#and I found my old ds with *all* the games!! I did freak out when I saw the nintendogs and prof layton games lmao

[trulyobscurity]

Clearing out a room that hasn’t been sorted in about 10 years leads to the discovery of some hidden relics lmao

[yellowocaballero]

The Crow’s Funeral Snippet: Jon Gets Involved In Local Politics, Regrets It

Annabelle, of course, was standing on the other side of the door. 

Slightly less obviously, she was dressed in a finely tailored suit, complete with high heels and a gorgeous dripping silver chain-link necklace. Her hair was tied up in an up-do of braids piled neatly on top of her head, and there was even a briefcase. 

She looked Jon up and down critically. He was wearing sweatpants and a holey shirt. 

“You forgot,” she condemned, “didn’t you?”

“No I didn’t,” Jon said reflexively. He paused. “Forgot what?”

Annabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. Jon noticed that she was even wearing her usual all-black lipstick and winged eyeliner. “The council committee for London I planned for today. Remember? The one with a representative for each Entity?” Jon stared blankly at her. “There was an invite?”

“Oh, that. I don’t check my mail.” Jon looked at Daisy, who was now pressing aggressively against Jon. “Did you open up any mail recently?” Daisy barked. Jon looked back at Annabelle. “She ate it.”

“...of course she did.”  Written for no real reason besides for the fact that I know too much about my own AU and I care about Annabelle. This story takes place both pre- and post- story: six months after Jon enters London, and six months after the events of the story. We talk about childhood/adulthood, stagnancy/growth, good/evil, and the inherent metaphor of a Nintendo DS. Sometimes...found family...is bad. Rest under the cut. 

In the third month, boiling and bubbling over, someone knocked at Jon’s door. 

Not the door to his office. The door to his flat, which had a very large ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’ sign on it, and was always locked. The employees were, granted, Jon and Daisy, but the message was conveyed. Jon saw the sign in stores and copied it, as he copied many aspects of business models. Jon didn’t quite understand how to run a business, but he had read both ‘What they teach you in Harvard Business School’ - whatever a Harvard was - and ‘What they don’t teach you in Harvard Business School’, so he figured he was set. Daisy had also grabbed him a Girl Scout book on starting your own lemonade stand, which helped more than the other two books combined. Harvard Business School could take notes. 

Jon rolled off the bed, where he had been downloading knowledge of string games and trying to figure out how to do them. Omniscence was closer to reading an instruction manual than actually knowing how to do something, but at least that left Jon with plenty of time to learn skills. Even if it wasn’t necessarily his favorite activity - he was bad at a lot of them, which would frustrate him and make him wreck the craft. Daisy kept on saying he needed a hobby other than reading but what did she know, anyway -

Daisy, from where she had been sleeping at the foot of the bed, lifted her head and barked sleepily. 

“I’ll get them to go away,” Jon promised. Or eat them. Maybe just eat them. 

But when Daisy bristled and jumped off the bed, barking heavily, he knew who it was. Jon sighed, hastily shoving a shirt over his head, and undid the three deadbolts before unlocking the door. 

Annabelle, of course, was standing on the other side. Slightly less obviously, she was dressed in a finely tailored suit, complete with high heels and a gorgeous dripping silver chain-link necklace. Her hair was tied up in an up-do of braids piled neatly on top of her head, and there was even a briefcase. 

She looked Jon up and down critically. He was wearing sweatpants and a holey shirt. 

“You forgot,” she condemned, “didn’t you?”

“No I didn’t,” Jon said reflexively. He paused. “Forgot what?”

Annabelle pinched the bridge of her nose. Jon noticed that she was even wearing her usual all-black lipstick and winged eyeliner. “The council committee for London I planned for today. Remember? The one with a representative for each Entity?”

Jon stared blankly at her. 

“There was an invite?”

“Oh, that. I don’t check my mail.” Jon looked at Daisy, who was now pressing aggressively against Jon. “Did you open up any mail recently?” Daisy barked. Jon looked back at Annabelle. “She ate it.”

“...of course she did.” Annabelle glanced down at Daisy, whose fur was standing on end as she growled lowly. “Have you had any success?”

“You would have noticed if I did,” Jon said shortly. 

“Have you tried talking to -”

“Yes,” Jon snapped, “but apparently some of us have better things to do than attend meetings and cure dogs.”

Annabelle intelligently dropped the matter, instead frowning at Jon. He crossed his arms, fighting the urge to hunch over away from her dark and perceptive stare. But instead of pushing him, she said, “Go get dressed in something a little appropriate, please. You look like you crawled out of the Buried.” Daisy barked, which Annabelle ignored. “What are you doing to your hair?”

Jon hunched defensively. It was a little matted and frizzy, but who was counting? “Daisy can’t exactly shave it anymore, and I don’t really...know what to do with it...am I doing something wrong? I bathe.”

It was very important to Daisy that he bathe and brush his teeth. Jon didn’t know what the big deal was, but if it was important to her then he did it.

Annabelle just pinched the bridge of her nose again, checking her wrist-watch. “Buzzing your hair is a crime against God, and letting your hair look like that is a crime against me. I’ll take care of this later. Just get ready in the next five minutes, or I’m filling your fridge with spiders again.”

Jon got ready in four. Annabelle didn’t joke around with that stuff. 

He didn’t really know what a council committee was. He didn’t know why he had to go to one either, seeing as Jon only tended to concern himself with Daisy. Daisy had been taking up a lot of his concern lately. Then his mood had plummeted again, and in the last month they’ve both been recalcitrant to leave the flat for anything but eating, and he was capable of noticing when he was hunting a little vindictively, and - anyway. 

He downloaded the knowledge, and then made a face when it didn’t really help. One of those nasty little political things. What was with his fellow Avatars and politics? Just torture anyone who bothers you. If they were one of those freaks who liked being tortured, then just smite them. Life was easy and very simple once you remembered that basic rule. 

But Annabelle was really into it - she kept on saying something about ‘order’ and ‘regulation’ and ‘first dibs’ - and she tended to drag him along into these things. She thought it was ‘important’ that Jon ‘know what was going on’ or something. Jon liked Knowing things, but once you know everything you realize that some things aren’t really interesting enough to know. 

When he asked Daisy if she wanted to go with, she feigned sleep. She had been hyperactive lately, compensating for her months of starvation with unbridled and frantic Hunting. Jon had taken her to one of those little pockets where people were running around and screaming all the time, and let her run wild in the rainforest for a while. It was the kind of fun bonding experience they hadn’t had in ages, and Jon had the opportunity to pluck his own grapes from the vine too. 

There had been an old man who really hadn’t been happy to see Jon, which had freaked him out a bit. He had started going on a little bit about how Jon had ruined his life, but he only got a few sentences in before a giant, carnivorous plant had eaten him. That was lucky. 

Jon had ripped the dimension apart as he left. Nasty little place. Nothing good there. 

So Jon left the house without Daisy for the first time since she had been well enough to move around, and with Annabelle. Daisy had been waiting at the door with a rucksack packed with his favorite book and his Nintendo DS, which made Annabelle ask her where the juicebox was. Daisy tried to bite her again. Jon didn’t know why everybody couldn’t just get along. 

There was a cab waiting outside, driven by another skeleton, and Annabelle quickly bundled him into it. Jon slouched in the corner and started playing WarioWare as Annabelle leafed through typewritten documents, lips pursing and making notes on the margins of each one with a red pen. She was muttering to herself, somewhat entertainingly. 

“My fourth arm for a computer, I swear to Jesus. My fourth and fifth arms. My sixth arm for a computer…”

“Are those the internet machines you told me about?” Jon asked, scribbling his stylus on the screen. Ashley cheered him on. He loved Ashley. “Do council committees need the internet?”

“The internet’s for a lot more than council committees Jon,” Annabelle said tightly. “They’re for video games. Ememoharepeegees -”

“Gesundheit.”

“ - bitcoin mining, instant messaging, online dating, freaking Google Docs -”

“Do you want it back?” Jon asked, bored. “I can make you the internet.”

Annabelle’s pen froze on the paper, hovering over a bullet-point list. “The entire internet? You can just do that?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Jon poked his tongue out his mouth in concentration as he pressed the monkeys in a rhythmic order. Rhythm games were his jam. “That’s, like, the pocket nightmare dimension from Tron, right? I can do that. Addictions are easy. Put people inside, trap them inside a video or something. It’d be mostly for torture but you could probably use it normally.”

Annabelle stared at him, expression blank, for so long it made Jon a little uncomfortable and defensive. What had he said wrong? Daisy was usually good at interpreting these things for him, although sometimes when people went on about ‘violence’ she was just as confused as him. Finally, she said, “No, that’s alright. I always hated Black Mirror anyway.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a telly - never mind. I don’t want you getting any more ideas.”

***

The council committee was held in the stupidest building Jon had ever seen in his entire life. And he had been in London for six months. He knew stupid buildings.

‘London City Hall’ or whatever was this awful giant, lopsided, obloid monstrosity. All glass and windows, with nary a brick in sight, Jon hated it instantly and severely. He was immediately filled with the urge to turn to somebody and commiserate with them about shitty architecture, but there was nobody else in the cab but Annabelle - and, well, she seemed to have other things on her mind. 

The neighborhood around it was filled with a mix of equally stupid buildings and perfectly respectable buildings that looked as if they had been made a long time ago. The sidewalks were relatively abandoned, and the streets were empty of everything but the endless rotation of tourist double-decker busses. Jon knew that this wasn’t one of those districts where people actually lived and roamed - instead, it was one of those business districts that people only stepped inside for work or city business. Like that silly little Palace of Westminster building that Annabelle had taken him to months ago when she was showing him the city. 

That building Annabelle had especially loved. It was filled with old white men with sagging jowls and liver spots, looping in endless routines and miniature atrocities. Annabelle had asked him to take as many Statements as possible, and Jon had needed no encouraging. 

That had been a strange trip. Normally people found his little monologues boring, because they were idiots with no taste, but Annabelle had listened to every single one. She had been enraptured, excited and triumphant. She had dragged him into some “Lord’s Chamber” or something and posed on the throne as Jon obediently took polaroids. Well, so long as she was happy. 

Jon was already seeing that London City Hall was no better. Annabelle dragged him through it, anxiously checking and re-checking her files, as they effortlessly weaved between shambling zombies of old white men in suits. Jon tasted the ripe air of trauma from them - a similar taste to that spiralling academic building, but rather a little more tart - but Annabelle dragged him away before he could stop and eat them.

There were parts of London that were safe. Maybe even most of London - although nowhere was truly safe, not really, not every location was absolutely haunted. The grocer’s was the grocer’s; the chemist still sold your medication. Not that you really needed it anymore, but habit was habit. 

But some buildings, which were entrenched so firmly in hundreds of years of evil, could not be dissuaded from their nightmares. In that respect, the safest city in the United Kingdom became the most dangerous. Some buildings had been nightmares even before the end of the world. 

Jon, of course, gave very little shits about this beyond in the academic sense. Annabelle refused to let him duck out of her meeting to go snack, and she ended up dragging him in front of what looked like a smallish conference room. 

Annabelle stopped in front of it, taking a second to breathe in and out and check her makeup. She seemed to be hyping herself up for it, shaking out her arms loosely. Jon slouched behind her, hands jammed in his trenchcoat pockets. Annabelle had asked him to put on a less raggedy suit, but - well, he sometimes had nicer suits, but they got raggedy very quickly. She had also asked him to leave the trenchcoat at home, but no way. It was part of his Look. 

“You’re frightened,” Jon noted with interest. Annabelle was scared of less than he was, and she had much less of a reason. “What about this room scares you?”

“It’s not the people in the room,” Annabelle snapped, flashing her compact shut. “It’s what I’m trying to do. If this world’s going to last more than a few years before it devolves into fuckin’ Mad Max we need leadership. I didn’t put all of this work in just to -” At Jon’s blank look, she sighed. “Never mind. You don’t care. Just - try to trust me, Jon.”

“Of course I trust you,” Jon said, baffled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

She stared at him, expression inscrutable, for a long moment, before opening the door and pulling him in. 

It was a nice conference room, all wood panelling and that specific green shade you only saw in lawyer’s offices. There was a large rectangular table in the center, and more than a dozen luxurious chairs arranged around it. There was a big pull-down screen on the far wall. Jon didn’t know what it was for, but he knew that if he downloaded the information it wouldn’t help. Omniscence was so useless. 

In a move that horrified Annabelle, most of the attendees seemed to be there. They had been chatting - talking, actually, quite loudly - before Annabelle strode in and Jon slumped in after her. But in the second that they both stepped in, an abrupt hush swept the room, and every eye swiveled to them.

If Jon was honest with himself, he’d say that they didn’t quiet when Annabelle stepped in. He’d say that they quieted when Jon stepped in. That it was Jon who they were looking at. 

But Jon didn’t particularly feel like engaging with that. He didn’t like being stared at by people he didn’t know, and he didn’t like being out in public with people he didn’t know. He didn’t enjoy being in buildings or meeting new people, much less going to boring meetings. Jon decided all of this instantaneously, as every eye swiveled to him.

Rooms full of humans were fine. It was just humans. Nothing even vaguely intimidating about that, unless the humans were teenage girls. But these were Avatars - Jon could taste their nature in the air, a sharp and electric tingle - and when they stared at Jon he felt something heavier in their gaze. Oh, lord. There was a teenage girl here. 

Jon tried slumping to the back chair, but Annabelle grabbed his collar and dumped him in a comfortable chair to her right. Jon saw a little placard in front of it that read ‘THE BEHOLDING’. Great. 

“Thank you all for coming today,” Annabelle said crisply, and suddenly every worry was gone. She was calm, poised, confident, and professional. A perfect imitation of the officials and politicians who once really walked these halls, who passed laws and rubber-stamped policies. She could have passed for an assistant or junior staff member, bright and intrepid and ready to climb her way up the ladder. “Are we all accounted for?”

It seemed so. Every chair but one was filled. When Jon peered around at the placards, he saw that each one had a different Entity on it. One of the seats had no placard, and was occupied by said teenage girl. Four were unoccupied: the Spiral, the Slaughter, the Hunt and the Extinction. 

Annabelle sat down in the head chair, which seemed just a little fancier. She put her folder in front of her, eyes flickering down the room. “It seems that Helen couldn’t make it. The Hunt duo seem to have...recently met unfortunate ends. The Slaughter Avatar called ahead to say that they couldn’t make it - it was high school picture day? And...I suppose the Extinction Avatar still doesn’t exist.”

She glanced at Jon, who shook his head. “Do you want one?” Jon asked. “I can go find a climate change denier in this building and make one for you.”

That also disturbed Annabelle, as well as everyone else. Jon abruptly felt awkward, and hunched in his seat. He defensively pulled out his DS, his plans to fall asleep in the back of the room already foiled. 

Above him, Annabelle continued droning. “Still, I appreciate you all coming. I know that we haven’t all gathered since a bit after the apocalypse began -” Wait, they had? Since when? “ - but I hope we can agree that further coordination is necessary. We’ve already begun having serious territory and jurisdiction disputes, and it’s best that they’re resolved sooner rather than later.” Nobody looked very impressed, but Annabelle looked seriously at them all anyway. “I want us all to have an equal voice at this table. Save the fighting for another time. And please try to keep your powers out of here. I’ve already sworn to avoid using any of my Mother’s gifts in this room, and I hope you all can do the same.”

“Yeah?” A woman drawled. She was unfamiliar to Jon, like most people in the room, but she had a teenage girl sitting next to her who seemed to be paying rapt attention to Annabelle. “How are you going to enforce that?”

Annabelle stared at him for some reason. Jon jabbed at his DS and won the Mona minigame. Nothing more was said. 

“Alright, then. I’ve already collected motions from all of you prior to this meeting.” Motions? Annabelle hadn’t said anything like that. Maybe it was on the invitation Daisy ate, but somehow he doubted it. Annabelle looked down and traced her finger down to her first point. “Many of you suggested this, so I would like to introduce it as a general discussion. Territory disputes, apparently, are a point of contention between many of us.” She opened her briefcase and pulled out a large map, and if Jon looked over the top of his DS he could see that it was a map of London. She also pulled out a red marker, uncapping it. The sheet was laminated, and there were already circles and markings all over it. “We’ll go one at a time. Amherst, you’ve motioned that the Stranger is intruding within Camden.”

A foppish looking man on a dumb little top hat scowled, as the young woman sitting behind the Strange placard looked annoyed. “It is gentrification. Every apartment complex occupied by artist studios are stealing food from the plate of my insects.”

“You haven’t had Camden for a decade,” the Stranger woman said, rolling her eyes. The Omniscience informed Jon that her name was Sarah Baldwin. Vaguely familiar - had he seen her at a cafe? “Nobody lives in those rat-infested tenements anymore. Now all the rats are performance art. Which is us. Get over it.”

“What is performance art -”

“Motion for no more Avatars over the age of 40,” Sarah Baldwin said. “I hate how Amherst and Wakely are in this room.”

“I wish I could second that,” Annabelle said, to the great affront of two grimy old men, “but unfortunately we do have to deal with this. Amherst, I’ve heard several complaints from other council members that you’re infiltrating their territory.”

“I am made of bugs -”

Jon checked out after that.

Instead, he surveyed the room a bit. Nobody in it was really interesting, just a meaningless collection of self-important people. The only person in the room other than Annabelle who he recognized was Oliver, who was sitting at the very back doing his best to fall asleep. When Jon Stared at him a bit he took notice and subtly waved. Jon shyly waved back. Jon liked Oliver. 

Oliver mouthed something adjacent to ‘what is wrong with your hair’, offending Jon grievously. He didn’t look that bad, did he?

He glanced to his left, then down, to ask Daisy’s opinion, but he realized too late that she hadn’t come with him. Stupid. She could have come as part of the Hunt - they didn’t have anybody, it wasn’t as if they could complain. Not to Jon, anyway. 

But she wouldn’t have wanted to. Daisy hated being an Avatar, for reasons that Jon had just never understood. She tried explaining it to him a long time ago, trying to talk about how guilty it made her and how much harm she had done, but it had just confused him more. She had tried to explain up until the end, as Jon had grown more and more angry at her for her refusal. He had never understood. 

She had stopped talking about it lately, though. Which was good. Jon didn’t know what he’d do if she starved herself twice. He wouldn’t have tolerated it.

Daisy had told him that the most important thing in the world was to make your own choices. So he let her make hers. No matter how much he hated it. 

The others weren’t familiar at all. There was a woman with wild dark hair sitting behind the Dark placard, which confused Jon slightly until he decided that they likely hadn’t wanted to send the thirteen year old. There was this really wrinkly and gross old man for the Vast, a younger looking but older feeling man for the Buried, a deathly pale woman for the Lonely, the muscular woman and the teenager for the Desolation...why did they have two…

The teenager was staring at Jon. She had intense orange eyes, the kind that bored into you and never blinked. She looked away every few seconds, as if she was being subtle, but when her gaze drifted back to him again he met her eyes with an unimpressed stare. She squeaked and looked away firmly, hiding behind her curtain of long red hair. 

