties! the Court of Nightmares! the broken system!

So what does Rhys do when he has power? he fires everyone. He doesn't like them, he doesn't like whatever they did under his father...so instead of hiring new people, he removes himself entirely from a potential role in changing/mitigating those policies. See also: the Court of Nightmares, cowed occasionally, but not in any way governed by Rhys.

But he's the hero! He's destroyed the oppression! His Court of Just his Bros is made of women and Illyrians!

(Rhys removed the terribleness from his direct experience...because only his experiences matter)

So, Rhys in his head: the struggle, the hero, the man just trying to do it right.

Which brings us to Daylight....and Feyre. I know we can attribute the way the characters stop even remotely being sympathetic between acomaf and...everything else...to poor writing, but I also think there's some (maybe accidental but PERFECT) character work there: in acomaf, pre-acknowledged bond, Feyre is an important possession/ally- she's on the same level as the other members of the Court of Dreams, if the jewel of the collection, a high point in the story Rhys tells himself: HE saved the HERO OF PRYTHIAN

(which...let's not even touch on the fact that the deal he makes in acotar is CREEPY and he can only justify it later. she wasn't someone he wanted to work with in acotar- she was a vulnerable, hot young woman he fully took advantage of)

And then they're mates.

And then, slowly but surely, Feyre's personhood disappears. For two reasons: 1) Feyre is on a pedestal so sky-high it blots out everything. Good, pure, true hero Feyre whose adoration Rhysand needs like air. the happy end of his story, the prize and the salvation, the one who sees him.

and 2) ultimately, to Rhys, Feyre is an extension of him. A symbol: his happiness, his peace, his endless power, what he fought to keep.

She's his whole anchor staying sane, which isn't great, considering...ya know, everything. But the Story is Over. They are Happy.

Except- except- nothing is over. Post fifty straight years of torture, a freefall into war and fuckery, teen marriage and literal death, the consequences for all those things AND THE SHIT RHYS WAS PULLING LONG BEFORE AMARANTHA TURNED HIM INTO A CHEW TOY, are still present.

But now, he has something to protect. His golden future. His puppy Mate.

Because Feyre's safety is the safety of his power and vice versa. Anything he does is justifiable because the loss of Feyre is Not an Option. She is Happy. They Are Happy.

It bleeds into everything- and then it intensifies, because this is the breaking point.

The Az/Lucien thing and Feyre incredibly hurtful blindness? No Rhys isn't going to interfere- Az is so private anyway- if Feyre believes its a romantic bond, Feyre is right, she knows her sister, not that it matters because Elain is totally out of her mind.

Sending Cassian to Illyria? Illyria is a backwards shithole right? They're fierce fighters and that's what Rhys values them for- as the hammer of his power- and nothing else? why would there be anything else? Look at them fighting and hurting each other.

Nesta runs and Cassian is left throwing himself in battles actively trying to die and Rhys? Rhys is totally smug. A problem that hurt Feyre and his brother is GONE.

But it's not gone. Az isn't talking to anyone- and Rhys thinks this probably means Lucien is probably, finally fucking him- but even Feyre understands that Azriel knows where Nesta is. When this is proved (when Elain surfaces and they have the very fun kitchen fight) Rhys isn't happy- but he understands. Azriel has always felt responsible for broken things.

But thats not his job, it's Rhysands job, and Rhys has already made that tough choice for the safety of his own: Nesta has no place here. When she resurfaces inevitably, broke and wanting something, Rhys will stop her before she gets close enough to upset (hurt) Feyre. It's his job.

Cassian goes missing, and Rhysand sets upon what will become his eventual move: Illyria's value is strength. (a martial strength that belongs to RHYS). But they think they can take from him? They can destroy their own best chance? (Rhys recognizes Cassian's value to Illyria even while, you know, ordering him to slaughter Illyrians) They would threaten his power? hurt his family?

Rhys will not allow a world to exist where Feyre can be hurt.

If Illyria can't be controlled, Illyria will be put down, like the rabid creatures they are. (They were always backwards, Rhys thinks. Freeing my mother was the one good thing my father ever did)

But Cassian lives.

Rhys asks Azriel if he's been cursed. Az laughs in his face.

And Cassian is a terrible enemy to have. The strategies the loyalists are using? His, filtered through Rhys. The magical contingencies? Cassian and Az, trying to prevent bloodshed.

Feyre thinks, for a long time, that maybe the rebels have Nesta. What else could compel Cassian to even care? these people keep trying to kill him. they want to kill Rhys. the brothers suffered in the frozen mud at the hands of these monsters, what is Cassian doing?

And then the massacre happens.

And Feyre sick to her stomach, cries when she hears. Rhysand thinks about a little hazel eyed boy who'd never had a bed, a present, who'd been nothing until Rhysand plucked him up- a little boy who'd grown into a dangerous man, who'd just killed every person who ever contributed to his pain. Rhys thinks, knowing he'll have to punish Cassian for this, that it's over.

The camp lords are dead, it has to be over.

(Azriel hears and understands- because he knows damn well Cassian was something before Rhysand, and after despite him. That beneath those repeatedly broken ribs is a heart that was once so big so save him, grown strong enough now to save everyone who was like them: forgotten, abandoned, used.)

It's not over. The mountains are burning. Banners fly on northern wind in a language long dead. They're singing, the spies say, they call him dawn. Loyal-heart-as-dawn.

It's Cassians name. Not that Rhys, who never knew more than a few vile insults in the language of his mother's ancient, proud people, understood it then.

Rhysand, the long-suffering hero of his own story, has been betrayed.

He can risk no more- it's time to end this madness. It's Feyre's idea to use Elain- it's Feyre who is left crying, a betrayal Rhysand will never forget- when Elain, who they've given everything, Elain, perhaps just as broken and wretched as her eldest sister, refuses to help keep Feyre safe.

(Elain refuses to participate in what she sees as genocide, but as we've established, what consequences exist? the ones Rhys feels right in front of his face)

Azriel, Elain, and Lucien run.

Of course, if both Feyre's sisters are capable of betraying her, of course, both of Rhysand's brothers would as well. They are one in the same, aren't they? Marked by destiny, by fate for this hard and terrible work- of course it hurts. Of course- but Rhysand will stop it from hurting Feyre any more.

There's one force in the world that can stand in truth against Illyria. The Darkbringers- their ancestral, ancient conquers.

(Yes, I do think Rhys knows the shitty, shitty history of his court! He just doesn't care! He didn't do it. He's different. He's in Velaris with the common people. He has wings. He's not his father.)

(He is, in fact, far worse)

When he thinks of it, it seems perfect. Illyria will be destroyed- a loss, but a safe one. Keir, will, almost certainly, also be destroyed or at least critically weakened.

Rhysand will stand alone, the man who was willing to do anything for peace. He will rule over an emptied playing field, secure in a world where Feyre is safe.

The Hewn City empties, the armies march- Rhysand holds tight Feyre's hand, says nothing about the fact that nothing, nothing, will stop Keir from killing anyone in front of him when battle starts, and reaches once more for Cassian's mind.

His brother, his friend, his loyal right hand- he begs him to come back. To come home. That they can put down this rebellion and in his love for Cassian everything can go back to how it is meant to be, all of them together.

It does not occur to him to address the hundreds dead. The system he was complicit in and responsible for that ground a culture to dust and ash- what matters is brother against brother should never have turned, and Rhys, in his kindness, will offer Cassian this last chance for honor.

Rhys doesn't want Cassian to die- he wants Cassian by his side- but he will drown the world in blood before he'll lose his crown and hope and Feyre.

And when Cassian dies, falling to the earth in Rhysand's arms, Rhys thinks of penance.

A circle closed.

But of course- Cassian wakes. Death is not done with her right hand anymore than the contract between Lordship and land in immutable. Cassian brought the magic back, brought Illyria back.

Rhys is fighting for something personal- Cassian is fighting for a whole world and future, with everything in himself.

When the new border is drawn, Rhys doesn't despair- sure he's shaking, he's covered in Cassian's blood, his twelve thousand year old walls are smoking and the whole world smells like fucking Nesta Archeron- he's been the victim of curses before.

He won't let it keep him down. He'll be fine. He has Feyre, they're safe. Illyria is going to implode- and maybe, maybe, he'll save some of those that remain when the violence is too much, when they need a real High Lord.

They'll come home. Just like Feyre's sisters will. Rhysand's brothers. They fought for peace and Velaris has it- it is their home.

It's what they fought for, the happy ending, and it's all worth it.

It has to be worth it.

[everythingsinred]

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 2)

And we're back with more exciting and mean Natsume! Here we will further explore Natsume's life and how absolutely dark his existence is, as well as some very important aspects of his personality that will be useful to us when NatsuMikan starts picking up speed.

Again, I am warning people that this whole essay in general talks heavily about topics like bullying, child abuse, suicidal ideation, and depression, so if those are triggering topics, it might be better for you to not read.

Previously, we were introduced to Natsume and he has sent Mikan on a dangerous quest to the Northern Woods. During that trip, she and her friends have captured his one and only best friend, Ruka, which will not bode well.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five is instrumental for completing Natsume’s introduction, long as it’s been. Natsume is a mysterious character, and he will continue to be evasive and strange for many chapters to come, but by the end of this chapter, we will understand some basic foundation for his character.

The chapter starts with Ruka’s point of view, recalling a moment when he saw Natsume cry, presumably after a mission. Ruka wonders why it’s only Natsume that has to go through “this”, and Natsume tells him that he can take it--for now. He says he wants to grow up and be an adult, to be big and strong enough to properly escape this hell. This is a consistent wish of Natsume’s, and in many ways his only wish: to grow up already.

Higuchi really out here trying to convince us this was supposed to be a cheerful story.

Natsume had to be an adult, had to make the selfless and responsible choices for the sake of his family and for Ruka, had to abandon play and smiles and laughter for a life of secret missions and frequent hospital trips. He’s dying and he wants to be an adult already because he’s certain he’ll never be able to grow up. He wants his body to match the level of responsibility he’s had to take on, but he can’t force the outside to match the inside, especially when he’ll probably be dead long before it happens anyway. This wish evolves and changes when he falls for Mikan, but it doesn’t go away.

He associates adulthood with control, because his life at the academy has been observing the adults control and use him. He wants control for once, to be able to make a choice and even just say no.

Ruka notes that Natsume hasn’t cried at all since that night, and that he now keeps all his sorrow locked away. This kid needs therapy, immediately. This is another reason that Ruka is so precious to Natsume. Ruka is compassionate and kind, so concerned about his friend that he would also shut away his own heart so that he can’t be happy for as long as Natsume is in agony.

Natsume has a scene of his own, where he snaps at Permy for saying that Mikan is full of crap and lying about being an alice. He points out that the academy is not an easy place to lie your way into, and Permy immediately backtracks and lies that she’s agreed with him this whole time. Like I’d said earlier about the loneliness involved in being surrounded by fans who don’t really know or understand you, having people all around you bend over backwards for your approval makes it clear that they really have no interest in what you’re saying, just that you’re the one saying it.

In the anime essay, I’d pointed out that because of their admiration for him, it would elude people that Natsume is in fact lonely. He speaks out against things and people rush to agree, not really considering why he might say that. This is a similar moment, though he doesn’t seem too bothered by Permy’s behavior. It’s still concerning, but it’s interesting to compare this “yes, man” attitude to Ruka’s.

There is obviously a difference between someone agreeing with every word of your mouth no matter how much it changes and contradicts, bending over backwards for your approval, and someone wanting to match you out of compassion, but Ruka’s line of thinking does still have some major flaws.

Ruka is a child, just like the rest of them, so even though this behavior is motivated by love and compassion, it’s still immature and raises some questions.

“If you won’t smile, I won’t smile either,” is a sweet line, but now Natsume is aware that Ruka’s misery is his fault. If he wasn’t so sad, Ruka could be happy. This doesn’t make Natsume happy; it just makes them both sad, and that doesn’t solve any problems. Naturally, Natsume would never say that, and Ruka would claim he’s unbothered and--just like Natsume--that he doesn’t care about hanging out with the others, but they’re both miserable now, and I think this is part of the reason why there’s a gap between them at the start of the manga, and why they’re a bit distant, despite being best friends.

They’re each other’s most important person, but they don’t really communicate that well, and Ruka constantly feels like a burden.

Natsume needs something that Ruka can’t give him, and that something is what he’ll eventually get from Mikan.

That being said, at the moment, Natsume is getting nothing but irritation from Mikan. When he finds out Mikan and her gang kidnapped Ruka, that irritation turns into rage and we see a final fundamental building block for Natsume’s character: his berserk button.

Natsume doesn’t care about the reasoning or justification for the kidnapping. He doesn’t care about explanations or common sense.

His rage only increases when he discovers Ruka was tied up and even beaten (he is told this by a classmate, when Ruka is actually unharmed). The other kids in Class B--his admirers--are terrified to see how scary Natsume is when he’s furious.

Natsume's biggest weakness is Ruka so Mikan is kinda fucked.

He doesn’t care about the game anymore. He only cares about Ruka.

So he goes to the Northern Woods, where nobody is expecting him. He tells Mikan to leave the school, which… she cannot do, obviously. He is overtaken by rage and he ceases to be reasonable.

He uses his alice on everyone but Ruka, and is about to use it on Mikan, but her alice nullifies it. Then Narumi kisses him, prompting him to pass out.

Here, we are introduced to a consistent character trait of Natsume’s, one that may contradict all that talk about forced maturity and selflessness. In fact, Natsume’s habit to go absolutely postal on anyone who threatens a loved one is a contradictory one. Going into a rage requires the sacrifice of common sense and reason for the sake of complete emotional detonation, and as a result he fails to understand that his actions could inadvertently hurt his loved ones or innocent bystanders. No reassuring words are enough to calm him down, and sure enough Natsume will destroy something.

It’s important that we see this trait now, as part of Natsume’s informal introduction, as we will see plenty more instances of it later on. In a way, going berserk for someone can even be a love language of his, where if a person being threatened is enough to set him off, he probably cares about them.

And just as interesting as seeing what he does in these situations is posing the why! Why is it that Natsume goes ballistic in these situations, when it requires the loss of the one thing he wishes he had more of, control? My guess is that Natsume has had a rough childhood and much of that time was spent running away from a dangerous entity. Staying cool and calculated under some conditions would have its benefits, but so would the quick-action and confidence that Natsume would gain by going berserk. When you have to protect someone, and Natsume has been in that situation many times, then it’s sometimes even beneficial to be able to lose yourself for a moment or two. But perhaps it’s not that either. Natsume is, despite all his airs of coldness and mystery, actually a very emotional person, and in that way he is easy to understand. Even if this isn’t a habit he developed by watching his loved ones ripped away from him through either extortion, manipulation, or just plain murder, it’s still something he might be predisposed to: attacking with everything he has despite not having a clear plan or even any real thought.

Chapter Six

We pick up where we left off and Natsume wakes up grumpy after everyone seeing him under the effects of Narumi’s pheromone alice. He causes more destruction, still in somewhat of a rage, and even causes Narumi a head wound though his teacher seems unbothered by this (or maybe even used to it, who can say).

The next thing that happens is that an alarm rings, signaling that Natsume is due for severe punishment, and, as Naru points out, not something he can help with this time. Narumi warns him to get a move on before a mystery enemy (Persona) arrives, and that is enough to scare Natsume into getting out of there. But not before he issues a word of warning of his own to Mikan, that she will regret coming to Alice Academy of her own free will.

Isn't it interesting how her optimism, something he hated so much about her from the start, ends up being something he loves about her?

I have very many thoughts about this warning. It might even seem like a threat, as if Natsume will go out of his way to make sure she regrets her decision, but he does no such thing. He is convinced that Mikan doesn’t need help reaching that conclusion--she will realize it on her own because the school is simply that terrible.

It makes a little bit of sense to view Natsume’s hatred of Mikan this way: Mikan skipped right into his own personal hell with a smile on her face and a bubbly attitude. Meanwhile, he fought and kicked and screamed right until the very end when he was forced into attending the academy. And Mikan is not some normal girl who might be able to live a quiet and pleasant life in the academy. She’s already been marked, what with all the games about her enrollment, and that might anger Natsume even more: she’s really naive enough to walk into a place that’s not just hell to him, but inevitably to her too. Because of this, Natsume hates her and is predisposed to hate her more the more cheerful and optimistic she is.

And, unlike in the anime, this hatred takes much longer to go away.

Anyway, we see Natsume again later in class, when he shows up late after having just been terribly abused as punishment for his actions in the Northern Woods.

In the anime, Natsume catches Mikan insulting him while wearing the punishment mask, and although he’s covered in scratches and the kids are whispering about his bad mood, there’s not much else to it. He doesn’t seem any more unpleasant than he’s been this whole time.

There's nothing funny about this but I will put here as a warning that anybody who jokes that kids should be hit will be hit by me!

In the manga, Natsume is so weak that he can hardly stand. It’s not just scratches, but blood and gashes on his wrists and legs. The mask is not only used to mark him, it’s also used to punish, by physically abusing him when Persona has better things to do.

He makes his way to his seat, but Narumi is on the way, just enough to make a quippy comment.

(I wonder sometimes about Narumi establishing himself as untrustworthy to the children, particularly Natsume, and how exactly that’s supposed to be a help to the student body at large. I mean there’s the possibility that Mikan is special, and her being Yuka’s daughter helped Narumi remember what he became a teacher for. In that case, it might make sense that Narumi, being so jaded and bitter, might be content acting as a villain to the abused children of the academy, and especially to Natsume, but I can’t help but feel that’s not the case. I don’t want to think that Narumi was willingly complicit and even amused by Natsume’s abuse. It’s difficult to tell for sure, though, because Narumi is way more mysterious than Natsume tries to be.)

Sumire tries to kiss up, whining to Natsume about how everyone is suddenly acting so nice to the new girl, until Natsume forcefully kicks her desk to shut her up. He only holds back with Ruka, who he would never lash out at.

Narumi then announces that Mikan shall have a partner, and that her partner will be Natsume. It’s funny because although Hotaru made it clear she didn’t want the job, Iinchou was willing to volunteer, but Narumi ignores that because he always wanted Natsume to be her partner. At this news, everyone is shocked, wondering if Mikan is supposed to be special, seeing as she’s paired up with Natsume of all people.

Narumi smiles to himself despite the chaos and then lets himself leave the classroom, saying, “let’s see what happens.”

Why does he partner them up?

Mikan thinks Narumi is crazy for this, and from an outside perspective it certainly might seem that way.

Natsume’s theory, as becomes clear later during the exams, is that this was organized by the ESP and Persona, perhaps as a punishment, but definitely with ulterior motives. He is closer to nailing it, but a little off. There is no way in hell the ESP would want to partner the child of rabble-rousers with the school’s pet child soldier. That’s a recipe for disaster. Knowing that the ESP was excited to welcome Mikan because of her alice, and that her presence at the school might encourage Yuka to try and save her, he wouldn’t have wanted to disturb his own plans.

So what is the reason?

It’s all Narumi, of course. Perhaps the O.G. shipper, Narumi could tell right away that Mikan’s nullification would be useful, particularly in regards to Natsume. Pairing them up is just another means to an end, as Narumi actually wants the kids to raise some trouble.

Chapter Seven

Being partners with Natsume is quite unhelpful.

Mikan ends up a No-Star and her Special-Star partner is for the most part absent throughout her ordeals, having to cope with it all on her own.

Chapter Seven is mainly lacking Natsume. He functions to not function for most of it, that is to establish himself as being a terrible partner.

There is a moment that stands out, when Mikan is writing a letter to her grandpa, where Natsume appears. Yes, he appears in her head to taunt her about her regret coming to the school, and she spites him by committing to optimism and determination in the future. But he also has a short appearance paralleling a panel of Mikan: they are both in their beds, awake.

WHAT WAS THE REASON?????!??!?!?

This parallel is interesting, their panels right next to each other. She is thinking about her grandpa, and we have no way of knowing what Natsume is thinking about, but there has to be a reason for him to appear despite having been mostly absent so far in the chapter.

To me, it’s another narrative tool to pair them together. They have been so far, in more ways than one, and will continue to be as they fall in love, and this is just another example of how they’d been fated from the start. Even when they hate each other, and even when they aren’t thinking of each other, they’re still tied. Looking at those panels, and seeing Natsume despite his relative irrelevance to the plot, seems to be a message that there’s more to come between them. I don’t know if any of what I’m saying makes sense, or if it seems silly, but there’s very little analysis I can do without just talking about potential.

Later, with Mikan in a new mood, ready to make the most of her situation, the kids are talking about her resilience with both her no-star status and having Natsume as a partner.

Ruka does the talking for Natsume, warning Mikan that she’s being watched and remarking that nobody should have been assigned a no-star for simply disturbing class.

Once again, Mikan and Natsume are paired: they are both treated unfairly, with Mikan given a no-star status she doesn’t deserve, and Natsume given a special-star status despite the fact that he doesn’t even go to class most of the time. They’re the exceptions to the rule, and the reader is made to wonder what exactly it is that they have in common that would result in this treatment.

Ruka tells Mikan not to trust any teachers at the academy, not even Naru, and this is almost like hearing from Natsume himself. Unlike Mikan, who will happily make strong bonds with teachers like Narumi and Nodacchi, Natsume has absolutely no positive adult figures in his life. His father is far away, his mother is dead, and every teacher is someone he holds either directly or indirectly responsible for his suffering. The adults at the school have failed him and he has nobody to trust. Something Natsume needs is a positive role model, somebody he can look up to and have faith in, because as it stands he’s a traumatized boy who absorbs negativity and takes it out in bad ways. A trustworthy adult would very much help Natsume grow and learn better coping skills, and in the meantime it makes perfect sense that he would act out and even be a bully at times.

Chapter Eight

Natsume has a habit of ignoring any and all episodes where Mikan has confrontations with her teachers. He is either dozing off or listening to music with Ruka, and doesn’t seem particularly interested in even watching.

That being said, we see a new side to Natsume in this chapter, a new emotion in a way we haven’t before: fear.

Natsume ditches class with regularity. He does not care about being present. For most classes, he would simply walk out and go screw around somewhere else, but with the dangerous ability class, he doesn’t have that choice.

The other teachers may be complicit, but they won’t do the abuse themselves. Persona is not above that, as we have already noticed despite never even seeing him so far.

If Natsume does not want to attend the dangerous ability class, then he has to run for it, and in this chapter he does, like his life depends on it, because his safety sure does. He’s only ten years old and forced to do horrible missions for the school. This is one of the scenes that reminds me that he is just a child. He knows he could get punished for running, but he does it anyway. Maybe, if he runs fast enough, they won’t catch him. Maybe, if he doesn’t get caught, he doesn’t have to go on a mission. Maybe, just this once, they won’t mind if he doesn’t show. It’s such a childish and desperate thing to do, to avoid pain at the cost of more pain to come.

Natsume is scary when he's scared...

It’s funny that as he is running from pain, he runs into Mikan, who will later alleviate his pain. For now, he just shuts her up so that Persona can pass the area while looking for him. We see Persona for the first time, what Natsume is scared of more than anything, and although his fear seems obvious, Mikan is preoccupied by annoyance for being shut up like that.

They bicker--or she bickers at him, mostly--until the middle schoolers encounter them and start bullying them.

Natsume is ready to ignore them and walk away, until Sumire’s brother calls him a murderer, reminding us of the rumor Hotaru and Iinchou discussed. Natsume stops, and Sumire’s brother whines that he’s just a special star because he’s “Persona’s favorite”.

Sumire and her brother have, like, nothing in common other than curly hair, huh.

Being Persona’s favorite is no privilege, as we know now from the run-in we just had with him and Natsume’s fear. This sets Natsume off and he starts some fires. When they threaten to call Persona, who Natsume was just running from, he responds that they can call him all they want, but he’ll burn them before he can get there to capture him. We see once again, through Natsume standing up for himself, that his berserk button lacks reason (as he is willing to sacrifice punishment by Persona again).

In a last-ditch attempt to threaten him, the middle schoolers threaten Mikan, who they perceive to be Natsume’s new girlfriend. (Calling her his girlfriend is interesting because it is even more proof that they are being narratively paired together! It shouldn’t be a surprise at all that they eventually get together, when almost everybody around them pairs them up like this, even when they can’t stand each other.) They do not expect that Natsume actually hates her, and genuinely doesn’t care if she gets bullied or not. He smiles in twisted amusement at this turn of events and walks away for good this time, leaving Mikan to be bullied.

Aw, he's smiling! How sweet.... oh wait that's a skull.

Now, Natsume is a good person deep inside, somebody who is selfless and kind in secret ways. There is no secret kindness about this scene. He is not a nice person, for sure, and this scene is proof of it.

Natsume is used to sacrificing himself for the comfort and well-being of his loved ones, so there might be relief in not caring about the comfort or well-being of somebody, and being able to choose his own well-being before that of somebody else for once. It makes sense that he would be so amused, because this time nobody has anything to hold over his head.