Okay. Whatever. Kids were weird. Jon was glad he had never been one. 

Jon swapped out WarioWare for Pokemon SoulSilver, opening back up where he left off catching another MissingNo. His entire team was full of the things. He wanted a Mareep, damn it. 

Finally, Annabelle rapped the table sharply and said, “It’s agreed, then. Everybody submit specific written documentation of your territory by city block, and fax it to me by our next meeting. Please abide by the resolutions to the conflicts we discussed here. Any objections to moving onto our next order of business?”

“I have an objection to the Dark’s questionable behavior,” the Buried guy rumbled. He was dripping dirt everywhere. Why didn’t anybody complain to him about his hygiene? “In the words of the lad Brody, they are kill stealing. If they do not withdraw their nightmares from our embrace of the Earth, we will unleash retribution with extreme prejudice. The dirt is a holy place, and we will not be polluted by -”

“Oh, stick your shovel up your fat ass, Wakely,” the woman with wild black hair said. “People aren’t afraid of the fucking dirt, they’re afraid of the darkness in the tombs. Walk into a mausoleum sometime.”

“You poach the End’s territory now too, wench?”

“Please leave me out of this,” Oliver said. 

“If you call me wench one more time, you’ll be watching the back of your eye sockets for eternity,” the woman said pleasantly, “so royally fuck you.”

“Um, not to interrupt, but that’s not really how it works,” the teenager said, and the death glares between the two turned on her. She hunched her shoulders, but her expression stayed firm. “The terror is going to overlap. That’s just how it is. The Buried and the Dark are not entirely...separate things, they’re gradients that overlap. If you get all finicky about what belongs to who, then you’re just going in circles…”

“The last thing we need is the coward Messiah of the Eternal Flame telling me how to worship my god,” the woman snapped. 

“Watch your fucking mouth, Manuela,” the muscular woman said flatly.

Then they were glaring, and Wakely was saying something else snide, and Manuela was making another dig at the teenager as the muscular woman bitched, and Jon abruptly wanted them all to shut up. 

“You’re being too loud,” Jon said. 

The entire room shut up immediately. The teenager opened her mouth, but the pale woman caught her eye and shook her head. 

Annabelle clapped her hands in the silence. “Onto the second motion, then! Infrastructure! Right now we are sorely missing a great deal of essential city infrastructure, and it’s becoming a huge problem. We’re still figuring out what’s mystically maintained, and what’s just being maintained because the humans haven’t figured out how to stop doing it yet, but there’s some work that’s being neglected. The Vast has motioned to reinstate the postal system.”

“Vetoed,” the Lonely woman said. 

“You can’t do that,” Annabelle said blankly. “We need to vote.”

“I’d like to make an argument for the motion, dear,” the Vast man said, making Annabelle’s eye twitch. “My argument is this: Amazon Prime is so convenient!”

“We have every Amazon warehouse under our control,” the representative from the Flesh said. He was...very fleshy. “It’d be no issue to go back to production.”

“Jared has a point. The Eye’s been feeding through Amazon for years,” Annabelle said thoughtfully. The mention of the Eye piqued Jon’s attention, but then he finally ran into a Mareep and he stopped paying attention again. “We can tap into the people who are living 1984 and get them back in industry.”

“Can we begin producing again?” the Desolation woman asked, interested. “We have all these people miserable at work, but nothing’s actually being made. If we let a little reality break into the nightmares…”

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” the Lonely woman asked sharply. “It’ll make it easier for them to escape.”

“They all escape eventually,” Sarah Baldwin said. “They all break out in days to months. We can afford a little more permeability if we actually get things working again.”

Then conversation was off and running about something that Jon didn’t really care about, so he checked out again. He didn’t know what all of this production and infrastructure stuff meant. Going Postal meant that he had a very good understanding of a mail system, but he didn’t have a personal interest. Who he would send letters to?

Jon quickly downloaded what Amazon was. Oh, that would be useful. Wait, he could get any book delivered to his door? Without having to go out hunting for it? How would this work without the internet - a catalogue? 

Everybody seemed invested in getting the internet back up, except for the two hundred year olds. Jared kept saying something about porn, whatever that was. If enough people felt like Annabelle, then maybe they would make it a priority. Jon didn’t know how he felt about that. 

He didn’t know how he felt about the fact that it was impossible. 

But everybody - or most people - genuinely seemed excited about it. They even seemed to be working together, intent on the same goal.

Sarah Baldwin wanted to know if we have enough people constantly under camera to have footage for television. Maybe we could get cable back up? DVDs were a lost cause, but if we could just start airing the VHS tapes…

Annabelle had a look of hook-ups (literally) in the film industry, maybe they could do something like that?

The Hahns are highly involved in production and distribution, Jared pointed out. There was no need to produce food, but if we wanted to increase access to goods it might be possible. 

Why? Why did they care? This world provided them everything they needed. 

For some reason, Jon felt a little defensive. What did they need all of these things for, anyway? All of this entertainment - cable and movies and internet. The world had books. What was so wrong with books? There were even old VHS tapes liberated from charity stores if you really wanted to get fancy. The most high-tech electronic Jon had ever found was the DS in his hands and a couple of games, which Salasea had given to him as an exotic artifact. Only Salasea owned these things now: trinkets and curiosities, hallmarks of an antiquated time. 

What was the point of these supply lines? People didn’t need to eat or shop or consume. Nightmares provided the facsimile, and since they got a little crazy if they never ate they were provided the security of food. Buying towels and shoes and toys...it was a waste of time. People had towels. Nobody outgrew their shoes or wore them out. Children’s toys didn’t break, and anything that made happiness a little easier to come by was discouraged.

Nothing was ever subtracted. Nothing was added. The world was frozen, captured in the amber of time, and it would never move backwards and forwards.

They knew this. Didn’t they?

“We have to make this place livable for us,” Annabelle was saying. She spoke oddly intensely, with a fervor that Jon had seen in her a few times before. Annabelle didn’t like to give off the impression that she cared about things, but once you knew her it was hard to miss. “It’s easier than ever to stay powerful and feed our Forces, but that doesn’t mean we can grow complacent. We have to work together to eat sustainably. To live sustainably. If we don’t try to rebuild, at least enough to get the world moving again, then we’re sentencing ourselves to a boring and decrepit eternity in a world we will all see die within our immortal lifetimes.”

Everyone at the table was nodding. They looked determined. United. Almost...they held an expression that Jon just couldn’t name. An emotion he didn’t understand.

He had seen it in Daisy, once. She had called it hope. He hadn’t understood back then. He still didn’t. 

“Liar,” Jon said, as his minigame timed out and the game over music tinkled across the tinny speakers. 

Annabelle looked at him, expression inscrutable. “These problems are legitimate, Archivist. The writing’s clearly on the wall, and -”

“You’re all so stupid,” Jon complained, and Annabelle abruptly stopped talking to glare at him. Whatever. Jon had lost all patience. He closed his DS and dropped it on the table, resigning himself to talking. Jon hated public speaking, especially in front of so many people he didn’t know and, frankly, creeped him out. “You can’t build anything in this world. If you try to impose a cute little government then it’ll break down into cannibalism or something.”

“Would you know, Archivist?” Jared asked evenly. 

“Jonah didn’t enact this world through myself for living,” Jon said, bored, and everybody stared at him with wide eyes. “We created it for suffering. Suffering isn’t living.”

“One might say the opposite,” the Vast man said, somehow twinkingly. “Suffering is an unavoidable side effect of living, isn’t it?”

“Is that philosophy? I don’t understand philosophy.” Jon wasn’t very good with anything that required extensive and complex thought. Which made sense - Jonah hadn’t exactly created him to think. “Humanity has clouded your minds. Makes all of you irrational and sentimental. Release your attachment to the old world. Just accept the way things are now.” Jon shrugged. “It’s not as if you can do anything about it.”

“Nobody in this room is exactly human, Jon,” Oliver pointed out placidly. 

Jon snorted. “Wanting free porn back? You’re all dripping with it.” It was honestly a little sad. “The only ones in this world free of that weakness are Jonah and I. And he’s the only one who could do any of this.”

“Then where is he?” the Desolation woman snapped. She leaned forward, hands gripping the table in anger. The teenager watched her anxiously. “Why doesn’t he come on down from his high tower and explain what’s going on? We’re in the fucking dark here!”

“I’m sorry,” Jon said coldly, “who are you?”

He rubbed his bad hand. For some reason, everybody watched him do so. He stopped, self-conscious. 

“Prejudiced remarks aside,” Manuela said. She had been hostile all day, but she now spoke cautiously. “Jonah Magnus needs to take responsibility for this. We don’t even know how the world ended.”

Several people glanced at Annabelle, whose lips thinned. “I shouldn’t say.”

Of course she knew. And of course she wasn’t about to tell him. Whatever. Jon didn’t care. Past was the past. 

He found his hand clenching. There was a strange tension in his throat. He didn’t care. He didn’t. Rehashing the worst pain he had ever felt in his life, even now, wasn’t really worth the time or energy. He didn’t care.

“No use crying over spilled milk,” the Vast guy said lightly. “But it is a relevant question. Jonah frequently spoke of his plans, and I realize now that he had never truly shown all of his cards. But he had always held an intention to...well, rule. It’s only in this moment of his victory that he shows no interest.”

“Jonah’s busy,” Jon snapped. “Trust me, you don’t want that arse around. He never even gives me directions, and I’m his right hand.”

“Or his puppet,” Sarah Baldwin muttered. 

It was fair. Probably even true. So why did an intense and burning fury shoot through Jon?

“What gives this child the right to dictate us?” Wakely demanded. Jon’s hands clenched on the table until his knuckles turned white. “What gives Jonah Magnus the right to rule us?”

“He’s not much of a ruler,” Amherst grunted. “My vote’s that we rule this world in a council.”

“Administration is important,” Annabelle said, impossibly terse, “but unless anyone here actually has the means to seize control, then there’s no use voting on it.”

“There’s only one Avatar here who has those means,” Manuela said darkly, crossing her arms and looking straight at Jon. “So why doesn’t he do anything?”

They were feeding on each other. They wouldn’t have said these - these treasonous things by themselves. But when one person spoke up, the next felt empowered, and they felt as if they outnumbered him. Jonah Magnus was hardly there to press him into obedience - why buckle under his oppressive gaze? What could he do?

The stupidest people in this world all gathered in one room. It took a special level of arrogance, pride, and stupidity to assume that one was more powerful than Jonah Magnus.

“I’m not in charge of anything,” Jon said tersely. “I don’t even have a domain. I’m just trying to live my life.”

The Desolation woman snorted. “Typical. You’re rolling over for Jonah.”

Jon’s eyes widened - not in surprise, but in anger. 

The teenager seemed a little uncomfortable. “Jude,” she hissed, “I don’t think -”

“Jude,” Jon breathed. “So that’s your name.” 

He was standing up. Jon didn’t remember standing up. Everybody was leaning away, their own eyes wide. Some just looked confused, slightly perturbed - Wakely, Amherst. Others looked ready to bolt - Manuela, the old man from the Vast. Jon knew, in a flash of insight that grew hotter and hotter, that he preferred to be called Simon. 

“Sit down, Jon,” Annabelle said, as authoritative and no-nonsense as ever. Normally he’d listen to her, respecting that she usually knew what was going on far better than he ever did. But the words barely reached him, drowned out by the rushing in his ears. “Look, we can talk about this rationally, alright?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jude said. She snorted, burning red eyes never leaving Jon’s. “As if I’m scared of this baby prick.”

“Maybe we can move on from Jonah Magnus,” Simon said quickly. “A discussion of airspace rights, perhaps -”

“Jon,” Oliver said, voice creased in worry, “are you okay?”

“This is the all-powerful demigod you all warned me about?” Amherst said. He was dripping with condescension, just like - just like everyone else - “He’s little more than a child.”

“Guys!” the teenager’s voice rang through the room, close to scared. “The walls are melting!”

So they were. It was as if the stone and wood was made of wax, sent guttering by a sputtering candle. Wood and finish were already pooling on the floor, melting the rolling wheel of Jared’s chair and forcing him to jump up from it. 

“Jon!” Annabelle said sharply. “Don’t throw a tantr -”

The table cracked sharply. It was warping, twisting in on itself as if it was a wrung towel. Jon realized, too late to care, that his hair was rising. He knew his eyes were spinning, an eternal churning wheel. 

“Fuck this, meeting adjourned.” Manuela stood up sharply, pushing her chair back into a melting bubble. The floor was beginning to bubble and warp. “See you all next month.” 

“I’ll walk you out,” Simon said quickly, standing up too. 

“You have two minutes,” Jon said, voice heavy with static. “Don’t bother me about this shit again.”

The signal was clear enough. Jude rose from her chair, grabbing her teenager’s elbow and pushing her out the door. The others followed in their wake, expressions carefully neutral. It was useless: Jon could taste their fear, their trepidation. Even better: their anger, barely brindled fury, and disgust. 

They couldn’t do anything about it, Jon thought giddily. No matter how much they hated or were scared of him, they couldn’t do anything about it. Jon was powerful. Jon couldn’t be hurt. Jon couldn’t - 

Jon couldn’t reign this in. 

Before he knew it, the conference room was empty. Only two other people remained: Annabelle, expression as inscrutable as ever, and an uncomfortable Oliver. His hands were stuck in the pockets of his pea coat, and he was looking around with disaffected interest - as if he was standing in line at a Starbucks in rush hour instead of in the epicenter of a melting building.

Jon knew. The entire building was dissolving. It was teeming with humans, lost and trapped and defenseless. He didn’t want to kill them. Jon didn’t like hurting people. He heard a voice speak in his head, foreign and familiar. Bring it in, Jon. 

But he couldn’t. His hair would fall back around his shoulders, and the static rushing through his ears just wouldn’t abate. It felt like everything was pouring out of him, a relentless faucet that wouldn’t stop churning out thick streams of putrid water. 

Jon fisted his hands in his hair, groaning. “Where’s -”

“She’s at your flat,” Annabelle said calmly. “Do you want me to get her?”

No. No, this was too embarrassing. He was an adult, he could handle this. Jon groaned again and sank into his seat, saved from the toxic waste of glass and brick. “No. Focus on getting the humans out of here.”

“What do you care?” Oliver asked, vaguely curious. “You don’t seem that fond of humanity.”

“Just do it!” Jon snapped, instead of admitting that he didn’t know either.

Eventually, the room stopped melting. Jon didn’t even want to think about how difficult it would be to leave the building. He could probably straighten out the hallways just enough to help Annabelle and Oliver get out.

Ugh. This place had sunk straight into Helen’s domain. He could taste it in the air: any future human who wandered in would be stuck in an endless spiral of twisted, melted hallways. Probably flavored with...powerlessness and fear. Feeling very small, as someone very large loomed down on you. Tories. 

At least he hadn’t sucked flattened the building into one plane again, robbing it of all spiritual and metaphysical dimensions. Jon had done that to a graveyard once. The place was putrid now. He had accidentally fallen into a grave and panicked and - anyway. 

He rested his forehead on the warped and splintered conference table, waiting for his throat to open back up and the rushing in his ears to die down. Finally, after what felt like forever, his hair floated back down and he felt his eyes resume their normal shape. 

Awkward silence loomed. Jon sighed. “Sorry.”

“I worked hard to arrange this, you know,” Annabelle said.

“Yeah.”

“I am not happy with you, Jon,” Annabelle said. 

“Sorry,” Jon said miserably. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I mean,” Oliver said, after a beat, “that’s kind of terrifying. That you can melt a building on accident. Like, what would happen if you got really pissed at Manchester or something?”

“Goodbye, Manchester,” Annabelle muttered. 

Jon lifted his head, glaring blearily at Oliver. “If you think that’s crazy, you should have been there the one time I opened up an extradimensional gate and unleashed nightmare terrors into the world, rendering all of humanity immortal and eternally trapped in endless infernal hellscapes.”

Oliver shrugged, conceding the point. 

But Annabelle just looked thoughtful. Probably reworking five billion plans, knowing her. Jon didn’t want to know, because he didn’t care. Let her do whatever she wanted. None of his business. Hopefully, after this disaster, she’d keep it out of his business. 

Finally, she asked, “Was that true? That there’s no moving us forward?”

Jon sighed. He really didn’t want to talk about this anymore. But if he didn’t tell her then she’d just bug him about it later, or find some way to get the information out of him that would be both convoluted and unpleasant. “I’m not saying that people can’t...live their lives. They’re obviously still going to work and typing in every digit of pi into their spreadsheets for eight hours and then going home to stare, hypnotized, into cable television. But I am saying that there’s no achieving more than that. There’s no going backwards, and there’s no going forwards. The past is closed to us, and so is the future.” He eyed her warily. “If you have any cute time travel ideas, forget it.”

“I would never,” Annabelle said innocently. 

Yeah, sure. Liar. Jon scowled. “You’re all hampered by your humanity.” When Oliver opened his mouth, Jon just shook his head. “Even Avatars are still people. We’re all conduits for eldritch Forces, hollowed out to serve as a live wire for their power, but we - you all remember a human life. You care about things. You have relationships. You love. It makes you weak. Some of you don’t even like your lot in life - some part of you aching for something familiar, when you felt genuine happiness instead of the cheap facsimile induced by causing pain.” Jon looked down at his hands, reflexively picking at one of his many scars. “You should be more like me. You’d be more focused.”

“Are you capable of...changing, Jon?” Oliver asked curiously. “Or will you be this way forever?”

“Most of Annabelle’s plans hinge on that not happening,” Jon said, not even aware it was true until he said it, “so I suppose we’ll find out.”

Of course, Jon knew what Oliver had tactfully not said. He had wanted to know if Jon would ever grow up. They all thought he was a child, even Annabelle. Jon had the feeling even Daisy did, sometimes. 

It was stupid and they were wrong. Child would imply adult, would imply birthday parties and learning to talk and learning geography. Jon didn’t have to learn geography. He knew geography. He didn’t age. He was born being able to talk. Jon was above all of these things. He was mature. And even if he wasn’t, who cared?

But Annabelle just smiled at Jon, a polite mask. Annabelle hadn’t made a genuine facial expression in - well, longer than Jon’s memory. Or maybe that was the wrong way to put it. Maybe it was more accurate that she never expressed an emotion that she didn’t mean to. “Well! That wasn’t entirely a disaster, was it? I think next time could go really well. Don’t worry, Jon, I won’t drag you out of bed again.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Now, the three of us are going back to your flat and doing something about your awful rat’s nest.”

Oh, lord. This was going to be terrible. “Do we have to?” Jon whined. 

Annabelle smiled again, but this time it was so dangerous that Jon couldn’t help but quail. “My spiders are collecting the avocado oil and coconut oil now. My best friend in secondary had 3C hair too, I think I know what to do. Oliver, bring the buzzer, scissors, and satin wraps.”

“Three cee?” Jon asked, confused. “What’s that?”

Oliver grimaced. “Why am I involved in this?”

“Because I don’t know what to do with a guy’s hair, and you’re probably the only guy I’ve ever met who knows what to do with hair? Keep up.”