Conclusion

We have seen some more of the abuse Natsume faces on a daily basis. He and Mikan have been partnered up and they are presented narratively as foils and as pairs even outside of that dynamic.

For the next part, we'll see even more examples of them being paired together, as well as how Natsume is isolated from his classmates.

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[supercantaloupe]

on Aelwyn Abernant, the Reformed Villain Squad, and redeeming teenage antagonists

an analysis on antagonist character development in Fantasy High. spoilers through sophomore year and (mildly so) the most recent roll20 oneshot. essay under the cut bc i am very long winded

the turnaround with Aelwyn in s2 is handled so well  i cant get over it. she was such a major antagonist in the first season and just. despicable. she had no pathos. we hated this bitchy older sister who tried to kill Adaine and her friends and raise an evil dragon, and when she gets knocked on her ass and thrown in jail, we cheer.

and then s2 fucking starts saying “hey she’s in jail still if you’d like to look into that” and pursuing that thread ends up being almost as comedic an idea as it is a reluctant one; it’s also quickly shunted to the background as soon as more pressing leads present themselves, to the point where we almost forget about her until Adaine is kidnapped and then the first time you see her it’s just. viscerally upsetting.

she’s bad. she did evil. she got what she deserved.

but she already got what she deserved. last season.

she got her ass handed to her by a bunch of 14 year olds including her little sister (how embarrassing!). her plans were thwarted. she got punched in the face and made fun of. she already got her punishment.

it just……immediately registers as over-the-top Wrong to be told “hey, remember that antagonist you beat last season? she’s still being punished for that, except it’s way worse than just going to mumple.”

and there’s that reminder that like…this is a teenager. a child. who has been manipulated and abused. which is a really fascinating look at this character we used to see pretty much unilaterally as a one dimensional bitchy villain.

i mean we got a more in depth look at Penelope’s and Biz’s motivations in s1 (Penelope being the popular rich girl sorceress obviously hungry for power and the alllure of the high school clout that is being prom queen, but also we know that her having to turn on her best friend Sam Nightingale as part of the scheme was something she was reluctant and not happy to do; and Biz being that predatory incel creeper type dude besides just a nerd with computers and a lack of social graces). and they were as much willingly active in the plot as Aelwyn was. yet in s1 they really never do bother to explore Aelwyn’s motivations. i remember after watching s1 but before s2 that was one of my biggest lingering questions: why tf was Aelwyn involved?

well. she was manipulated and abused. her terrible parents raised her in an awful environment that conditioned her to Listen and Obey and Behave and Be Perfect, and then Kalina helped cinch the noose around her neck with threats and coersion into the KVS Kaper and the NMK crown debacle. she doesn’t freely choose any of it; she’s coerced, manipulated, abused.

and she already got justifiably punished for her bad actions in s1. the torture is almost literal overkill. it’s just……there’s this immediate turnaround in sympathy and view of the character. on first watch, it’s viscerally upsetting to see her getting so brutally punished for actions she already faced consequences for, and on rewatch, it makes your skin crawl to know she’s being tortured for terrible things she had little choice in carrying out. and tortured by some of the very same people who coerced her to behave terribly in the first place, to add insult to injury.

and it’s still fucking frustrating when they rescue her and her memory gets reset and she goes back to her parents because it’s like “well shit, she’s evil again, and we just wasted all that effort for nothing” but it’s also sad cause we know she’s running back to her abusers and she isn’t happy about it but doesn’t feel like she has a choice. and it’s sadder still that what eventually inevitably gets her to turn to good for good (i.e. away from her parents) is just. a full dissociative mental breakdown.

(but then she survives and it’s gonna be good!!! until Adaine dies in her fucking arms. which is. almost funny. she’s been through so much shit and that isn’t something that Brennan would have just. preplanned. like a written in plot point. no, that was just an unpredictable consequence of the battle. what a juicy fucking moment. she’s been through All That Shit™️ and has finally turned to fight for good and her sister just fully dies in front of her. yeowch)

and she turns out okay in the end. she comes out the other side alive and whole and supported by her sister and her friends, with the hope of a future and recovery. there is an acknowledgement that A) she can and will grow from her mistakes and damage, B) it’s going to be really hard, and C) the post-s2 one shots both prove that she’s doing okay now. hell, she has a whole squad now of other former-teenage-villains-turned-good-guys. she has friends now, Ragh and Zayn, with common ground, and a secret handshake and everything. they’ve all grown from the mistakes of their past into better, happier, healthier people

and about Zayn and Ragh. we’ve seen a lot of characters, protagonist and antagonist, teenage and adult, PC and NPC do some really fucked up shit and get punished for it. but why do they get happy endings? why are Aelwyn, Ragh, and Zayn the only members of the RVS and not someone else like Biz or Penelope or Dayne? 

well, the latter two are dead by then; but then again, Biz and Ragh were also killed by the Bad Kids in s1, and subsequently resurrected. (Zayn died too, but was neither killed nor revived at the Bad Kids’ hands, so i’ll get to him in a sec.) and there are plenty of adult antagonists the Bad Kids face who are killed and left that way by the Bad Kids without second thought: Johnny Spells, Coach Daybreak, Captain Wicklaw, the Abernant parents (presuming Arianwen doesn’t survive in the forest for very long, which i doubt). why do some characters get second chances while others don’t?

in the case of Zayn, his death was pretty much out of the Bad Kids’ hands, and they later found out he was manipulated by Daybreak into being bad anyway because of his sad living situation. he was a pretty minor antagonist in the scheme of things, and when we re-meet him as a ghost in the s1 epilogue, he’s pretty obviously remorseful for his actions. and dying seems like a steep enough punishment to me for the shit he did to contribute to the KVX caper; returning as a ghost, free from the trappings of his unfortunate living life, he now has the room and freedom to grow into a better person.

in the cases of Daybreak, Spells, Wicklaw, and the Abernant parents: these are bad people who should know better. these are fully grown adults who actively choose to do evil. whether they think it’s the right thing to do or not (in Daybreak’s case), whether they think it will benefit them and don’t care about anyone else (in the Abernants’ case), or whether they don’t care much at all and are just doing shit because they feel like it (in the cases of Spells and Wicklaw), these are all adults who consciously make the decision to do terrible things and hurt other people. of course Johnny Spells, who is generally a punk thief and thug, is not on the same level of bad as Angwyn, who kidnaps and tortures his own daughters for political gain, but the point remains. these fuckers should know better. they’re grown ups. they had their chances to be good and they chose not to heed them. their minds are set on bad actions and they are a continued danger to other people as long as they are alive. when they die, the Bad Kids do their damndest to make sure it stays that way.

now, in the cases of Penelope and Dayne: these are teenagers who actively chose to participate in an evil plot. Penelope, Dayne, and Biz were all fully cognizant of what they were doing trying to raise KVX back to his former power. why? well, to some extent, we can only speculate. i suspect Penelope was just one of those Regina George bitches who is rich and popular and powerful and obsessed with power and popularity within high school as if that’s the end-all-be-all of existence (which, like, when you’re currently in high school, is a somewhat understandable worldview i think). Dayne being her boyfriend and a musclehead jock probably falls into a similar line of thinking. they are actively and willingly trying to cause harm, and teenager or not, must be stopped. they’re killed, anyway, during the Climactic Battle™️ anyhow; it’s not like the Bad Kids were going to gain anything at that point by keeping them alive.

now, Biz: Biz is the creepy Nice Guy incel type, sees woman as a prize he deserves to win, yadda yadda. he does, like Penelope and Dayne, actively choose to help KVX. there might be something to be said about his motivation the Bad Kids discover after the arcade battle by detecting his thoughts (that being to upload the captured maidens from the palimpsests to “call the shots” himself) is an altered memory; whether this was his original motivation from the start or not, i’m not sure. but the Bad Kids do kill him – and then resurrect him for important, time-sensitive information. and they beat it out of him – he gets two of his fucking fingers blown off. and Riz reattaches them once they have their info, and they realize his memory is altered. of course, the Bad Kids don’t know at this point that the altered memory was something he, Penelope, and Aelwyn had planned and agreed on and done to themselves, but this points to something important in my opinion: the Bad Kids, and the narrative/show as a whole by extension, acknowledge that external manipulation affects how guilty someone is in a crime.

which brings us to Ragh. Ragh, introduced from episode 1 as the meathead jock. Ragh the archetypical one-dimensional high school bully. Ragh who works with the harvestmen in effort to (ostensibly) end the world/provoke international war. Ragh, whose low intelligence but high loyalty and internalized homophobia led him to be fully swayed and blindly led by his coach and captain, who have actively chosen to do evil. Ragh who is killed in combat by the Bad Kids and resurrected for information, not Daybreak. Ragh, who the Bad Kids realize was probably not aware of exactly what he was being made to do and how bad it really was. Ragh, who by their kindness in sparing his life and directing him on a better path, becomes a well-rounded character and an active ally to the Bad Kids during and after prom, an invaluable companion during their quest in sophomore year, and overall a really good friend and person. 

(it might also be worth considering the case of Jawbone here, too, who started out a very minor antagonist in a fight but ended up becoming a major NPC because the Bad Kids talked to him, found out he came from an unfortunate situation and set of circumstances, and showed him kindness in offering the school guidance counselor position, a kindness that isn’t really owed but given anyway and ends up changing his entire life for good.)

and then, Aelwyn, whose case is already discussed above. so, why is the RVS what it is, why them but not others?

if you’re familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender, you’re probably familiar with Zuko’s character arc, and how it’s often lauded as a masterful example of developing a villain into a hero over the course of a narrative. what makes Zuko’s arc so well done and exceptional is that he starts out as a kid in a bad situation under the influence of bad adults seeking to do bad deeds, but he later realizes the error of those ways, actively removes himself from that situation despite the difficulty and danger in doing so, goes through a lot of shit and reflects on his past mistakes and learns from them, and then actively chooses to fight for good in the end with the help of close, trusted friends, found family. 

this, i believe, is the same in the case of Fantasy High and its treatment of the RVS. its members, like Zuko, are all teenagers who came from shitty situations and were manipulated by evil adults to do bad. they are punished for their bad actions, and they learn from their errors and mistakes. with the kindness and help of good people, friends and chosen family, they are able to escape their abusers and bad situations and grow into their own people. and they actively choose to improve themselves with that help and fight for good.

Fantasy High, through the arcs of Jawbone, Zayn, Ragh, and especially Aelwyn, asserts that it is not your fault if you come from a bad situation and are forced to behave badly as a result. it does not pretend that you are absolved of any responsibility for those actions; quite the opposite, as even though they were externally manipulated into their evil actions, all of those mentioned characters face tangible consequences for their actions and later express remorse for their mistakes. but Fantasy High also asserts that even if you have made great mistakes in your past, even if you came from a bad situation beyond your control, even if you were manipulated and abused, with care and love and support and a hell of a lot of work and effort, you can improve your situation and find good, happiness, peace, you can thrive. evil adults who should know better don’t get redeemed. teenagers who aren’t coerced but actively choose evil don’t get redeemed. but abused kids deserve another shot at happiness. with enough work, and some love and help along the way, they can get there, even from the lowest imaginable point, from rock fucking buttom. it’s possible. 

[eldritch-araneae]

Windblade, Bumblebee, and Sari from my Sparkpulse AU :3

Below is quick AU explanation ( it’s 13,4k works, I’m sorry I tired to keep it short I SWEAR XD) Also I’m such dumbass, I forgot their Autobot sigils! XDDD

Core ideas of the AU:

It’s basically G1+TFA+Cyberverse mix;

This AU revolves around Bumblebee as the main protagonist;

Autobots crash-landed on Earth in 1985, they landed in Detroit, specifically on Belle Isle; 

Earth became their home and Autobots pretty much-integrated into human society over 33 years. They influenced human society a lot, that helped to avert climate and energy crisis( as not wanting humans going the same road as cybertronians by depriving their planet of resources);

Ark has fusion reactors that are used in Energon production. Autobots encouraged humans to use their own fusion reactors, which allowed human civilization to completely get rid of fossil fuel as the main power source;

Setting: Solarpunk (when the story happens);

Sparks exist and give a lifeforce to all forms of life, not just to cybertronians;

Cybertron is gone, nothing can fix it;

Decepticons only arrive in 2018.

Bumblebee’s Background.

Bumblebee is the youngest among Autobots, who was found on the road unconscious back on Cybertron by Jazz. 

After examining him, Ratchet shares his concerns with Optimus - not only Bumblebee is abnormally small but his plating is soft and flexible, yet fragile, it would be easy to cut and melt through. He also lacks physical strength. 

All of this implies that Cybertron has no more resources to forge any new bots and Bumblebee is the last.

This means there is no way Optimus should send the minibot to fight ( tho Bee has a lot of courage and will pull some crazy stunts here and there), so instead he assigns Bee for scouting and spying missions under Jazz’s supervision ( Special Operations).

Introductions went pretty well, though Optimus admitted that Bumblebee’s face seemed familiar.

Soon, after the first few scouting missions, it’s revealed that Bee has a bit more problems. His spark is strange, it’s producing way too much energy that his small frame can handle, resulting in the erratic sparkpulse that overwhelms his entire system and shut him down for 5 minutes.

Thankfully it was discovered after Bee finished his duty, but still, it raised a lot of concerns. Ratchet tried his best to examine his spark chamber, only to find that the minibot’s spark was sealed shut in some sort of protective shell. This shell cannot be opened. Cutting through it would be bad, so Ratchet opted to work with what he has. 

He first suggests Bee burn down this excessive energy, which works pretty well, as training with Windblade, or doing short races where it’s relatively safe with Hot Rod and such. Still, despite his efforts, the spark eventually will send a huge energy surge that would force-reboot Bumblebee. It didn’t stop Bee from taking on his missions and one of the reboots happened in the middle of the duty. That scared the shit out of everyone as they lost contact with him while he was on Decepticons territory. Thankfully, like clockwork, he was back in 5 minutes. After he completed the mission of securing intel, he had to convince Optimus that he would be okay even if he shut down because Deceptions would never catch him. Bee reveals that he has one interesting ability - he can sense sparks of others( both signature and the pulse). 

For some reason, he thought everyone could do this, that's why he never mentioned it before. 

That allows him to plan ahead, as he pays attention to hiding places and Deception’s nearby and how they move, easily avoiding his enemies. 

Soon he’s pretty much known as the elusive Autobot who will break onto your base, steal all your shit and get away without being caught. Megatron even places a big bounty for catching Bumblebee that is yet to be fulfilled. Then he gets known for being someone who Deceptions, who wants to join Autobots can go to and arrange the meeting with Optimus Prime. Windblade always helps him with this: Bee can sense what is spark feeling, while she can use psychic abilities to catch a sense of their intent. Together they never made a mistake, though there were a couple of close calls.

So this keeps going for a short period of time until Bee catches some terrible wave of spark signatures, emitting from below. Something tells me that they are in grave danger and Autobots must leave Cybertron for good. Such a claim isn’t taken lightly, asking what proof Bee has. 

Sadly, he cannot prove anything aside from “terrible screams of mass death coming from Cybertron's core”. He feels like he knows, but he cannot recall any memories from his data banks. All he knew was that they were screwed and it’s all because of Shockwave ( who Bee hates the most, not even Megatron sparks so much anger within him as seeing Shockwave does.). Windblade also caught this as well with her different sensors so she sided with Bumblebee. Then she decided to look into Bee’s mind and see if she can help Bee to recover those memories. 

It quickly proves that it’s not that simple - all his memories that come before he was found by Jazz are sealed away. And not by some hard-coding shenanigans, but by Vector Sigma - a device that was used to program the AllSpark ( the thing that gives life to cybertronians) so it will create a desired form of life.

 And not just him, but Windblade also discovered this seal, though it only seals specific cluster to memories, which timeframe aligns with Bee’s seal.

So they had a picture: Shockwave did something that messed up Cybertron’s core and, presumably, Bee and Windlade witnessed this( and apparently have met before)? The only way to find out, a break-in to The Spire of Forging ( a place where cybertronians were born), and use Vector Sigma to break the seals. 

That caused a huge fight as the spire was currently controlled by Decepticons, while Megatron suddenly got an idea to use the AllSpark to reprogram Autobots into Decepticons. So it becomes a race. Windbalde, Bumblebee, and Optimus have reached the Chamber of Creation first...only to find out that Vector Sigma is destroyed - the device was cut apart and crucial components were missing. But it wasn’t all - the AllSpark was gone as well!

Understanding that there is nothing they can do, they retreat, followed by angry Megatron’s shooting.

After the battle Optimus informed anyone of their grim situation: AllSpark is missing( they searched for it, this artifact that very strong and unique signature but it’s literally nowhere on Cybertron), Vector Sigma is destroyed and there is still a threat that gets closed to the surface that will destroy them all ( Bee was very insistent of leaving). 

So he makes it a vote between all Autobots: shall they leave or keep fighting. To Bee’s surprise, the majority decided on leaving. Relieved, he begins helping others to prepare Ark ( their spaceship) for a long journey.

When Ark was ready to launch, some complications happened ( as the ship wasn’t in perfect condition for interstellar travels) but they managed to leave Cybertron and begin their journey to their new home.

In general, Bee is in a good relationship with almost every Autobot. Optimus values him as both an amazing scout and a good friend who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and question everything.

Bumblebee befriends Windblade - the cityspeaker from Caminus ( which was of one the first colonies that were destroyed during the war). She absolutely adores Bee’s carefree and optimistic attitude, never being tired of his silly antics ( which he often does on purpose to lighten her mood). 

They become pretty close, and Bee has no problem opening up to her, like sharing his fears ( he is really brave but isn’t fearless).

Some bots like Sunstreaker don't really like Bumblebee much. He thinks that Bee is a defective bot that will doom their entire cause and this animosity intensified when Bee starts bringing in former Decepticons and insisting on leaving their planet behind. (Sunstreaker’s twin, Sideswipe, admits it’s probably because his brother used to be like Bumblebee, kind and hopeful, but the war has changed him and he hates it.) 

Bumblebee tried his best to ignore Sunstreaker, but it is difficult as he compares himself to bigger and stronger bots, feeling like what he’s doing isn’t enough. That being fast, athletic and cunning isn’t enough - he must be more, he must become strong. Which causes him to take some crazy decisions that will put Bee in danger and probably get hurt. 

He desperately craves recognition and respect from others while not realizing that he already has it.

The arrival of Autobots on Earth in 1985.

After one warp jump, they ended up in the Solar System. The Ark wasn’t doing well ( esp engine) and needed repairs if they wanna continue their journey. Teletraan-1 scanned the solar system, informed Autobots about the planet they are currently orbiting (Earth) has a sentient lifeform along with a diverse ecosystem. This surprised everyone because of the odds of them jumping tens thousand light-years away from Cybertron and ending up near other sentient beings.

Optimus didn’t wish to disturb other sentient beings, he decided that they should move to another planet, fix their ship, and move out. 

For that Teletraan-1 suggested staying on the fifth planet’s orbit which is a gas giant (Jupiter). Gas Giants are known for having a lot of hydrogen and helium and additionally, some chemical compounds like ammonia which can be used in producing deuterium and tritium ( isotopes of hydrogen)  which are used as fuel for fusion reactors.

The only issue was how to get there, as their ship is fragile at the moment. Wheeljack suggested using gravity assist still should be okay.

Teletraan-1 calculated the positions of the planets and it’s been decided they were gonna use Earth’s gravity to propel forward, then circle around and do another flyby near Earth - that would give them another speed to reach Jupiter.

Suddenly Teletraan-1 informs the crew about a big asteroid that is headed in their direction and the collision is imminent. It happened fast, before Autobots could maneuver Ark off of the way. After the asteroid successfully vibe checked Autobots, the Ark got seriously damaged and was flung towards the planet. They couldn't break from gravitational pull so Autobots had to prepare for impacts, which would be easier if the ship weren’t breaking apart at that moment, Teletraan-1 did it’s best to stir the ship away from the cities.

Meanwhile, in chaos, Bumblebee fell into a hole in the ship’s walls and he landed in the water of Lake Erie. The impact was terrible as it almost tore his arm from his body. He screamed in pain and was forced into reboot.

Then he woke up next time, he was still in the water, completely disoriented - mostly to the fact he could sense so many sparks around him. He brushed it off as it wasn't important at the moment. 

While still being in pain, he managed to swim up to the surface to look around. Bee saw a big smoke rising in the distance, assuming this is where Ark landed, he tried to make his way there. 

Then Bee sensed something nearby, another spark with clear distress radiating from it. He looked around but saw nothing, then he submerged under the water. He saw a small figure who was struggling to swim. 

Bee dive deeper ( while doing his best to ignore the pain of his damaged arm), gently caught the figure and went back to the surface. The figure took a big inhale and coughed a lot. Bee was concerned, but he could only observe for now. 

He first noticed how this being kinda reminded him of his own kin: they have 4 limbs- 2 legs and 2 arms with 5 fingers, the face structure is similar as well, they also warm and look like they vent as well ( aka breathing. Cybertronian’s breathing is part of the air cooling system.see more in Trivia). While there was a lot of difference as well( being organic lifeform and such), that amazed Bumblebee that he almost forgot about his hand.

After being calmed down, the figure finally looked at their savior only to meet face to face with a giant alien robot. He yelled as a surprise, while Bee yelled back because the former's yell startled him pretty much.

After the shock faded and understanding that Bee wasn't doing anything bad ( they were just chilling in the lake) they sighed in relief and smiled, thanked him for saving them. Bee cannot understand what the figure says, but he assumes right he can sense relief emitting from the figure’s spark and replies, which of course the other didn’t understand as well.

The figure then gestures towards the mainland that isn’t far away, while making a paddling motion which Bee understood as “take me to the land”. He nodded ( to his relief on it means the same thing for humans) and he began swimming towards the land. Which pretty much drained him as they both arrived and his hand got worse. 

Bumblebee curled on the ground, trying to endure, but once again his system shut him down. The last thing he hears as the figure calls to him is a worry.

The next time he awoke, he wasn’t by the lake anymore, but inside of some sort of garage. He was lying on the floor and he tried to get up, but again his arm hurt, though he noticed that this time the pain is tolerable somehow.

He looks to the side and sees that his entire arm was wrapped into some weird stuff, kinda looking like duct tape? Sure it was flimsy, it kept his arm from falling apart.

Two figures entered the room: one he’s already familiar with, which is this person he saved from the lake, and others. They look similar to each other, the other person looking older, for some reason they reminded him of Ratchet. Bee tried to sit up again, but the pain wasn't letting him. Two people instantly got worried, saying something to him which he imagined was something like “please don’t move”. The older one went close to examine the arm closely, Bumblebee knew this look: a look of someone who is checking on the work they did...really reminded of Ratchet again. 

Bee sighs and gives a small smile and thanks to them, though he knows they won’t understand the hopes that the tone of his voice suggested the meaning. The older person nods in acknowledgment, then they exchanged a few words with the younger one and left the room.

The younger one sat by Bee. Autobot looked at them, observing them once more, taking more onto more features and he could tell that they did the same with him. Suddenly their expression lighted up as if they had an idea. Bee tilted his head slightly in question.

Making sure that Bee’s attention is on them, the figure points at themself says “I”. At first, Bee was confused, so they repeated it again. The only thing he could think of is to repeat the same. The exclamation followed by a nod means he did it right. Then they pointed at him and said “you”. Bee did the same...and suddenly it’s clicked. The language, they were teaching him their language!  He smiled and they continued.

Somewhere in the middle of this, they finally introduced each other. The person’s name is Spike Witwicky, a 15yo boy who is living with his father and helping him with the car repairs business. When Bumblebee introduced himself, Spike giggled, saying that Bee’s name sounded exactly how they call a specific insect. The Autobot snorts, funding this coincidence amusing. 

What a strange planet, and he began liking it already. 

Spike asks if Bee came from that huge ship that was falling. He nods, explaining ( in his broken English I imagine) that an asteroid took them down, and then he fell through the hole into the water at high speed that almost tore his arm off. Spike winced sympathetically, assuring that now Bee is gonna be alright. Then he thanks the yellow Autobot for saving him, Bee smiled in response, saying he did what he was right. Though he gets curious how Spike ended up in the water in the first place and Spike blushes in embarrassment because he was looking at the descending Ark and he wasn’t paying attention that he was hanging on slippery ground. He fell and since he wasn’t a good swimmer, the current took him away from the land until Bumblebee found him later.

Soon Spike’s father returns with more supplies and he was pleasantly surprised that their guest can communicate with them. Bee thanks him for patching his arm, tho the old guy says he can do some more, while they try to find out where the Ark landed so they can return Bee back to his people.

A bit later in the evening, Spike decided to show Bee various VHS tapes documentaries about Earth( he almost moved tv and VHS player to the garage), he could have a picture of what their planet was like. The Autobot happily agrees, being both curious and see it as an opportunity to learn more English words.

After a few days, Spike’s dad found out where the Ark landed, on Belle Isle. He offered Bumblebee a lift ( he has a truck which also was used to transport the Autobot from the lake’s shore). Bee gladly agrees, being happy they were helping him even though they didn't have to. To which Spike replied that Bee didn't have to save him either, but he did it anyway.

Spike with dad helped him to get onto the thing where to connect the thing ( lol I forgot), they both sat into the car and began their ride.

The trip went okay, Bee even relaxed and looked around the city, being amazed because everything was new, the sensations were new. Though sure he could see people staring at him, understanding that they know about Autobots...after all, there is no way you could miss something like this as their crash landing. There was probably a lot of news going on about this. 

Thankfully, Spike informed him that the ship didn’t kill anyone during the crash, which was a great relief on his spark. 

Soon they arrived at their destination, Bee peeks over the truck to see the damage around ( a lot of broken trees), and the Ark wasn’t looking so good. He hoped at least everyone was okay!

Suddenly Windblade quickly walked out of Art’s entrance, expecting these humans to be more reporters or whatever and before she could draw any conclusions, Bee called her name and waved with his good arm which instantly grabbed her attention. 

She ran over to her best friends, that he’s alive ( she was looking everywhere and was worried sick) and really wanted to bear hug him, but she saw the arm, so she hugged him gently. Then Bee explained to her that those humans helped him ( gesturing to his broken arm). Windblade thanked the theme, as Bee translated to them. 

After that Windblade announced to everyone over comms that Bee is alive and found, but required medical attention. Meanwhile, Spike looked a bit sad and asked if he’ll see Bumblebee again. The bot smiled and told him that he memorized the path from Spike’s home to Ark, so he will find it again. For that Spike jumped into a hug ( Windblade quietly ‘awww’ed at the scene). 

Windblade helped Bee to stand up and get off the truck, both humans wished Bumblebee speedy recovery before they headed home. She was asking Bee about his new friends ( and also commenting how it was only their couple of days on this planet and he already befriended aliens amazing), Bee ofc told her everything.

On Art, the crew was overjoyed with Scout's return, though Ratchet quickly led him into the med bay as it was clear how much damage he sustained. Meanwhile, Bee sends to Teletraan-1 anything he learned in English, to share with other Autobots, which Optimus was delighted with such a turn of events as it meant he can finally properly contact humans.

After Autobots got a bit established ( like making connections with humans and stuff), Bee finally paid a visit to Spike, the boy was so happy to see him again. 

After that Bumblebee and Spike spend a lot of time together and become friends. Spike also befriended Windblade, while we weren’t as close with her as with Bee, they enjoyed each other's company. Spike’s dad also made friends among Autobots. Together they learned more about the world they were stranded in, with all its beauties and problems, discovering new things like sparks actually being in every living being, Bee has to train himself to probably filter signals, he mostly focused on sensing his fellow Autobots and humans.

Bee quickly grew attached to Earth, not really missing Cybertron anymore. Sure there are a lot of processes and it’s different for everyone but Autobots felt that they can actually live again ( or begin living for younger bots who were forged during the war), the future seemed bright.

When Spike got older ( around 18 yo) he informed Bumblebee that he will leave Detroit for a university opportunity. The news saddened the scout, not wanting to part with his human friend, but he understands that he shouldn’t be in the way of Spike’s hopes and dreams. Out of curiosity, he asks Spike what he’s gonna study ( he had multiple guesses because Spike liked a lot of things).To that Spike replied with the biggest smiles that he will become an astrophysicist! Spike never could choose one thing, but that fateful day when Autobots arrived has sealed the deal. He hoped that he would work at NASA one day. They both laugh.

The day when Spike was leaving, along with his father, they said goodbye. Spike promised to stay in contact with Bee, and the bot promised the same. Kilometers apart won’t matter, they will always remain best friends forever.

Bumblebee missed Spike greatly after this and he needed time to accept this, but thankfully they both were true to their promise and stayed in contact for all years to come.

Fast forward to 2018.

This is when the story would begin, as all previous events described in this document to this point would be revealed through flashbacks and such.

Autobots have been living in peace for 33 years now. They helped humans to progress, technologically, and socially ( Solarpunk setting). They are integrated into society and have jobs( Bee for example is a courier, though sometimes he acts as a diplomat at important meetings that he attends with Prime as humans tend to like him), some bots scattered across the globe to do their thing (though they ofc course pay visits to Ark).

The Ark is part of a big overgrown forest on Belle Isle. It is because Wheeljack and Perceptor wanted to fix the damage they did to the environment during their crush. And after some experimentation, trial, and error they made some sort of serum that stimulates trees to grow fast. Too fast even as plants got out of hand at one point, so they had to fix this as well.

Bumblebee took a liking of plants, so he started his own collection. This private chamber was damaged and has a missing wall after the crash, later it was fixed, it expanded a bit and has a lot of light coming in through windows so it’s perfect for plants keeping. 

6 years ago he and Windblade befriended human Sari Sumdac, who is now 30 years old head engineer, working at Sumdac Systems along with her father. She's an absolute gremlin and always up to shenanigans, which awakes the gremlin side of Bee. Windblade tags along as well, maybe to keep an eye on them. All three are close friends :3

Sari builds an exosuit that improves her strength and grats a lot of cool abilities ( aka Iron Man but cooler) in case Decepticons show up.

He’s also in contact (which thanks to the internet became much easier) and friends with Spike, who is 48 years old astrophysicist at NASA, married to Carly, and has adopted son Daniel. Spike with his family visits Detroit each year to hang out with Autobots.

There is a lot of shenanigans happening on Ark, especially in group chat ( aka Discord server? with Sari and Spike invited.) The higher command are mods, but sure, Jazz loves changing channels names into something stupid :D

There are always twins ( Sideswipe and Suntreaker) with pranks, Jazz blasting music, Wheeljack blowing himself up again while Ratchet complains, fixing him again and again. They would do a lot of activities when free, (imagine them playing Among Us, Bumblebee being such a good imposter >:3) adopting human customs, they even get invited sometimes to entertainment shows ( you know, like those with two teams they have to do various impressions, etc).

The Bee loves music and got into drumming ( he had a habit of focusing on someones’ sparkpulse, using it as a base beat and used his hands to drum on various surfaces as entertainment back on Cybertron), he always does collabs with Windblade ( electro guitar), Sari ( keyboard + other electronic stuff, like a theremin) and sometimes Spike ( saxophone) to do video game music covers, they have a channel ( editing video and maintaining are on Jazz).

Fun fact: Bee’s drumkit and Blade’s guitar are one of few things of cultural value that actually survived the war, though they required repairment and some adjustments ( because the kit was too big for Bumblebee), they are in good condition now. There is writing on Cybertronian, showing the name of the company that used to produce instruments all those million years ago. 

Autobots are living their best life, even though they are prepared in case Decepticons will show up at their doorway.

The arrival of Decepticons.

Decepticons left Cybertron soon after Autobot’s, as Megatron believed that Optimus stole the AllSpark and was determined to take it back and use it to fix their broken homeworlds. Unlike Ark, their spaceship, Nemesis, was in [perfect condition. so they traveled from star to star in order to find a signal from AllSpark.

The problem was that no matter how Shockwave updated the scanning system, they just couldn't find any traces. It was frustrating to Megatron, he could feel how much energy this object radiated every time he walked into the Chamber of Creation, but there was literally nothing. It couldn't just vanish into thin air, can it?

So they just kept guessing, checking every nearby star system. It took a lot of time and was fruitless and the Decepticons grew tired. Starscream especially, always dreamed about taking Megatron’s place and rule Decepticons. So one day, after another failure to locate the AllSpark, Megatron and Starscream broke into a fight, resulting in the warlord throwing his second in command at the control panel by accident. 

Starscream face planted random coordinations and the Nemesis warp jumped to the Solar System, placing them on Earth’s orbit. Sunday scanners activated as they found Autobots’ signatures on this planet. Megatron laughs, he finally found Optimus so the AllSpark must be with them.

Soon they landed somewhere outside of Detroit, which didn't go unnoticed. Teletraan-1 alerts Autobots immediately. Bumblebee volunteers to investigate, followed by Windblade as a backup. Optimus approves the mission and the trio goes to Nemesis location.

Bee gets close to Nemesis, while Blade stays in the air just in case her friend needs a quick escape. He knows the plans of the ship well ( he infiltrated it a number of times), so he easily slips through the guards inside, into the vents. Soon he locates Megatron and carefully listens. He finds out about Megatron's intention to seize the AllSpark from Autobots. Looks like it's the only reason why they even came here and he will turn the city apart to get it.

Thankfully Wheeljack made a force field that won't let Decepticons in as a precaution for years ago. Still, that is a grim sign and they have to deal with Deceptions regardless. 

Bumblebee hacks into their system and quickly downloads important intel.

Then he sees Shockwave, it takes a lot of self-control to not hiss, Megatron just gives him simple orders to oversee something. He takes orders and leaves, but Bumblebee notices that he went in a completely different direction ( as Bee knows the ship well) and didn't like it. Bee wants to follow and see what this mad scientist is planning, but he senses Ravage nearby. The cat is also moving quickly through vents, probably because Soundwave ejected him here in case Bumblebee will show up.

The scout quickly gets out beforeRavage discovers him and leaves. On the way back he shares his findings with Windblade, and later back on Ark with the high command of Autobots. They don't have the AllSpark (and even if they had they wouldn't give it to Megatron anyway), and they must drive Decepticons off the planet, or convince Megatron to stop.

So after this, I imagine a few instances when Decepticons tried to attack the city ( but couldn't get it), Autobots would usually lure them away from the city and fight them there. Here examples of shenanigans that happened:

Sudden dance off, the seeker trio( Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp) was really confused about this shit;

Sari ( in her suit) is legit disassembling Decepticons in the mid-fight. Imagine, Starscream wants to shoot, but his null rays fall off, awkward;

She also stole t-cog ( the detail responsible for transformation) from Blitzwing, much later it was returned;

Devastator caught Bumblebee and was going to quash the scout. Bee on the other hand focused on Devastator’s sparks ( he’s a combiner, made out of 6 Decepticons known as Constructicons) by accident and could hear that chaos that is happening in Devastator’s mine ( since all 6 don't merge into one, they still present chatter, telling Devastator what to do which is pure chaos). That overwhelms him and he yells “QUIET”, silencing 6 six constructions which seriously freaks Devastator out and he falls apart. Much later he did the same trick again when tried to throw Devastator at Autobots again;

Optimus is trying to convince Megatron that they don't have the AllSpark which isn't working. Not letting his frustration get ahead of him, Prime starts throwing memes( which he carefully chose for a specific situation) at Megatron. Megatron is not amused ahah).

Megatron wants to move forward and maybe to take on other cities to force Prime to surrender, but Autobots are one step ahead( as they planned), surrounding Nemesis from various positions ( as Optimus called all other Autobots that live in different locations) to harass Deceptions from time to time, trapping their enemies effectively. 

Conspiring with cassettes.

Later Autobots find out that despite the force field being up, and effectively repelling Deceptions, Soundwave’s cassettes are actually able to squeeze through. Wheeljack is hypothesizing it’s probably because of their size ( they are smaller than Bumblebee as intended) and looking for a solution to solve this.

Interestingly enough, cassettes ( 5 of them: Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and twins: Frenzy and Rumble) are not causing chaos while being out in the city. Bumblebee is keeping an eye on them, he can easily track them down, though they move fast which turns into some sort of game. At some point, he actually exchanges words with Ravage. Bee is trying to understand cassette's motives, but Ravage keeps it to himself ( though Bee senses some sort of enjoyment instead of malice).

Later Bumblebee gets a message from Rumble: they have a bomb and will blow up something ( I haven't decided sorry) if Bumblebee won't come to them alone. Knowing this is turned into a fight, he goes anyway without telling anybody as he wants to get to the bottom of this.

This indeed turns into a fight, as cassettes demand Bee to tell them where the AllSpark is. Bee tells them he has no idea like anyone else. Ravage asks why Bumblebee doesn't want to restore Cybertron, to which Bee replies that there is literally nothing left to restore. The AllSpark isn't some sort of magical object that can fix all their problems. Besides, Decepticons had it in control, why didn't they use it then? The situation gets really awkward after this, Frenzy admits that Megatron saw devastation only after Autobots left as his focus shifted to other things after his enemies were gone.

The fight stops, Bumblebee seizes the moment and asks where is the bomb they threatened him with earlier. Laserbeak just casually shows it, and in fact, it wasn't even activated. Rumble tells him when Megatron found out that cassettes and slip through the barrier, he ordered Soundwave to use the bomb to cause chaos. This isn't really what cassettes want to do, because finally in a million years they can actually roam free and explore new locations and things safe from Megaton. 

Cassettes admit that they aren't really loyal to their leader, only participating in war because their caretaker, Soundwave, was loyal to Megaton...though his loyal shifted and now his loyalty revolves around keeping his cassettes safe because Megatron won't be nice if he finds out. So he keeps up his appearances, while he lets his cassettes roam free.

Bumblebee understands that situation is complicated, but he sees this as an opportunity to end this stupid war. After all, Soundwave is highly regarded by Megatron, so maybe he can work with this.

Buzzsaw thought asks what they are gonna do now as they failed the task, which is quickly decided to shift all blame onto Bumblebee, even for future situations like this as Bee revealed that he can sense from far away from anyone. Ravage realized it’s the reason why he and others were never able to catch him! So after this being decided they went back and Bee returned to Ark, sharing this only with Sari, Windblade, and Optimus Prime for security reasons, he doesn't want to blow cassettes cover by accident.

Infiltrating Nemesis again.

Bumblebee isn't having a good time. He gets forced into reboot more frequently than it used to, especially during battles with Decepticons. Autobots had to save him multiple times, which was a blow to his self-esteem. Not to mention Sunstreaker was at him again, insulting the scout. Bumblebee yelled at him in return ( something that never happened before), he gets angrier and more frustrated. His best friends are doing their best to help, but there is little they can do.

Ratchet examined him and scanners show that the spark shell is losing its integrity, as it wears off over time. That explained why so many reboots happened recently. He says that Bumblebee shouldn't go on the missions at all, and Optimus agrees with this. Bee doesn't take it well, believing they think he’s now being useless to them, and storms off.

Then he sneaks out at night, planning to infiltrate the Nemesis again with two purposes: to prove that he is still useful to Autobots and to find out what Shockwave is up to ( it still bothers him a lot).

He sneaks in like usual and at first, it was okay, but then the vent under him broke ( yeah those vents are worn off over so many years too) and he fell right before the Seeker Trio. So the chase begins, Bee still can get away and he knows the ship but suddenly an unfortunate thing happens - his spark malfunction again and sends him into forced reboot.

Next time he awakens, he’s being restrained on some sort of medical table, which Bee quickly recognizes where he is - in Shockwave quarters. That sends terror to his spark, not only he’s been caught and Autobots don't know where he is, but he’s at mercy of the mad scientist. 

He tried to break free, but it’s useless, he never had much strength anyway. He looks around, and among his various projects, he sees something like a spire blueprint projected on the screen. It seems like it’s part of Nemesis. He doesn't like this at all. 

Shockwave enters the rooms, carrying various tools with him. Bee asks what he’s gonna do with him. The scientist doesn't reply first as he runs the scanner over Bee’s entire body ( while he’s changing the project on his scene meanwhile), it detects something in Bee’s spark chamber. 

Bee asks why Shockwaves keeps doing this,( like his sick experiments that even Megatron did not approve of). To this, the scientist replies that this war is going way too long and it will never end. So he decided to have a little fun while he can, he wants to relish in chaos and see the world burn.

He says that Bumblebee is carrying something interesting inside and he wants to find it. Shockwave activates his cutting tool and gets closer, intending to cut Bumblebee open.

Thankfully, salvation comes in an unusual form, Soundwave enters the room and demands to hand Bumblebee to him. Shockwave is not amused and refuses, so both argue until Shockwave gets an order directly from Megatron because the warlord wants Soundwave to dig intel out of elusive Autobot scout. After that, Shockwave can do whatever he wants with the prisoner.

Bee sighs with relief as he is escorted to Soundwave quarters. He doesn't make an attempt to escape, he can't really run away with a stasis cuff one + hr wants to get more insight on the Communication Officer. Maybe Soundwave knows what Shockwave is planning.

When they arrive, Bumblebee gets fully restrained again, and he’s mind gets connected to Soundwave’s systems ( via a cord) to start digging thought Bee’s mind ( if I remember correctly, Soundwave can read minds and emotions bc he can sense electric impulses in the processor or brain, he using cord here bc he wants to do deeper). 

Bee is pretty calm about this, he doesn't carry any useful intel ( he usually drops it at Teletraan-1 when he completes the duty). So Soundwave is stuck with casual memories while looking for any indication of the AllSpark, though he comments on Bee's good drumming skills.

Meanwhile, Ravage self-ejects from Soundwave’s chest and be like “dude seriously how the fuck did you get caught?? what are you doing even?”. Bee asks if they know anything about Shockwave’s plans. Such a question surprises both Decepticons, Bee understands that they don't know anything. Ravage doesn't like the sound of this and asks Bee to elaborate, but before he can answer, the scout looks to the side, sensing Megatron is coming in this direction. 

Ravage quickly transforms and tucks himself back into Soundwave’s cassette deck. In a minute, the warlord himself entered the room. He is pleased to see Soundwave already working on the task, while he turns to Bumblebee to take a good look at him as he never has seen the scout, who ruined a lot of his plans, up close - Bee would always be in the distance or lingering on the corners of Megatron’s optics before vanishing out of sight.

Megatron is acting pretty smug as a big nuisance in his grasp, though he admits he feels like he saw Bee’s face somewhere ( same reaction as Prime). He starts monologuing about how it would be great if Bumblebee would join him, they would win this war quickly. Maybe the little scout would convince Optimus Prime to join them, to which Bee asked if Megatron is still salty about Optimus breaking up with him.

That quickly pisses Megatron off, he grabs scout's neck and pins him heavily on the table, saying that he should watch his mouth. Bee isn't having this, replying ( as much as he can with his throat squeezed) that Megatron is an insolent fool who only focuses to keep Starscream on a leash, while Shockwave is plotting under his nose.

Megatron would probably hurt Bumblebee after this, but Sundewave reminded his leader that he’s still working and needs the scout in pieces. Megatron gives the order to continue, while he leaves. Both Bee and Soundwave sigh in relief, the latter commenting that the scout should keep it down in Megatron’s presence, to which Bee replies that someone had to say this.

Soundwave soon stumbles upon the Vector Sigma seal, locking the rest of Bumblebee’s memories. Soundwave asks Bee about this, to which the scout gives him the honest answer - he doesn't know how it got there and it’s been there already when he “first” woke up. Bumblebee asks if Soundwave can break it. The communication officer makes a few attempts, but it doesn't affect the seal at all. They need Victory Sigma, but it’s gone.

Bee expressed his frustration because he felt like the answer lies beneath it, but he said that he will find a way to stop Megatron. Soundwave replies that it’s impossible, but Bee doesn't buy this, he noticed the other reaction and it was hopeful.  

Bumblebee also notices multiple sparkpulses inside Soundwave, his cassettes, but only 5 of them are active, while there are many more of them, and those cassettes are being stasis. Bee asks Soundwave how long they’ve been asleep. Soundwave pauses, not expecting that question, and they reply that they have been in stasis since the beginning of the war.

Bee now understands, Soundwave has been working hard for Megatron, wanting to end the war as quickly as possible ( that was a motivation for a lot of Decepticons as Bee found out when they reached out for him), while sparing most of his cassette the trauma.

They sat in silence for a minute before Megatron contacted Soundwave, demanding his presence somewhere while ordering to leave a cassette to guard the prisoner. Soundwave sits for another minute, communicating with these cassettes, then ejects Ravage and leaves the room.

Ravage stands still, listening to the environment and making sure the coast is clear, then tells Bumblebee “you broke out using shock bombs, understood?” and releases the scout. Bee quickly gets up, thanking the cat. To that Ravage says “Go left now, I’ll give you ten seconds”. Bee nods and runs out of the room. 

After ten seconds the alarms burst on, informing that the prisoner had escaped. For convenience, Bee uses a few shock bombs he has with him as Decepticons try to stop him. 

He gets out, though he’s also pretty beaten up and it takes hours for him to get back to Ark ( he couldn't transform). He collapses then he crosses the entrance.

When Bee awakens, he’s on a medical table. His body is fixed, though Ratchet gave the minibot an earful of lecture for defying his recommendations and now Bee’s spark shell is even more strained. Prime also talks to Bee, reassuring the scout that no, Optimus and other Autobots don’t see him as burned and he doesn't have to go to such lengths to prove himself ( those conversations happened often back on Cybertron).

Bee doesn't reply, yet the give into he gathered when he was stuck on Nemesis.

Soon after this, Bee actually gets to talk with Sunstreaker to resolve their issue. The taller Autobot admits that he’s been projecting a lot because he used to be like Bumblebee when he was younger. Then he was envious because, despite everything, Bee remains kinds and hopeful. The scout tells him it takes a lot of work to keep being him after all those tragedies he had witnessed. Sunstreaker nods, though he still doesn't understand who Bee can easily move on after leaving Cybertron, it was their home after all. 

Bumblebee simply said that Cyberton didn’t feel like home, but prison.

And then the shit gets real!

Optimus decided to take another chance to negotiate peace with Megatron. They gathered near Nemesis, both Autobots and Decepticons just chilling (some interacting, like cassettes hanging out with Bee-Blade-Sari trio) while their leaders were negotiating. 

At first there heated arguments between the two leaders, Megatron acting like Optimus is the one being unreasonable and trying to blame him, while Optimus being like “listen you started this shit, you have no one to blame but yourself” (more politely of course). Soon, they both calmed down and actually made progress, as Megatron noticed that a lot of Decepticons are being distracted by various Earthian things because it’s all new in a million years.

Before they could proclaim anything, Shockwave appeared. Bee tenses instantly, this can't be good. I haven't decided if Shockwave would monologue or not, but the end is the same - he shoots Bumblebee in the chest.

Before anyone can react, Shockwave snatches the minibot and lifts him to his level, taking a closer look at the wound. The shoot wasn't direct, but tangential - it made a hole in the chest and partly chipped away the protective shell, leaving Bee’s spark partly exposed.

The energy is pulsing through the hole now( while Bee’s pulse gets completely haywire as he tries to free himself), the signature, and the effect is unmistakable - this is the AllSpark.  The amount of shock is impossible to describe, after all, Bee was carrying the AllSpark within himself and no one had an idea. Even Shockwave did not expect THAT!

Megatron is being evil smug again, now the AllSpark within his grasp! Except Shockwave has other plans. Instead, he activates his device, which was built into Nemesis. This spire was designed to fuck over all lifeforms on this planet ( including cybertronians), and with AllSpark his plan to cause massive chaos gets perfect as the AllSpark not only creates but also destroys. 

As he was about to rip the AllSpark out of Bee’s body, this system got overwhelmed, but instead of rebooting, his body discharged the energy, creating a big wave that threw everyone away.

Bumblebee meanwhile is screaming in pain ( the AllSpark is slowly breaking him apart) and a surge of painful memories ( the wave broke the seal). Not to mention he’s surrounded and pretty sure he might die, if he wants to get through this - he must become stronger to protect himself.

That thought activates the interface, the Vector Sigma interface. It already had something set up there. Bee can’t really see what it is, something about protective armor(?), he confirms it, the interface turned into a small cell that absorbed a portion of AllSpark energy. Then, as if he knows what to do, he slams the cell into the ground.

For a moment nothing happened, then suddenly a huge amount of plant-like-black vine material burst from the ground. Everyone instantly got into their sense after that blast, now witnessing those vines connecting to Bee’s chest and the AllSpark, lifting him off the ground and begin forming something BIG.

Decepticons are trying to shoot those vines, but hey, they re heat resistant quickly grow back :) Autobots are trying to contact the scout, but his comm is dead, Windblade cannot get into him minds as it’s filled with so many negative emotions like rage, grief, desperation, depression. Said emotions also floored Soundwave, making him unable to move.

Soon Bumblebee ( or more like the huge shell that was growing around him) formed into a big, dragon-like creature, who leats out of deafening roar at AllSpark energy shoots everywhere. An he’s so angry that everyone around him can feel it in their sparks.

This is how he looks, he’s strong enough to throw big cybertronians around like chew toys. Bumblebee’s body is cocooned in the chest area, the light from the AllSpark shines through crevasses.

Despite being angry, he doesn’t attack first and Optimus could have reasoned with him, but Megatron decided it was a good idea to attack the bigger monster and this is when the shit gets loose. 

Bumblebee trashes around, causing chaos around him, sometimes targeting someone and going after them for a few moments. All this is followed by energy discharges, so he successfully beats the shit out of everyone.

Shockwave is the only one who is pleased with surprise results, as he tried to collect data.

Soon Windblade manages to get a hold of her best friend’s mind and he tries to calm Bee down. He slows down a bit, which opens an opportunity for Sari to get inside thought crevasses and try to locate him.

She follows the opposite direction from energy flow, and soon she finds him. His face is a mix of anger and fear, Sari starts talking, trying to draw his attention to her. Soon enough he notices her ( the beast stops moving).