“I’m feeling pigeonholed, but fine. But we are not buzzing that hair. It’s a crime against god.” Oliver looked thoughtful for a second. “I think Jon would do a nice, loose afro. I think I still have some hair masks and vinegar rinse -”

“Why is this so complicated?” Jon asked, completely freaked out. “What are these things?”

But Annabelle just smiled sweetly at him, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jon. I’ll teach you what you need to know.”

Well. It seemed easier than figuring things out for himself. Jon didn’t like responsibility. Today was his first taste of responsibility in ages, and he had already decided that it sucked. Better to let somebody who actually cared take care of it. 

That way, he didn’t have to be powerful. Didn’t have to be anybody’s demigod on Earth, capable of murdering whoever he liked. He could just be Jon, Private Detective, Archivist. He could have fun. Just live. Didn’t he deserve that, despite everything?

He stood up too, summoning a shaky smile for Annabelle. “So you aren’t mad about me ruining your meeting, then?”

“Water under the bridge,” Annabelle said. “Now come on, we have to stop by the chemist’s and pick up a decent hairbrush.”

Hairbrush? What was that for?

****

Six months after time resumed its course

Jon opened his mailbox, only to find mail.

Suspicion immediately loomed. Jon didn’t get mail. Not due to any kind of impossibility, but just because he didn’t pay bills and none of the mimic junk mail was brave enough to try their luck with him. Maybe invoices, sometimes, but mostly those were dropped off in person. The invoices were scarier than the finger-biting mimics: he still didn’t quite know how they worked. Sasha kept insisting they were important, but Sasha also insisted face masks were important. She didn’t know everything. That was Jon’s job.

He grabbed the singular envelope anyway, elbowing his door back open as he inspected the envelope. Thick, rich, and creamy, it reminded Jon uncomfortably of Annabelle’s party invite from a while ago. In the front, he saw that it was addressed to...Agnes?

The living room was noisy and busy, entirely due to the recipient of the letter and her brother. They were playing Mario Kart on the Wii, and apparently disowning each other. Jon watched Agnes hit Gerry with a blue shell, slightly bemused, and saw Dry Bones spin out into the center and make a pitiful noise. Baby Peach loomed supreme. 

Jon almost felt bad interrupting. An opened bag of chips scattered dust around Gerry, and Agnes had a half-empty pack of uncooked hot dogs next to her. They had both been at this for a while. “Agnes, you got a letter. And try to keep it down, Sasha’s working and Daisy’s sleeping.”

Agnes turned around, half a hot dog hanging out of her mouth like a cigar. She swallowed it quickly, holding out one hand and letting Jon give her the letter. She frowned down at the front, ignoring the way Gerry craned his head to take a look, and when she checked the back she frowned deeper. There was a wax seal, its details out of sight to Jon. 

“Is it that time already?” Agnes muttered, putting her controller down and letting the parade lap on the screen continue. 

Gerry frowned too as Agnes carefully broke the seal. “Is that from…?”

“Yeah. Weird, though. Guess it’s about time for the follow-up to the emergency meeting.” She pulled a letter out of the envelope, embossed on creamy paper. She scanned it quickly. “Downing street this time…”

“Are you going to go?”

“Well, it’s not as if Jude can,” Agnes said diplomatically, refolding the paper. 

Jon cleared his throat, making the kids jump. They had half-forgotten he was there. Far too late, Agnes hid the invite behind her back. “Care to explain?”

“Oh, you know,” Agnes said vaguely, casually tossing the invite behind her shoulder and letting Gerry snatch it out of midair. “It’s the invite to the Avatar council meetings. I think they’re held once every three months, but since months are a theoretical concept it’s occasionally hard to tell..”

“Not these days,” Gerry said excitedly. “It’s cold! The leaves fell!”

“The leaf thing is dope,” Agnes agreed. “Anyway, I should go. I have, like, serious words. I already submitted ten motions. I want to run for Treasurer, but Jared keeps saying that anybody who isn’t old enough to open her own bank account shouldn’t be treasurer.”

“What on Earth are you talking about?” Jon asked blankly. Was this some kind of youth league? Baseball? Was this baseball?

Abruptly, Agnes looked very sketchy. “I...it’s really nothing you’d be interested in.”

“I am interested in everything,” Jon said. He was offended beyond all belief. “Don’t keep secrets!”

“Jon’s not a big fan of secrets,” Gerry stage-whispered. “Did Annabelle say that we shouldn’t tell him or did she just say not to bother him about it?”

Agnes abruptly started sweating wax. “I can’t remember.”

“Now you have to tell me,” Jon said flatly. 

They gave up very quickly. Teenagers loved hiding things, but they also loved drama and spilling secrets. “It’s the Avatar council meeting thing,” Gerry said eagerly. “You know, where you guys all get together and re-enact the British empire by making government decisions and imposing made-up laws on the people you’ve conquered and are currently subjugating under your big stompy boots?”

“I’m changing the system from the inside,” Agnes said proudly. 

Gerry shot her an unimpressed look. “Okay. Yeah. Sure. Because that’s a thing that makes sense in an inherently corrupt system with an inherently unethical existence that exists to be profitable at the expense of the marginalized.”

“I don’t understand anything children these days even talk about,” Jon said. 

“I’m surprised you don’t remember it,” Agnes said to Jon. But she had a strange expression on her face, one hard to decipher. “It’s where we met.”

Jon stared at her blankly. “I don’t remember talking to you.”

“I was sitting next to Jude?” Agnes hinted. “Teenager? Red hair?”

Wait. Jon snapped his fingers. “Annabelle’s idiot thing! Right! Right, of course, Oliver made me sit still for five hours afterwards, it was insufferable.” 

Wait. Jon abruptly remembered the rest of that day. It seemed like so long ago, even though it was probably objectively only about three years. It must have been about...yes, a few months after Daisy had gotten stuck...

He barely remembered those tepid and awful months. He had been on a bit of a hair trigger back then. It had been really tough, with Daisy leaving and his terrifying encounter with Jonah. He remembered everybody had been annoying and mean and made him feel bad…

“First time I ever remember feeling fear, honestly,” Agnes said to Gerry. “Scariest moment of my life. Remember when we first met Jon? All I could think about was that he was going to melt us like he melted that building.”

Hot shame flared in Jon’s gut. Right. Other people were real, and existed, and were probably more important than his...what had he even been upset about? He didn’t remember. 

He melted a building and he didn’t even remember why. 

“I’m going too,” Jon said, and both kids startled. “I’m coming with you.”

Agnes and Gerry stared at each other with wide eyes. 

“Uh,” Agnes said finally, hesitant, “there’s about a 50/50 chance Annabelle said not to tell you about this, and you definitely didn’t get an invite, so statistically you probably aren’t -”

“She can’t exactly stop me from coming,” Jon said, and both kids quieted. 

Power-tripping had lost all appeal for Jon - assuming role as a conduit for global and absolute power did that to you - but he couldn’t deny it was useful sometimes. The world probably could have stood a little more power-tripping from him, actually. At least, it would have been helpful if he had ever done anything helpful with it. But he had never really bothered. 

But Agnes still looked perturbed, almost worried. “Annabelle’s like one of two people you used to ever listen to, so if you don’t really care what she thinks anymore -”

“I think Annnabelle knows better than to complain these days,” Jon said. 

It probably was for the best that Jon didn’t listen much to Annabelle anymore. 

****

Jon hadn’t really told the others about Annabelle’s worse-than-murder attempt. 

It didn’t really seem like any of their business, and he had spinned a vague explanation of how the situation happened. He didn’t lie, just - withheld information.

For the first time, the truth didn’t seem so important. He had the feeling it would have just upset them. It wasn’t as if he would take revenge against Annabelle. The world needed her, and Jon was a little tired of murdering everyone who upset him. The others (Daisy) would insist on the little murder attempts if they knew, but that was probably part of why he didn’t tell them. If they never knew about the one unselfish thing he had done in his life - well, one unselfish thing didn’t make up for three years of selfishness, so there was very little point.

Martin suspected. Actually, Martin seemed to know, which terrified Jon slightly. It was impossible to get anything past Martin. Jon was deeply intimidated by the man. Sasha laughed very long and hard when he told her that, for unknown reasons. 

Besides, it wasn’t as if he felt betrayed. Even if the last time he had attended one of Annabelle’s little council meetings he still trusted her, that had faded quickly in favor of complete apathy. Even then, as young as he was, he had never expected the truth from her. Just friendship. Whatever she was doing, it probably wouldn’t affect him, so there was no use in worrying. Even if Annabelle slightly terrorized every other person in the United Kingdom - well, Jon was fine, so what did it matter.

Jon couldn’t decide if he was stupid or naive. Or, even worse - if he was just lazy. 

Jon didn’t listen to Annabelle anymore. 

Unfortunately, he still listened to Sasha James. 

Two weeks later, the date of the actual meeting, Jon was stuck explaining himself to his entire house, who doubted all of his decisions. Which was just unfair. Jon made good decisions! He had made tons of good decisions, like -

Anyway!

“I think it’s a great idea,” Sasha said, freaking out Jon. “Displaying interest in your local government’s fantastic! Did you do any research on the relevant issues?”

Jon, in the middle of pulling on his trenchcoat, started sweating. “I was just planning on showing up.”

Agnes, who was wearing a gauzy skirt and blouse as Daisy helped a whining Gerry with his court buttons, gave Sasha the thumbs up. “I’m going to propose motions and Jon’s going to say ‘yeah what she said’ and it’ll be great.”

Jon let Agnes believe that.

“Well, you’ll have to share Jon’s political weight,” Sasha said cheerfully. She was in sweatpants and one of Jon’s pilfered t-shirts again. She had recently designated herself a writer, and had joined some sort of recent artist and activist collective where they did mysterious things that Jon didn’t understand. There’s a zine involved? Jon didn’t know what a zine was and he was scared to ask.

Georgie and Melanie had spent a week teaching Jon in laborious detail what exactly the internet was - information Jon could have just downloaded, but they had been intent in their mission of creating ‘the perfect internet’ and had gone through great effort in teaching him what the ‘good’ internet was (Ravelry, Spotify, r/HobbyDrama, YouTubers but only a very specific list) and what the ‘bad’ internet was (social media, the rest of Reddit, every other YouTuber). Jon wasn’t sure if the new internet was to their specifications, and he hadn’t quite been able to avoid parts of it spiralling into nightmare dimensions and hellish breeding grounds for violence and trauma, but Melanie assured him that Twitter had always been like that. 

Jon also secretly added a nightmare filter to Melanie’s screen reader, after he made sure every inch of it was accessible, after he roughly recreated screen readers. Melanie said that the voice sounded uncannily like the aunt she had hated, but that it was no big deal. 

Anyway, Sasha was a blogger now. After a few meltdowns to Sasha’s computer he had to install a nightmare filter for her too, which made her complain about feeling like an old woman whose grandson had to install AdBlock on her browser. Jon was a little scared of the whole blogging thing, but everybody seemed much happier, so maybe that was the important thing.

“Wait,” Jon said, finally recognizing what Sasha said. “Share with who?”

There was a knock on the door. Jon felt intense fear.

“She’s here!” Sasha said cheerfully. “Come in!”

Jon watched in horror as Basira Hussain casually strode into her house. He knew he couldn’t stop her. She had a key to the place, because Jon had no control of his life. 

“Hey honey,” Basira said, intimately. 

“Hey honey,” Daisy said lovingly, releasing Gerry from her clutches.

They stared at each other, as if this was any kind of greeting whatsoever, before ignoring each other. Jon did not understand so many things. 

Basira, terrifyingly, was dressed like she was about to go defend her client in court. She had a briefcase, and Jon recognized her most important looking crimson hijab. Very abruptly, Jon had a flashback to the way Annabelle had dressed when she had picked him up in his old office. They even had the same expression: determined and resolute, in a way that Jon could never understand. 

Basira nodded at Jon. “Hey. Sasha invited me to this thing. She told you I was coming, right.”

“She did not.”

“Whatever. Are we going to get going? We’re going to be late.”

Jon looked at Sasha pleadingly. Cold and resolute stone, Sasha showed no mercy. She smiled brightly, giving Agnes a final hug and pushing her forward. “You kids have a great time! Terrorize the bourgeoisie!”

“I am the bourgeoisie,” Jon said blankly, but the situation had already spiraled out of his control. Agnes and Basira were already comparing lists of notes, seriously discussing the motions Agnes had raised and how she was going to help Basira. 

That was it – how Agnes could help Basira. How Agnes, and the role she had in the council hall, could help Basira and the people Jon knew that she intended on representing today. 

They hadn’t even looped him in. Had they assumed that he wouldn’t care? That he wouldn’t help? Agnes hadn’t even wanted him there. Only Sasha -

He felt a cool, small hand grab his arm, and he turned around to see Daisy. Gerry was already enthusiastically capturing Sasha about the concert he and Agnes were going to later, and Jon knew that they weren’t listening. Daisy’s expression was somber, her body tense. Daisy wasn’t one for facial expressions at the best of times – not even a new development – but something about this…

“I should go with you,” Daisy said. 

“I already told you no,” Jon said, miffed. “I can handle this by myself.”

“I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself last time,” Daisy said. Jon could admit that things probably wouldn’t have spiraled out of control if she had been there, but that didn’t mean – “Don’t terrify yourself just because you feel guilty.”

Daisy hadn’t aged any more than the rest of the world had. As an Avatar, she likely never would. She even looked young for her mid-forties, with her short stature and broad, unlined face. Sasha had assured him that she was ‘Kristen Bell-ish’, whatever that meant. But she always seemed so old to him: larger than life and not even reaching his shoulders. Wise and world-weary even when, as Jon was beginning to see, she didn’t know what she was doing any more than the rest of them did. 

It scared Jon, almost: if Daisy wasn’t the person who could swoop in and make it all better, then who could? 

If Jonah wasn’t the omnipresent god, then who was the most powerful person in the world?

Jon shook her off, fighting the pull in his gut. “I’m not scared of them anymore.”

She didn’t look impressed. “You’re always scared.”

“Look at the time, going to be late, gotta go!” 

He still couldn’t win an argument against her. 

They took a taxi there, as Jon had cheerfully informed them that the Tube was delayed due to infernal leaves on the line (Work-from-home was the hot new thing these days). Basira was clearly on edge, tense and constantly keeping an eye on the taxi driver (a friendly skeleton) and the street. Agnes wasn’t any more relaxed, reading her notes over and over. 

Jon leaned back in his plush seat, closing his eyes. What would Martin say? He would probably be cuttingly pointing out how Jon was in denial over how he really was secretly afraid of the Avatars and now it was even more dangerous because he was much more willing to power-trip. 

Forget about what Jon wanted. Forget about his fear, his insecurities, and every rationale he had constructed for himself as to why Jon deserved a life free of these worries.

Jon was above politics. The Avatar with no need to defend their territory, who held no fear of death or failure, had no need. Jon could not lose the affection of his patron. His domain was the world, and it could not be attacked no matter how hard he tried. Jon was not a politician, so of course that meant he could not be manipulated by politicians -

“What’s your plan,” Jon asked, without opening his eyes.

They told him. Basira was clinical; Agnes excited. Jon didn’t say anything about it, and let the conversation die down until the taxi was rolling in front of 10 Downing Street. Didn’t the prime minister live here? Boris...something? Jon quickly downloaded the information, before he found that Boris Johnson had been the world’s most convoluted psy-op by Annabelle and had never exactly existed. Thank goodness.

Right as the taxi idled in front of the building, Jon opened his eyes. He let them flare up, an intimidating spark of toxic green. “You two follow my lead.”

“Excuse me,” Basira said flatly, as Jon waved at the driver in lieu of payment. He hadn’t found out that you were supposed to pay taxi drivers until...a few months ago. In his defense, they never asked. “This is our operation.”

Jon glanced at her, and something relaxed around the corners of her eyes. He wondered if his expression was familiar to her. He couldn’t help but smile weakly, and that softened her expression even more. “Will you trust me?”

Basira stared at him for one long beat, then two, before grimacing. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“Do I usually make you regret it?” 

“Literally, every single time,” Basira said. 

“Then it’s a pretty stupid decision to trust me again,” Jon pointed out. “You don’t seem the type to make stupid decisions.”

Basira stared at him for a long moment, before leaving the car. 

Jon and Agnes silently watched her leave, before glancing at each other. 

“And I thought you ran from your feelings,” Agnes said finally, before following her. 

Jon, left with nothing else to do, followed Agnes.

10 Downing Street, Jon quickly found, was just like every other pretentious old British home. With lots of grandiose rooms with furniture shoved into corners so everybody could appreciate the gold-plated tile, or sitting rooms with the most uncomfortable places to sit Jon had ever seen. Each wall hosted gigantic portraits of famous British figures, who were all so ugly that Agnes incinerated one for fun. Jon respected her choices: he had been wearing a stupid wig. 

Jon, unfortunately instinctively aware of the layout and history of this sordid place, led them through the halls. He opened his mouth, instinctively about to funnel a Statement regarding the decades of human suffering and imperialism, before forcing his mouth closed. Basira wouldn’t appreciate it. Besides, the Statements had been easier to ignore lately - like curious dogs nosing at his hands rather than insistent children demanding to be fed. 

Instead, he settled on casually updating them on the choice of location. “A year ago, this location wouldn’t have been safe for Basira at all. This building was a nightmare pit of despair.” He led them up the ridiculous flights of stairs watching carefully as Agnes jumped up them. Trick steps, you know. Basira proceeded far more cautiously. “It’s...no less a nightmare pit, but like the rest of London it’s now safe to navigate. I’d keep clear of the residential rooms, however. The Prime Minister and his family haven’t escaped their nightmares since the apocalypse, and they never will.”

Basira’s eyebrows skyrocketed up. “David Cameron’s stuck in hell? No surprise there. What’s he having a nightmare about?” 

“Well, there’s this pig, right, and you’ll never guess what he’s doing -”

“Never mind,” Basira said quickly. “Not interested.”

“I’m interested,” Agnes said. 

“I’d rather you weren’t.”

Jon, who also wished he didn’t know this information, quickly directed them towards the conference room.   

But he found himself stopping in front of the intricately carved oak double doors. The wrought golden handles were grimy and dull with dust, but Agnes and Basira did not hesitate to open the door and walk in. They didn’t hesitate; they weren’t frightened. Or, if they were, they didn’t let it stop them.

But Jon stopped. He felt like Annabelle, in that moment. Annabelle, standing in front of that conference room door so long ago, unable to admit that she felt any fear at all. 

She had been desperate. Jon saw that now. Only a desperate person would have ever concocted that plan against Jon. He was the sole person capable of murder in this world, and the sole person who was so vindictive and petty that he would kill anybody who said something that he didn’t like. 

Annabelle was arrogant. She thought herself the most intelligent person in every room. She was petty, manipulative, and power-hungry. She thought that the world was so broken that somebody had to fix it, and that she was the only one who could. She was desperate. 

Jon didn’t particularly want to do this. But Jon really, really had to grow up. 

Jon opened the door. 