Bee tells her that he’s scared and he’s in pain. His body cracks more because even this large shall not contain all the power of the AllSpark. She hugs his head, telling that they will figure this out, but first hee need to stop thrashing around, he’s hurting everyone. 

Meanwhile, Windblade does the same, using telepathy to talk to him. It worked and they always convinced him to just fly towards the Ark, but Shockwave wasn’t having that, and started shooting at Bumblebee, trying to provoke him. Bee is sort of back to his senses, seeing Shockwave again, angers him to the point that this anger throws Windblade out of his mind. Sari is alright, but the expressions on Bee’s face terrified her. 

Bees run and pines Shockwave to the ground. Suddenly he speaks ( his voice sounds very distorted when it comes from the beast) telling him in space that Shockwave is the one who destroyed Cybertron and left them homeless. the mad scientist chuckles, commenting that this means his “pet project” had worked and he regrets nothing.  

Bumblebee executes Shockwave without mercy.

After Bumblebee flies up heads towards the Ark, Windblade flies after him, while Optimus uses this moment to gather Autobots and get the hell out of there. Sari tells him over comms that Bee is breaking, so he asks Ratchet to drive ahead and help Bumblebee.

Bee meanwhile is almost there, but his body cannot take this anymore. The chest opens up and Bumblebee with Sari falls out of the monster( then the husk falls down and lands right by the entrance of Ark). They both fall for a few seconds before the AllSpark shatters into small pieces and they fly in different directions. Windblade caught them both, both saw what happened and got really scared that Bee might be dead. 

There is small light coming from his exposed spark chamber, so Blade rushes to the medical bay, while frantically explaining to Ratchet ( who is on the way) what just happened. He instructs them to stabilize Bumblebee, enforcing he gets in and takes over.

Ratchet barely managed to save Bee’s life. After that, it took a lot of time to put the minibot together ( between all other urgent repairs of other Autobots that got fucked up by Bee’s outrage). Now, when the danger has passed, Ratchet can get a better look at scout’s sparks chamber that was hidden under the shell. Said shell was crumbled, he had to remove it. Then tells others what he’s discovered: 

First, his spark still hosts a few AllSpark shards. He tried to remove it but it turned out that Bee’s spark IS merged with the AllSpark. His system even pings errors about missing components. This is ironic because it made sense that the AllSpark was causing erratic sparkpulses, but yet they cant separated it from him;

Second, he discovered that Bee also has Vector Sigma installed in his spark chamber, this is exactly those missing components from the broken device;

Third, now there is a plant ( it looks exactly like that vine from earlier) parasite residing in Bee’s body, it appears to be feeding on AllSpark energy. Ratchet tried to remove it, it slapped him on the face. It resists and refuses to come off.

It raises so many questions, of how and why Bee got both AllSpark AND Vector Sigma. There was a suggestion that Bee could steal, or maybe all of this was some sick experiment that Shockwave did, though now they won’t know with the mad scientist dead. Windblade feels that she was involved in this, but still has no idea how.

She still cannot stop thinking about what she saw in Bee’s mindspace during the rampage. He was overwhelmed by grief, sadness, pain, guilt and all of this he merged into anger. And that he carried this angger for a really long time, longer that any of them can imagine. Ratchet is sure that Bee cannot be older, but who knows. Perhaps Bumblebee had a different body in the past that was destroyed.

After a week Bee wakes up. Of course, he’s being hugged by Blade and Sari, everyone sighed with relief. Optimus asks if Bee remembers anything from the meeting. The scout thinks for a moment. He remembers being shot, he remembers paint and panic and anger, he definitely remembers killing Shockwave. He doesn’t know who to feel about it.

He also informed him about a plant parasite. Bee is surprised, but he feels fine for far.

He’s upset when he learns that he beat everyone up and proceeds to apologize before every Autobot that was involved in this. He also sees his discarded husk outside of the Ark, which is examined by Wheeljack and Perceptor (  and wondering if human culture influenced Bee to make this creature look like one of the monsters from his video games).

He doesn’t have any recollection of making it, though this form seems familiar...probably he saw that dragon in a video game...probably.

Bee walks around the island to clear his head, being joined by Sari and Windblade. He admits that he is partly scared that he killed Shockwave like this...but on hand, he’s relieved that this guy is gone and Earth is safe for now. 

The scout also tells them that he remembered something during that fight that he could remember before. He tried again, but now it feels like his memories are scattered - they are there, but out of reach. 

To see what’s going on, Windblade uses her abilities to get into Bee’s mind. She sees that the Vector Sigma seal is gone ( tho her own is still active), but now all those memories that were locked are either missing or corrupted. Even those that weren’t locked are broken. She hypothesized that the AllSpark shattering damaged his data banks, taking the portion of memories with shards. 

That is just another reason why they must collect the shards.

Good thing that Bee can sense the shards, most of them landed in the city, but some landed outside, even near Nemesis which isn’t good. Later they come back and inform Prime about this and the high command starts formulating the plans of retrieving shards.

Meanwhile Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Sari brainstorm ideas of how to prevent the AllSpark from harming Bumblebee. The plant is absorbing the portion of energy, but it’s clear he still needs a shell. Sari tells them that Sumdac Systems will provide resources for the project.

Collecting the shards.

In general, the collecting of shards will go smoothly for most of the time, since most shards landed in the city. Some they found just laying in the bushes or roofs, some were handled by humans, some were even sent by mail. As new shards rejoin Bumblebee, Windblade helps him to restore his recent memories, while they still need to complete AllSpark to get access to previously locked memories.

Ratchet also keeps in check Bee’s health as new shards are added, and gradually builds a shell around the spark chamber, minding the plant.

So, few thing that happened during this time frame in no particular order:

Starscream got his hands onto one of the shards and caused chaos to both Decepticons and Autobots, he can even use it to get through the force field around the city;

Bumblebee created Grimlock, using an awesome t-rex animatronic as a base;

Thundercracker leaving Decepticons, thought he didn't go to Autobots either. He talks with Windbladem admitting that it was terrifying to see someone like Bumblebee so hurt ( he’s referring to that dragon accident) because of the war;

Discovering that the plant, living inside Bee is actually a symbiont - it protects its host when Bee is in danger, even helping him to lift a weight that Bee couldn't before ( though his body hurts a lot after this). Sari names it Clover ( in fact she did it with all Bee’s plants);

When the last shard is gathered, Ratchet doesnt final touches to the shell. He doesn't completely seal it away, letting it’s potions flow through Bumblebee’s body. This should reduce chances of forced reboot, thought they still might happen.

After this, Bumblebee secludes himself in his room, wanting to sort through all his memories, as those old one now finally accessible. After a few days he asks Windblade to come, He removes her Vector Sigma seal, and they talk through all those events. 

Soon Bumblebee requests Autobots together ( who can come, if someone can't, then they will be sent the recorded version of this) in front of Ark ( where the husk is) because there is something that everyone must know. He also asks Soundwave to send Laserbeak to the meeting, so she can record this conversation and present it to other Decepticons, Megatron included. Soundwave obliges, sending Bee his regards.

The truth behind the AllSpark.

Now with all his memories intact, Bumblebee reveals that he’s not the guardian or an weird experiment involving the AllSpark, but he IS the AllSpark.

That one thing was enough to shock everyone( accepts Windblade). At first they thought that technically yes, bc Bee’s spark fused the AllSpark, but Bee elaborates that he was created by Primus billions years ago. Windblade confirmed it, as she knows the truth already. 

To clear the confusion, Bumblebee starts from the beginning. 

Primus was wandering around the Universe. Like any giant with planet alt-form, he had one desire - to create and host a life. While he could easily transform, create a new life, and then fall into eternal slumber, Primus wanted to leave someone in charge. Thus he created the AllSpark - a powerful transformer who can create, destroy and maintain life on the planet. 

This person is Bumblebee, with a dragon-like altform, that looked almost exactly like that husk that now is resting in front of Ark.

Before Bee proceeded to his duties, he and Primus traveled around the Universe. Primus was teaching Bumblebee about life, about conditions required for life to exist, about material and what kind of life he can make. They visited planets, filled with various life forms: organic, silicone, energoinds and even other mechanical lifeforms.

Bee was observing living beings, learning about how they build, how they function, how they interact.

When the training was finished and Bee was ready, they traveled to a lone orange dwarf star(class K). Primus transformed and placed himself onto orbit. After this Bumblebee created the first cybertronian life. 

In thousands of years he filled the planets with divine ecosystems, with various biomes and huge species diversities and even first sentient beings. For most of the time he left anything for natural selection, while keeping a close eye on it in case something appears that will threaten life on the planet. In this case, by his protocols, he must kill that being in order to preserve balance.

He admits, while he loved his job and enjoyed creating, he was lonely. Primus advised against forming a relationship with his creations because he thought that Bumblebee’s powers could be misused in this case, for example getting involved in conflict where he could be persuaded to insta-kill someone. 

So he stayed out, but it hurt and he longed for companionship more than anything, which led to frustration and even anger at his creator for leaving alone for eternity.

Still, Bumblebee endured this and continued his work.

Peace lasted for a long time  ( if you don't think of the wars that were waged between clans from time to time), until Quintessons began their invasion on Cybertron. At first they couldn't set their tentacles there as Bee was such a fierce protector, but much later they figured out to send drones to fight instead. That posed a problem for Bumblebee because yes, he can easily kill a living being, but cannot kill what isn't alive in the first place. 

Bumblebee held endless hordes of drones for a long time, but eventually he was overwhelmed by numbers ( he was fighting alone, as cybertronians back there were no match to Quinesson’s forces) and killed.

Cybertron fell to Quintessons and everyone was enslaved.

Then Quintessons salvaged his spark( The AllSpark) and few more components to use the power of creation to create even more slaves. At first they couldn't use AllSpark, because it has quantuum properties. It creates endless possibilities, but none of their devices has enough strong sensors to set those possibilities, making them real.

Lucky for them, the components they got from Bumblebee’s dead body were connected to the AllSpark, with them Quintessons created Vector Sigma, a device that allows manipulation of the AllSpark.

They kept creating slayes, while completely ignoring anything else and soon all those diverse ecosystems that Bee made collapsed. The rain turned into acid, rust was crawling everywhere as Quintessons kept draining resources of the planet, while they tried to erase everything about Primus and AllSpark from cybetronian’s culture. While cybertronians still remembered Primus, the AllSpark was forgotten.

Hearing this was disturbing, considering the fact that after cybertronians liberated themselves from Quinesson’s tyranny - they kept using Vector Sigma for forging new bots.

Bumblebee wasn't too angry about this, they simply didn't know. Then he gets asked if he was killed, how Bumblebee is still here?

Short answer is they only destroyed his body. To explain this, Bumblebee reminds everyone how sparks work. Sparks are the lifeforce of every living being, but for sentient beings it also serves like a second brain/processor to process the emotion response.

But in Bumblebee’s case it’s the other way around: his spark is the main processor, while the head processor is for emotional response and processing the info from sensors. Primus made him like this in case Bumblebee's gonna get killed at some point so he could rebuild himself.  

Sadly, because they quickly salvaged him, removing both his spark and components that we connected to it and separating them - that made rebuilding impossible. 

And because of his spark’s quantuum nature, Bumblebee’s consciousness was locked in a quantum state, making him both existing and not existing at the same time.

He could only watch what’s happening. He was grieving over his work being destroyed, his creations being enslaved and potentially being forever stuck in quantuum sea, not able to interact with the real world again. 

The time went by, and eventually, cybertronians livetred themself from Quintessons and it marked the beginning of the Golden Age. Bumblebee was lingering, watching this happen. He was a bit happier after this, despite the fact that society was locked in functionalism( when both's place in society is defined by their alt form. Like a jet could only serve in the army) - a leftover from Quintesson tyraty. Still, it was better than Quintessons!

Bumblebee continues lingering, sometimes he floats in the form of a random bot and asks if they can see him. Usually it never works, but one day, one bot was able to hear him. Bee was ecstatic about this, finally he could talk to someone ( even though his talking was mere whisper as he forgot how his own voice used to sound). He introduced himself as Bumblebee ( it was one of many names that was given to him by his creations during ancient times that he liked a lot).

Bee thought maybe he could tell someone the truth about AllSpark origin and maybe that would help him to get back to the real world, but sadly none of his attempts were successful. Some don't believe him, some did but were punished by strict government. Additionally as Bee realised that only those who can psychic abilities can hear him. And those bots are extremely rare.

Still, Bumblebee wasn't losing hope, and kept trying ( though he was being more thoughtful about getting his friend in trouble). 

At some point, another big event happened - a gladiator named Megatron, with his partner, archivist Orion Pax ( who will later be known as Optimus Prime) created a revolution that liberated cybertronians from cages of functionalism. Now every cybertronian could be whoever they wanted, that pleased Bumblebee so much.

Not to mention now he has more chances to escape his quantuum prison, especially when a group of archaeologists has found a hidden temple that was dedicated to AllSpark - the only one that wasn't destroyed by Quintessons.

Even Megatron with Optimus came to see these fins. The most noticeable thing was the statue which archaeologists believed was the personification of AllSpark, which was an image of Bumblebee. 

(That made Optimus realise why Bumblebee’s face was so familiar when he first met him. Sure the form is different, but the face remains the same( and same goes to Megatron).)

At the same time a group of scientists noticed some quantum fluctuation comic from the AllSpark and they were going to research this. 

During this timeframe, Bee was really close to being found. He was really close to escaping. 

But as if fate decided to fuck everyone over, things changed from best to worst.

It all started when everyone realised that Cybertron will be completely drained of resources in a few millions years. That caused the frantic search of planets where they could get them. One planet that was relatively close was found. It was rich and solved this problem...but it also hosted life.

Heated arguments began, Megatron believed that they can just go and take it, because they really needed it and they are superior to this primitive form of life on that planet. Optimus on other hand refused to harm those lifeforms, even if they are primitive, that they can look elsewhere.

Bumblebee sided with Optimus, he knew the fact that there is another system near that one, that is rich with resources they need AND also unsuitable for life. He knew it in case if he ever needed those resources he could go and get them back in the day when he was in charge here.

Bee frantically searched for someone who could hear him, so he could pass this information...but he had no luck. Soon the civil war began and it was the beginning of the end.

As war was going on, Bumblebee lost all hope. He saw destruction he hadn't seen since Quintessons invasion and Cybertron’s reasons were thinning. Soon there were no resources to make new bots.

Bumblebee tight there is nothing he can do and was saddened about upcoming doom. 

Until and stumbled upon Windblade.

She was able to hear him. So they talked a lot and became close. Bee told her everything about himself, and when Blade was going to tell Optimus about Bee, he stopped her. Bumblebee was scared he's gonna be punished somehow ( it happened before in the past) but instead he has a plan, but he needs her help. She agrees, and waits until Bee is done with preparation.

Soon Bumblebee tells her about it, even a bit more urgently because he just saw Shockwave unleashing something that will kill everything and they need to get off the planet.

But first, Bumblebee needs a body. Now, when the Chamber of Creation isn't occupied anymore, Windblade sneaked inside ( Bee was carefully guiding her) the Spire, then got into the Chamber. 

He instructed her to activate Vector Sigma, then managed to upload a blueprint to her data banks that she was able to upload to Vector Sigma. 

Then he told her to set specific parameters, allowing the systems that were used for assembling bodies to scrap for resources. It was barely enough, still it gathered resources for a small body, compromising something like strength and armor. 

Then he told her to cut open Vector Sigma and get important components - the very same components that belonged to him long ago and install them to the body's spark chamber.

The last step was taking the AllSpark, placing it in a spark chamber and sealing it in a protective shell that will suppress the AllSpark frequency.

When Windblade did all this, she waited. It was silent for a few minutes and she was anxious that the plant might not get worse...before the body powered up and for the first time in seemingly forever, Bumblebee opened his optics.

This was probably the happiest day of his life since he lost his body. He hugged Windblade, thanking her for getting him out. After adjusting and remembering how to walk to transformers, they left the Spire.

But now they had to figure out what to do. When Megatron finds out that AllSpark is gone, hell will break loose and they cannot have the AllSpark being taken again. 

Bee cannot really protect himself. His body is fragile and will fall apart if he to unshesh his powers. And Decepticons like Soundwave can dig into one's mind to find out their secret. So it leads to a drastic solution - to seal any memories of him away. Blade doesn't want this, but understands it’s their only shotm so she agrees.

First they position themself near Autobot base.

Then Bumblebee activates his Vector Sigma interface, programming the seal in a specific way, so while memories are locked away, some feelings will linger. This will allow Bumblebee and Windblade to become friends again, and will also carry on the missing to make cybertronians leave the planet.

First he places the seal into Windblade’s data banks, which will activate in a few minutes and reboot her system. So it gives her time to arrive to base and be safe when memories are going to be locked away. She hugs him again before he leaves sayin “see you on the other side”.

Then he gets close to the road where Jazz soon appears, then he seales all his memories completely. The reboot happens and he falls on the ground, where next moment he’s being found by Jazz. 

The rest of the story everyone knows.

Bumblebee gives free minutes for everyone to process the whole thing. It explained a lot of things: his reboots, his ability to sense sparks, that husk’s creation,  pretty much everything.

So he’s being bombarded with questions, one of them was about what Shockwave did. Interestingly enough Bee never told Blade what exactly the mad scientist did. Bee tried to answer, but turned out he just cannot say this out of loud, that’s how terrible it was. Seeing the pained expression on Bumblebee’s face, everyone quickly moved on to different questions. 

Another question was about Primus, because Bee made it sound like Primus was just one of many beings like him. Bumblebee reveals that in fact, Earth is also giant like Primus, and unlike his creator, she can communicate with Bee during the recharge. 

So she’s asleep, but can talk to Bee when he’s asleep too. In fact he made a lot of attempts to connect, but because the AllSpark was sealed under shell, Bee could not hear her clearly. Until now.

She was asking if he can resurrect her two companions, who turned out to be Venus and Mars -  two other giants that came to this system with her. Something went wrong when both transformed to planets that caused their deaths, rendering planets unsuitable to life. 

Sadly, Bumblebee can only create or kill, he cannot bring the dead back. Once spark crosses the dimension and appears in the Well of All Sparks, it gets cleaned. It's a point of no return and the only direction for spark to go is forward -  to it's new life.

After the meeting is over, Bee turns to Laserbeak, making sure that all this information was received by Soundwave, which she confirms. Now they can only hope for better, that this is gonna be enough to stop Megaton from his fruitless conquest.

Then he goes on another walk around the forest, thinking about his past, present and future. Despite everything, he’s glad he lived to this point. He has what he always wanted( aka companionship) and now there is a chance for everyone to thrive once again, along with humans.

The final stretch.

Of course, nothing can be that easy. 

Soon after the big reveal, the entire Soundwave cassette horde( aka even those who were in stasis since the beginning of the war) arrives at the Ark’s entrance. They look terrified and begging for help. When asked what happened, Ravage told Bee that Megatron didn't take the news well when Soundwave presented that entire conversation to Decepticons.

Soundwave tried to reason with his leader, but Megatron got mad and hurt Soundwave, then he was going to hurt the cassettes as punishment, which resulted in fight and Soundwave ejecting every single one and telling them to run.

So they ran and came here, begging to save Soundwave.

This makes Bumblebee energon boil in his tubes, he’s almost jumped into his husk body to just run and tear Megatron apart, but he managed to calm himself. Optimus decided to go and deal with Megatron himself, and Bee tags along. 

When they meet again with Megatron near Nemesis again, first Optimus demands to release Soundwave. Somehow they convince him to do so, and Autobots take him to Ark for repair and reunite him with cassettes.

Meanwhile Megatron demands Bumblebee to fix Cynertron, which turns into a heated argument, because there is literally nothing to fix. Bee cannot just magically undo all the damage. 

In the end Bumblebee snaps, and just decides to do what he really, really didn't want to do -  he wants to open the space bridge and show Megatron what is happening on Cybertron. If this won't help, he doesn't know what can. 

Bumblebee warns that they might not get out alive, but Megatron agrees anyway, believing that minibot still can fix their home planet. Optimus Prime also joins, refusing to leave Bumblebee alone with Megatron.

They arrive at the Chamber of Creation and look outside ( as they are on top floor). The Spire is the only building that is still sanding, meanwhile anything else lay in ruins. Megatron is confused, he doesn't remember leaving Cynertron in such a terrible state.

Bumblebee asks them if they can see those drones. They cannot, asking what drones. He sighs, understanding they have to go to ground level and that's actually scary.  Still, he activated the elevator and they went down.

At entrance they stop and now they see - countless tiny drones consuming metal, then multiplying. And their hunger knows no bounds. 

Bumblebee reveals that those “Scraplets” were created by Shockwave in order to cause chaos among Autobots. But they didn't work as he intended he just threw them away. They landed near Cyberton’s core, which activated them...and they began to consume everything in sight. When Scaplets got to Cybertron lavras ( it’s like the immune system of the planet) and Bee felt their deaths, he knew the time was up and they needed to run.

Now it made sense why Bumblebee killed this mad scientist in the first place.

Megatron asks if Bumblebee can kill them, but Bee says he can only kill living beings,while those things are just sparkless drones and they will devour him quickly.

After a minute, Megatron sighs in defeat, telling Bumblebee he can take them back to Earth.

He nods and about to open a portal...then suddenly his spark is acting up again, sending a huge power surge around him. Once again he is forced into rebooting before he can open a portal.

This caught the attention of scraplets and they charged at bost. Optimus grabs Bee, and both he and Megatron start running. First they tried to make it to the elevator, but it was already being chewed.

So they were forced to take stairs. So Optimus carrying Bee, and dragging Megatron with him, Megatron is shooting from his fusion cannot, breaking shit to slow down scraplets. 

When they reach the top floor, they have nowhere to run. Megatrons asks how soon Bee will be back online, which according to Optimus’s chronometers is 3 more minutes. Megatron feels that they don't have it and suddenly the entire building is rumbling.

Because it’s being eaten, it starts falling, while scraplets are seeping inside the chamber. Two bots look at each other, and do the leap of faith ( while holding onto each other and Bumblebee of course). Just before they hit infested ground, Bee suddenly wakes up and he opens a portal. All three fall into it and are transported back to Earth.

Panicked they look around for scraplets that could be transported with them, but thankfully there was none. They are safe.

Optimus is surprised that Bee woke up earlier, and the minibot himself is surprised as well. Though he quickly realised it’s because of his plants symbiont + new shell combinations - his system still gets overwhelmed, but not as drastically as before, allowing his system to recover quicker.

After this, Megatron allows Autobots to leave in peace, while he still needs to process everything he saw.

Later ( with Optimus help) he declares that war is over and that Earth is their new home, which was surprisingly received well by other Decepticons ( he told them what he saw).

Finally Bumblebee can sigh in relief, finally they can have a bright future ahead of them and  he’s looking forward to it.

Trivia( aka random stuff I didn't know where to fit).

Cybertronians can breathe and it’s part of their air cooling system, as such a process allows them to quickly inhale cooler air and exhale hot air. When calm they don't actually breathe, but as soon they are scared/excited/in a fight - they start doing this;

They can also cry, and it’s also part of the cooling system. Processors and spark chambers tend to be heated more than anything and require cooling by liquid nitrogen. When strong emotional responses happen, heating goes off the charts, and because optics are so close to the head processor - there is a risk of melting them. So the liquid nitrogen gets pumped to optics as well, and because this liquid has a low boiling point - those tears take a form of gas, seeping through the space between optic and face. Older bots don't cry much because they kinda get used to horrors of the war, while younger like Bee are actually more emotional and showing it often. Even after restoring his memories fully, he’s still emotion as hell;

Bumblebee is sleepwalking sometimes, and if he sees another person he starts whispering “Can you see me?” over and over until he gets the “right” reasons which is “Yes, I can see you, Bumblebee”. After this he falls back to recharge. That scared a lot of Autobots first, they discovered the right answer when Optimus replied, thanks to his tendency to give full and polite answers. This happens because of trauma when Bee lost his body and became “non-existent” to anyone;

He used to terrify Decepticons when he infiltrated their bases  to the point they thought that Bee was some sort of Autobot vengeful spirit that came to hunt them. Bumblebee used his abilities to avoid his enemies, while toying with them, like lingering at the corners of their optics before disappearing and even whispering”Can you see me?” right into their audio sensors.);

When Decepticosn arrived on Earth, Bumblebee was an anxious mess, he was afraid that Earth might die just like Cybertron did. To give himself hope and a way of coping, he remembered the legend that if you fold 1000 origami cranes, your wish will come true. He made the first crane soon after Decepticon’s arrival, and the last right before he received his last AllSpark shard. Now those cranes are everywhere on the Ark;

Spike visits Detroit at some point, but I haven't decided when. Probably when the AllSpark shattered, so he helped to restore it too;

Bumblebee has two strong phobias: 

Athazagoraphobia. The fear of being forgotten, ignored, or abandoned; 

Monophobia. The fear of being alone for a long time;

In future, humans figured out the way to transport their mind into their spark and then transport that spark into techno-organic bodies which ultimately extends their lifespan.