It was a far cry from the nice, professional conference room in City Hall. The floor was some ugly light brown hardwood color, and the walls were tudor-like and panelled. Old man ribboned curtains, an intricate rug woven from human rights abuses, and a claw-foot long conference table with an array of chairs made up an incredibly ‘antique’ room. The British found ‘antique’ and ‘wealth signalling’ to be the same thing. It made for some very ugly buildings and very uncomfortable chairs.

 Nobody else had entered yet. Jon checked the time with his extradimensional psychic powers and realized that Sasha had hustled them out the door fifteen minutes earlier than necessary. She was so intelligent. 

Agnes was already moving to her uncomfortable seat, and Jon tapped Basira on the arm and silently pointed to the seat with the ‘EXTINCTION’ placard. She raised an eyebrow at him, but followed his direction. Maybe that was what her trust looked like. 

There was a placard stamped ‘BEHOLDING’ in big letters. Gone unoccupied since the last time Jon had been here. 

He ignored it, and sat down at the head of the table. Likely where Annabelle usually sat, as director of the meetings. Historically, where the leader of Britain had once sat and directed the affairs of the country.

Jon kicked up his heels on the polished antique wood, pulling up an episode of The Twilight Zone in his brain. He identified with Rod Serling. 

The other Avatars filtered in, one by one. All of their eyes widened when they saw Jon, but none of them said anything. Jon wondered what had filtered through the Avatar grapevine. They always knew all of the gossip on each other. It was impossible to miss the Earth’s paradigm shift, and Agnes mentioned that they had convened an emergency meeting on it. Doubtlessly, his name had come up. They likely knew he was the instigator. Who else could?

Annabelle was the fourth in, as fashionably on time as usual. She was the only one who stopped in her tracks when she saw Jon. A surprise, to a woman unused to surprises. Jon’s house didn’t have insect problems. 

Her eyes widened. Her jaw clenched. That was all it took. And Jon Knew, in the way that he Knew things, that she was wondering if this was when he finally killed her. 

She didn’t know why she was still alive. It was stressing her out. It was a move that made no sense - an unforeseen reaction. Jon was predictable. When Jon wasn’t predictable, and when Jon’s actions weren’t being very precisely controlled, then she was left with a vindictive and irreverent steam train on her hands. She hadn’t predicted his presence here. 

Jon was also sitting in her chair. Scuffing the wood. Leaning back in the chair, and definitely scuffing the floor too. 

He pointed to the chair at his right, with a placard that now read ‘WEB’. Annabelle sat down in it. Everybody noticed. 

Everybody also noticed Basira. She was receiving some glares, or some pointedly unwelcome expressions. But Basira’s glares and unwelcome expressions were more powerful than any demon could ever offer, and one by one each Avatar looked away in shame.

Only Oliver actually talked to him. Which made sense, as Oliver feared neither life nor death. When he walked in he was just as surprised to see Jon as everyone else, but he offered Jon a smile too. Jon smiled back, which made several of the other Avatars lean back.

“Hey, Archivist. I thought you hated these things.” 

“I do!” Jon said cheerfully. “I wasn’t even invited.”

Annabelle busied herself with her notes and agenda. 

As usual, Helen didn’t show up. Jon waited patiently for everybody to filter in. Sarah Baldwin didn’t show up either, and Jon searched for the information before realizing that he really didn’t want to know. He saw some other new faces, as well as some faintly familiar ones. It wasn’t that strange: no position of absolute power was forever. Where was that bloke Wakely?

Wait. He was the Avatar who had talked for too long about burying people alive at a party in a ridiculous skyscraper. He had upset Daisy. Jon had seen red and lost his temper. Jon had...tossed him over the side of the roof. Let him keep falling. Left him to waste away. He was probably gone now. 

The entire room had been at that party. Whoops. 

Now uncomfortably reminded that Jon had murdered two people at this table, that everybody was aware of that, and that Jon had completely forgotten about one of the semi-accidental murders because, in Sasha’s words, he was “a bit of a psychopath, what the hell”.

This distressed her, because apparently Jonathan Sims had always been a “sensitive boy” with a “tender heart”. Daisy had said that he was still a sensitive boy, just prone to power-tripping. Sasha said that this was also very consistent behavior. Martin said -

Martin said that Jonathan Sims had been a good person. And, more importantly, that Jonathan Sims had wanted to be a good person. That was one thing that Jon didn’t want to change. 

Who just buried people alive -

Jon waited until everyone was settled down. Nobody was chatting or talking to each other: just sitting silently, avoiding eye contact. 

He could see Annabelle preparing herself to say something. Better get this ball rolling, then.

“Jonah Magnus is dead.”

The silence suddenly became oppressive. 

Jon didn’t stop to savor the looks on their faces. That wasn’t the point. Enjoying this wasn’t the point. Jon had all the power he wanted and - and he didn’t want it at all. He hoped that nobody here would make him have to prove it. 

Jon did not want to melt anyone. He wasn’t going to melt anyone. Life had started feeling a little valuable lately. These people, the soulless demons surrounding him, weren’t any different than he was. Humans with delusions of grandeur. Infighting and power plays weren’t going to fix it. 

But Annabelle had been right, as she always was. Jon couldn’t keep ignoring this. If he could do something, he had to. Even if it was something he didn’t like doing. 

Or something he hated that he enjoyed doing. 

“Jonah Magnus is dead,” Jon repeated pleasantly. “The world has changed. These two events are related, of course.”

He didn’t elaborate. Jon didn’t lie, but he didn’t have to say everything. 

“The chains which bind this Earth have loosened,” Jon continued. He folded his hands over his stomach, relaxed and casual. “We now exist in the third age of life. I ask that you do not resist.

“The seasons have begun to change, our eternal placid summer ripening into fall and sinking into winter. Our world turns yet again. Babies are born, grow old, and die. The apocalypse as we’ve always known was rooted in its stagnancy. Life and growth has bloomed, and will continue to subsist. Change is once again thriving, and we must adapt with it.

“You’ve noticed that your power has weakened. You will have to fight harder than ever to maintain your food supplies. What was once a conquest is now a battleground. The playing field is far from even, but the enemy and harvest now have a fighting chance.” Jon smiled brightly. “Of course, I’m sure that this was all discussed during your emergency meeting. Great job with your repeated warfare attempts against humanity during the last six months, by the way. How’s that working out for us?”

Silence loomed. Of course, their repeated attempts to quash the new human uprising had not gone very well. At the end of the day, for every one Avatar there were thousands of humans. 

“You are no longer strong enough to allow these divides into factions,” Jon continued. “We must present a united front if we’re going to maintain the ground we have. We can’t continue on the way we have. And I’ve realized…” Jon glanced at Annabelle, catching her eye. ��I’ve realized that I haven’t been helping the situation. There’s more I can do. That’s why Annabelle has handed over moderation of these meetings to me.”

Nobody looked impressed. 

He could see it: the way Jon had become an unpredictable, dangerous nuisance towards them. Almost everyone in this room would be much happier if Jon dropped dead. Nobody had really liked him because nobody had ever felt safe around him. Only Annabelle and Oliver - the person who had nothing to fear from him and the other person who did not feel fear - called themselves his friends. 

But they would have preferred it if Jon was hostile or dangerous. If he had even admitted his power. But Jon play-acted at harmlessness, unwilling and afraid to make enemies, and in that way he became a nuisance rather than an enemy. He couldn’t even pretend that it wasn’t on purpose. No matter how many Avatars brushed him off or ignored him, it was better than feeling their eyes on him. Or feeling the fear rich on their tongues. 

 “Also I invited a human to work with us on human affairs,” Jon said cheerfully. “Diversity hire! Any questions?”

There were a lot of questions. Basira didn’t look very pleased at his remark, either. 

Simon leaned forward first, pale and watery eyes intent for the first time. “What happened to Jonah Magnus?”

“Natural causes,” Jon said cheerfully. “Next?”

“What does this mean for us?” the Lukas matriarch said. Her eyes skittered away from him. “Are we in danger?”

Jon shrugged. “Only if you’re incompetent at feeding.”

“What caused this?” Manuela demanded. “The children are running wild, we can’t control them. We’ve lost a major food source.”

Jon scratched his temples. “What caused it...sustainability efforts.” He sobered abruptly. “You could never control the children, anyway. This is the generation of the apocalypse. You’ll find that very little frightens them now.”

“Does this have to do with those humans you’ve been running around with?” Jared asked, scratching his chin as Manuela’s expression contorted in rage. 

As usual, a frighteningly insightful observation from such a brute. “It is actually directly their fault!”

Everybody turned to look at Basira, who was completely unapologetic. She crossed her arms. “Don’t ask me. First I’m hearing about this too.”

“Did you kill Jonah Magnus?” Oliver asked, morbidly fascinated. “How?”

“We humans didn’t kill him. We showed up at the Panopticon to kill him, only to find Jon there and Jonah Magnus already dead.” Basira scowled as Jon and Annabelle glanced at each other. Jon subtly shook his head. Annabelle’s lips thinned. “It looked like he’d been dead for years.”

An unfamiliar young man with a thick mop of clumped black hair peered at Jon, expression contorted in grotesque interest. He was one of the Avatars who had been born in the Apocalypse, who were all recognizably weird. His name was - right, Geoff Anjou. Some French man who had made his mark in the Parisian Underground before moving to London and conquering his next terrain. A Parisian to the bone - or, a great deal of bones, as the case may be. So many bones. Jon had always meant to take Daisy to that wonderful little nightmare and let her run loose. Chase people through the tunnels. Munch bones. Perfect vacation. 

“So did the Archivist kill him?” Geoff asked, in the same way you would ask who won the World Cup. “Steal his Watcher’s Crown or whatever?”

“Are you the new queen bee?” a young woman asked Jon. The new Slaughter Avatar, Henrietta Something-or-another. A Cambridge legacy college student, Annabelle had intoned, and Jon had been afraid to inquire further. She was cyberbullying someone on her mobile, which seemed to be bleeding. “Cuz, like, you don’t seem qualified.”

“I did not kill Jonah Magnus,” Jon said, for the five hundreth time in the last six months. “And I’m uninterested in filling his shoes. That’s enough questions, I think.”

“Are you as weakened as the rest of us?” Amherst demanded. “Surely this destruction has affected you worst of all.”

“He probably ate Jonah Magnus,” Henrietta said. “The Archivist’s probably god now.”

Geoff snorted. “No way. He brought a human as back-up.”

“Why is there a human?” Another woman asked, with long brown hair and a broad face. Something about her was unquestionably severe, from her bulging muscles to her incredible height. Jon had never seen her before in his life. Her name was Julia Montauk. Something about her stank of life and undeath, same as Amherst. “We can’t exactly work with the prey, here.”

“I’m proposing an emergency motion,” Amherst said suddenly, shutting up the rapidly overlapping voices. “I vote that a leader is elected democratically. And that representatives are limited towards loyal patrons of the Forces.”

“I second that motion,” Geoff said immediately. “We can’t afford a chaotic uprising in our government right now -”

“This really isn’t a vote,” Jon said. 

“Isn’t this a democracy?” Henrietta asked, with the self-righteous assurance of a twenty year old. “We vote on things in a democracy. And leaders.”

“Annabelle was voted in last spring,” Julia agreed. “No reason to change things.”

Well. Basira said that she trusted him. He’d have to rely on that.

Jon pressed down. 

It felt just like that: pressing down. Reaching out a hand and squashing. Sometimes it was like ripping someone into shreds, and other times it was like plunging your hand into their chest and ripping out their heart. But this was just a press: a heavy static, bearing down over your shoulders like a ten ton weight. A sight so horrible that it was too eldritch to even look at. The realization that the hideous sight was you, and that it was all you would ever be.

Some - Geoff, Amherst - gasped, as if they were choking. Others - Lukas, Henrietta - gasped at their hearts, as if they were having heart attacks. Jon carefully kept it off Oliver, Annabelle, Basira, and Agnes. He couldn’t help but remember what she had said a few weeks ago, about being so frightened - 

But Basira winced anyway, clutching her temples, and Jon carefully released the static until the inhabitants of the room could breathe again. His eyes did not stop glowing, and Jon didn’t bother to turn off the light show. 

Jon put his feet down on the floor and rested his elbows on the table, leaning forward. As everyone shuddered and gasped, he spoke slowly and pointedly. “This is not a democracy. It never was. It is a monarchy, and the line of succession is clear.”

Annabelle’s eyes widened, and she abruptly clenched her fists before loosening them. An uncharacteristic show of emotion from her.

“This coalition has never been a democracy,” Jon said severely. “This is a house of lords. You are uninterested in representing any needs but your own, and I know Jared failed level eight government, but I’m sure all of you know that democracy represents elected officials. Nobody here has ever lived in a true democracy, and in your human fallibility you have recreated the only system you have ever known. The seats at this table are determined by power - all of you, the most powerful conduits for your Entity. I am the inevitable consequence of this system. I am your natural disaster. All of you bought me. Now you have me. And you are no longer powerful enough to make me leave.”

Agnes’ hand was covering her mouth. Jon dearly hoped Basira was holding onto that trust. He dearly hoped that he wasn’t speaking from anger. 

But he couldn’t stop. It boiled and bubbled. It was an anger and a powerlessness that had subjugated him for thirty two years of his life. It had served as the cloud hanging over his head for three more. 

“If you want someone to blame for the Archivist who now moderates this meeting,” Jon said, his voice the thin lid over this boiling pot of hurt and anger, “I now know their names. Jonah Magnus. Jude Perry. Nikola Orsinov. Twice. Breekon and Hope’s coffin. Peter Lukas. Jane Prentiss. Maxwell Raynor. A strategic book.” Jon tilted his head, having effectively made his point. There were others, but he had forgiven Daisy and Melanie a long time ago. And Jared had been polite about it. “Bring up your complaints with them. Good luck with that.”

Jon clapped his hands, closing the lid on those memories. Maybe one day the pain would leech from them like a sun-bleached painting, but that day hadn’t come yet. “Now! If you have any further complaints about my position here, or if you want to continue debating political theory, feel free to stand up and tell me so. We’re all interested in you regurgitating your life story until you die. Anyone?” Crickets. Jon leaned back in his chair, making himself comfortable. “Can we go onto the motions now? Ms. Hussain first, then clockwise from her.”

As if they had planned this, with the air of a well-choreographed actress, Basira stood up and spread out her papers in front of her. “The human contingency requests neutral zones in essential areas. Maternal wards in hospitals are highly vulnerable locations, and when assaulted by parasites the mortality rate of children is very high. If you want a self-replenishing food source, you have to allocate space for safe living. The next essential zone is a daycare and a school for children -”

And she was off. Jon had nothing to say, nor was anything necessary. Raging debate sparked after she finished speaking, and Basira effectively crushed the opposition. Agnes spoke up in her defense, and to Jon’s surprise even Manuela contributed a solid understanding of the necessity of children. When the debate started spiraling in an unhelpful direction Jon cut in and shut it down, before forcing the vote. 

It did not pass, obviously. 

“By the way,” Jon said. “Ms. Hussain proposed five different motions today. At least two of them have to pass. This debate is about picking which two you want.”

Then that started up all over again, and Jon tried not to fall asleep.

Moderating was hard. He actually had to pay attention and focus, and he hated focusing. He was effective enough at shutting down conversations, but sometimes shutting down conversations wasn’t helpful - he just needed to steer them in a more productive conversation. And Agnes’ political theory and Basira’s almost-definitely-made-up statistics started flying so thick and fast above his head that Jon was starting to almost completely lose the plot.

Jon chose his moment as the Lukas woman was complaining extensively about how Henrietta’s digital bullying was intruding upon the Loneliness of her adherents. Henrietta had argued that social media made people more lonely. Jon was afraid that Henrietta was his fault. Maybe the Eye’s fault, holistically. Jared wanted to be friends with Henrietta and co-host Instagram events, which Jon enthusiastically supported despite Basira’s glares.

He leaned over to his right, gesturing slightly at Annabelle so she would lean in closer. She raised an eyebrow at him. Annabelle’s eyebrows were crushing. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jon whispered to her, as quietly as possible. 

Annabelle mouthed very clearly at him, ‘Wow, really? Shock!’. 

“I was making a point,” Jon hissed. “An important point. But I don’t - I still -” Jon faltered, uncertain, as Henrietta began sneering something about Lukas’ hairdo. Finally, he weakly said, “You care. They need you.”

Annabelle stared at him for a long, silent moment, before turning away from him. 

For the first time that day, she spoke to the room. “Let’s keep ad hominem attacks out of this,” she said sharply. “Madame Lukas, if you’ll make your closing remarks we can bring this to a vote.”

She really was good at it. Just like she had always wanted. She had never directly admitted it, but Annabelle had always wanted to be the kind of person in rooms like this. 

A politician sitting in an uncomfortable chair at 10 Downing Street. Rich, successful, important. Powerful and respected. Back then, she had wanted to be famous. Now, she was content to be controlling famous people. A dream out of her reach in life; laughably attainable in this stagnant after-afterlife. 

The dream had crippled her. In her search for a functional world, one that achieved and grew and provided a comfortable world, she had ended up recreating a world that hadn’t been functional at all. A world that was slow to change, and seemingly impossible to improve. A world passed down from the hands of the greedy and bloodthirsty into the hands of the uncaring and apathetic. 

The apocalypse had been inevitable. Humans driving themselves to extinction. And Avatars, possessed of human weakness, had been eager to do the same. Just a pathetic room of sour and bitter people power-tripping. 

For all that Sasha calls us bougie, Jon thought, we’re such deeply unhappy people. 

There had once been a young man, desperate for attention and acknowledgement. Dreaming of importance. He would stay up late at night, planning out his life as a famous researcher and well-respected philosopher. Everyone would tell him how smart he was. He would prove it all - with a scholarship to Oxford, with a sneer and a haughty air, with a boss who said that he had so much promise, here’s a job that will let you realize your potential. 

I deserve this job -

Something in Jon’s mind flared, a hot poker rammed behind his eye sockets. Jon hissed, one hand reaching unconsciously to his temple, and Annabelle glanced at him in alarm. She had - Jon had been thinking about her, and - what had he been -

Together, they managed to wrangle the meeting into something half-way productive. Most importantly, Basira had gotten three of her proposals passed, and Agnes’ arguments were stirring the other Avatars into serious discussion. Conversation itself would be stilted by his sheer presence, and they weren’t quite all working together yet, but they would. 

It was really all the same to Jon if the Avatars or humans won the war. He should care a bit more than he did, so he didn’t vocalize this to the others. But this conflict sparked life, a strange and frantic energy. Experiences and growth. That was what Jon had always fed on.

It seemed that Jon’s skill at prioritizing himself over all others was as sharp as ever.

Eventually the two hours wrapped up, and the other Avatars were eager to leave. Jon waved them off cheerily. 

“Meeting adjourned. Try not to do anything stupid until next time. And if any of you break the boundaries of the human safe zones, I’ll know! Annabelle, will you stay behind?”

The others filtered out quickly, uncharacteristically unwilling to see whatever carnage would be wrought. Agnes and Basira lingered. 