Sari was one of first humans doing this, not wanting to leave Bumblebee and Windblade;

Spike, on the other hand, decided to die of old age because he felt like he did everything he wanted and his journey reached his end. Bee was really upset about this, but let Spike go. Spike spent his last moments with Bee.

Also in the future, Bumblebee’s body gets an upgrade, restoring his original form alt-form (6 legged dragon), though it’s smaller than before, Bee used to be small and finally comfortable with this. He will also be in charge of creating new cybertronians and terraforming new planets;

This is how Bumblebee used to look like;

Here’s the statue that was discovered, that Optimus and Megatron saw before.

[clock-work-crow]

Why Sylive did the right thing

So I'm going to say something that I feel like not enough people are saying. Sylvie did the right thing in creating the multiverse. The entire argument against creating the multiverse is predicated on He Who Remain's claim that there are worse versions of him out there, and he is the best possible solution.

To make this easier, I'm going to refer to variants of He Who Remains, as Kangs, and only use He Who Remains when I'm specifically talking about the person we meant in episode 6. So let's talk about all those Kangs. So the first thing we have to ask is, can there, in fact, be a worse Kang than He Who Remains?

I'd say no. Think about it. He Who Remains destroyed every timeline but one. He literally fed every person who ever lived and ever would live to Alioth millions of times over. It's mass murder on an incredible scale. He argues that without what he did, all of reality would be destroyed. That one surviving reality is better than the destruction of everything.

But as far as we know, none of the Kangs want to destroy all of reality. If one of them did, presumably enough of the others would band together to stop him. We are told they are capable of working together, in the same way, that some Loki's can get along, while others fall into ridiculous circles of betrayal.

So what do the other Kangs want? From the comics, we know Kang the Conqueror wants to rule over the multiverse. Compared to the alternative, that is not so terrible because He Who Remains already does rule over everything, except he's forcing people to live in one reality without choice. In the single Universe created by He Who Remains, there is no free will. No one can do anything that He Who Remains does not allow. If they do, the TVA prunes them, and they get fed to Alioth. That is absolute tyranny. At least in a multiverse ruled by a Kang, people would still be able to make choices.

Also, He Who Remains' timeline is limited. It ends. We see it, and it's a circle that loops back in on itself, and I suspect that's not natural. Yes, it seems fair to assume that eventually, time and the Universe will end, but consider what we hear about the future from the TVA. The Time Keepers are supposedly in the process of writing the future. We know the TVA tells all sorts of lies, but also they are time travelers. Clearly, they can't see the heat death of the Universe (or however else it might end). There's a point in time they can't travel past. Otherwise, they would not need to talk about an unwritten future.

So why does time seem to stop at a point where the Universe seems like it should continue? And when is that point? I think it has to be either when He Who Remains was born or at least sometime early in his life. Why? Well, any Kang born in He Who Remains Universe has to be a variant. This Kang could live his life exactly as He Who Remains did, until the point when He Who Remains discovered the multiverse because there is no multiverse to discover. And if this new Kang figured that out, sooner or later, he would find out about He Who Remains, and then trouble would begin all over again.

So time has to stop at some point. Even if He Who Remains were to actively prune himself before he could discover the lack of a multiverse, he has to make sure that no one else can ever discover it either. That's why there can be a Void at the End of Time. That's why we see the timeline in a loop around the Citadel, and why He Who Remains shows us the multiverse as a series of rings.

So He Who Remains has to stop time at a certain point. He has to destroy the future of the Universe. He isn't just controlling everything; in reality, he also destroys it, but without the opportunity for a new reality to rise up afterward.

But surely the other Kangs are worse, right? I mean, we know one of them is building giant statues of himself. Maybe the other Kangs are more arrogant. Perhaps some of them enjoy being cruel. He Who Remains is kind of endearing in a crazy 'I've been locked in my room for too long' kind of way. I suspect when we do see Kang, he will not be so friendly.

But that doesn't mean the other Kangs are worse. We don't know which Kang began the multiverse war; we only know which one ended it, and he did it in the most bloody way possible. He Who Remains is also very patronizing. He clearly believes that people can't be trusted with free will, but that's because he doesn't trust himself with it.

The cause of the multiverse war is Kang. He is the problem. Some of him can't get along with others of him, and they create a dangerous war over it. I'm sure other people get pulled into this war; that's how wars work, and if you were being invaded by another reality, why wouldn't you fight back?

But wars happen, and they end. He Who Remains believes the only possible end can be his solution or all of reality being destroyed. He believes he is inevitable.

But, you might say, wars hurt people, lots of people across lots of realities will suffer and die. Yes, probably true, but at least those people were allowed to live and exist before they suffered and died. In the Universe of He Who Remains, those people never got a chance to be happy, fall in love, or even live. Is it really better for entire realities not to have existed at all?

If He Who Remains is right, and he will just be born again, and take over everything all over again, then at least Sylvie has bought the multiverse a chance to breathe. Timelines will once again come into existence, people will once again have free will, at least for a while, until it all ends again.

But what about that Kang who builds statues of himself? We don't know much about his timeline yet, but let's assume it's not just the TVA that knows about him. Let's assume he's set himself up as God, and everyone in all of his reality's time and space knows that Kang is the ruler of the Universe, that he decides everyone's fate.

To be fair, that's probably a more boring timeline, but is it a worse one? First of all, Kang effectively is God; he really does determine what people are allowed to do and sends his TVA to erase them. Which actually isn't any different than what He Who Remains is doing; Kang is just upfront about it. If this Kang wants to be worshiped by all of existence. Well, at least there are no religious wars because there are no different religions; there is only Kang.

It comes down to a matter of personal preference at that point. If you live in a deterministic universe, where you have no control over the choices you make and no ability to change your life for the better, are you happier off knowing that or not knowing it?

Personally, I would rather know. I would rather know that my mistakes were not my fault because I just wasn't allowed to do better. I wouldn't have to feel guilty or bad about anything I did because I had no choice in doing any of it.

Other people might prefer not to know. They might prefer the illusion of free will. But whatever you prefer, is one Kang worse than the other? One is more honest but also more arrogant. As I said, the Kang as God-King of the Universe strikes me as more boring because there would not be as much room for art, philosophy, and all kinds of expression as people try to understand the nature of reality.

On the other hand, no ship-wars unless Kang finds them amusing.

Finally, there's the dumb meta reason that Sylvie was right. We know Kang can be stopped. We know there's another solution to the multiverse and that all reality in the MCU isn't going to end because Disney is going to keep making more content. Yeah, Sylvie and Loki and can't know that, but it's a question of whether they believe the Universe deserves the chance to prove itself better than Kang or if enslavement is its only option.

[bonjour-rainycity]

Double Heart | Chapter Two ~ Cosima

|previous part|

Pairing: Haldir x OFC

Rating: PG

Word count: 3048

Warnings: None

**Read on Ao3 under the user “bonjour-rainycity” if you prefer!**

A/n Surprise! I wrote another chapter so I decided to go ahead and make another post. The reasoning behind this is I want to stay one month ahead and only one month ahead. That will give me a helpful buffer for when life happens but I don’t want to stockpile any more chapters than necessary. You know? So...here’s chapter two!

It’s nearing nightfall by the time we finally stop. My bones are stiff, my butt is sore, and my back hurts from all the tension I kept there out of fear that I would otherwise fall and be trampled under the horse’s quick-moving hooves.

Baranor slides down, reaching his arms up to me. I place my hands on his shoulders and allow him to help me off the horse. I stumble the moment my feet hit the ground.

Orophin—who I’ve yet to actually talk to—offers me a sympathetic smile. “Have you not ridden in a while? Take a short walk and stretch a little. It will help you feel less sore in the morning.”

I nod my thanks, tentatively releasing my hands from Baranor’s arms and turning away from the horses.

“Do not go far.” I jump. Haldir’s voice floats from the tree line just in front of us. I hadn’t seen him dismount, let alone climb into the branches. “We are not in guarded territory.”

With that ominous warning, I decide it’s best to stay close to the others. We’re near enough to the riverbank, so I hobble to the edge of the water and back again. Once movement comes a little easier, I extend my path to the tree line.

A voice to my left interrupts the silence. “Do you remember anything else?”

I yelp, placing a hand over my racing heart.

Rumil grins, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He hands me a canteen. “Sorry. I forget how terrible human senses are.”

I raise an eyebrow but bring the canteen to my lips, grateful for the drink. “And, what, elves are so much better?”

Mentally, I admonish myself for playing along. There’s no such thing as elves. Either they’re messing with me, or I really am having a wildly vivid dream.

Rumil nods, shrugging his shoulders in a way that suggests the answer is obvious. “Well, yes. We live longer, have better sight, hearing, reflexes. We do not tire as quickly as humans do, and we have a respect for our kin that the race of man cannot hope to imitate. I do not mean to offend.” He smiles, carrying a note of apology in his voice. “It’s only the truth.”

I shrug, unbothered by his comment. Because if elves exist in this world I dreamed up, why shouldn’t they be better than humans? It’s just as likely that I’ve imagined a race that’s worse than humans, and I only haven’t met them yet. “If you say so. But to answer your question, no, I don’t remember anything else. How long was I passed out?”

From his place by the now-grazing horses, Baranor answers. “Not long once we arrived, but I do not know how long you laid there before.”

“Yes, and you are quite lucky we arrived, especially with Baranor in tow.” Rumil winks, gripping my elbow and turning me back towards the part of the ground where I assume we will sleep tonight.

I give Baranor a questioning look.

He smiles awkwardly, a bit self-conscious. “I am quite skilled as a healer. I used the power in my spirit to call to your own. You were very nearly dead when we happened upon you.”

I file that information away. Power in my spirit…Probably something I’d read in a book once that my brain has brought up now. And these men I’m with—elves, I guess, according to the dream—must be people I know from…from…

But the fledgling thought dies away, leaving me with no more answers than before. I try to push back my disappointment, my logical side kicking in to soothe me. It’s okay. Soon the doctors will fix you, or you’ll wake up from this dream, and everything will be fine. You just have to wait. No point in getting freaked out.

Rumil, Baranor, and I settle on the high part of the riverbank. Orophin sits too, once he’s done refilling the canteens. I glance at the trees. I haven’t seen Haldir since we stopped riding. “Is he not going to join us?”

Orophin and Baranor exchange looks, but Rumil just snorts. “Likely not. As he said, we are neither in the territory guarded by the wardens of Lothlórien nor the patrols of Elrond. Someone has to watch for threats. More often than, not, Haldir insists on the job for himself. He doesn’t trust us to keep good enough watch.”

“That’s not it and you know it,” Orophin hisses, and I flinch at the anger in his voice, even though it wasn’t directed at me. I have no idea how Rumil keeps his face blank. The two stare each other down until Orophin speaks again, still through gritted teeth. “Go and collect the rations for dinner.”

Rumil rolls his eyes, but does as his brother says.

Baranor clears his throat, and I’m grateful when he changes the subject. He inclines his head towards me. “I see you are dressed for travel. Perhaps you were part of a company and got separated?”

Mildly perplexed, I look down at my body. Huh. He’s right. Something I had yet to take notice of is the clothes I wear — sturdy dark leggings, a deep green tunic, a red cloak, and thick leather boots. I haven’t the slightest idea how I conjured up these clothes, but Baranor is right — they’re perfect for this type of outdoor traveling.

Rumil returns and places a bundle of leaves in each of our hands. Inside seems to be bread and slices of some sort of fruit. Hesitantly, I take a bite. It’s surprisingly good.

“So how long until we reach this friend of yours?”

“Elrond,” Orophin informs, looking down the path we intend to continue on tomorrow. “Probably about thirteen more days, unless we hit bad weather. The mountains will take the longest, and traveling with a human will slow us down.” He realizes his words, eyes growing wide. “I don’t mean to be rude—”

“No, no, I get it.” I wave him off, picking at the bread in my hands. These elves sure have a bad view of me. “Humans suck.”

“At least it’s still spring,” Rumil supplies, trying to lighten the mood. “That will make our path through the Misty Mountains easier.”

“Right you are,” Baranor agrees, sipping from his canteen. “I detest crossing them in the snow.”

The three elves slip into easy conversation, exchanging stories of the worst travel conditions each has suffered, trying to one-up each other. While they talk, I place my bread back in its leaves and on the ground, no longer hungry. The stories they tell are quite detailed, and there’s this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t be able to make all this up…the landscape, the language, a whole new species with differing characteristics, vast knowledge of this world’s travel ways, four fully-thought-out ‘characters’, for lack of a better word….Dread and fear mingle with exhaustion and I slump, wanting nothing more than to curl up in a ball and go to sleep for a very long time. Perhaps when I wake, all will be well.

The murmurs from those around me sound muffled. A hand wraps grips one of my shoulders, holding me upright, and Baranor’s voice comes from beside my ear. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I shake my head, feeling the weight of their eyes on me. “I’m just exhausted.”

He makes a noise of agreement. “Of course you are, I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner.”

I try and wave off his apology, but it seems like too much effort to raise my arm over such a little thing. From the corner of my eye, I see Rumil stand and visit the horses. He returns carrying a rolled up mat and a folded blanket. He unfurls both, setting them on the ground between our gathering spot and the tree line. He beckons for me to join him and, with great effort, I stand without help, going to meet him as requested.

“Here. Sorry it’s not much. If we had known we’d be traveling with a lady, we would have brought much cushier sleeping provisions.”

I roll my tired eyes, realizing that he’s mocking me. “Goodnight, Rumil.”

He grins, sauntering off to rejoin his companions. “Goodnight, Cosima.”

I all but collapse on the mat, pulling the surprisingly warm blanket over my shoulders. Before I’m aware what’s happening, I’ve plunged into sleep.

{***}

Baranor woke me with the sun, and I’m very grateful to be leaning against him rather than directing the horse. I feel much too groggy to properly steer such a beast, especially given the fact that I have no idea how. Even though he must have stayed up most of the night, Haldir doesn’t look the slightest bit tired, and, on behalf of the bags underneath my eyes, I am thoroughly annoyed. He hasn’t said a word to me aside from the few sentences yesterday. I understand it a bit more now, though. He seems to be the leader of this group, and has either been charged with its security, or taken the task upon himself. Despite there not being another soul in sight, he rides at the front of our group—straight backed, stiff, his head on a near-constant swivel. Orophin tends to stay near one of Haldir’s shoulders—guarding his back and providing a sort of second watch, I presume. Rumil alternates between riding in-step with the horse Baranor and I occupy and cantering along behind us.

If riding was difficult yesterday, it is doubly so this morning.

Every bounce jolts though my bones, and I seem always on the verge of being tossed to the side, never quite able to fall into the rhythm the other four find so easily.  

Rumil pulls up beside us, seeming to showcase his perfect form. “Having trouble?”

I grit my teeth, but that only makes them clash together as the horse’s feet collide with the ground. “No.”

He snorts. “Toes up, heels down. Grip the horse with your legs, don’t put all that tension in your back. And if Baranor were human, you’d have strangled him by now. Loosen up.”

Baranor huffs out a laugh and takes an exaggerated breath when I relax my hold around him. “Finally, I can breathe!”

“So dramatic,” I mumble, rolling my eyes for Rumil’s benefit.

“What was that,” Baranor questions, though I know if he has as good hearing as he claims to have, he surely heard my comment.

“I said you’re a really great rider,” I shout.

The three of us dissolve into laughter, and I lose myself in this. For a moment, I forget that I am dreaming, that this is a strange world I made up in my head. I forget that I haven’t the slightest idea what comes next. Instead, I start to forge the first tentative bonds of friendship.

{***}

I am glad when we stop for the evening, and run through some stretches to try and help with the muscle aches. Rumil’s pointers certainly helped though, and I have hopes that perhaps this discomfort is only temporary. We still follow the river, and once again make camp in the space on the high, grassy bank. Bathing was an experience, but it was mercifully quick. The water was much too cold for my liking, so I washed as hastily as I could and then redressed, joining the others on the bank. I lean over to wring the water from my hair, the saturation making it seem nearly black. It’s getting quite long—almost too long, and I hope wherever we’re going has someone willing to cut it. Rumil watches me curiously as I take a spare cloth and scrunch my hair—bringing out its natural waves—but says nothing, only continues giving me an odd look. I guess with the stick-straight hair of he and his brothers, this would look unusual. Just as I am about to tease him for his staring, Haldir comes in to sight, looking quite severe.

“We have lost the cover of the trees. We will take watch in pairs, rotating halfway through the night. Orophin, Baranor—you take the first shift.”

They dutifully follow Haldir’s order, and I watch their faces as they pass. They show no signs of tiredness—no bags under their eyes, no yawning, in fact, not even a hair is out of place—but if it were me, I would be absolutely exhausted with all this staying up. And, though it is technically their turn to rest, Rumil and Haldir are still on their feet, occupying themselves with tending to the horses. I feel awful, peacefully sitting on my bedroll, messing with my hair and eating dinner, knowing I’ll get a full night’s sleep when none of them will have that luxury.

I return my food to the sack loaned to me and push myself to my feet, tentatively approaching Rumil and his brother. Rumil smiles in greeting. Haldir merely glances up and then back to his horse’s hoof he’s bending over to attend. Though I fight to keep my eyes open as it is, it’s not right for me to leave them to do all the work. So, I try to project energy I do not feel, and pose my question. “Do you want me to take a watch shift tonight?”

Haldir stiffens. Rumil raises his eyebrows and vibrates slightly—he’s holding back laughter! I give them my best unimpressed look.

Rumil tries to hide his amusement but can’t do away with his wide grin. “We appreciate the offer, really. But having a human stand watch when we have elves at our disposal? It would be the same to not set a watch at all.”

I huff, crossing my arms, trying to ignore the heat I feel in my cheeks. All this talk of how incapable humans are is getting a little old. “Well, there must be something I can do to help. I shouldn’t go straight to bed if the rest of you are still working.”

Rumil’s expression softens. He purses his lips, seeming to search for either a task for me or a way to turn me away.

“Do you know how to mend clothing?”

I’m momentarily caught off guard. Haldir hasn’t looked up from clearing his horse’s hooves, but it was definitely him who spoke.

Unbidden, the action of holding a ripped piece of cloth and using a needle and threat to bind it comes to mind. I must know how. So I answer in the affirmative. “Yeah, I think so.”

Haldir nods, straightening only to exchange one hoof for the other, never making eye contact with either me or his brother. “Good. There’s a blue tunic in my largest bag that needs mending, and one of Rumil’s too—that one’s red. Work with the light. Stop when you can’t see anymore and finish in the morning.”

I blink and feel my head tilt to the side. That’s the most he’s ever said to me. But it’s not even that he spoke, it’s how. Every syllable is crisp, curt, and succinct—a command in every sense of the word. I long-ago realized that Haldir is in charge of this little group, though now I wonder if he supervises in a larger capacity back in his home. I get the feeling he’s quite used to talking to people like this, and being obeyed.

But I did ask for something to do, so I don’t comment on his tone, only say my goodbyes and retrieve the shirts he’s described. They’re exactly where he said they would be and wrapped around a small sewing kit. I take the supplies and return to my bedroll, working through the sunset. When it grows too dark to see, I put the project away. Rumil and Haldir join me, bringing dinner with them. They set out their mats in a sort of triangle, and I realize somewhat belatedly that this allows each of us to watch the other’s back. It seems second-nature to them, to be cautions and on their guard, even during dinnertime and sleep.

I try to distract myself from that disconcerting thought. “Why are we going to meet this friend of yours anyway?”

Rumil’s gaze turns to his brother standing watch, a fond look in his eye. “There is an elleth there that Orophin is courting. Their time apart has been too long for his liking, so he is paying her a visit. It is dangerous to travel these lands alone, so Haldir and I took leave to accompany him.”

Courting. Elleth. Where am I finding all these words? I keep talking in an effort to distract myself. “That’s really sweet. Does Baranor usually go with you all, since he’s a healer?”

“Usually,” Rumil confirms. “He has extensive experience in the halls of healing, as well as healing on the battlefield, so he is an excellent addition to any company. Also Elrond—the friend we are taking you to—is an acclaimed healer himself, so he and Baranor enjoy conversing with each other.”

Haldir stretches his arms up, then reclines on his mat. “Better get some sleep, all of us. Rumil—we’re up in four hours.”

I take his advice, laying down on my own bedroll. Exhausted though I am, sleep evades me.

My mind runs a million miles an hour, piecing together bits of information from this world, trying to remember things from my home. And, all the while, thought takes root, sowing seeds of fear in my mind.

Because while I know this world isn’t real, and thus no harm can come to me here…Rumil said these lands are dangerous, and the increased watches only support my theory that we are under some kind of threat. I have no weapon with which to defend myself, let alone any skill, and while I know logically that I could throw myself off a cliff and still be fine….

What if that’s not the case?

I groan, rolling onto my back.

This is ridiculous. This place is made up. I’m trapped inside my own head, so I have no reason to be scared. Go to sleep.

And, when the moon is much higher in the sky, the exhaustion wins.

A/n Thanks for reading! You know how likes, comments, and reblogs make me smile. Let me know if you would like a tag! And if you’re having trouble being tagged (for some reason Tumblr isn’t letting me tag all of you?) try subscribing to the story on Ao3! That will update you when I post there. 

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Tolkien tag list: @anangelwhodidntfall @eru-vande

Double Heart tag list: @lainphotography @fangirl-nonsense @themerriweathermage @thophil2941btw @kenobiguacamole

**Strikethrough means Tumblr wouldn’t let me tag you**

[whetstonefires]

Hi Whetstonefire. I have a question about the comic where Nightwing cheats on Starfire with Barbara: What happens directly after that? Does Starfire find out that Nightwing cheated on her? And, if so, how does she react? I've read online that (according to Marv Wolfman) Starfire is the opposite of everything Batman taught Nightwing to be and that Batman taught Nightwing to be repressed and cold. What did Nightwing contribute (emotionally) to the relationship between him and Starfire? (Cont.)

(Cont.) From what I can tell, from online, Nightwing was adamant about standards of mercy and monogamy - how do you think, if Starfire were to be written as her own character and not written around Nightwing and his emotional needs, she would handle and react to that? (This bit is an FYI for other readers: this is just speculation, not hate. Sorry about that.) Sorry about the questions! Have a nice day! 

Okay there are so many separate questions packed in here! I may miss some of them lol and I do not want to put in the hours it would take to produce an orderly response to all this, so this post is going to be a mess.

Initial query and important point: the cheating story was out of continuity. Like, literally, not just by ‘being rejected by the fanbase,’ it was just this weird retcon oneshot that seems to have been some sort of fuck-you to Nightwing or his fans or something. So no, it had no in-setting fallout lol. It, in more ways than most comics, didn't exactly happen.

It was just this weird thing where Dick hooks up with Babs before giving her a wedding invitation, which is both out of character for him in general and out of step with where he was leading up to the wedding--he was desperate to get married so they could have some Normal Stable Adulthood Happiness; the choice to recharacterize him as a fuckboy who regards it as a loss of freedom isn’t congruent, on much more than the level of principle.

As far as how Kori would feel about it, if she had learned...that is very hard to say. Apart from how it would require her to reinterpret everything about where their relationship stood at that point, the data is very unclear, and I don’t even have all of it. Gonna back up to cover some of the rest of the ask, get some context here.

So this actually brings up two of my biggest gripes with Wolfman’s NTT--weird Kori characterization and the weirdly negative interpretation of Batman as parent that backwashed heavily into other titles and influenced the character for the worse, in ways we're very much still dealing with today. 😩

The latter is pretty self-explanatory, though Wolfman’s take that the main thing Bruce taught Dick was repression does shed light on some writing choices and make others funnier. But Kori. Oh my lands.

So, item one, I wouldn't say that Kori is overall opposite Bruce, or even of his philosophy? There are just some very major points of opposition. She isn’t emotionally buttoned-down like at all, especially about positive feelings, although considered realistically with all the bullshit they’ve piled into her backstory she absolutely leans on repression to cope and stay positive, which makes her a lot like Dick actually.

To an extent, she was clearly written around foiling Dick’s Batman-derived traits in the same way that Robin was written to foil Batman, bright and glad and aerial. A Flamebird to his Nightwing in theme if not in name.

You could do some interesting stuff with that, and the bildungsroman aspects of this period of Dick’s life, like he has two roads forward in terms of how he’s going to define ‘adulthood’--does it necessarily require becoming more like his mentor-father, for good and ill, or can he make Kori in part a destination, as it were, and create an adult self that is derived from who he has always been as well as the man he’s modeled himself after?

To an extent I think this even was one of the things going on in ntt but like. Only a little bit.

(Given how much like Bruce Babs is in most of the ways Kori isn’t, especially once she’s Oracle, you could make a case for her as love interest being like. Symbolic of his not being in a rebellious phase? That gets weird and oedipal really fast tho lol.)

Okay stepping down one meta level lol, the thing about answering the 'what would kori' question here is that her character is deeply bound up in her culture, about which we are told and shown a great many contradictory things. Any attempt to read her as an independent character has to tackle not only the gender stuff you allude to and these inconsistencies, but how much of the sheer mess of her is rooted in racism.

'Fantastic' racism, technically, because Tamaraneans aren't real, but the 'taming the savage' narrative that kept surfacing between them and the language used in reference to it is just. The existing racism of presumably the writers, placed in Dick's mouth, and it's super gross. I hate it so much.

(I had a faint hope when they cast her for live action it was with a deliberate intent to directly tackle and better that history, but lollllllll nah. At least they didn’t double down in it tho! Can you imagine, with a black actress, in this day and age....)

So to predict and comprehend Kori, you have to make a lot of calls about Tamaran as a civilization. I like to slightly privilege stuff established earlier if there's no good reason not to, so while much is made over time of her inappropriate rage and the violence she was raised to normalize, I think what she says in her first appearance is good to keep in mind: in her culture, kindness is for friends and cruelty is for enemies. She doesn't understand why the Titans seem to have this backwards.

Kori is not a merciless person. She’s very empathetic, as a rule. With people she loves, she is self-destructively forgiving. That's not a trait only Dick benefits from--her family keeps betraying her in new exciting ways, and she keeps letting them.

Her arc of growing away from that habit is however greatly crippled by centering Dick in the narrative and by the awful 'civilizing' overtones that keep coming into it. When she comes back after the 1986 breakup, still married to Karras, she brings with her a commitment to doing things the Earth way--to eschew lethal force as more than a compromise with her friends’ values, but as a deliberate choice.

This deserved a lot more space and time than it got, and the fact that it didn’t get it is only somewhat due to her being subordinated to Dick and to general writing fail; a lot of it’s just the team book problems of everything happening to everybody all at once.

I mean, Dick’s journey later on to deciding he loves her enough to date her even though she’s married and it’s technically against his principles was packed into this absolutely heinous issue where he was inspired by a woman refusing to separate from her husband who’d just threatened to kill her and their kid with a knife, until being stopped by Nightwing. Because he’s apologizing for what he did.

This is his inspiration for accepting Kori’s marital status! It’s supposed to be heartwarming, as far as I can tell! Not heavyhanded messaging that this is a self-destructive terrible choice in which Kori will inevitably harm him somehow! This issue is pro ‘consensual open relationships under certain circumstances’ and also ‘giving abusers another chance’ as expressions of love. Welcome to the 80s ig.

(Notable is that the wife in this issue was black and the husband and son both looked very white, so it’s probably her stepkid and she probably wouldn’t get to keep him if they separated; this is not even vaguely treated as a factor.)

Point is, everyone was getting too little space to actually go through the amount of development they were getting, and it was clumsily handled; it’s not just her.

In an overlapping period Gar processed his issues with his adoptive father with whom he constantly fought and their shared trauma over the rest of their family (the Doom Patrol) having died violently not long ago via a batshit several-issue storyline where Mento went crazy, created supermutants, and abusively mind-controlled them to attack the Titans. It is literally all like this.

Back to the infidelity thing, now. So much to unpack. So like I mentioned above, their first big breakup, while partially driven by Dick’s existing conflicted feelings about their different ideas about things like ‘killing in battle’ and ‘her identity and loyalties being tied up with her home planet,’ is explicitly over different takes on monogamy.

When Dick is breaking up with her, Kori makes it clear she thinks it’s totally reasonable to have both a husband and a love, since Karras also has someone he loves and they’re both fine with it, but the story doesn't really explain how nonmonogamy works on Tamaran, or even if it's practiced outside the context of political marriage. They do do a sort of...soulbond fusion dance...thing, as part of the ceremony, so marriage is definitely serious business. There are so many levels of cultural difference that get poor to no development.

But to return to the weird ooc retcon cheating story: because of this context, no matter what her personal norms are, Dick specifically casually sleeping with someone else would be something for Kori to be mad about, because of the hypocrisy.

Then there’s the Mirage Incident, which I haven’t read through properly and which was very poorly handled by the writers. Kori is upset about Dick having slept with someone impersonating her and there’s a general vibe of this being treated by Dick’s social circle as unfaithfulness even though he was in fact sexually violated by deceit; it famously sucks.

We still don’t learn a lot here about Kori’s ideas about monogamy, from what I have seen, because her focus is mostly on feeling like Dick doesn’t care about her enough or in the right way since he couldn’t tell the difference. Which is an understandable feeling, even if it’s not an appropriate reaction to have at him at this time.

What Nightwing contributed emotionally........hm. This is a mess, honestly; he was all over the map, and not just because of having Brother Blood in his head. I cannot speak definitively on this, it’s too inconsistent.

For most of their relationship, Kori was the more intensely invested one, the one to initiate and the one who was shown at length to be excited to come home at the end of the day to their shared apartment because her boyfriend was there to see and talk to. If we set aside his more egregious white male bullshit, Dick was pretty emotionally available most of the time, though? They were cute.

Since they split up a lot of ink has been spilled making him less into her in retrospect, but he was pretty invested--leaving her coincided with mental breakdowns both times, and it wasn’t even mostly because she was doing his emotional processing for him, because she wasn’t, although it’s fair to say he often fell into using the relationship as an emotional crutch. Kori was definitely doing the same thing though so...it wasn’t the most balanced relationship in fiction history, but apart from slight codependency and the racism, it was decent enough.

She gets more evenhanded development than most superhero love interests, honestly, because she was costarring in a team book. She had her own storylines. She had other friends.

Mostly both of them just needed some space to finish growing up and stop being retraumatized long enough to process some of the existing trauma better, and I think they could have gone on being good for each other for a long time.

[thedistrictsleepsalonetonight]

Space girl

The beginning of most love stories: the moon falls in love with the sun.

(The problem, however, is that most love stories aren’t set in the Boiling Isles. To confirm that the metaphor works adequately, there must exist at least one moon and one sun in your admittedly bonkers world. Is there a sun? A moon?)

Amity shivers where she’s sitting at her window, stares up at the bright bluish orb hanging over the sky and decides it does, in fact, qualify as a celestial body, whatever the hell that means. Luz has been teaching them about the intricacies of the human world, every bit of knowledge that they would require if in case they ever got transported there accidentally, and that includes something called a smartphone, a bus and the shortest way to the nearest vending machine, preferably a vending machine that stocks Mars Bars. Amity suspects the last is just another one of Luz’s whims, but has no way of confirming.

(And what is the point of confirming anything anyways? It is enough to sit in front of Luz, or beside her or anywhere with a direct line of sight to her, so Amity can listen to her blabber on about chocolate chips and scrambled eggs and something called a Tumblr; enough to get lost in the insistent, sunshine shaped cadence of her voice and forget about the perils of the week.

Plus, is the sun ever wrong?)

A month ago, Amity would have been alarmed at how easily she writes down her utter devotion towards a very human someone who gets beaten up on the regular by some ancient eldritch horror. Now the words just walk out of her quill and plant themselves firmly on the page like they couldn’t belong anywhere else, except maybe her paramour’s heart. That’s the problem with the moon falling in love with the sun. it’s annoying yet ineffable and inevitable. It’s also the easiest thing she’s ever done.

*****

Emira figures it out first. Which probably means that Edric knows as well, since Amity is pretty sure the twins share a single mind and keep passing it to each other like they’re in an eternal Grudgby match. However, he’s not the one who appears in her room in the middle of the night to scare her half to death. That’s all Emira.

“What,” Amity starts, one hand on her chest, other reaching instinctively for her training wand at the sight of a green cloud of smoke that’s materialized in her room out of nowhere, “in the world are you doing here?”

Her sister leans against the doorway, like she’s been there all along, takes in her room. Amity knows it’s clean, knows that there is not a speck of dust hiding beneath the floorboards or an errant cape strewn on her bed, and yet can’t help following Emira’s gaze anxiously as it travels across her neatly arranged trophy on the shelf, her table and the loose floorboard she now hides her diary under, before she comes to rest on hers.

“You never told us what happened at the library the other day,” she says, finally.

Amity blinks. “I did tell you what happened. Otabin turned into a monster and tried to sew me, literally, into a book. Had to be fought off.”  

She doesn’t continue with the subsequent thoughts in her head. Luz was there. Brave, idiotic Luz with a tendency of barging into adventures without a second thought. Luz, who I would’ve jumped into fire for. Luz, who made (makes) me laugh.

“You mean you and Luz?” Emira asks, innocently.

She bites the inside of her cheek, tries hard not to betray the smile that’s trying to creep up her face at the sound of Luz’s name. Nods.

“Luz is pretty cool, is she not?” Emira continues, and okay, there’s no reason to say someone’s name this much in one conversation. She ambles around her room, touching things at random, while Amity regulates her breathing. This was pathetic. The sound of someone’s name wasn’t supposed to make her feel like her heart was going to burst out of her, wasn’t supposed to climb up her throat and turn into absolute warmth all over her face.  

“Uh huh,” she manages. “I guess. Yeah. Eh. Yeah.” Too much too much too much too much.

Emira is suddenly in her face then. She places her hand on Amity’s shoulders, stares right into her eyes.

“Aw, Mittens,” she chuckles. “You’re adorable when you have a crush.”

And then she disappears.

Amity does manage to chuck the object nearest to her (which happens to be her training wand) at Emira’s retreating figure. Then she sits on the floor and curls up into an embarrassed ball. You know, as one does.

*****

The whole jumping into danger for Luz thing would be a lot more avoidable if Luz didn’t have an equally huge jumping into danger for Amity thing as well.

Which is such a godforsaken Luz thing to do. The idiot immersed herself in a cauldron full of sludge for Willow, who she had met minutes ago, of course she would take on her burden for Grom night. Of course she would somehow break the cage Amity had conjured up for her to come save Eda and Edric and Emira and of course she would help her make things right with Willow. If the girl had one coherent thought when she woke up every morning, it was probably this – Ooh, someone’s in trouble? Let me fix it!

(She does inevitably manage to turn a tiny cut into a gushing wound in absolutely no time at all, but would Luz even be Luz without shenanigans?)

Amity loves it. It gives her a heart attack, but she loves how Luz is always ready to help out a random stranger. She’s never met anyone with a heart bigger than Luz’s and a personality sunnier than hers.

(Also hasn’t met anyone who’s cuter, or prettier, or better-looking in a strange black-pink-frilly-yet-well-tailored attire, but let’s not go there)

Either way, it’s completely understandable that she immediately reaches for her wand when Luz climbs up onto her balcony after Grom night, ready to fight whatever it was that was evidently bothering her.

“No!” Luz holds up her hands, shoots her a quick smile. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Oh,” she says, feeling herself relax. “So, um — why are you — here?”

“I could go! If you — wanted to, sleep or—”

“—no! Absolutely not!” Curse her for picking the absolute worst way to phrase a question. Why hadn’t she said Hey Luz, it’s so nice to see you, what brings you here? Or Hey Luz, please walk into my room and never leave.

(You know. Either works)

“I’m glad you’re here,” Amity says, then fumbles for something, anything, to add on to that revealing statement. “I mean, I couldn’t sleep anyways.”

Luz nods, and then giggles when Amity joins her onto the balcony and in the moonlight.

“What?” she asks, a little self-conscious. Also very charmed. Making Luz laugh was like some form of intoxicating elixir; Amity was hooked onto the feeling. Luz laughing made the world brighter.

(God, she was so gone for this idiot.)

“Your pajamas have tiny owls all over them,” Luz points out.

“Okay, that’s it!” she says, half-turning to go back into her room, when Luz’s hand grabs her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Luz is still laughing. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. You look cute.”

Thank you, Luz. That’s very nice of you, Luz. You look nice in your strange clothes and oversized jacket as well, Luz. Those were all potential responses she could deliver.

Instead, she makes a choked-off noise that sounds suspiciously like hngg and closes her eyes.  

(She’s so gone for this idiot)

*****

“Does your moon look like the one here?” Amity asks, one night of many, when they’re sitting on her balcony staring up at the gigantic thing. There’s some quiet song about stars and lovers that’s playing on that infernal device Luz is always toting around, and Luz is next to her, her arm brushing against Amity’s, radiating warmth out from the point of contact.

Amity wouldn’t mind if she died happy right at this moment.

“It’s a little different, I think,” Luz tilts her head, regarding it thoughtfully. Then she picks up her phone, taps at it and holds it out in front of Amity. “Here, that’s the moon back home.”

It isn’t bluish like this one. Nor is it smooth, unblemished. It’s got marks all over it, remnants, Amity presumes of outside forces long gone by. Enraptured, she leans in for a closer look.

“It’s orange!”

“It was just that day,” Luz informs her. “It isn’t orange all the time.”

“It changes colors?” That was surprising. Also fascinating.

“Not — not all the time. It’s complicated, I guess.”

Amity likes the wide smile Luz holds when she talks about this. Luz is so expressive, she couldn’t hide her feelings to save her life. Most of the time in school, when being faced down by exasperated teachers Amity thinks of it as a curse. Now, however, at midnight, while it’s just the two of them, and she is privy to this unbridled display of everything that makes up Luz, she’s enamored.

“Why do you like the moon so much?” she asks, curious.

“Why do you like the sun so much?” Luz shoots back, playfully.

Oh. That one’s easy. “Because it turns everything golden. Because it’s airy and light. Because it makes me feel warm inside.” Because your eyes turn a particular shade in the sunlight and it’s hard to look at you directly, you shine so bright. Because every time the sun comes up, it is a precursor to me seeing you in school.  

Because it reminds me of you.

Luz looks at her, her eyes uncharacteristically wide and serious. “I like the moon because it makes me feel seen. Because it’s almost as lonely as I am. Because I can trust it enough to know that it’s mostly always there, even if it’s behind the clouds at the moment.”

They’re staring at each other, eyes wide, and Amity can’t breathe. She thinks of a lonely Luz staring up at the night sky back in the human world, talking to the moon, and it twinges, sorrowfully, like a ukulele out of tune, at a place deep underneath her chest. Some strange mixture of I’m sorry you had no one to talk to and I wish I’d been there, I wish I’d known you back then — I’d have listened to all your stories.  

“Plus,” Luz smiles, “it’s pretty.”

Amity blinks, and the spell is broken. Luz jerks, as if coming out of a dream, and stands up straight. Stammers, fumbles, makes a truly terrible joke about broomsticks and King and the annoying owl slash security guard slash housekeeper and runs off, leaving her completely confused.

*****

It’s when Gus finds out that Amity discovers that everyone and their parent has known about her Grometheus sized crush on Luz the entire time.  

“But why didn’t you tell me?” He’s still sulking about it in a corner, while Amity is faced down by Willow, Edric, Emira, Eda and King at the same time.

“Nobody told anyone, strange little child,” Eda waves a hand impatiently at him. “We just have eyes.”

Edric casts a momentary silencing spell on him, but Amity is pretty sure he’s mouthing the words “But I have eyes too”. Not that she’s too worried about Gus. He’ll be fine.... eventually. It’s more the fact that she now has to figure out which parts of her behavior have apparently clued in the whole world to the fact that her heart is waddling around in an idiot’s chest, most times.

“How about the fact that you can’t stop smiling when I bring her up?” She does not—

“Or that you did some pretty advanced magic trying to save her when that Slither-Beast had us?” How did he-

“You nearly combusted when she picked you up after our Grudgby match?” It wasn’t that bad.

She buries her head in her hands. Then looks up at King.

“Do you want to add anything?”

“No,” he replies. “I had no idea until today. I just didn’t want to be lumped in with Gus over there.”

She stands up, picks up her bag. “Okay, I am clearly at a disadvantage here—”

“Mittens, come back,” Edric grabs the back of her shirt, lets her flail for a minute before she gives up.

“I just — I just wanted to get her something nice for her birthday tomorrow, okay? And instead I’m being ambushed by the entirety of Boiling Isles.”

“But we are trying to help you, kid,” Eda tells her, now lounging on the couch with King on her lap. “God knows I love that child, but she has not an ounce of common sense in her. There is no way she’s ever going to figure out you’re in love with her if you don’t—”

“—whoa, whoa, whoa, love? That’s — please — completely crazy — idea. I’m not — in — love. That’s—”

She’s not. She’s not. So what if she keeps interrogating Gus on human things so she can impress Luz with her admittedly flawed knowledge on all things non-Boiling Isles? So what if she hasn’t slept more than five hours for the past one month because Luz comes over at night and they end up talking until past midnight? What does it even matter that Luz is the only person who she feels any form of innate comfort around? Or that every time she lends Luz her jacket when it gets chilly, the sight of an awkwardly clad Luz in that oversized thing makes her heart feel full to the point of bursting?  

That’s not love.  

(Some strange whisper echoes through her head, leaving echoes of But it could be behind)

Luz is the sun, okay? Bright and beautiful and adored by everyone. There’s no reason she could, or that she even should pay attention to Amity. Her affection is easily given, evenly split between all her friends and the citizens of the world; there’s no way Amity could ever hope to exert enough gravity to make Luz notice her, no way she could dare to hope for a greater portion in Luz’s long list of priorities.

(After all, does the sun even know that moon exists?)

*****

“Come on, Amity!”

She presses her lips flat, tries not to burst into laughter at the sight of an impatient Luz, vibrating by her side, hands opening and closing in the air.  

“I know you have a gift for me! And you’ve been hiding it from everyone! Nobody at the party knew!”

“Aren’t you tired from the party?” she asks, knowing the abrupt change in topic is just going to annoy Luz more. It had been a hectic affair, after all. Monster complications in the morning aside, the Owl House had seen an impressive number of guests who wanted to wish Luz a very happy birthday. An impressive number of guests along with an impressive number of gifts.

All except one.

“Nope. Not tired at all,” Luz tells her, promptly. “Completely alert and ready to receive the gift that I know you’ve gotten me but aren’t giving me yet, because you like messing with me.”

Amity twists her face into the visual equivalent of Who, me but conjures up a wrapped box either way. It falls into Luz’s outstretched hands, and then she has to tell her to shush unless they want Amity’s parents grounding her, forever.

(Not that it pleases her, much. She hates telling Luz to quiet down, because it tends to break her out of whatever spiel she is embarking upon, and Amity adores it when Luz rambles. Her eyes shine, and her hands move around animatedly, and her voice, her voice is so, so sweet she doesn’t mind it telling her about things she cannot comprehend)

She puts a hand on Luz’s right arm just as she’s about to unwrap it. “Luz,” she starts, already embarrassed, but determined to power through, “this, is probably not the best gift, and probably not even accurate as well, so you have to tell me if you don’t like it, okay? I’ve got other backup gifts I’d planned on giving you, so no worries, okay? Just—”

“Amity,” Luz cuts in, her excited smile morphing into something a little quieter, gentler, “I already love it.”

“You haven’t even seen it yet.”

Luz shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, still looking at her. Only resumes unwrapping it when Amity nods. Opens the box, and thankfully isn’t looking at her when Amity starts talking.

“I tried — to make it as close to the real thing as possible,” she says, watching Luz look at the off-white orb in wonder. “King helped. He went on something called the, the internet? And turns out your moon has a lot of craters! But it’s pretty regardless, so I tried — to. Yeah.”

She’s not exactly surprised when Luz leans over and hugs her. They’re sitting side by side so the angle’s a little off, but it’s not like she cares. Luz, beautiful, happy, Luz is here and she’s solid in her arms, and she can feel her smile against her neck and Amity is going to die—

“Thank you.” Luz disentangles herself from the embrace, but still pretty close. “I — Amity. Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

But I want to. I want to give you things, and I want to give you things that you like and that will maybe remind you of me. She places a hand on the orb between them, sees it light up.

“It also does this,” she informs Luz, unnecessarily. Then places a hand again, watches it turn orange. “Changes colors. Like yours does.”

She finally looks at Luz again, after a moment of complete silence, only to see her staring back. The look in her eyes is so — so intense (Amity can think of no other way to describe it), that it makes her want to turn away and cover her face. Like it’s going to burn her up if she keeps looking into her eyes.  

And then Luz quickly darts forward to press a kiss to her cheek, and Amity combusts.

(Only inside. You’d think it was possible, wouldn’t you? It was the Boiling Isles, after all. But no. Nobody had spontaneously combusted since Elaric the Great and as far as anybody could tell, it didn’t have anything to do with romance)

The kiss lands half on her half and half on her skin because she’s pretty sure Luz hasn’t exactly thought it through either. There’s a single, blissful moment of peace, and then then her heart goes into overdrive, beating away like it’s trying to catch a train.

Speaking of things trying to catch a train, however....

“I have to go!” Luz scrambles away, gets up. Her face looks red as well, and Amity, a little stumped, watches it happen, as though in slow motion. Even through her haste, she picks up the replica of the moon carefully and wraps it up in her jacket. “I’ll — see you tomorrow! At school! Where we both.... go. So. Yeah. Goodnight!”

“Goodnight?” Amity replies, softly.

Right before she’s about to climb down, Luz stops. Turns around, and very quickly says something that Amity for the life of her cannot figure out.

(Also, because she’s still in the tummy-woozy, mind-blank state of just having a kiss pressed to her cheek by the most perfect girl in the world)

“Can you say that again?”

“I, uh,” Luz slows down, deliberately, her voice coming out quieter. “Did you totally hate that?”

Oh.

Oh, gosh, the idiot.

Amity shakes her head, grins at her, hoping that says what she isn’t brave enough to say yet. “No, Luz. I didn’t hate that.”

*****

She keeps the picture of Luz’s tremulous, answering smile wrapped in the fist she presses to her heart a long time after she’s gone.

*****

And that’s how the story ends. With the sun smiling at the moon.  

[flyonthewallmedstudent]

Watching House as a Physician.  Season 2 Episode 3. Infectious diseases & Respiratory.

Welcome to another episode of medicine done badly.  I’ve been watching House on Amazon prime.  Got the subscription during the pandemic, as like everyone else, I’ve garnered an online shopping habit now. 

Alright. In the opening scene a young roof worker falls off the roof presumably due to acute shortness of breath. i.e. trouble breathing. (why do we use the term shortness of breath? it’s the english version of the greek term dyspnoea - the actual preferred language of Western doctors. Fuck do I know why we like Greek and Latin so much. Moving on.) Then cut to Dr. Cuddy examining him in the back of the ambulance. 

This would never happen in real life. Yes you can be on the scene and handover to the paramedics or EMT when they arrive as a doctor. But they would take over. I personally wouldn’t have the balls to look after a patient in a different environment, different resources and field I’m not familiar with. You can have field Emergency docs - but requires different training. 

Also, ethically, you’re not meant to treat family or friends. Dr. Cuddy later in the episode gets a bit emotionally involved - this is why we don’t treat people close to us. We lose objectivity. We make mistakes. And you see later see Cuddy do some pretty bad ones. 

I feel like much of this episode is not really IM. THere’s less differential diagnoses being made. More side tracks into trauma, emergency, intensive care or vascular surgery. 

Anyhoo. Trauma and emergency would manage the fall and post fall traumatic injuries. And the trauma protocol was either not shown or completely off in this episode. Surgeons don’t seem to exist in House, at least not very much. Similarly, no other doctors exist except surgeons in Grey’s anatomy.  Also you can’t clear a C Spine clinically, which is what Dr. Cuddy does in the back of the ambulance. You’d need a CT first and clearance both radiological (by a radiologist) and a clinician. 

Aaaanddd, you can’t just listen to the chest and go no pneumothorax (air in lung or collapsed lung) - yes it’s reassuring, but again you’d need imaging to confirm this, given how serious a condition this is. It is realistic to consider in the setting of a fall, particularly if there are rib fractures that can puncture the lung.

Once the more critical injuries are managed, we would look after the IM side to things. 

So. Finally.. differential diagnoses.

Takes what seems and feels like days before they finally sit down and go through differentials. Really not much on that white board. Dark fingers, broken ribs, fever and lung infiltrates. Time line’s not clear on when he developed the fever.

Presenting complaint isn’t really addressed. It could be: - Dyspnoea, leading to the fall, he’s requiring O2 via nasal prongs, which suggests that he’s hypoxic (this is definitely odd in a young guy who’s normally very physical fit if he works as labourer). so much to unpack here, but they never get into this well.  Post fall, Cuddy notices his ring and pinky finger becoming dusky, which becomes very central in this episode. Very few things would cause this. pains me that they do no differentials on a white board for this alone. 

Then a lot of throwing around medical terms. 

PTT prolonged and Fibrinogen off. These are markers of your coagulation pathway and signs that you’re not forming the clots the way you should if you have an injury.  DIC is also thrown around. What is DIC? Disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. Certainly severe sepsis and trauma can cause this and lead to severe bleeding. It will throw off your coagulation pathways (things that stop bleeding). It’s not common. I’ve treated it once, while I was rotating in ICU, it is not standard ward medicine practice. Standard therapy is fresh frozen plasma (FFP) and even large metropolitan hospitals only have a limited supply. It’s a huge concern for surgery and post-op (as you patient will just not stop bleeding after you cut them open, and if not treated, potentially bleed to death). Cuddy mentions ARDS. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, it could be a complication, but it’s not a cause. Again, falls more into the realm of critical care (a la ICU). However, patient had SOB prior to the fall. Finally HOuse makes the observation. of “what if he was sick before he had his run in with gravity...” Everyone jumps to Pneumonia. And this is where it gets confusing.  If he was unwell, the minute he entered the emergency department with a fever and hypoxia, they would have worked him up for any garden variety pneumonia, bacterial or viral. Cultures would have been sent and imaging. Any young hypoxic patient would prompt a closer look at the chest. And no one waits that long to start antibiotics - “sepsis kills” is a slogan often used around hospitals. You have to initiate empirical therapy within 30 mins, to reduce mortality and morbiditiy. 