“That went so well!” Agnes shouted, the minute the last Avatar left. The room was now empty save for Agnes, Basira, Annabelle, and - Oliver, who was leaning against the doorframe. “I can’t believe you actually did something useful!”

“Ouch,” Oliver said. 

It was fair, though. Jon smiled weakly at her. “Hopefully I can help out a little more often going forward. But I’m not going to give any favoritism to you, Agnes. I’ll intervene to give humans a fair shot, but I really don’t want to be...king of a ruined world or whatever.”

“I know,” Agnes said firmly. She reached out and squeezed his arm, round and gentle face creased in determination. “You’d be terrible at it. So just be you, okay?”

Jon saluted her, before gesturing to the door. “Will you steal a historical British artifact from this garbage building for me? Daisy needs more targets to shoot.”

Agnes nodded eagerly and ran off. Jon silently hoped Basira would follow her, if also out of interest for also seeing British things destroyed, but she just looked at Jon intensely instead. Not quite a glare - just a searching, intense look, as if she was finding her own Statement from deep within him. It had always been disconcerting. Jon was still convinced she hated him.

“It’s not as if I knew you very well before we rescued you from the Panopticon,” Basira said crisply, pressing a folder to her chest, “but you’ve changed. What happened? What did Annabelle have to do with it?”

Jon and Annabelle glanced at each other. Oliver lifted an eyebrow. 

“Basira -”

“Don’t ask me to trust you.”

“I didn’t betray that,” Jon asked, “did I?”

Her expression didn’t soften. “You didn’t. We’re going to continue needing your help. But an ally with inscrutable motivations who does everything on a whim is a bad ally to have.”

“I’m trying, Basira,” Jon said, impossibly exhausted and just a little disappointed. “Please be patient.”

“I’ve been patient for three years,” Basira said, before forcibly cutting herself short from whatever emotion she was about to display. “What happened?”

A phantom pain pieced Jon’s arms, like chains threaded through bone. Jon fought the urge to wince, unconsciously reaching up to rub at a spot on his forearm. Everyone noticed. “It’s...family business…”

“Did you kill Jonah Magnus?”

“Jonah Magnus killed me,” Jon snapped, far louder than he intended, “so he would have deserved it, wouldn’t he!”

He felt a little lightheaded, more than he intended. It felt like a hand was clenching inside his chest, more than he wanted. No, Basira is fragile, you can’t just - no, Agnes is a kid, Daisy said that we can’t -

“Basira Hussain,” Annabelle said, hands folded tightly in her lap, eyes serious and intent. Jon started, surprised to hear her speak again. “You should go catch up with Agnes.”

Basira stared at Annabelle for a long moment, lips thin, before she abruptly whirled on her heel and stalked out. Jon watched her go, exhausted. He waited for her heels to click down the hall, far away enough that he knew she wasn’t eavesdropping, before groaning and dropping his head down onto his desk. 

“They hate me.”

“They’re scared of you,” Annabelle pointed out. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. “Frankly, Basira could stand to be a little more afraid of you. She’s going to get herself in trouble one of these days.”

“She’s practically my sister in law, I’m not going to hurt her,” Jon snapped. “Your stupid plan relied on me never hurting people I love.”

 “Sorry,” Oliver said pleasantly, “is anyone ever going to tell me what’s going on? I feel like an NPC in Jon’s Dungeons & Dragons game.”

“You want to be an NPC, I found you working at Taco Bell.” God, whatever. Jon could tell Oliver. He wouldn’t give a shit. Jon sighed, lifting his head to twist around and look at Oliver instead. “You remember when I was asking around after Sasha James? Annabelle had put me up to it.”

“Obviously. And then Sasha James started following you around? You terrorized Annabelle’s party again?”

“Yeah, it was this whole big thing.” Jon waved a hand expressively. “Anyway, then Annabelle tried to trap me in an eternal limbo that would shred me from inside out so I could act as purveyor of the world, and probably also use her connection with me so she could take over affairs here, and probably either nudge me into shaping the world back into order or into sinking it deeper into hell. I broke out and now I’m mad at her.”

“I had at least twenty other reasons,” Annabelle said, “but that’s the gist.”

Oliver stared at them.

They all sat in awkward silence. Jon found himself winding a finger around a stray coil of  hair and letting it spring back into place. He had kept it the same the last three years, never bothering to change the style. A loose and bouncy cloud of hair, sometimes brushing against his shoulders until Annabelle kidnapped him to cut it again - him, as much as the trenchcoat was. So much as anything had ever been ‘him’. 

“Well,” Oliver said diplomatically, “I see that you skipped a lot of steps there. So why are you here, then?”

Was it just to spite Annabelle? Screw her out of her work? Did Jon genuinely care? Did he want to organize the other Avatars, get them mobilized and going? Did he want to protect the humans? 

Did he really only care about himself, and the people he called his friends and family? Did he really only care about himself, and those he possessed?

“There’s a person I want to be,” Jon said quietly, “but I don’t know how to be him.”

Annabelle stared at him, with dark and glittering eyes, expression as implacable as always. For a sudden, stupid, intense moment, Jon wanted to know if she cared about him. If one of the few people who had always helped him, who was always in his corner, had seen him as anything more than a tool. 

Like Basira, who didn’t like him as a person, but found him too valuable to alienate. But Basira was - she was deeply good, if not always kind, and Jon had the sense that she had fought to turn herself into that good person. It was something she chose. She was trying to push Jon into making that same choice. 

Jon clenched his hands in his lap, his fingernails digging into his palm. “There’s people I respect, and who I want to respect me. This person I want to be...I’m worried that I only want this because that’s what they want. They’ll deny it, but they want my power. Everybody just makes me into whoever they want. Whatever’s useful to them.” Jon’s gaze snapped to Annabelle, and he fought hard to keep the compulsion from his voice. It was difficult, when he wanted to know so badly, but - “The kind of person I used to be. That person I’m ashamed of. Is that the person who was useful to you?”

He didn’t want to force the answer from her. He wanted her to choose to say it. 

Annabelle didn’t react. She didn’t show anything on her face. Much less what Jon wanted from her. She just tilted her head, one of the few unafraid to meet his eyes. “I never made you be anyone, Jon. All I ever did was put you in the right place at the right time.”

“That wasn’t my question,” Jon said, and this time he couldn’t help the static creeping into his voice. “Answer me.”

Annabelle sighed. “Of course it was useful. Is that what you wanted me to voluntarily say, Jon? I didn’t bring you to the first meeting because I thought it would be educational for you. I needed your power to keep the others in line. I needed everyone else to see that I controlled your power. That’s the only reason why any of this worked. We both got something out of it. Don’t pretend that you weren’t happy with the arrangement.”

It...it wasn’t a surprise, but…

“So that’s why you didn’t bring him to any of the other meetings,” Oliver mused. “He wasn’t as controllable as you liked, not when there’s more than ten other idiots around needling him. There’s never been anybody who can always predict when Jon’s going to lose his shit. Besides the biggie, I guess.”

The biggie, which was his past. 

No wonder he had stayed so childlike, innocent, and cruel for so long. Jon took responsibility for his own laziness, but - but he had been most useful that way. Annabelle had liked him best that way.

Daisy had liked him best that way too. That cruel child - Daisy had wanted him, because he made her feel needed. Annabelle was just the same.

Everyone had liked him best that way. And if Jon became the kind of person who he wanted to be, nobody would like him at all.

“If you’re going to kill me,” Annabelle said, exhaustion seeping in through her voice, “just do it.”

Jon closed his eyes. He could feel it - Annabelle’s exhaustion, the way that she had just been waiting for him to do this. Everything she knew about Jon led towards an obvious course of action. Even though you nobody knew everything that set Jon off, certain things were pretty guaranteed that he wouldn’t forgive. 

Annabelle had never accounted for Sasha. She had brought Sasha into his life, and she had no idea the effect she would have on it. Sasha, who had been the first to tell Jon that she chose to care about him for him. For a brief, hot flash, Jon was jealous. He wanted to be someone unpredictably kind. 

If he only wanted that because he had found yet another person to give his wind-up key, then…

“You won, Annabelle,” Jon said finally, and he only knew it as he said it. “Congratulations. You played the perfect manipulation. You took a vulnerable, afraid man, who had been violated in the worst possible way and left to die.” He stood up, already uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “And you arranged him so that he loved you. I chose to love you. I’m making the choice never to hurt you, because I still love you. ”

He left the room. Oliver stood aside just in time, letting Jon brush by. 

As Jon met up with Agnes and Basira, summoning a smile and a wave for them, he felt uncomfortably as if he had grown up. 

He wasn’t sure that he liked it.

[bearpillowmonster]

Neo: The World Ends With You

I'm invested in the original game and its characters, I'm invested in this game and its characters. I've had a lot of time for the original game to marinate and I can say that I enjoy pretty much every character and their arc and while I don't exactly feel the same with this one, that's not disappointing to me and this was my most anticipated game of 2021 so I mean that. This is a sequel, I expected as much and it didn't let me down, it's even better than I thought.

This is a NONSPOILER review because I think it's best experienced by actually experiencing it so I'll keep a lot of character, story, and even gameplay details out other than how the very VERY beginning of the game starts out with Rindo and Fret.

Let me give credit where credit is due, Rindo is voiced by Paul Castro Jr. who is a new voice actor and I was honestly impressed by his voice more than anyone else in the game, I love his voice and while Rindo has some pretty big shoes to fill as the main, I think he does it. Rindo seems to act pretty accordingly to the situation he's put in. He's not as edgy as Neku but he has enough push to him to where he would be considered the "negative" of the group but I would rather call it "rational" because he brings up some valid points, stuff that I myself was asking. Putting yourself in his shoes, that seems pretty accurate.

Fret on the other hand is a bit of the opposite, an optimist if you will. He's not really a "bad" character, just in comparison to the others, he's not my favorite. I think that there needs to be someone in his position who tries to uplift the team, but he's just a little annoying about it sometimes. Also get ready to hear "Galaxy Brain, ACTIVATE!!" literally hundreds of times, as much as he talks, you'd think he'd add more variety.

IMPROVEMENTS:

I'm not going to complain about certain gameplay elements or limitations that carried over from the last game except one. The camera. It's fixed to where you have no control over it in the city areas and therefore can't get a proper look at everything, whether that works in its favor, I'm not sure because you get used to it but it's just a small peeve you start out with.

The combat is pretty loyal to the first game which is surprising. I personally didn't like the original gameplay because it was so limited on the DS, a lot of room for error, but having it on console expands the system and lets you use buttons rather than mashing a touch screen, improving on almost, if not all, gameplay fronts. However, because it's based on a game from 2007, the system may seem a little outdated to some, it's really up to you, it made a fan out of me, making it more fun.

I played the original in bites, not because of lack of enjoyment but because I felt like it was a game I could only get into for so long at a time but with this game it's the complete opposite. Maybe it was the DS hardware that hampered the original but I say it's a decent success on this game's part. I also felt that Persona 5 seemed a bit formulaic in its story context and gameplay layout with each castle but this game, while having patterns, it changes before you get the chance to really catch on. I could predict P5 but I couldn't predict this, each day was a mystery, I knew you'd fight people but I didn't always know who or when which is crazy considering that P5 had all the choices!

A small improvement that I'll suggest for combat is having short rhythm based moves or even QTEs, like how in the original Shiki had the directional pad moves which were annoying but still varied from the rest of the gameplay. There are definitely new things that you can do, but there are a few aspects worth complaining about. You can unlock certain abilities and once you enable them, you can't disable them. The only one that it personally applies with is the ability to enable individual health bars for enemies, rather than an overall one. Which sounds good but-

I personally don't like that it's always floating above their heads, if it was on the side screen, that'd be one thing but constantly above their heads? No deal. I actually had to go back and load up an old save to get rid of it. But with unlocking certain abilities comes with quality of life aspects so if you're not in love with the gameplay at first, give it a little bit because you might be able to unlock whatever piece you're missing.

There's also "soundsurfing" that adds to your groove meter that you can use when running around and it said that you press (in my case "X" on PS4) to the beat of the song which is a cool concept but it really isn't clear how to use it because I try matching the beat and I get nothing and have more success just button mashing. The groove meter can drop when it's not supposed to, like when you literally can't attack during the buffering of a special or switching between battles in a chain (The "Get Ready" screen) And if you're in a proper boss battle, you HAVE to fight, it's like a trainer battle in Pokémon which is especially annoying when you accidentally press "retry". It has no reason to be there when I already know that I'm not prepared for the boss and can't back out.

Do the trailers spoil it?

Originally, I only saw the first and or second trailer and knew I wanted it so there was no reason to see any more but it was kind of overwhelming with all the characters they were showing off in just a single trailer. I don't think they needed to go that far but I understand why they did. I understand why they showed a lot of things that they did but I think it's a bit easier to SWALLOW when it's introduced in-game. I even found myself doing all the side-quests and being engaged in the side-stuff in-game. But I knew about people pointing out spoilers so after I finished it, I went back and looked at the other trailers and OH BOY. The final trailer shows some stuff and I'm SO glad I didn't watch it. They straight up show some out of context death scenes as well as different alliances and betrayals, not to mention parts of the freaking ending. The launch trailer is no better, it's just like that trailer but cut down. You may not have context but you can draw some hefty conclusions and that alone makes me question, why? I'm not sure if there are many reveals that they DIDN'T tease, it's like they went out of their way to hit every single one. Whether it's Square or Nintendo, they need to figure out how to cut a trailer, heck, hire me, I at least have the editing skills and know what's interesting enough to show and what's too spoilery not to show, come on!

Is it newcomer friendly?

I heard a lot of things like "it drops you in without mercy so pay very close attention" (in terms of story, that is) so only people who played the original game will be able to get it. But I beg to differ, I think it does a pretty good job of filling you in while putting you in the shoes of a new player (both in the game and out) AND keeping the mystery of whatever happened since the last game coming in small pieces. Most of the dialogue text boxes are voice acted so it's not really a slog to read. To prove my point further, the premise starts out very similar so it should be easy to clue in what exactly happened in the last game. Of course you're going to get more enjoyment out of it if you played the original but I don't think you'd be totally lost if you started with this one and played to right before the ending because then it kinda has to do stuff without preface, so you're going to be confused by much of the emotional weight that it carries. But it still gives you plenty of time to catch up on the original, whether through the game, videos, or lore, this game has you ask the questions, so fill in the blank. It has a nice length to it so you'll have until the ending to figure it out. Also, Final Remix teased stuff that this game makes clarity on but I wouldn't call FR mandatory. (Except maybe no numbers on the hand? Maybe even I missed something there.)

[nikibogwater]

(Long post incoming. You have been warned)

Reasons Niki is Excited for the Diamond/Pearl Remakes:

Diamond was Baby Niki’s first Pokémon game and I don’t think I could even begin to express the impact that game had on me. My gaming life was practically dominated by Pokémon from age 10 to 18, and it all began in the Sinnoh region. So yes, Nostalgia is a big factor in this.

I have wanted a 3D Sinnoh remake ever since I played Pokémon X for the first time. Being able to see the Pokémon actually move and emote brought so much immersion to the Pokémon experience for me, and pairing that with the deep, expansive lore that the Sinnoh games offered is the perfect union of my two favorite elements from the series. 

Like a lot of people, I was initially put off by the oddly-proportioned chibi overworld sprites, but it is already beginning to grow on me. I think the idea was to capture the look and feel of the original DS games as much as possible, and to that effect, I think this art style does really well. Everything else about the game looks very crisp and nice to me. The environments are lovely, the backgrounds are interesting, and most importantly, the Pokémon are heckin’ cute. 

I didn’t have access to the wireless functions in the original game as a kid. I didn’t get to experience connecting with others online until X and Y. And with the confirmation that the Underground will be returning in the remakes, I am so excited to finally be able to have the full D/P experience that I missed as a kid.

I’ve been really disenchanted with the mainline Pokémon games for the past few years. I think Sun/Moon is where I began to feel disconnected from the series, like it wasn’t bringing me the sense of childlike wonder and excitement that it used to. I initially chalked this up to my simply becoming an adult, but then I played Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee, and found myself sucked into that little game almost as much as the games of my childhood. Looking back on it now, I think maybe it was an issue of immersion for me. With the demands of both fans and whoever is forcing Game Freak to produce a new main series title every flipping year, a lot of immersion had to be sacrificed for the sake of getting the game out on time. Because Pokémon Let’s Go was a comparatively smaller game that only featured 152 Pokémon, the developers were able to spend more time making the environments and the Pokémon feel more alive. We got Pokémon following you, Shinies appearing in the overworld, Pokémon you could ride, dynamic backgrounds for battles, clean lines and lag-free rendering...none of which were carried over into Sword/Shield, because that game was simply way too big for the amount of time they gave themselves to make it. For me, if you simply cannot give yourself the amount of time needed to make a massive game feel polished and immersive, you should stick to creating a smaller game with less content, and more polish. I’ve always been a Quality over Quantity person, I guess, and Pokémon main series games were not delivering on that front for me anymore. 

BUT with the D/P remakes, I am already beginning to see that a great deal of the Quality I want is going to be delivered; Pleasant scenery with clean lines and nice colors (instead of the strangely blurry mess that was Sword/Shield’s environments), a significantly high chance that there will be far fewer lag/rendering issues, and a faithful adaptation of one of the few Pokémon main series games with a story and world that I can legitimately lose myself in. (Oh I dearly hope they’ve kept the Legendaries as terrifying as they were in the originals...). 

I guess for me, I do not need a Pokémon game to blow me away with something new. Simply having them improve on what has already worked in the past is enough of a reason for me to come back and buy the newer titles. I wouldn’t mind having the series go in a completely new direction, create something that we’ve never seen before, give us the ultimate Pokémon experience with insanely good graphics and mind-blowing story--but given how much they struggled with Sword/Shield, I’m beginning to think that that is just too much to ask for when Game Freak absolutely refuses to let a year pass without cranking out a new title (this is why I’m still a little skeptical about Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and am withholding any excitement over that one until we have more information). Big games take time to be made well, and since Game Freak has made it clear they do not want to give themselves that time, I’m more interested in seeing them use what time they do give themselves in the most efficient and beneficial way possible. 

In keeping with the above point, the trailer explicitly said that the only Pokémon available in the D/P remakes will be the ones that were present in the original games. Again, I think this is a smart move on their part, because it means they can devote more time to making the Pokémon they do have feel more alive and full of personality, rather than having to pour all their time into programming in the literal 1,000+ Pokémon there are now. I know this kind of thing will upset a lot of people, but again, I’m more about the Quality over the Quantity.  But we'll see if Game Freak was able to deliver on that front like I’m hoping.

THE MUSIC. ‘Nuff said. 

While the trailer made it clear that they are trying to stick as close to the original games as possible, I am holding on to the hope that they will have made the necessary quality of life changes: the return of the optional Exp Share that lets all the Pokémon in your party gain xp from a battle, the elimination of HM moves that take up a battle slot, and an easier way to customize Pokémon EVs, such as candies or the Super Training feature from Gen VI (seriously why did they take that out in Gen VII???). Game Freak has slowly been inching forward with the series these last few years, introducing small changes that greatly improve the gameplay as a whole, and I think there’s good enough reason to hope that they will be smart enough to incorporate those changes into D/P remakes. 

I’m a little mystified that the general response to the remake announcements is already so overwhelmingly apathetic and even negative. I can understand not liking the art style, but for me, art direction is only one small component to a game, and even if it isn’t done perfectly, it can still be made up for in other areas. The fandom has been pestering for Sinnoh remakes for years, and now that Game Freak is trying to give us what we want, I would have thought more of us would be making a more positive fuss about it. Then again, the original game is 15 years old now. Most of us who played it have probably already moved on from the franchise as a whole. But for me, I know I’m going to buy this remake and enjoy it, even if it has imperfections. Because really, that’s all I want from a Pokémon game--to feel like a kid again and have a good time. Maybe it’s simplistic and naïve, but that’s just Niki in a nutshell for you. ✨

[curewhimsy]

I wrote a parody of Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day but with Ritsu Namine, who is actually 6 years old in this

The grammar is completely awful on purpose.

Written on a complete whim

AO3 link

———

Once upon a time My name is Ritsu and last night I fell asleep playing Pokemon and the dog gone battery went out and I didn’t save the freaking game and now I have to play the mother father game all over again so I threw my stupid stupid Nintendo DS at the wall and it broke so I yelled and stomped down the stairs and mom gave me a time out and didn’t let me eat my favorite Coco Krispies so instead I had to eat WHEATIES.

I knew it was gonna be a terrible, horrible, no-good very bad day.

At breakfast Ruko found an awesome 65 neon blue race car in her cereal box and Taya found a real cool pair of 3D sunglasses and all I found in by stupid freaking dumb wheaties box was stupid boring awful wheaties.

I think I will move to Korea.

In the school bus I had to sit next to stupid Tei the devil and I hate her because she calls me names and never lets me sit next to the window and since I was already ticked off I said a really bad word and I expected her to cry like a baby chicken but instead Tei got really excited and told the bus driver the word and I had to sit in the stupid time out seat in the back that smelled like donkey butt and was hot and always made me feel like puke.

I really could tell it was going to be the most terrible, horrible, no-good very baddest day ever.

At school Mr. Hiyama said he liked Uta’s boring picture of a spaceship better than my masterpiece of a dinosaur eating Tei’s head off. Mr. Hiyama said it was not a very wholesome picture. It made me feel very insulted.

At singing time he said I sang too loud! At counting time he said I left out 39. But who needs 39. 39 is a stupid number and it reminds me of stupid spoiled divas. I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!

I could also tell today was SUCKY because Teto said she wasn’t gonna be my best friend anymore. She said that weird ugly girl Uta Utane was her best friend and that stupid wimpy Momo Momone was her second best friend and that I was only her third best friend!

I hope you step on a flaming Lego brick, I said to Teto! I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice cream cone the ice cream part falls off the cone part and lands in Korea.

There were two Rice Krispy treats in Uta’s lunch bag and Momo got a cupcake with extra icing and Teto got a big ice cream sandwich with both strawberry and chocolate ice cream! Guess whose mother didn’t even pack them any dessert?

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

That’s what it was, because after school my mom took us all to the dentist and Dr. Bruno found a cavity just in me because I’ve been eating Cocoa Krispies too much and brushing my teeth not too much. Come back next week and I’ll fix it, said Dr. Bruno.

Next week, I said, I’ll be in Korea. SeeU later.

On the way downstairs the elevator closed on my hair and while we were waiting for mom to get the car out in the thunderstorm Ruko made me fall where it was muddy because they’re a big tall gigantic meanie head and then when I started crying because of the mud Taya scoffed like the smug face he is and said I was a crybaby and while I was punching Taya in the mouth for saying I was a crybaby my mom came back with the car and scolded me for being muddy and fighting and told me I should be a gentleman like Taya. I would rather eat my foot than become like Taya.

I am having the terriblest, horriblest, no-goodest, very baddest day of my entire life. I told everybody. Nobody even answered.

So then we went to the shoestore to buy some sneakers. Ruko chose black ones with blue streaks. Taya chose blue ones with white streaks. I chose red ones with black streaks but then the shoe man named Shuu said, We’re all sold out. They made me buy plain old white ones, but nobody can make me wear them!

When we picked up my dad at his office he said I couldn’t play with his copying machine, but I forgotted, and I ended up using all the paper on the picture I drew today of Tei getting her head eaten by a dinosaur and now apparently me and my dad have a bad reputation whatever that means. Dad also said to watch out for the books on his desk, and I was careful as could be except for my elbow. He also said don’t fool around with his phone, but I did and I think I called Korea. My dad said please don’t pick him up anymore.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

There was spinach for dinner and I hate spinach. Taya and Ruko got to eat delicious chicky nuggies, but not me, because I was still in trouble for this morning.

There was kissing on TV and I hate kissing.

My bath was too hot, I got soap in my eyes, my marble went down the drain, and I had to wear my clown pajamas. I hate my clown pajamas.

When I went to bed Taya took back the pillow he said I could keep and the Pokemon Squirtle nightlight burned out and I bit my tongue SO I SCREECHED LIKE A PTERODACTYL AND WOKE UP THE ENTIRE HOUSE.

It also ended up scaring away the cat.

The cat wants to sleep with Ruko, not with me.

It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Korea.

——————————————

References fo Ritsu’s (and others’) official bio:

His official age is 6 years old. I made him (and the rest of the characters) an actual 6-year-old, in personality and all.

Ritsu is said to like Cocoa Krispies so I incorporated that.

He also is supposed to “Hate Japan, but love North Korea.” I made it just “Korea” in this story, however.

He is often depicted as very hot-headed.

Uta is said to like rice, so I made her dessert Rice Krispies.

Ruko’s shoes were “black with blue streaks.” Reminds you of their hair?

[avoutput]

Gaps Between Worlds || Live, Love, Link

Nothing keeps a story going like a love interest. In almost every adventure story, at some point, the hero flirts with love, falls into it, is blinded by it, or is even betrayed by it. Love is the strongest emotional connection we share as humans, a double edged sword that can drive us, but also hinder us. Even when a story lacks a love interest, the listeners might begin to imagine one just to keep themselves interested. One adventure series has lacked cannon love for such a long time, it's hard to imagine how it’s been kept alive in our collective consciousness for as long as it has. The Legend of Zelda has jump-cut to Link saving Zelda so many times, but remains nebulous on what kind of relationship blossoms from their journey. As a longtime fan, I have been starving for more from the world of Hyrule, and I think fans across the world agree with me. The official Nintendo Hyrule Timeline wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for pressure from the fans. Before that release, it had been locked inside the mind of Miyamoto, creator of the series. But it didn’t really whet my appetite, because what I wanted is to know of Link and Zelda. Today, we are going to explore the facets of Link and Zelda’s many re-incarnated relationships, which could have turned into love, and where they must have gone after Gannon was sealed and their adventure came to an end.

Before we go any further, the usual caveats to my writing, just so you can get where my head is at. First, I am not going to be super concerned with minute details of the timeline in its purest sense. It has a tenuous linear connection from one game to the next, but it still can provide a little fun for us to speculate on. Second, I have completed every mainline adventure with two exceptions. I have made it to the end of Link’s Adventure and Twilight Princess, but I just never walked up those steps to beat Gannon. I can’t really put my finger on why, but usually I just lost interest by the time I made it to the end of the game. Everything else, including the GB, GBA, and DS releases, I have completed.

In the beginning, one of the most bizarre parts of the overall Zelda lore is how little we actually discuss Link’s obligation to do anything for Zelda. As the games mature, they motivate Link in more realistic ways, but I felt that they mostly lacked a real punch. Lets imagine you DID NOT read the manual for the NES titles, the original LoZ, it just starts by breaking the 4th wall. I always thought it was funny that it just drops you into the mountains with absolutely no direction, as if to say, “You bought the game, dummy, do something! Press a button… ooo… check out that cave!” However, what actually happens is Link saves Zelda’s handmaid, Impa, from an attack by some of Gannon’s henchmen. She then begs him to find the 8 fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, which Zelda has hidden in 8 dungeons, and he just resolves to do it. In the next game though, she’s just struck with Sleepy Disney Princess disease. Classic. But have you ever noticed that true love’s kiss wasn’t an option here? That’s because Link is not her true love in this incarnation, so he has to kill the curse maker. LoZ and Link’s Adventure are directly related, so we know that in between the two games, they never became lovers. And I don’t know if you need any more proof about these games, but if you ever watched the 80’s Zelda cartoon… you’d know she’s better off.

Climbing up this timeline, we end up at the incredible Link To The Past, a story that’s titular description kind of defies its storyline unless you are really paying attention. Either way, the game has Link, a descendant of Hyrule Knights, being woken up by a psychic message from Zelda. As usual, Link has no real discernible parentage, but he does start off with an uncle. As I grew up, I often wondered if this was his real uncle or the Asian kind of uncle, just an older man with the same familial distance as an actual uncle, just not actually related. (It goes without saying that the west has this kind of uncle as well, but rarely does it rear its head as ubiquitously as in the east) Who knows what happened to his parents, the game never really goes into it. Either way, he runs into his possibly real uncle after following Zelda’s request, only, he is mortally wounded, and with his final breath, he begs Link to take up his blade and his responsibility. Again, he is motivated simply by some sense of obligation, but there is never a moment's glance of flirtation or love. By the end of the game, he revives his Uncle, the Priest, and the King, only to get on a boat and end up ship wrecked on Koholint island, where he dreams up a girl who is much more likely to become someone he could have a life with rather than Zelda.

Let’s take a quick moment to recognize Link has about 5 or 6 games that have nothing to do with his relationship to Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Majora’s Mask, and Minish Cap to name a few. In these games, it rarely meditates on his relationship to his previous adventure or the girl he left behind. Link is a very forward thinking… little boy? Adolescent? Teenager? It depends on the game. The more I think about this, maybe the more obvious it really is supposed to be. Zelda, Link, and Gannon are reborn into conflict over and over again. It’s possible that the stories that we play through are the only time they are born into a point of conflict. Basically, Link and Zelda might be born into a world without each other. Maybe the world only falls into chaos when all 3 of them are born. Maybe only when a certain amount of power accumulates on the dark side. The story just makes room for whatever it finds appropriate.

Climbing up the timeline, we get to the only game that implied young romance, Ocarina Of Time. Granted, it kind of dashes this with Majora’s Mask, but it's possible he could return to Hyrule for love. He is only 10. Still, in OoT, Link is the only character that keeps his memory of both the young timeline and the teen timeline. When you think about it, Link is pretty mature for a 10 year old, but waking up in the body of a 17 year old would throw you a bit. People in the future might have found him odd… if they weren’t scattered to the winds and mostly worried about famine, death, and Gannon. In both his young and teen timeline, the Zora princess is very interested in him, and yet, the game still ends with a longing look between Zelda and Link, Link remembering everything, Zelda new to the whole thing. Now, I am willing to admit that as a kid, I probably misread this as a longing look, as an adult, it's really just the culmination of Link’s struggle to finally right all the wrongs, but I was a young shipper, and I wanted everyone to fall in love. (You are reading the thoughts of a boy who was super upset that Ash wasn’t awakened by a kiss from Misty (or Pikachu), and instead the tears of all the Pokemon. I almost walked out of the theater. I was a fresh-faced 13.) Given everything we know about both games, and that we know the timeline splits here, it would stand to reason that since in either case, triumphant or not, Link doesn’t end up making baby Link and Linkles with Zelda. In the Triumphant Timeline Child Era, none of the games end with Link in love, including Twilight Princess. In the Adult Era, the Wind Waker series of games always finds Link closely aligned with Zelda, but the whole cell-shaded, PG universe basically ensures that all the people of Hyrule are grown out of the ground, like palm trees on the beach. In the end, Link always makes for the nearest boat or horse and follows the sun, trying to escape the PTSD that haunts him.

Finally, at the very beginning of the timeline is the largely maligned Skyward Sword. As of this writing, SS is the supposed beginning to the entire legend. It is also one of the few games where there does seem to be an infatuation between Zelda and Link. Throughout the game, they share what looks to be a mild flirtation. When I thought about this budding romance, I began to think it only appears that way because of some cultural filters. First, Nintendo likes to make games for kids, so they aim to get an E rating by the ESRB. So if we ratchet that up to M, the standard for modern day games if you want people to take them seriously, we can adjust the love meter on scale with E = Sesame Street and M = Breaking Bad. They might as well be engaging in some hard sexting, maybe a couple of low-cut Link bathroom mirror selfies. Don’t worry, he has his famous hat over the goods. Why do you think its shaped like that? Secondly, mild flirting in Japan is the equivalent of hardcore furry S&M in America. In actuality, what you are really seeing is the courtship of Link in a Wolf costume and Zelda dressed as a Fire Keese batting eyes at each other. Truly, in this world, Link and Zelda are destined for each other. They are the only freaks in the sky! With this assumption, I can conclude that the legend only continues because once, at the very beginning of their timeline, the Triforce of Courage and Wisdom banged it out. This could mean there is a whole series of games we have never played where the timeline is split at the top. One in which they have children and one where they don’t. Personally, I look forward to their kids journey in The Legend of Steve, the new holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. Let a girl save the boy for once!

There is always hope for our legendary heroes. You may not want them to be joined in glorious, child-making coitus, but I always have. I have always found it odd that it doesn’t end like most JRPG’s with a very obvious death of the “mains” so that love can’t blossom, or with a lavish royal wedding. The worst part is that often, Link has many love interests, but none of them are Zelda. There is some hope for them in the new Breath of the Wild timeline, which is supposedly the furthest in the future of the “official” timeline, so much so that there is no connective tissue left, so it might as well be a “new beginning”. I would actually hate for them to finally, really, fall in love in the BotW universe, mostly because it's my least favorite Zelda game of all time, squeaking past Skyward Sword and Wind Waker.  All 3 of which I dislike for a combination of gameplay-style and story, though honestly, the best part of BotW is the story. It's just a game I never want to play again. Rambling aside, I look forward to the fate of love between Zelda and Link in their next chapter. Maybe we’ll finally play as their love child some day. 

[coe-lilium]

TroS reaction (1st view)

Necessary premise in bullet points:

- I liked TFA when it came out and still do but as I dug into the franchise/canon (Disney only by choice) my enjoyment of it became more lukewarm. Came out of it dreading a potential Reylo but liking the two charas on their own. 

- went into TLJ worried I’d hate it, came out with it being my favorite saga movie and sold on the Rey-Ren connection, whatever road it would’ve taken. Loved the “Rey’s powerful on her own/bc the Force wants to set Kylo’s wrongs right”. It felt good after two years of being bombarded with “this fucking Mary Sue can have any power only if she’s connected to powerful men of the saga, she has otherwise no right in being powerful” in forums spaces.    

- went into TroS non-spoiled, wary of Palpatine return but relatively hopeful if soured about the “JJ our lord and saviour pleease save us from evil evil Jonhson” (HA!). The rumors about lore from the tv series being featured into the movie had me excited.  

That said, here goes: [SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE, ENDING INCLUDED, RIGHT OFF THE BAT]

I didn’t like it. I really hope to warm up to it more in future views, there’s absolutely stuff I liked or even loved, but as it stands now it was overall a massive disappointment on many sides and -worst of all- threatens to retroactively ruin my enjoyment in other previous stories. 

First, the positives: 

- Parentage notwithstanding, Rey was good. Her rage, her fears, her good heart, her commitment to the fight and the training, her longing for guidance… truly, if the bloodline revelation hadn’t retroactively ruined my investment in the character and themes I’d have fully, 100% loved her even if every single other part of the movie had been the same. 

Except for a brief war flashback to Starkiller game abilities (I lolled) I wasn’t even troubled by all the new abilities or their scope. Movies’ been inventing new powers since the beginning and the Force does what the Force wants. Again, fuck the genetics “twist”, garbage stuff. 

- Kylo, next to… 95% that involved him? TLJ did a great job selling him to me and surprisingly this movie added to that instead of retconning it away. More competent but still stupid and petty from time to time. I’m glad he came back, glad he choose right and glad he was allowed more time on the right side than Anakin. I love redemptions and he was portrayed as wavering the entire trilogy, I don’t even really care that it could’ve done better. I’m happy for him and his family, that’s all. The kiss got a laugh out me but not a malicious one, I was kind of running out of reasonable reactions by then. 

I’m just conflicted on how I feel about his death. Back when TFA was released I wanted him to survive to face what Anakin didn’t: justice (the kid-friendly setting prevented a death sentence anyway), atonement and growth from there, I still wish it happened and maintain that a different pacing would’ve allowed it. On the other hand, I’m also kinda okay with him dying. He righted at least a bit of his many wrongs, he saved a person he cared for, that his parents cared for and that could help the galaxy much more than he ever could and he was at peace. It was a good death.      

- Kylo’s vision/illusion of Han. A surprise but a very pleasant, well acted one. Would’ve I maybe liked Anakin more, as Ben idolized him so much and for all the wrong reasons and because I love that disaster? Yes. Does Han work much better in the economy of the movie and trilogy story and do he and Ben have a much rawer relationship and history? Absolutely. I am a teeny tiny bit baffled as  for why Luke didn’t also show up, but the actual scene was good enough I forgive it.  

- Rey and Kylo bond and connection was one of the saving graces of this mess and I utterly loved it. Both actors worked their asses for for all their scenes and it payed off, oh if it payed off. Their DSII duel was perhaps a tad long but great nonetheless (Republic era Jedi jumps!), the hurt and the sense of absolute loss and grief they both conveyed -and shared!- after Leia’s passing was incredible, Rey regretting the near kill and softly going “I would have stayed, had you renounced the dark side”. She cared, yes, but not to the point of ignoring the horrors (something Anakin never quite understood). The “dyad” stuff was a bit overkill, just call it a force bond, we can see it’s freaking powerful, but the Force Skype and sharing of objects that came with the package, that I loved. Surprise lightsaber, Ren fuckers! :D Bet Anakin and Obi Wan were really jealous, that would’ve come in handy during the war.       

- Finn was now fully invested in the cause, at ease, visibly happy to be with his friends, ready to bond and reach out, quick to plan, to act and to adapt to the situation, brave but cautious and calculating. I wish it was given a bit more focus, but I loved he found other young FO defectors. Also fuck yeah, he’s force sensitive and his ability is used, not just thrown in as a useless wink. Jedi Finn in future material, c’mon!

- Poe’s also grown. He was probably going to have more screen time with Leia had Carrie not died but there was nothing to be done for that. I’m not as happy as for previous 3 charas for the backstory retcon I’ll tackle in the negatives.

- Jannah was cool, the addiction of other FO defectors a welcomed one and the scene were she and Finn excitedly went over their “I broke free” moment was adorable. Good bean, I’d read more about her and her company. 

- A bit lot annoyed at Bloodline being kinda tossed outta the window but getting Leia with lightsaber was nice. Give me some ancillary material to deal with the clash and I’ll fully forgive it. 