Ordering an Echocardiogram (USS of the Heart) also makes no sense in the context of a lung infection. I would order one, but not to look at the lungs.

Then there’s the most unrealistic thing about this series. Doctors breaking into patient homes.

It is however, a good way to showcase social history. It’d be boring to watch a doctor ask the patient outright about their living situation etc, but it’s far more interesting to see exactly how they live. We try as much as possible to illustrate to each other and ourselves what the living environment and working environment of our patients are like. 

In the context of infection, a good social history can point out exposure. As they exemplify by showing dead rodents and mould. This leads to 2 further differentials: Rat bite fever (caused by streptobacillus, something you’d see in the US, but probably not anywhere else), it’s an unrealistic differential in general. And the 2nd is aspergillosis.  Okay..  So aspergillus is a mould commonly found in our environment. In fact it’s everywhere around us. 

THere’s few times when it’s an issue.  It is a concern in respiratory syndromes like asthma or bronchiectasis. And also as an opportunistic infection in immunocompromised individuals. in the context of asthma, it’s not so much the aspergillus itself that causes issue, it’s our body’s over reaction. It’s a hypersensitivity issue that causes inflammation in the lungs or a pneumonitis. We even gave it a name. Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. It’s still badness, but it doesn’t happen that quickly. We also have specific tests for this, which were obviously not considered in this episode of medicine done badly. In the immunocompromised host (steroid therapy in transplant patients or those on chemo, etc.), you can get the invasive mould as an opportunistic infection.  I don’t really understand why they think it would be the case here. Also, killing the bug with heavy duty anti fungals will only give more issues rather than do anything. They start him on amphotericin. this is not standard practice.  And now it flips to why amphotericin is not standard practice or first line treatment for invasive aspergillosis. The patient has now become anuric (not making any urine). (First line drug by the way is voraconazole, superior efficacy in trials with a lower mortality rate and ADRs) Also, note that they have just jumped straight to dire renal failure from the amphotericin. No work up. That said, heavy drugs like amphotericin are often a cause, but  It’s often temporary with the appropriate supportive measures (stop insulting agents, give hydration, monitor fluid balance), reversible, even if you require temporary dialysis or haemofiltration. Anyways, would get into AKI another day, that’s a whole other post in and of itself.  Then his hand is apparently “dying.” There’s pain on light touch, but it’s not a cold, pulseless limb. Or discoloured. doesn’t add up. This now enters vascular surgeon territory. Again. It’s interesting that there’s never any referrals to any other teams. If he has good circulation, I would imagine they would try to save the hand and consider other differentials. 

The only time I can think of an emergency amputation in this situation is necrotising fascitiis. That’s the only thing that would occur that rapidly  AND necessitate losing tissue or limb.  With a young person who’s this ill, there’s often multiple subspecialties involved by this point. I’m also surprised he’s not in ICU.

Then there’s a buncha filler scenes of the cast of house getting emotional. Ho my god, they’ve taken the hand of a young 20 something physical labourer. Indeed, this is badness. Unlike House, we actually are trained to always consider how a patient’s illness impacts their activities of daily living and livelihood. 

I find the general population assumes that we practice medicine in a vacuum, we merely treat the clinical illness and ignore everything else. They imagine that we all must be like house. 

Actually we try to put things in perspective as much as possible and knowing our limitations in this area, we often enlist the help of friends - physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social workers. They never exist on TV or on the movies. Ever. Unless it’s to portray how terrible it is to be a social worker.  From time to time in this episode, Cuddy laments that being chief of medicine is too administrative and she hasn’t been a doctor in years. That also doesn’t happen in real life. If you’re chief you’re still a doctor. You have admin shit to do deal with yes, but you still practice. It’s like being chief resident, in all the TV shows with one of these, you still seem them working as residents, be it scrubs or grey’s anatomy. 

Back to the differential. They finally get to endocarditis. Culture negative to be precise. That indeed would explain the bilateral dusky fingers that led to unnecessary amputation. Septic emboli. 

Going to stop here, more out of exhaustion now. I’ve created quite a lengthy post. Happy to reblog thoughts on culture negative endocarditis on request later. This is a worthy topic to study up on for students or residents. At least review Duke’s criteria and think about your clinical features like Roth Spots and Janeway lesions or Ouch Osler’s nodes. 

The ending is also a far fetched connection to make, but is one that we would consider. In fact, we would ask in detail every time from day one - have you had any exposure to animals. It’s very rare to see someone so young be that sick out of the blue when you’re immunocompetent and have no underlying predisposing conditions. If there’s no focal source, then we would even ask about injectable recreational drugs, exotic travels, sexual health. 

Most of the time, patients that sick are honest to their doctors. 

But what about..

Frankly, much as we lie as humans, when our lives our on the line, we’re generally pretty honest (sometimes too honest) with the people we want to save us. 

Any patient who is young and comes to hospital requiring inpatient admission, they’d be investigated by subspecialties with expertise in certain areas such as infectious disease. The dept of infectious disease would either be home team, or all over this patient as they special in the realm of both common and rare infectious diseases, culture negative endocarditis would have been considered before a hand amputation.

The term, “department of diagnostic medicine is laughable,” particularly when they consider it the only department in the world in the show. 

In actuality, it’s a department that is universal and exists everywhere. it’s Internal medicine. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the next surgeon general (and also the last one under Obama) is an internal medicine physician. Ken Jeong of Community and the Hangover fame is also a physician of internal medicine. 

Beginning to get the sense that most episodes are going to end with a diagnosis that is either infectious disease, rheumatology or haematology. But generally those tend to be most interesting and give the most plot twists or meaty differentials V.s. a stroke or acute myocardial infarction is fairly straightforward to diagnose. 

This is a very twisty episode in all the wrong directions. 

Dyspnoea is a very common presenting complaint. There’s a properly done approach to this in the podcast by the Curbsiders by the way. 

[peepingtoad]

OKAY SO. 

It’s not that often that I talk about what I really think about Jiraiya, and I guess I mean more how I feel about him, since I always try to write my ‘deeper’ headcanons/metas from a more... idk, trying not to get too emotional about it point of view. Basically it’s because I know how controversial he is, and I pretty much ritually avoid a lot of takes because I don’t want to get irritated about something that really doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme, because we’re all entitled to our opinions and I largely get my say through the act of writing and developing him how I see fit.

Which is enough for me, mostly, but for the purpose of reinforcing/building upon how I see my muse’s plight, working through some of my Sannin-feels and also to dip my toes into why I find blindly judgemental/single-faceted takes of him, his priorities and the Sannin’s bond so exasperating, I kinda feel like rambling my thoughts (feelings) anyway! 

Politely sticks this stream-of-consciousness mess under a cut.

So sometimes I do think about the fact that Jiraiya kinda, lmao, forgot about Everything Else in the world because of Orochimaru and his (frankly) obsession with him/them. And the fact that a ridiculously significant portion of bad shit that happened is down to his actions/inaction. And the fact that he really did go and leave the likes of Naruto (and maybe to a degree Kakashi, although there’s zero actual evidence he didn’t get involved given the strong indications of a great rapport in the canon), just because he was so hellbent on pursuing Orochimaru, who was not even shown to be affectionate towards him at the best of times. When I think about it in terms of Jiraiya being gone and the main reason we’re given for it, things suck for a number of people, and quite largely because of potentially unrequited/horribly communicated/obsessive JiraOro pursuits, in essence :’)

(And for all it’s still quite the rarepair, Jiraiya does express on accounts that he was destroyed when Oro left. I mean... this is the guy who rarely acknowledges his sadness so... It’s not my bias at all I sware)

Of course JiraTsu is very real in my eyes too, albeit a very different kinda tragic, as is OroTsu. And the messy poly ship? Ohohoho, even better, but... yeah. Tsunade does at least go her own way for a long time, as messed up as that is in itself, for reasons including the fact she seems to pointedly not heal or move on from her grief. And given the absolute debacle that was her and Jiraiya reuniting... and both her and Oro even discussing a possibility of sacrificing him... and just, them in general for that whole arc :’))) yeah. They are without a doubt messy and troubled, but even despite how fraught things become I genuinely think all the furtive expressions and the undercurrents of longing and the evasion of their past exhibits a history much deeper and full of lost love compared to many other team dynamics we get (otherwise the Three Way Divorce wouldn’t have been quite so horrible on them, would it? That and they’d probably have split up after Team Hiruzen was no more, if they really hated each other/just tolerated each other out of familiarity like I sometimes see speculated).

But yeah, back to our main man. Jiraiya’s intense (and frankly very Scorpio of him) love for our first series Big Bad kinda did ruin him and what he was setting out to do in some ways, to the degree that the actual story of Naruto wouldn’t be very much without him in terms of drama. I mean, he always loved a good story, right? So art imitates life, and innit just pathetic poetic.

And in so many ways it is incredibly tragic and pitiable that he’s Just Like That. Idealistic and warping everything terrible, no matter how bad, into adventure in his mind! As growth! As pain that makes you TOUGH and makes you a stronger man! As something to be pushed aside while you just keep on truckin’! Whatever anyone you love throws at you, it’s Totally Fine!

After so long narrating through his personal lens, I’ve come to realise he truly is so convinced that everything bad that happens, is sort of just... something he has to deal with and feel big and guilty and feelsy for while spinning it in ways that enable him to keep going. He just loads it on himself and sorta holds it. The fact he’s so sad and filled with sickly pining grief that he has to try and exorcise it with impulsive bouts of decadence? Fine. And it’s not abnormal at all, how he approaches things with such broad scope and just kinda... thoughtlessly wrecking-balls his way through everything he thinks is a great idea at the time. He experiences the fallout of these things and simultaneously feels the entire ravages of it acutely while compartmentalising it ever so neatly away. The crazy thing, too, is that he’s exceptionally convincing at making everything he does and how he handles things seem so grand and noble and romantic and tragic... but in a humorously self-deprecating and still ultimately very hopeful way, to the degree that I as a mun get caught up in his relentless optimism and forget he actually is a sad and heartbroken guy wrapped up in all this grandiosity.

Sometimes I do step back and look and I just think yeah, fuck, he really is a total disaster! He’s a walking disaster and he’s been so damaging to himself and others in so many ways, all because of acting on emotions and impulses without really thinking about the impact! He really did kinda give up on those who needed him and for what? A love that will never love him or prioritise him back? 

A wonderfully tragic theme that I do love with him, don’t get me wrong.

But then at the same time, there’s always more nuance to be had than just ‘he is a disaster and made bad choices, as tragic and romantic as it is, he was actually just selfish and kinda sucked in the end, pathetically whipped by his friends and unable to let go of what they had’. There’s more nuance to be had than reducing him to a purely romantically-inclined character, who just snubs everyone else for a doomed love... because in the end, I think a huge part of JiraOro’s demise in particular was that Oro felt immensely snubbed by Jiraiya when he stayed in Ame, when his loyalty to Konoha (as a place and people, not necessarily a system) and of course loyalty to his own ideals was prioritised over Oro.

To an extent, I feel like Tsunade could have been a similar case, were she not preoccupied with already having lost so much, and besides I really do think she and Jiraiya were quite firmly in best friend zone at that point. With Tsunade not being able to get comfortable around Jiraiya or to pursue any underlying affection for him because of the dumbass way he always behaved (understandably of her tbh), probably until she got with Dan, by which point I reckon Jiraiya started to really come through by showing how he valued her for her, where we see by them having each other’s backs so closely in the second war. Not to mention him generally respecting that his feelings for her have no place by the time he gets her back to Konoha.

In terms of that first split in Ame, Jiraiya, I feel, simply didn’t think him leaving was going to be a big deal, because the three were always fiercely headstrong people who had their own shit going on (simultaneously independent while also being, perhaps not to their knowledge, So Very Codependent). Not only that, but his overly affectionate ways and incessant jolliness were probably considered such a joke that he was basically like ‘they’ll be fine without me’. I certainly don’t think he felt needed by them, which I don’t think is their fault or a point of angst and ‘waaah poor blameless Jiraiya’, because quite honestly, the strain on their relationship was something I fully believe even he didn’t realise he needed out of at the time. His one-track mind was just on ‘save kids, teach kids, this is right, must seize opportunity to be the change I was told I’d be, not continue with this godforsaken war’

Selfish? Maybe. Well-intentioned? Certainly. Intended to hurt anyone or imply he stopped caring? No.

In essence, when it comes to why in the end Jiraiya seemed to be so horrendously bad at being around at the worst of times, at being responsible, whatever else (and I’m not even going to go into scenes intended to be comedic because, they are comedic)... I’ve got to look at it from more than just one view. It’s easy to say ‘he’s ridiculous and terrible because he pretty much flaked on what was important based on his whims/a doomed love/his dick’ (which I have seen said lmao) but there are so many other things at play here.

So I’m thinking, while he was shirking duties (godfatherly mainly)... did he actually consider that his most important duty? Was it anyone’s place to tell him it was? Minato didn’t, as I recall, and when he sacrificed himself he specifically left it to the Third because he (presumably) respected what his teacher was about and knew he wasn’t for staying put. Did Jiraiya not consider his primary duty to be to the prophecy, and in a more general sense fixing the big wrongs and trying to foil big dangers to his home? Were these things not pretty much what he existed for (as much as his faith wavered and went off the rails at times)? Was that not the main source of any real purpose he ever had, being a kid who showed practically no ambition before? Did he not pretty much redesign himself as being ‘from Mt. Myōboku’ rather than Konoha after two devastating wars, and thus is it not understandable for him not to focus solely on Konoha—not outright destroying it, still ultimately loyal to his home and not about to let anyone destroy it, but seeing that the world is in fact so much bigger than just his little town? Is that really something that’s so bad and wrong of him, in a story where the main cast’s country has a pretty fucking nasty system and is established to do so very early on? Is he not pretty revolutionary in his own brand of not blindly serving, but not going on a destroy-it-all frenzy either?

Also, was he not the only one who actually bothered to investigate Akatsuki and the forces that would see Naruto dead, in time? For all he did help bring Akatsuki into existence in ways, it was inevitable from before he even met the orphans that they were going to be groomed/moulded into what they became, regardless of whether Jiraiya came onto the scene. Jiraiya leaving them was just a different kind of suffering to what they were inevitably going to suffer anyway, and hell, with his influence at least there was a time where they might’ve stood a chance of going totally against Madara/Obito’s path, especially while Yahiko was still around. Jiraiya didn’t know that the whole thing with the Ame orphans was, by a design out of his control, doomed to end horribly. So while he felt personally responsible not knowing this, and it’s taken as a given that he was... actually, was he, when there was a master manipulator at play? Was it wrong to want to give some kids a chance?

With regards to all those things I see people say he should have stayed and fixed, that he should have been there, he should have done x y z... Is it not the responsibility of everyone not satisfied with their lot to step up to the plate and make where they live better? Jiraiya wasn’t the only adult. Tsunade, and I absolutely love her, does seem overwhelmingly to be absolved of leaving Konoha because... ??? Kicker is that she too is related to Naruto, of course. 

So... was she not also needed for the very material ways she could’ve helped at numerous points? Was she not also placing her grief and lost love before everything else? Are some reasons inherently more ok than others to ditch? As Kakashi’s generation grew up, was it not also then up to them to decide whether they’d change the status quo? Were Minato’s own generation, presumably his own peer group, not complicit in Naruto’s ostracisation? We got a slight taste of rebellion with Asuma, Hiruzen’s own son, but the fact is many Konoha-nin were overwhelmingly complacent with how things were. And yet never get demonised at all for it. Because it’s Jiraiya’s fault for... not staying and giving it all up to be a guardian who could well be depressed and unfit to raise a child... or just being a flaky as hell one that’s never there anyway because he has shit to do? (and in doing the former would let too many things go unchecked by a completely tuned-out Hokage, not gathering all that spicy useful intel, y’know... essentially he wouldn’t have ended up largely doing his job along with the personal shit in between).

Basically when I see claims saying that Jiraiya as an individual should have done pretty much everything better, and somehow been there for everyone that needed him at any given time, and that (mostly Naruto’s) suffering was a failing on Just His part because of his selfish whims... I feel like the point of his tragedy is absolutely missed. That tragedy being that barrelling through things alone is definitely a failing and harmful in numerous ways, as we see with Itachi shouldering everything alone too, and we see them both miss out on Naruto and Sasuke as a result... but at the same time, is just settling down and leaving everything else to chance not also a huge failing, when there are so many other circumstances and enemies acting against you, when you do have the power to change tides, and when so many other people refuse to or can’t seize their own agency? Jiraiya does put his faith in a lot of people too, and a lot of people fail. Don’t fail him, but in a general sense many, like Minato, fail to make the change they wanted to. That’s life in this world, it’s tragic, and after losing a lot of loved ones yeah, he retreats and goes at it alone. 

But how can he win? How does he do what’s right, other than by chasing what he thinks he can do to actually help the world, which happens to be bigger and not centred on individuals, even those he cares about?

(and remember, nobody knows Naruto is special-reincarnation-prophecy-boi, which is why I tend not to blame-game any characters for him being treated like so many orphans were because... while it’s not morally right or nice at all, it’s tone deaf to how the world is, to the fact all characters having different degrees of knowledge and priorities, and it’s insensitive of the fact most the characters had their own struggles and were just doing their best with a bad lot gdi). 

Hell though, Jiraiya even does put Oro, his big obsessive wild goose chase that whisks him away into selfish pining hopelessly devoted land, on the back burner at points. Maybe not in a lasting way, particularly by the last databook where he’s inspired anew by Naruto, but he does prioritise other shit on numerous occasions. And there’s a lot of shit to try and prioritise.

What I’m trying to say is, Jiraiya can’t solely be held responsible for people. Sure, he’s a character whose decisions were pivotal to events, but what of every other character in the story? Why are they not held to the same crazy high standard of doing and protecting and preventing and somehow doing everything ‘right’ that would have also meant him fitting neatly into the Konoha mould? Would other characters really have been that much better in the position of The Big Guide/Martyr/Tragic Hero/Force For Change character? And also is having a tragic Chaotic Good bastard of a hero not a sign of a damn good and interesting character, that at the very least tried where so many others didn’t? Would Naruto not have been a boring as hell story, whose main protag didn’t really have much conflict to make him compelling, without Jiraiya (among others) being a mess with the best intentions? Without so many other characters having failed him, for him to overcome it and still be able to love and inspire change (albeit through sometimes-clumsy talk-no-jutsu)? Was I missing the point of the story?

............. Hmm!

No longer sure where else I’m going with this now, so.... here, I guess, ends my ode to why character hate (especially that reduces them to One Thing) is dumb, why demonising truly well-meaning characters doesn’t feel particularly woke to me in a cast full of flawed characters and horrible circumstance, and why I’ll defend this poor bastard with far too damn much hinging on him to the end I guess :’)

TL;DR HE’S A DUMBASS AND HE TRIED, OKAY?!

[charmmycolour]

Lilo & Stitch: Kweltikwanians and Plorgonarians

Lilo & Stitch dedicates plenty of time to expose and explain everything that is known about Jumba’s experiments, especially 626. However, lovers of extended lore may want to know more about Jumba himself or the other alien on the franchise, Pleakley.

Unfortunately, there’s a severe lack of information about their species available to read at once. And fortunately, here I am! I watched the four movies and all the series and collected all the facts and interesting bits I could find about them. It’s possible other things had escaped me, and in that case, please let me know! The more information we have, the better.

This only includes things that are stated, mentioned or implied in canon, which means you can’t find my personal headcanons here (does anyone want to hear that?). Between brackets and in bold you have where every one of these references had been found.

Ready?

Kweltikwanians

Jumba’s home planet is known as Kweltikwan, also spelled Quelte Quan or Kweltiquan (The Asteroid). His species is either referred as Kweltikwanian or simply Kweltikwan and was revealed on promotional material and official descriptions before the first movie’s release.

Tantalog, the fictional language the experiments talk fluidly, is presumedly the native tongue of Kweltikwan and Jumba (Lilo & Stitch).

Kweltikwanians are most likely a binary species with males and females, according to the existence of Jumba’s ex-wife (Spooky) and a photo of a female-looking Kweltikwanian on the wall of Jumba’s cell (Lilo & Stitch). Their sexual dimorphism seems to be limited to females having bigger breast and being slightly more bluish than purple.

Two more woman can be seen in the cell, but the lack of details makes difficult to determine if they are intended to be Kweltikwanians. If they were, it would confirm it’s possible for them to have sharper teeth (and presumably, it would be considered a desired trait) and pale skin without markings (Lilo & Stitch).

Females having breast suggest newborns may need be nursed for a while before being able to absorb their own nutrients (Spooky). If that was the case, females may have nipples.

Male Kweltikwanians don’t have nipples (Lilo & Stitch: The Series) (Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Have a Glitch).

Kweltikwanians don’t have visible belly buttons (Lilo & Stitch).

Kweltikwanians have four teeth in total. The most notorious are two big rounded fangs leaning towards each end of the bottom of the mouth, usually the only ones visible. Two smaller but similar ones can be seen at the top, leaning slightly more at the center (Lilo & Stitch).

However, the Series Timeline added two more at the bottom, a lot smaller and a little more sharper, that can be found between the larger fangs, being the more centric of all the three sets (Stitch! The Movie). As these are very small and are usually not visible anyway, it can be explained that they were simply hidden.

Baby Kweltikwanians already have the larger fangs but lack the other sets (Babyfier).

The reason it’s hard to see their teeth it’s because Kweltikwanians have a blue membrane that seems to cover the inside of their mouth in front of the teeth (Lilo & Stitch). It’s unknow what the function of such membrane is, but it could be related to his aquatic capabilities.

Kweltikwanians tongue is blue, suggesting their blood is probably that color too (Lilo & Stitch).

Their strong accent, resembling a Russian one to humans, can also be the result of them lacking teeth for proper pronunciation and having a completely different native tongue (Lilo & Stitch) (Spooky).

On their planet, Kweltikwanians absorb most of their nutrients directly through the skin, and they need to eat rarely or not at all (The Asteroid). As Jumba is unable to do so on Earth and presumably on Turo, as he’s seen eating on his old lab (Frenchfry), it seems they need a specific atmosphere first to be able to absorb the nutrients.

Despite having a functional digestive system that allows them to eat, it seems Kweltikwanians don’t find the sensation pleasing at all (The Asteroid). Most likely, it’s due their lack of proper teeth, which would make chewing uncomfortable.

Kweltikwanians are able to either breath underwater or hold their breath for extended periods of time, as Jumba is seen diving without the help of a breathing apparatus, even with his mouth full open (Lilo & Stitch). It’s possible they can hold reserves of air somewhere on their body or have some organ that allows them to filter the oxygen from the water.

Kweltikwanians also have at least the potential to be quite amazing swimmers, as Jumba doesn’t need any equipment to dive and still moves underwater with much more precision that any of the other characters, even swimming inside a wave and jumping outside of it at the exact point he intended (Lilo & Stitch).

It quite compensates their movements on ground, where they are bulky, quite slow and prone to accidentally knock over things due their size (Lilo & Stitch).

However, that makes their body extremely durable. Kweltikwanians can withstand small plasma explosions, being hit with objects much larger and heavier than themselves and can hold a battle against stronger contestants (Lilo & Stitch).

That does not make them less skillful and precise about their movements. They think fast and are rarely clumsy (Stitch! The Movie) (Angel) (Heckler) (Swirly). Jumba is able to handle delicate equipment and chemicals despite his size, which suggest his species may have special abilities to crafting and tinkering (and may explain why Jumba doesn’t boost his ability to create and focus only on his intellect).

Kweltitwanian’s eyes also seem to suggest they are naturally good at mechanics. They have extremely good deep perception, more color receptors, and can focus on several things at once (Swapper). However, that also means they cannot concentrate well on a single object, which probably leads to a lot of multitasking. Every one of their eyes can blink independently. The two back eyes and the two front ones can depict different emotions and look at different places; but they can also be separate by side (two right ones and two left ones together) (Lilo & Stitch). In some rare occasions, it seems they can even use two opposite eyes for the same action (like winking), suggesting the four of them function separately and Kweltikwanians only use them together because it’s more comfortable.

When young, Kweltikwanians have a fluffy down hair on the same color that the markings on their skin (Babyfier). The nature of this seems to be temporary akin to baby birds, as they will develop normal hair later in life (Clip) (Spooky). Straight, curly and afro are possible, and so far, raven black and blonde had been observed.