- Jedi! MY GIRL AHSOKA MY MAN KANAN! I mean, I sure wish they were in a better movie, but hey, recognition for something more than the OT? No slandering of the Order but all of them collectively kicking Sidious ass once and for all? I’ll gladly take it. Anakin, my dude, I’m sorry your sacrifice was next to nullified but it was good to hear you again ;_;  I didn’t hear Ezra’s voice anywhere so I can still hope he’s alive, well and with the Ascendancy teaching all their Navigators. “I am all the Jedi” remains a terrible line. 

And now, oh boi. Here comes the long list of annoying - bad - stinking shit stuff: 

- If I wanted to watch a 2 and half long videogame cutscenes I’d have done that in the comfort of my home without spending money for tickets. Go to level x to retrieve related macguffin, move to next level to get next macguffin and so on and so on. I liked close to everything in the DS II sequences, but what would’ve that dagger pointed at if the wreckage had fallen even a little bit differently?   

In general, many plot points gave me the feeling they were stolen from the tv series and badly executed, like a mockery (or incompetence?). Case in point: Hux betraying the 1st Order out of personal, spiteful hate? Potentially good! The execution? A poor man’s Rebels Agent Kallus, already over in little more than 5minutes. 

- Palpatine himself is a poorly, ridiculously poorly executed Maul resurrection storyline from tcw and rebels. 

Because Maul was 1. explained and 2. got a good, long arc that made you forgive the undoubtably contrived ass-pull it took to bring him back while Sidious is just… there. You gotta accept it because the writer said so. 

How did he survive? We don’t know and fuck you if you expect an explanation (they really had the absolute galls to have him say the iconic/meme line from Rots and apparently it was supposed to be enough?!) How could he “have all Sith reside inside me” when canon’s clear that Sith do-not-get-to-retain-their-individuality-in-the-Force, do not work well together (lmao) and he as an individual never gave a shit about the Sith except when they could serve his own personal desires? His entire approach to the rule of two and other Sith stuff is “fuck that noise, everything in the galaxy exist to serve me”. He’s fine dying as long as “the Sith rule”? Who IS this character, because he’s not Darth Sidious (as presented in Disney’s own canon, mind). Oh, you wanted explanations? FUCK YOU, screams the movie. 

The mess gets somehow salvaged in the end as he comes to his senses and siphon the life out of Rey and Ben to de-rotten/revive himself to rule in person, now *that* was in character. Was he actually lying his ass off the entire time waiting for the moment he could siphon them? Hopefully but who the hell even knows.

In the end it just wasn’t worth bring him back. A holocron, a different Sith, even a hive-mind of old records/tainted wraiths of Sith (perhaps wearing Palps face to buy the old empire aficionados loyalty, idk) would’ve been better than “actually, Anakin suffered nearly his entire life and sacrificed himself for barely more than 25 years of peace and it still wasn’t enough to rid the galaxy of the monster who destroyed his and countless other lives”. But Johnson was the one shitting on beloved characters legacy and accomplishments, uh? Surely at least he’s got company. 

Ian was clearly having a blast, so there was… that? And the initial sequence being legit creepy and the Sith storm or whatever the fuck was that. That can stay, it was cool.     

- Poe, the latino character, got retconned from former Republic pilot (a backstory established before TFA came out and faithfully respected ever since) into a smuggler and gang member. Classy. What does Lucaslfilm have a story group for if not for stopping stuff like this from happening? Bonus Zorii being used for a “no homo! homo? no homo?” wink wink and for generally being a poor man Solo’s Qi’ra.   

- The movie makes you worry for a character death three (3) times in a row only to immediately backpedal on it. The survivors are grieving, the scene is sober… and then suddenly! they’re alive! isn’t it wonderful? let’s insert a comical scene now that we’re at it! Sigh.   

- The whole Threepio stuff was a contrived waste of time in a movie already full of more relevant plot treads that could’ve put that screen time to better use. 

- Rey’s parents apparently aren’t assholes anymore bc they sold her into slavery to protect her from Sidious, which is… supposed to make it alright, a sacrifice in the name of love? If they had been shown trying to give her to a trusted person and then she was kidnapped that wouldn’t had been their fault, just unfortunate, but the movie shows them leaving their 5yo daughter with her in-all-but-name slaver so?? 

- Rey Palpatine… Rey. Palpatine. Gesù Cristo benedetto che minchia mi è toccato di vedere. That hurt. That was so hilariously over the top bad I just…I started laughing. On top of the entire thing, thank you so, soo much for validating all those fucking assholes who demanded Rey be connected to a powerful man in the saga to accept her powers and value, you hack. Jedi were never about power of blood and then you went and reinforced the very opposite. She ain’t powerful bc the Force recognized her as worthy to stop evil and chose to aid her anymore, she’s powerful bc grandfather was. Lovely stuff. Hilariously, now she has a lot more legit “Mary Sue” traits than before. 

- Rose’s sidelining was a blatant bow to her and her actress haters whims. If in VIII she jumped at the chance of action, now she was fearful and “had to stay behind” studying maps. Fuck that noise. 

- Even if she rejected it, underline is that the Skywalker line is wiped out and the Palpatine one thrives. I… just… wtf wtf wtf. A final “Just Rey” would’ve been more powerful -because now it would’ve been reclaimed- and less corny and in poor taste than a Palpatine taking on the Skywalker name. I’m not sure if Sidious is more offended or if he’s laughing his ass off in space!hell. Probably the 2nd. Bad.      

- The final scene on Tatooine. It rang so empty because the planet brings warm memories only to the audience, not the characters. In-universe, that place brought nothing but misery to the Skywalkers: Anakin and Shmi were brought there as slaves and lived as such for years, Shmi was tortured to death and Anakin began his descent into the dark for crying out loud. Luke had to hide and saw his relatives murdered. Leia had no connection whatsoever to the place. The mera idea of burying Anakin Skywalker lightsaber into the sands of Tatooine and considering it a way of paying respect is… I don’t know, hilariously in bad taste? Rey, dear, what did you have personally against the guy? Put those sabers to rest on Naboo! Ah, but we can’t truly acknowledge the PT now, can we? Wack.   

- It’s not TroS complete fault, that “honor” mostly sit at TFA’s feet but for all its omages, copies and almost slavish references, from a in-universe point of view it’s like the OT barely occurred. 

The same evil man has been defeated (until next time?), the Republic must be rebuilt from scratch, a evil military is all over the place and must be dealt with, the Jedi Order has to be rebuilt… it’s depressing. A new evil taking advantage of the empire leftovers would’ve been one thing, but Sidious? He’s been effectively winning nonstop ever since he was elected Chancellor. He had all the power, all the influence, all the control and he maintained it all even as a rotten corpse in exile, the entire galaxy marching on his tune, controlled by his strings. And as the cherry on top of the cake he even managed to wipe out the family that could’ve, should have been his undoing! He effectively destroyed the Skywalkers. He outlived every Jedi, every survivor, every clone. I hate this. It’s sickening. I can’t even be happy Rex was on Endor anymore.      

In general, the best word I can find for this movie is: coward. 

So blatantly desperate to please, to be “forgiven”, to reference every single irrelevant thing -except the PT and the TV series in a intelligent way-, to throw fanservice after fanservice after fanservice no matter how nonsensical from all over that crossed the “corny” to wander into embarrassing territory many times over (Maz giving Chewie a medal outta nowhere? Come the fuck on now). 

The cartoon series had twenty time the guts of this movie and I vehemently wish for Filoni to take the helm of the entire creative team in a very near future.                  

[recentanimenews]

The 6 Pokémon Trainers the Anime Forgot

Since 1997, over 1,000 episodes of Pokémon the Series have followed Ash Ketchum's journey across multiple regions, where he's met and battled many of the unique personalities that populate the beloved video game series. Not every character is created equal though, and while some have become pop culture icons like Brock and Misty, others have to feel grateful for even a single episode, and others have yet to appear at all!

  However, it doesn't look like the anime is gonna be stopping any time soon, and in all likelihood will probably continue as long as new games are being made. So, with speculation swirling about the new season's return trips to Kanto and beyond, here's who we're hoping will finally get the spotlight they deserve.

    Janine

Of the 59 Gym Leaders introduced before Sword and Shield (and if we count Gary as an adaptation of Blue,) each one has made an appearance of some degree in the anime… except Janine.

  With Koga promoted to the Elite Four in the Game Boy sequels Gold and Silver, Fuschia City found a new Gym Leader in his daughter, Janine. The young girl only appeared briefly in the Kanto post-game and inexperience made her weaker than her colleagues, so it’s understandable that such a small role was forgotten. Even the English localisation team did, being mistakenly renamed in FireRed and LeafGreen as “Charine”!

  The Nintendo DS’ HeartGold and SoulSilver made up for the lack of attention by exploring the adoration she has for her father: she won’t shut up about him, delivers his lunches to the other side of Kanto, and even argues with Falkner over who has the best dad! Basically, she’s absolutely precious.

  When Ash returned to Kanto in Battle Frontier, I thought Janine was finally going to appear - there was even an episode about a young woman running a ninja school! But no, instead it was lead by the anime-original Angela, because reasons, I guess? With her recently being featured in the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the newly released Pokémon Masters though, perhaps a return to Kanto could finally give Janine the appearance she deserves?

Grimsley

  While Gym Leaders are almost always guaranteed a spot in the anime, the same can't be said about a region's most powerful trainers: the Elite Four. Only 3 regions have had their full line-ups appear, and others like Unova have only had 1 - which is a shame, given that Black and White have one of the coolest and most complex line-ups.

  Given the series' complicated history with gambling (like The Gamer Corner), it's surprising how important it is to Grimsley's design and backstory. The son of a disgraced noble family, he fell victim to a gambling addiction, before emerging as the dapperly dressed Dark-type master of Unova's Elite Four!

  The world clearly hasn't been kind to young Grimsley, however. When we saw him again in Sun and Moon, he had bags in his eyes as he listfully lingered on the shore. In the Ultra variants, he reflects on the despair he felt after putting everything on the line and losing, referring to himself as a former Elite Four member. The circumstances about his fall from grace and who replaced him remain mysteries, but even though they're separate continuities, perhaps an anime appearance could clear them up? His brief cameo in the animated trailer for the Pokémon Masters mobile game gave us a taste of what he may look like in the anime, so hopefully we'll see Grimsley again in one way or another - if not the series, maybe Black 3/White 3? (Come on, Game Freak!).

  Darach

    One of my favorite stories in the Pokémon World is that of Caitlin, the quick-tempered overseer of Sinnoh's Battle Castle, who after mastering her runaway psychic powers, earned a place in Unova's Elite Four. While she briefly appeared in the anime however, her backstory and an important part of it didn't.

  With Caitlin being unable to battle without her uncontrollable powers running rampant, her personal valet Darach assumed the mantle of Frontier Brain and fended off challengers himself. A refined gentleman and fierce battler alike, Darach is a class act all-round. And after Caitlin left to train in Unova, little has been said about her dashing butler, other than that he makes occasional trips to clean her villa. Should Caitlin return to the anime, hopefully she'll have Darach in tow, because they seem to make an awesome team. 

  Silver

  If you were to ask old-school Pokémon fans who their favorite rival is, a good chunk would point to Silver. While Blue was cocky, Silver's a straight up jerk - I mean, we first meet him after he stole a starter Pokémon from Professor Elm! He has good reason to be a grump though: his dad's only the missing leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni! Rather than join the family business however, Silver would prefer to tear it down.

  With Team Rocket's boss having a constant looming presence in the anime, you'd think his son would be a shoe-in, right? Wrong. While he appeared in the Pokémon Generations web short and had a cameo in side-story The Legend of Thunder, Pokémon's second most famous rival has yet to appear in the main anime continuity. It's a real shame too, as his presence could be a catalyst for a Team Rocket-focused story arc that brings Giovanni back to the forefront, and his more serious personality would be a great contrast to Jessie, James and Meowth's more jovial dynamic.

  It's possible that Silver was the inspiration behind the Diamond & Pearl series' rival Paul, as he has a similar obsession with strength, an abrasive personality, and even similar hair! Their character arcs also had similar endings, with the two starting to show signs of actually respecting their Pokémon partners. While Paul is easily the anime's best rival to date though, seeing the real deal would be great.

Wally

  If there's anyone who could have benefitted from the gradual character development that a series allows, it would've been Wally. A timid and frail kid, Ruby and Sapphire's other rival is determined to not let his shortcomings get in the way of becoming a great Pokémon trainer. Seeing his confidence grow in tandem with his abilities was the most rewarding part of his games' story, and the final battle in Victory Road was a perfect climax to that tale.

  What made Wally's absence from the anime even more disappointing was that while May had the recurring presence of Drew on the contest circuit, Ash didn't even have a rival for most of his Hoenn adventure. The anime-only characters Morrison and Tyson were hastily introduced right before the Ever Grande Conference, leaving Hoenn's event with none of the build-up a Pokémon League should have.

  The most important reason for a Wally appearance now though, is easily so a remix of his amazing Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire battle theme can be in the soundtrack. Name me a better battle theme, I'll wait. Although a good contender may be...

Zinnia

    Sworn by a generations old duty to awaken the legendary Rayquaza and destroy a meteor, the fate of the world is on Zinnia's shoulders. After briefly appearing throughout Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, she became the focal point of their post-game "Delta Episode" - perhaps the best addition to the series' lore yet!

  Zinnia is a complex and fascinating character. Despite her goal of saving the world, she was prepared to put it in danger by awakening Groudon or Kyogre to lure out the emerald dragon. She can be quite playful (and dare I say flirty) at times, but she also has a pained presence. Her burden hangs heavy over her, as does the pain of losing her dear friend, and Whismur's namesake, Aster.

  She could have made a great focal point for a Delta Episode-inspired storyline, and Iris' Village of Dragons could have easily been retconned to be the Draconid Tribe. With the X&Y anime already focusing on Zygarde, we weren't lacking in cool ways to feature her. 

  The events of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire's endgame established the existence of a multiverse, with the GameBoy Advance originals existing in a reality where the lack of Mega Evolution makes it vulnerable to the meteorite. With the recent movies I Choose You and The Power of Us existing in their own continuity, perhaps a Hoenn-focused follow-up could see Zinnia having to save both of Ash Ketchum's realities?

  What Pokémon characters would you like to see in the new anime, and what do you hope to see from the new anime? Let us know in the comments!

  Josh A. Stevens is a freelance PR with anime industry experience, and a writer at Anime UK News. You can follow him on Twitter @Joshawott.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

    By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[gummybuddha]

Pokemon: Facts & Opinions

I don’t play Pokemon games. This is because I’ve been out of the loop for five generations. I did try to play Pokemon Black, but I ended up losing my DS during a move, so that was the last time I played a Pokemon game. That was also the start of my curse of never managing to finish Final Fantasy Tactics A2. But that's another topic. 

So I don’t have a dog in the fight when it comes to Pokemon Sword & Shield. I was perfectly fine with my friends saying they were on the fence about getting the game. I didn't even think that was an extreme take because it seemed that the Pokemon community was fully aware of what Sword & Shield was: Game Freak doing a rush job to meet a deadline.

I honestly think the controversy of Dexit ( as it's being called) only really started because of game media sites like Kotaku and Polygon. I can understand arguing the point about why Sword & Shield might still be worth a player's times despite its flaws. What I don't understand is trying to absolve criticism from the discussion of Sword & Shield. I don't think that helps anyone. The simple fact is that for a game series about “collecting em all”, not being able to bring your whole collection over into the new game is a very large departure for the series. And people are gonna judge the game for that reason alone. Which, last time I checked, was a reasonable consumer response to a product.

Oh, but not in 2019.....

For example, Nathan Grayson of Kotaku wrote this article.

...

The fact that I have to play mental chess about whether or not Nathan Grayson is joking about this topic is the most concerning part about that article. I can’t help but feel like equating one bad game in a series to politics is just immature.

As I can tell, the real problem is that Kotaku, for whatever reason, has conflated people’s desire for them to be objective as journalists with personal attacks for liking something.  If people are actually harassing staff members, look I get that. There is nothing I can say at that point. If there were some real-life threat element and not just an assorted collection of people on Twitter calling Kotaku out on its bullshit, then yes, avoid those people.  But! I think Richard Lews stated it best when he said that the core problem with Kotaku is they hide behind their identity as a blog when people have found that they have done shitty journalism. So many of their articles are written like opinion pieces, which for a blog is fine. But when you are trying to cover news and events in a consumer industry, being objective, and practicing good journalism fucking matters.

As for Polygon and the others, I don’t even know what their excuse is, but at least they dont’ shove it in your face with dumb articles suggesting your 30-year old parents are equivalent to boomers now. 

And just for context, here is a real article by Kotaku writer Jason Schreier.

God, I wish I would have gotten a Jason Schreier hot take on Sword & Shield. That would have been dandy. I might not agree with it, but at least I would feel like there was an adult conversation being presented.

I’m starting to feel like this whole rant is silly. I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving free of debates on which starter is the best. Because that’s the real beef right there. 

[violethowler]

What the Kingdom Hearts Series Means to Me

Holding the physical copy of Kingdom Hearts III that I pre-ordered and paid extra to have delivered on release day is a surreal experience. It feels like a dream in all honesty. Kingdom Hearts III used to be a formless thing. A cryptid that fans hoped to catch a glimpse of but didn’t really believe existed. To put it into perspective, Kingdom Hearts II first released when I was in third grade, and I’m currently approaching my graduation from college. Six games have been released in the last decade and a half to expand on the series’ lore and set up the major pieces for the next “main” installment, but only now are we getting Kingdom Hearts III. This franchise has been with me through middle school, high school, and college. It’s a big freaking deal.

I had never been passionately into video games as a kid. My first game system was the Nintendo GameBoy Advance, and the only games I was interested in playing were movie tie-in games that adapted the plot of a specific movie. The Incredibles. The Polar Express. Ice Age: The Meltdown, Madagascar. The only other game I can remember that wasn’t an adaptation of an existing film was a weird 3D Pacman game, but I don’t remember ever playing it as fervently as I did those old movie games.

Even after receiving a PlayStation 2 for either my birthday or Christmas in 2006, the only games I would play that weren’t movie adaptations were the NickToons crossover games like Battle for Volcano Island or Attack of the Toybots. But I only played them because they featured my favorite TV character. I was never interested in the storyline. That would change one day in late-summer/early autumn 2007, when, after seeing an advertisement for it in my old Disney Adventures magazines, I rented a PlayStation title I’d never heard of called Kingdom Hearts II.  

In the beginning, I didn’t pay attention to the story. I just skipped through the cutscenes and focused exclusively on the gameplay. But as I got to the more difficult portions of the game, I started to watch the cutscenes and pay attention to the story. And the more I did, the more I fell in love with it. Once I had fully digested the story of Kingdom Hearts II, I wanted more. I went back and played the original Kingdom Hearts, then I bought Chain of Memories for my GBA. I was hooked. I started buying and reading the manga adaptations of the games. I bought a couple of collectible figurines. I. Was. Obsessed.