Kweltikwanians hair seems to be able to grow really fast based on their self-esteem, if Jumba sudden hair grown is natural for them. However, it’s unknown if it was prompted by external causes, as he is seen earlier trying ways to get his hair back (Clip).

Being bald is perceived as negative on Kweltikwanian, based on Jumba’s reaction to his own lack of hair (Clip).

Kweltikwanians are very strong, as even someone like Jumba who is presented to not have any interest in working out can lift extremely heavy things (Lilo & Stitch) (Yin and Yang) (Melty) (Slushy).

On the other hand, they are not agile at all. Jumba had been seen able to run decent distances without panting, albeit slower than Lilo (627) (Spooky) (Remmy); but he had not jumped once, not even on a basketball game (Slugger). If Kweltikwanians cannot jump or Jumba is just too lazy for it, it’s up to the viewer.

As Jumba is almost always wearing high boots, it’s not seen often, but Kweltikwanians have three big, rounded toenails in each feet (Stitch! The Movie).

Jumba usually stand with his legs facing inwards (Lilo & Stitch). It’s unknow if it has something to do on how their hips are bended or he just have a bad posture.

In primitive stages of their development, Kweltikwanians used to have more sharper teeth that protrude from the mouth, the body covered in fur, their ears pointed upwards and much bigger feet and toenails. Their acted akin to gorillas (Retro).

In Kweltikwan, if a sports team loses a game, their member become slaves to the winning team (Slugger).

Kweltikwanians have concept of both weddings and divorces, and they seem to work the same way human ones do (Spooky) (Swapper).

They also have concept for parades and seem to organize them for notorious individuals (The Asteroid).

Jumba regards Kweltikwanian children as chaotic, destructive, and hard to control (Babyfier).

Jumba tries once to cook a traditional meal from his planet, which resembles bread and meatballs. Ironically, it’s extremely hard, but that’s probably because Jumba is stated to be quite a terrible cook (The Asteroid).

Kweltikwan doesn’t have any equivalent to mud (Link).

Jumba is familiar with snow, which suggest it’s at least a possible phenomena on Kweltikwan (Slushy).

Plorgonarians

Pleakley’s home planet is known as Plorgonar and his species is referred as Plorgonarians (Mr. Stenchy).

The planet resembles a Plorgonarian’s head. It seems to be orbiting a bigger planet (Mr. Stenchy).

Their language is know as Ploginar. It’s only known “Wendy” means “Brave Warrior” (Fibber), and “Smyzzyx” means “beat their pants off!” (Slugger).

Plorgonarians are a sex binary species with males and females (Mr. Stenchy) (Fibber). Sexual dimorphism is noticeable: males are completely or almost bald, while females have hair on their head. Females have a more accentuated waist and a slightly more pronounced chest curve. Interestingly, none of the young female Plorgonarians had ever been show having any breast, but Mrs. Pleakley appears to have saggy breast (Fibber). It may be a mere effect from the clothes or a trait that only develops on elderly females.

They lack skeletal system completely; their body hold together through nerves and muscles instead (Poxy).

That make Plorgonarians extremely fast, flexible, and agile (Lilo & Stitch) (Slugger) (Shoe). However, they are also pretty weak, albeit stronger than they may seem at first glance (Link) (Yaarp).

Despite their apparent delicate body, even a weak individual like Pleakley can withstand quite a few rough situations without being badly harmed, like being squished, hit, attacked by animals, or falling from great heights (Lilo & Stitch) (Poxy) (627). This durability is probably result of their lack of bones.

Pleakley, who is already shorter than an average human, is stated to be tall for his species (Fibber).

Something on Plorgonarian’s skin seems to be extremely attractive to mosquitoes, as Pleakley is attacked viciously by them (Lilo & Stitch) (Bugsy).

Plorgonarians doesn’t have belly button (Stitch! The Movie) or nipples (Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Have a Glitch).

Their brain seems to be quite small, smaller than their eye (Poxy). However, it may be simply constructed different that a human one, the part show being only a fraction of the cerebral area.

Plorgonarian’s vision is limited and they can’t focus on more than one thing at once because of their single eye (Swapper). However, that also gives them great ability to discern details (Skip).

The antenna on their head is called Plorgonarian quart flanch, and acts both as olfactory and auditory organ (Mr. Stenchy) (Yaarp). Pleakley states that the flanch is capable of reading "several strata of subspace ether transmissions”. It seems Plorgonarians can also have two flaches instead of one (Mr. Stenchy). Their species seems to find appealing odors that are generally considered horrible (Mr. Stenchy).

The flanch goes orange with age, at least on males, and it’s considered unattractive (Spike). Pleakley dyes his, with implies it’s a common practice to avoid the effects of age, albeit embarrassing by his own admission.

However, their respiratory system is not connected to their antenna, but their mouth, as Pleakley have to use a breathing apparatus on it while diving (Lilo & Stitch).

Once, after being held captive for about 2 hours, Pleakley is seen with bushy eyebrows and a long gray beard. However, due his dramatic nature, he probably was using wigs to create the effect (Checkers).

Plorgonarians don’t have a proper jaw lock, so they can unhinge it completely (Bugsy).

Not only have Plorgonarians two tongues, but also two uvulas (Mrs. Hasagawa’s Cats). The purple color suggests their blood is probably also purplish.

Pleakley have upper teeth (Phantasmo) (Mr. Hasagawa’s Cats) and other Plorgonarians had been observed with teeth too (Fibber). However, it’s difficult to determine how many teeth does they have, as they almost always hidden under the lips. As they have no problems chewing, it’s very possible they have a complete denture that it’s simple too short to be visible above the lips.

They use clothes that enhance their shoulders, implying it’s a desirable trait on Plorgonar (Fibber) (Heckler) (Houdini).

Plorgonarians have two hearts, one next to the other (Poxy).

When Lilo touches her chest and says “love come from here”, Pleakley states that, on his case, it would be around one of his tighs (Snafu). The dialog references the heart, but as Pleakley had mention several times before his hearts are located on his chest (and it had been seen on Poxy); he probably got it confused with another organ.

In primitive stages of development, Plorgonarians were more akin to big amphibians with more wilder appearance, including bigger teeth and a larger antenna. Is revealed that their third foot was once a tail that heavily resembles a fish fin, suggesting that Plorgonarians might had been aquatic (Retro).

Plorgonarians also seem to be rather homophobic, as Jumba was forced to pretend to be a woman to pose as Pleakley’s fiancée to meet his family expectations. However, they seem to be completely fine with other species altogether (Fibber).

They value appearances and good reputation, as Pleakley states that when your family choose a partner for you, you must accept to preserve their good name. Not that only means that arranged weddings are extremely common in Plorgonar (if not the only type at all), but that parents are perceived as an authority figure you shall not disobey (Fibber).

Plorgonarians live on houses that resemble their heads. Their neighbors seem to be very symmetrical and organized in similar fashion that 50s style houses (Mr. Stenchy).

Instead, their fashion has a distinct 80s feeling with pads, extravagant attires and colorful palettes (Fibber) (Mr. Stenchy).

Plorgonar have a sport called Priznolaprack that it’s nearly identical to basketball (Slugger).

Plorgonarians have gender roles similar to western humans, and they expect certain clothes, behavior and positions depending on their gender (Fibber).

Pleakley doesn’t understand the concept of physical money, which suggest currency in Plorgonar, if they use any, uses some kind of intangible form (Stitch! The Movie). However, Pixley being more successful based on her career and material possession also suggest they do, in fact, have some kind of transaction system (Fibber).

Pleakley is completely oblivious to the concept of credit cards, debt and owing money, which means these are things not used in Plorgonar (Yapper).

 Based on Pleakley’s being strict on rules, yet having no problems taking things from others and even stealing, it can be deduced Plorgonar have a very loose sense of property (Lilo & Stitch) (Stitch! The Movie) (Leroy & Stitch).

Plorgonar doesn’t have an equivalent to mud (Link).

Pleakley doesn’t recognizes snow, meaning it doesn’t snow in Plorgonar (Slushy).

[wind11iso]

The Sunset of Support for Windows XP

You've probably been getting the warnings popping up on your computer's desktop and in your Microsoft Security Essentials dialogs for a few weeks, and you've been seeing the headlines for longer than that. If you have Facebook friends in the IT industry, doubtlessly they've been sharing articles for the past six to twelve months.

By now, you've realized that your Windows XP computer didn't explode or stop working after the sunset of support, so what are the implications of continuing to use an unsupported operating system? For one, if you need to call Microsoft for support with any problems from this day forward, they're not going to help you. If you're like most people, you probably haven't called Microsoft in the past dozen years, so you won't miss the fact that they're not going to be there going forward. Rest assured that for as long as you want to continue using XP, consultancies like Maverick Solutions will be there to help solve any problems you may have.

Without Microsoft support, however, there will be no more security patches, feature updates, bug-fixes, or driver updates. Presumably after 12 years, Microsoft has probably found and resolved most of the bugs. For all the current hardware in existence, drivers have already been published if they're going to be. There will be no new Windows features, so today's Windows XP is the best it's ever going to get.

What about security? Hackers have been attacking technology for as long as people have been using technology, and nothing is going to change that. In the past, when Microsoft identified a vulnerability in Windows XP, they released a patch to correct it. The identification of vulnerabilities, however, is typically the result of analyzing exploitations of those vulnerabilities, after the fact. Just like medicine doesn't create vaccinations before diseases are discovered, so, too, security experts don't patch security holes until someone finds and exploits those holes. Even then, it takes time to develop solutions, and it takes time to distribute them to Windows users. If your computer was configured to automatically download and install Windows updates, it still might have taken a week or longer before your computer received and installed security patches. If your computer was configured otherwise, you might have never received such patches.

In fact, there are millions of bad guys attacking technology, and many fewer security experts defending us from them, so the good guys tend to apply a sort of triage when determining which holes to patch first. The ones which have the potential to cause the most widespread damage are remediated first, and the more-obscure or less-harmful ones are left on the back burner. Third-party anti-malware software has the same shortcomings, so relying solely on operating system patches and anti-malware software is never the best way to protect your systems.

The fact that Microsoft is stopping support for XP and moving their security experts to the later operating systems is actually a good sign for Windows XP users, in a way. Just as security experts try to make the most of their time by remediating the most-widespread, most-harmful malware, hackers economize on their time, too, by attacking the most common software. If less than one percent of today's computers still use 1980s Microsoft DOS, there's no vig in finding vulnerabilities; there would be terribly few places to exploit those vulnerabilities and it would take time to even locate those systems. Microsoft moving its security experts' mitigation efforts from Windows XP to the later operating systems is indicative of the increasing market-share of those operating systems, which will also attract more hackers away from Windows XP.

As a strategy, however, the best anti-malware idea continues to be effective, and continues to be free: don't use an administrator account as your everyday user account. The second-best strategy will also continue to be free and effective for a little longer: install and update Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft announced they will continue to offer it to Windows XP users through July. If you need help employing either of these strategies, seek out a local consultancy like ours to come set them up for you.

So if everything is going to keep working, why would anyone want to upgrade to a new operating system? The vast majority of technology consultants has been touting security concerns as the reason to upgrade, but we at Maverick Solutions believe that functionality and features are more likely to make you take the plunge.

Windows XP only supports Internet Explorer up to version 8, but later versions of the operating system support later versions of IE - it's up to version 11 already. You may have noticed that some of the more interactive Websites are already acting sluggish or buggy in IE8. Facebook crashes frequently, for example. Other than upgrading Windows, you could add a third-party browser, such as Firefox or Chrome, but bear in mind that every additional piece of software you install takes up room on your hard drive, which makes your machine operate somewhat less efficiently.

New hardware is less and less likely to be supported by Windows XP, so when you upgrade your multifunction printer or buy whatever technology of movie player comes out after Blue ray, you may not be able to install it at all, or even if it does install, you may not be able to access all of its features. New software will stop being developed for Windows XP, too, so at some point your annual tax-prep package of TurboTax or Tax Cut, for example, will not be available in an XP flavor. If you're a gamer, you're not reading this article - you've already upgraded years ago.

If you need any kind of information this topic click here : windows 11 iso

[otterknowbynow]

Gotcha Day (1/3)

The catalyst for Team Voltron adopting a dog might be an offhand demand from Lance, but let's be real: several of them are very much on board with this plan.

Written as part of Gentron Week 2020 as a combination of the prompts "Adopting a Pet Together" and "Cultural Exchange", in two three parts.

Part 2 Here | Part 3 Here | Also on ao3

“Listen, Kaltenecker needs a puppy friend,” Lance says one evening. Keith blinks and props himself up on his elbows from where he’s been lying on the couch. He turns his head toward where Lance is sitting on the floor, trying to remember if there was any context for this in previous conversation, but he doesn’t think so. All five paladins are in the lounge, which seems to be why Lance has brought it up, despite the fact that he and Pidge are currently deeply engaged in some kind of fighting game with tiny laser-blasting spaceships. If it were a bit more realistic, it might be good flight training for the lions, Keith thinks. 

“Does she?” asks Pidge, pressing a few buttons in such quick succession that Keith has no idea what they were. Glancing at the screen, he’s not sure what they did, either. 

“Of course she does,” Lance says, not looking up from the screen in front of him. His fingers still moving rapidly on the controller in his hands, he continues. “Who among us has experience with bovine needs? Me, I do. Who among us can read her body language and tell you what those needs are? Me, I can. Therefore, I can tell you: she needs a puppy friend.” 

“And this would have nothing to do with you wanting a puppy for yourself,” Keith says flatly, sitting up all the way now. This might be interesting. 

“Definitely not,” Lance agrees, sticking his tongue halfway out of his mouth and holding his controller to one side as his ship on the screen executes some kind of quick maneuver around Pidge’s. 

“I don’t think it’s a terrible idea,” Shiro says mildly from a couch across the way. He’s still looking down at whatever he’s been reading on his tablet. Keith isn’t sure if it’s the tone in Shiro’s voice that gives him away or if he’s just remembering all the times he heard Shiro talk about getting a dog back at the Garrison, but it sure seems like he thinks it’s a better idea than just not terrible. 

“You planning on raising this puppy yourself?” Pidge asks skeptically. 

“I’m planning on all of us raising this puppy together,” Lance says decisively, and apparently he’s equally decisive in-game, because there’s a trilling victory sound from the screen in front of them and Pidge’s shoulders drop before she hits a few buttons on her controller. 

“Rematch,” she says, and Lance nods. 

“I don’t know, raising a puppy is a lot of work,” says Hunk thoughtfully. It’s clear his mind is only half on this conversation, though, since he hasn’t looked away from the small white devices in front of him that he’s been working on for the better part of an hour. 

“Seems like you should talk to Coran,” says Shiro mildly. “Seems like he’d be best equipped to handle the situation.” 

“You don’t think I can handle one puppy?” Lance asks sharply, looking up from the screen for half a second just to direct a glare at Shiro. 

“Oh, handling the puppy won’t be the problem.” Shiro grins, and Keith huffs a small laugh to himself. 

“Of course it won’t,” says Lance irritably, this time still zipping his little ship around the screen, tongue out to one side again in concentration. “I can handle a puppy in my sleep -- I could handle puppies, plural, in my sleep.” Keith snorts at that, remembering a foster he had who raised a new puppy while he lived there.

“I’m pretty sure sleep loss is part of the deal,” he says before he can stop himself. Not that he would want to -- Lance can’t just be spouting inaccuracies when they’re talking about bringing in a whole-ass animal they’ll be responsible for. 

“It’s a figure of speech, pal.” He would probably be more irritated if he weren’t mid-game, but Pidge seems to be gaining the upper hand and all his focus is on that. Shiro clears his throat before continuing. 

“What I was saying is that Coran would know where we could go about finding a puppy out here -- in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly in a position to visit the humane society or research a local breeder or anything. Coran could probably figure out where to go and give us some idea of what kind of, uh, dog we could really even hope of finding.” 

“That’s fair,” offers Hunk. “We don’t want to end up with some weird alien puppy without even any guidance from someone who’s, like, familiar with at least a reasonable variety of weird alien puppies.” 

“You got me there,” says Lance, and Keith is puzzled by the irritation in his tone until he realizes Lance is talking about his match with Pidge, who has dropped her controller and leaned back on her hands swinging her knees a little side to side and looking very pleased with herself. 

“I sure did,” she says, grinning. “Best two of three?” 

“Definitely.” Lance hasn’t even put his controller down, and waits for her to pick hers up again before apparently starting a rematch. “Anyway -- that makes sense, but as you all can see, I’m occupied, and can’t go ask him, so…?” He trails off, raising his eyebrows, even though he’s still looking determinedly at the screen instead of around at any of them. Keith snorts. 

“You expect someone to go running off to talk to him right now?” he asks derisively. Sometimes, it sure does seem like Lance thinks he runs the world. 

“Uh, I think someone is,” says Hunk, nodding toward the doorway, where Shiro is standing midstep, looking back at the rest of them with his eyebrows raised, as if he paused only when Keith spoke up. 

“Yeah, I’ve got this, guys,” he says. “It seems like I’m the best person to talk to him anyway, considering I’m the --” 

“-- fearless leader, space dad, you speak for the trees, et cetera, et cetera,” says Hunk, nodding as he turns back to his work. 

“Pretty sure I speak for the trees at this point,” Pidge puts in, fingers still moving quickly over her controls, eyes on the screen.

“I was going to say I’m the responsible adult, but fair enough,” Shiro says, shrugging, and turns back to walk out into the hall, presumably to find Coran. 

“Well, okay then,” Keith says softly, and lies down again, since apparently that’s settled. 

--

As they walk into the main hall of the recollection center, Keith has the creeping feeling he’s been here before. It takes him a moment to place it. The decor is different, for one thing: all sleek white couches and light blue accents. But as Coran leads them past several doors with large windows on either side and large signs written in glowing Altean script, it hits him that this place reminds him of the space mall where they found the replacement scaltrite lenses. 

“...it’s changed a bit, of course,” Coran is saying as they make their way down the corridor, navigating around small groups of various humanoid and non-humanoid creatures. Most of them are aliens Keith can’t identify, but he does see a few olkari families, and at one point someone who’s clearly a member of Slav’s species. “But the general principles are the same -- I got in touch with my Unilu contacts and they redirected me to the Venri contingent -- ever since the recollection center split off from the original swap moon, they’ve been in charge of running it here -- and they sent the new coordinates.” 

“So, what is this place exactly? Where are the dogs?” Lance asks, looking around as if puppies might start spilling out of the doorways around them at any moment. 

“It’s not just full of dogs, Lance,” Keith says, shaking his head. “Weren’t you listening when Coran went over all of this? Recollection as in they collect everything living that isn’t where it’s supposed to be and offer it up for trade, like -- like that space mall, apparently, but for things that are like...alive.” 

“Essentially, yes!” Coran says enthusiastically, gesturing around them at the whole of the space as they make their way toward the end of the row of storefronts. “Plants and fungi and animals of all sorts, from various corners of the universe, all collected here for redistribution! Apparently as the swap moon became more commercialized, they needed a space like this, one where some more...specialized shopkeepers could maintain living things. They also seem to have kept its location -- and its mere existence -- under wraps, which is especially good for us. We don’t exactly want to advertise to the empire that we’re active in any area they’re in.”

“If they’re trying to keep organisms alive from all sorts of different environments, they’ll need a lot of energy,” Shiro says. Keith glances over at him to see he’s stopped walking, frowning off into the middle distance. “And yet they’re keeping the place a secret? They must have a quintessence supply that’s off the charts.” 

“Oh, yes,” says Coran, his own step faltering as he turns to reply. “There’s a whole board of managers whose job it is to keep quintessence coming in and keep everything secret.” 

“It’s not that secret, though, if we found out where it is.” 

“I -- well, not everyone has the contacts I have!” Coran finishes with a smile, though Keith thinks there’s definitely something forced in his tone. “Besides, that’s why we’ve got the others back at the castle monitoring things from their end. We should be fine.” Shiro nods slowly, still frowning, and they start making their way toward the end of the corridor again. 

“Should be,” Keith mutters, following at the back of the group. The whole place feels a bit shiftier than it did before. 

--

“How exactly are we supposed to be setting up some kind of animal nursery when we don’t have any idea what kind of thing they’re going to be bringing back?” Hunk’s question echoes through the open air of the room Allura’s led them into. It’s bare, for the most part, easily the size of a small warehouse, with a ceiling just as high. Katie frowns -- that concern echoes the thoughts she’s been having ever since Coran suggested they prepare for the new arrival. Arrival of what? 

“Oh, well, there are things we’ll need no matter what!” Allura says brightly. “And if nothing else, we can start worrying about the basics -- they’ll need light, well, unless they end up with a cave-dweller, and food...unless it’s something that photosynthesizes, in which case we’re back at the light…” She trails off, frowning. “Well, we can start with decor, at least! Pick a color scheme!” Hunk is looking at her blankly, and Katie blinks, realizing she’s doing the same. Shakes it off. 

“We can work on putting together a system with adjustable outputs,” she offers, grinning at a relieved Allura. “It’ll be fun,” she continues, bumping against Hunk’s elbow with her shoulder. “Try to figure out what kind of nutrient combinations we can manage in different states of matter -- Allura, do you have any idea of what kind of thing they’re most likely to bring back? If we have a starting point, we could probably actually manage a number of contingencies for different energy sources, feeding behaviors, oxygenation needs…” Allura nods quickly. 

“I can get you a list, absolutely. I’m sure there are only four or five species Coran would be comfortable with, although there’s no accounting for the others, and of course we don’t know what the center will have --” 

“-- just get us those four or five,” Katie says, looking around the room and trying to imagine how they’ll divide the space. “Hunk, we’re gonna need to start talking construction.” 

--

“As you can see, we have a wide variety of domestic creatures available at the moment, though not many specimens of each.” The Venri staff member leading them through the facility glides across the floor on six neatly-swishing tentacles. She speaks in clean clipped tones, which Keith appreciates for their clarity if nothing else. He’s a bit impressed she can project as loudly as she can considering she barely comes up to his waist, but apparently Venri are small but have mighty lung capacity, or something. In any case, the others seem to be more interested in the fenced-off runs they’re surrounded by, each containing a different sort of creature. 

Some of the enclosures have small ponds, or are small ponds, as in the case of one containing some kind of aquatic animal that looks a lot like a bat, or like a bat would if it were scaled instead of furred, with enormous fins instead of wings. Others of the cages look a lot more like ordinary dog runs -- and, to be fair, others of the creatures look a lot more like ordinary dogs. There’s one like a whippy all-black german shepherd in the corner whose eyes keep emitting some kind of pink smoke in little bursts. In one of the stacked cages for smaller creatures that they pass, right at Keith’s eye level, is a group of labrador retrievers in perfect miniature, so small he could hold three of them in the palm of his hand, emitting little play growls as they wrestle with their fellows. He watches them for a while, wondering what it would be like to have a pocket-sized pup, until he realizes the others are halfway across the row of runs, the Venri indicating various creatures as she continues her pitch. He half-jogs over to rejoin them. 

“Now, did you all have a particular species in mind? If you’d like, you’re welcome to tell me about your living situation -- whatever it may be -- and I can recommend one for you.” She looks around at the four of them expectantly. Keith looks from Coran to Shiro and back again. It’s definitely not his place to take the lead here. But it’s Lance who jumps in. 

“Oh, we’ve got quite a bit of space,” he says airily. “That’s certainly not an issue. We’re hoping to get a puppy who will get along with our cow, maybe give her some companionship, cultivate that interspecies friendship and all that.” The Venri's eyes grow wider and wider as Lance continues. “After all, what’s the point of a dairy cow without a puppy, you know?” 

“A...did you say a dairy cow? Where did you say you’re from again?” 

“We didn’t,” says Shiro, taking a well-placed step so he’s standing between the Venri and Lance. 

“We’re looking for something in the canine category,” says Coran brightly, gesturing toward the row of runs that includes the shadowy german shepherd, now crouching near the front of its run and emitting glittery aqua smoke from its mouth as it looks at them silently with solid black eyes. 

“Do you have a particular biome in mind?” The Venri looks up at him expectantly, holding one thin hand over her tablet, ready to type. 

“Oh, I rather think --” Coran cuts off suddenly, eyes wide and fixed on one of the runs. Keith follows his eyeline and sees a small furry brown shape curled up in the corner, covered in little white speckles. Whatever the creature is, it’s tucked itself firmly against the wall of its enclosure, so he can’t really discern anything about its shape, nor why it seems to have grabbed Coran’s attention so strongly. 

“Coran?” Shiro asks, frowning. Lance, meanwhile, is darting his eyes back and forth between the brown lump and Coran, eyebrows lowered sharply. Keith sees him open his mouth to say something -- probably a strong objection to anyone else getting to pick their puppy -- and knocks into him with his shoulder, muttering a “shush” under his breath. Lance huffs once at him, but shuts his mouth. 

“Is that a white-spotted hyrassie?” Coran breathes quietly after what feels like an eternity of silence.

“Oh, absolutely,” says the Venri, and she’s smiling for the first time since they’ve entered the runs.