I spent much of my computer time in those days scouring the internet for every scrap of information I could find on the next games in the franchise. Kingdom Hearts III wasn’t in the cards yet, so I focused my attention on the three titles that I vaguely recall being collectively referred to at the time as “the handheld trilogy”: 358/2 Days, Birth by Sleep, and Coded. I searched with a fine-tooth comb on websites dedicated to gaming news in general and Kingdom Hearts specifically, hoping to find out more about these next three games.

In many ways, Kingdom Hearts helped me take my first tentative steps into the wider community of fandom. My search for news on the next games in the series unearthed funny fan-made comic strips about my favorite characters. Even though Kingdom Hearts III was still a fantasy by that point, I found people using Photoshop, or whatever image-editing software was popular around 2008 or so, to create ideas for what the cover art would look like. I found detailed fan art of potential new outfits for all the major characters. I found theories and ideas and the ever-raging bonfire of speculation that grows larger with each new game released. I found fan-made music videos and fanfiction to sate my hunger for more content between games. I wasn’t as involved in fandom to the extent that I am today, but my experience with Kingdom Hearts helped me dip my toes in the water, so to speak, as I started to engage more with my favorite media beyond simply consuming it once and then going back to watch/play it again when I needed something to do.

And what makes this day so much sweeter is how much effort Disney is clearly putting into promoting this game. Almost a decade ago, and the most advertising any Kingdom Hearts title got outside of dedicated gaming magazines or events was maybe a single tv commercial per game. The only way to know a new game was coming otherwise was if you were actively following the development of each title before they even locked in when it would come out. In the last six months of waiting for Kingdom Hearts III, there’s been a concert tour, multiple commercials and advertisements on both TV and social media, and even ads playing before the previews at movie theaters. After years of trying to share my love for this series, only for a handful of people to have ever heard of it, it’s a tremendous thrill to see the games I love finally getting mainstream recognition.

It’s because of this series that I even consider myself a gamer in the first place. Before Kingdom Hearts, I just plowed through every game I had, treating each level as just another puzzle or challenge to complete. But Kingdom Hearts II exposed me to the possibility of video games as a medium for storytelling, and it was through my engagement with the Kingdom Hearts storyline that I found myself seeking out other games with their own compelling stories. Final Fantasy, The World Ends with You, Horizon: Zero Dawn… These are some of the many games with stories and worlds that have enthralled me as someone who loves to both experience stories and create them. And without Kingdom Hearts, I would probably never been enough of a gamer to know or care that they existed.

When I was younger, I was only interested in games if they were available on the systems I had. But Kingdom Hearts wasn’t limited to only one console. In the early years of the franchise, the series was spread across the GameBoy Advance, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and smartphones. So, whenever my research uncovered that the next title would be on a console I didn’t own, I would go out of my way to get it, either by putting it on my holiday wish list, or by saving up the money for it myself. And usually, I would buy these platforms years in advance of the Kingdom Hearts game I’d got it for came out, so I would search for interesting games to play on it while I waited. And unlike before, now I was actively looking for things to play.

When it was just my GameBoy, PlayStation, and a handful of movie/TV show tie-ins, I didn’t go out of my way to look for new games. I relied on advertisements in my trusty Disney Adventures magazine to tell me what games that were out that might interest me. Nowadays, I annually watch live coverage of E3, the entertainment expo where game developers show off the status of their current projects or unveil their next main title. And I keep my eyes out for every title that looks entertaining from both a gameplay and story perspective, whether I see ads in a magainze, footage at E3, a trailer on YouTube, or fanart online.  

Before I realized that animation was what I wanted to do as a career, my first dream job was to be a game designer. And if your first guess as to why I wanted to pursue that career path isn’t Kingdom Hearts, then in the words of one of the franchise’s original villains, “You have come this far, and still, you understand nothing.” While I ultimately realized that animation was my true passion as an artist, it was Kingdom Hearts that set me on the idea of turning my art skills into a career. Without Kingdom Hearts, I might not have ended up where I am today. 

Most of the fandom knows that Kingdom Hearts III isn’t the end of the road for the franchise. Even aside from its immense popularity, series director Tetsuya Nomura has spoken about the fact that the series will continue beyond III, but that this represents the conclusion of the current story arc that has been going on since the original Kingdom Hearts game back in 2002. It’s fitting that this arc of the series is ending the same year that I graduate from college. This series has seen me through multiple chapters of my life. Middle school. High School. College. And in May, I’ll be a college graduate looking for a job. Each time I moved from one stage of life to the next, it always felt like the end. But it never is. But life goes on. The story will go on, but this chapter of it is over.

You can imagine, then, why today is such a big deal. This series has been with me for more than half my life. These games, and other media I obsess over to a similar degree, mean so much to be precisely because the story and characters connect with me on such a deep emotional level. My opinion on storytelling in any medium is that the ones that put your emotions in a blender and take you from screaming in anguish to crying tears of joy in the span of a few hours or less are the ones that deserve to be remembered. The best stories should leave you wanting to know more, not just out of curiosity over what happens next, but also for the satisfaction of knowing that the characters you’ve grown to love will be alright.

Kingdom Hearts has consistently checked every single one of those boxes for me for as long as I’ve been playing it. Even the prequels and midquels that ended in tragedy and heartbreak still had a note of assurance that there was still hope. Even if the games that inevitably come out post-KHIII hypothetically don’t have the same emotional impact on me that the pre-III ones did, I will never be able to stop loving the series I grew up with. I’ve been invested in it for so long that it feels like it’s woven into my DNA. This series has grown over the last eleven years just as I have, and whatever the future holds for the franchise, good or bad, I will never regret the time I’ve spent with this incredible saga.

[sage-nebula]

TWEWY: Final Remix - Thoughts

So, I’ve more or less beaten Final Remix now. I’ve beaten the main story, as well as “A New Day”, and while I still have to play through “Another Day” and get the Secret Reports, I think now is as good a time as any to type up my thoughts.

Since the original story is ten years old and I’ve played it dozens of times, I won’t be discussing the plot of that too much. However, I will discuss “A New Day,” so I’m going to put the rest of this under a cut as well as spoiler tag it just so that no one ends up seeing anything they don’t want to see.

To begin with, Final Remix as a whole.

First, I do think that there are some legitimate criticisms as far as the gameplay goes, and those criticisms stem from the fact that SE clearly ported over the iOS controls instead of building from the ground up to make something that would work with the Switch. While I understand that the Switch doesn’t have dual screen capability, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have implemented the JoyCons in small ways when playing in handheld mode (such as using buttons for the Tin Pin Slammer whammies), or that they couldn’t have found a better way to utilize Neku’s partners rather than treating them as pins. The motion controls when playing in docked mode can be a bit wonky as well, and in particular I personally found Joshua nigh unplayable in that mode. Moreover, there are certain areas where the gameplay is not intuitive at all, where a bit more assistance would have been helpful. Namely, the giant bat boss in Week 1, Day 3 was changed to compensate for the fact that there aren’t two screens, but you are not told what you need to do to launch Shiki to the top screen, so you’re screwed if you don’t figure it out on your own. Likewise, Tigris Cantus was changed to compensate for the lack of two screens, but you’re not told that you have to stand in her shadow to allow your partner to attack her directly during the third phase. These two bosses caused me way more frustration than necessary as a result.

All of that said, though, I do think that a lot of the freaking out I’ve seen about the controls is a bit of an overreaction. The reliance SE had on Solo Remix was a detriment to Final Remix, to be sure, but the controls just take some getting used to. This can be difficult for seasoned TWEWY players such as myself, but with a little bit of practice it’s not that bad (particularly in handheld mode). Even when it comes to Tin Pin---yes, it sucks that you can’t use the buttons for the whammies, but if you know that ahead of time you can train yourself to quickly tap the whammies. Takes some practice, but the original Tin Pin Slammer did as well. You just have to retrain yourself.

Moving on from that, I do think that the majority of the remixes were absolutely fantastic. However, there were some . . . bugs? . . . with the music in certain areas. Such as: When you first meet Shiki, “Deja Vu” starts playing, taking over “Despair”, which rather ruins the mood of the moment considering Neku is still panicking about the Noise that were attacking him. That wasn’t the only place where there was some musical dissonance, but it’s one of the first ones I remember off the top of my head, particularly because it was so jarring I looked up a video of the original DS version of that moment to see if I was right in remembering that it was off (and I was). I’m not exactly sure why SE screwed with the music like that, but I wish they hadn’t. The remixes are great, but we didn’t need which track plays where screwed to that degree. (Though that said, for those who don’t like the remixes, you can switch back to the DS OST at any time in the settings menu. I’m not sure if that fixes the musical dissonance that sometimes occurs or not, but that’s an option. So there’s no real excuse to have “I hate the remixes” as a reason for hating the game when . . . you can disable them.)

Overall, while there are a few minor things here or there that could have been better, I don’t think that any of this is a reason to discourage people from buying this game, particularly when it has been said this is our last shot at a sequel. These are all petty, minor inconveniences---they’re not enough to ruin the experience, in my opinion, particularly for a brand new fan who won’t be blinded or have their opinion marred by nostalgia.

All of that said . . . “A New Day”. Oh boy. 

I think the biggest weakness of “A New Day” is that it was too short, and left way too many things unanswered. This is obviously to leave room for the sequel (which we now have a reason for; there was no room for a sequel before, but now there definitely is), but at the same time it’s also a little frustrating, especially considering the very good chance that we won’t get a sequel due to it not selling well enough in Japan (which is Nintendo’s own fault, by the by, because I was actually in Shibuya this past August and I saw no advertising for it anywhere---literally, I passed by Tower Records and I heard Splatoon 2 music playing, but I didn’t hear a single note of TWEWY music, wth), and people in the western fandom telling curious people to buy the DS original or iOS ports instead. The idea that we might not get any answers to any of the questions raised (and that Neku might just stay dead forever, I guess) is really frustrating to me, but I guess in Nomura’s defense he couldn’t have planned for that, so. It is what it is.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of questions raised. Why was Shinjuku erased? Is it erased for good? How is that affecting Shinjuku in the RG? How are Noise appearing in the RG in the first place? (I actually wrote a fic where that happened once, though I only got about two chapters in with it.) I can say that I’m not at all surprised that Coco is actually a Shinjuku Reaper. I always felt that she didn’t really fit with Shibuya at all, ever since the iOS port first came out and I first saw her. She just doesn’t look like a Shibuya Reaper, you know? But she does look very Shinjuku. I can’t really explain it, but the fashion and vibe in Shibuya is just different from Shinjuku, particularly since Shinjuku (contrary to what is said in TWEWY) is actually the high class fashion center of Tokyo. Like, Shibuya is filled with teenagers and all that, but Shinjuku is where you go if you want expensive fashion. So while I’m not saying that Coco’s outfit looks very expensive, I am saying that the fact that her fashion is so different from what we see in Shibuya in TWEWY definitely makes the fact that she originates from Shinjuku make so much more sense. I’m really glad that was clarified in “A New Day”. But that said, that doesn’t explain how she got to Shibuya’s UG to begin with (particularly since I thought that Reapers couldn’t travel between the different UGs), nor does it explain how she can summon a Noise big enough to swallow a city, or create illusions like she did, or use the Taboo Noise refinery to revive Minamimoto . . . there are too many questions here. Way too many questions, and we don’t have answers for any of them.

That said, although I do feel that it was too short, and though I feel that scrambling the map was done less because it made sense for Coco to do that, and more because they wanted to create some artificial length (because if you don’t know how to get to each location, you’re going to spend way more time randomly running around than you otherwise would), I did still enjoy it. The highlights for me were:

Seeing development in Neku’s relationships: Right off the bat, Beat was ready to form a pact with Neku again, and Neku was ready to do the same with Beat. They didn’t even question it, despite how they (understandably) questioned everything else. Not only that, but Beat screamed and reached for Neku when Neku was shot again right in front of him, and I can only imagine how devastated Beat must be right about now. If he didn’t need some therapy after the Game (and he did---they all did), he definitely needs some after seeing his best friend be murdered right in front of him. Then there’s Neku’s relationship with Shiki. One of my favorite parts is when he saw her in Eri’s body again, and his immediate reaction was, “No, that’s not Shiki. That’s not what she really looks like.” I made a post about it before, but one of the best things about Neku’s relationship with Shiki---one of the things that makes it amazing---is the fact that Neku doesn’t truly warm up to her until she drops the Eri act and starts acting like herself. Neku was never impressed by Eri’s looks, and he certainly isn’t impressed by her bubbly attitude; if anything, that annoys him. But Neku cherishes and loves (whether you see it as platonic or romantic) the real Shiki. And so the disappointment he showed when he saw her in Eri’s body---the fact that he doesn’t want this “fake” Shiki, he wants his Shiki, the real Shiki---was extremely heartwarming. I also loved how casually he agreed to go with her to pick up some thread to repair Mr Mew at the end. You know that’s an errand that has nothing at all to do with him, but he just wants to spend some time with her. That’s really cute. ♥ We didn’t get to see very much of it, but I liked what we saw of Neku’s relationship with Joshua as well. I always found it odd (and perhaps a little forced) that Neku said he trusted Joshua at the end of the game. Joshua is someone who repeatedly lied to, used, and murdered Neku. Whatever his reasons for it, Joshua has made it abundantly clear time and again that he will put his own motivations above Neku’s well-being, and he will not feel sorry for it. So while I of course understand Neku not forgiving Josh, I could never understand Neku trusting him despite that lack of forgiveness. If anything, I thought it should be the other way around, that perhaps Neku would forgive him after understanding where he was coming from, but would still not trust him. Either way, I was glad to see in “A New Day” that Neku doesn’t quite trust Joshua as much as he claimed. When he realized that Joshua would likely have some explanation about what was going on, he chased him down. He refused to back down at first, not believing that “Yoshiya” wasn’t playing him. When he had a vision of Joshua potentially shooting him, he thought of that as a very real possibility. All of this points to the fact that it’s less that Neku does trust Joshua, and more that he wants to, and that he’s still feeling pretty conflicted over it. Which, all things considered, is extremely understandable and IC. Finally, Neku’s relationship with Hanekoma has always been one of my favorites, and I was so happy about the little glimpses we witnessed here. I used to write fics where Neku saw Hanekoma as a father-figure (without explicitly saying as much), and where Hanekoma basically adopted him, so I honestly felt like this part of “A New Day” was written for me, haha. The bit where Coco started insisting that Hanekoma was untrustworthy, and Neku turned away from her (as he often does with those who annoy him) and insisted that he trusted Hanekoma more than anyone warmed my heart. Hanekoma, despite Coco’s interference, doing his best to help Neku and get him to WildKat, warmed my heart. And at the very end, where Hanekoma asked “What about Neku?” because he knew Neku’s fate? That, too, warmed my heart. We all know that Hanekoma, at the very least, does hold affection for Neku given the final Secret Report of the original game (“I am glad to have had the chance to meet you”), and I”m glad to see that carried over here as well. Hanekoma is worried about him, and I really want a sequel to see what, exactly, Hanekoma does to help him out of this situation he’s now going to find himself in. (Playing the Game again . . . this time with Pi-Face as his partner . . . RIP, Neku.)

Joshua’s characterization was deliciously on-point. I know that so many people disagree with me on this one, and that’s fine. Everyone can have whatever opinions they want. But from what little we saw of Joshua there at the end, I felt that he was 100% IC---and given how much Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance butchered his characterization, this was so, so refreshing. The thing about Joshua, which I noted above, is that he’s not a sentimental person. He’s a pragmatist. He sees the bigger picture and he puts his own motivations and goals above the well-being of others. Joshua is a person who murdered a teenage boy in cold blood twice, a smile on his face in each time, because he wanted to use said teenage boy as a pawn in a game of life or death. Joshua is a person who was willing to erase an entire town because he felt the citizens weren’t living up to their potential. Joshua is a person who isn’t merciless, and he’s not evil or cruel, but he does believe the ends justify the means and he has little patience for those who would whine about it. He originally chose Neku because Neku was the epitome of everything Joshua hated about Shibuya, the absolute worst person that Joshua could find (that also had suitable Imagination), and though Neku’s development and growth as a person changed Joshua’s mind about erasing Shibuya, that doesn’t mean that he grew attached to Neku on a personal level the same way that Hanekoma did. I know that many people took the Secret Ending of the original game to imply that he was emo about not joining Neku and the others, but I just rewatched it and, honestly, nothing gave me that implication. If anything, it’s vague enough so that you can interpret either way (that he’s either upset about not joining them, or that he feels they’re wasting their time---because after all, Hanekoma says, “Hey, it’s their world. They can decide what to do with it”), but I’ve personally always felt that the “Joshua is a lonely sad boy who just wants to be friends” was more wishful thinking on the part of the fandom versus what we actually see in Joshua’s characterization. Moreover, even if part of Joshua does care about Neku to some degree and wants to be friends with him and others (and again, that’s part of him), he’s still going to value the bigger picture over Neku as an individual. If Neku has to die again to get the job done, so be it. If Neku isn’t necessary for what Joshua has to do and ends up dying as collateral damage, so be it. He might not be exactly happy about it, but ultimately Joshua is here to play the long game, and Neku might not factor into that. In fact, judging by his “I don’t need him anymore” comment at the end of “A New Day” (which makes sense, because since Joshua’s Game with Megumi is no longer running, he has no reason to restrict himself to the RG and thus does not need a proxy to play for him), I’d say Neku doesn’t.  Either way, I was really, really glad to see his proper characterization return. As I said, I felt that he was terribly OoC in KH:DDD, which actually led to me returning the game halfway through because it pissed me off so much, haha. Joshua is one of the most complex, fascinating characters I’ve ever seen in a JRPG, particularly with how he wasn’t swayed and won over by The Power of Friendship™ there at the end, and I was delighted to see that return. All in all, if you really want to know how I view Neku and Joshua’s relationship post-Game, here’s a fic I wrote a few years ago of the two of them interacting, featuring Neku’s lingering trust issues, lingering anger over what Joshua did to him, and Joshua’s lack of patience for what he sees as Neku’s pity party and inability to see the bigger picture. (Oh, and also Joshua teasing Neku and needling him to piss him off on purpose. Irritating Neku will never stop being one of Joshua’s favorite pastimes.) 

Neku’s Imagination giving him additional ESP. Because what were those premonitions if not ESP? Of course, all the Players are espers to some degree, but Neku had the highest Imagination of them all, which is part of why Joshua chose him as his proxy. We been knew about this for ages, but seeing Neku have premonitions of the future---even if they were partially given to him by Hype-chan---was still very cool. Considering that Noise are not appearing in the RG as well (RIP to weebers girl), I wonder if his premonitions will continue in the next game, should we ever get it. Oh, and speaking of---Shiki mentioned having a feeling that something awful was going to happen right after (or before?) she noticed the tear in Mr Mew’s seam. While that’s not as strong of a premonition as what Neku experienced, it’s still extrasensory perception, and I like that she got some of that as well, that it wasn’t just Neku being the most special boy as per usual. Because after all, as I said, they’re all espers to some degree.

The foreshadowing that Coco was controlling everything was also on point. Aside from the fact that she looked so out of place and her insistence on going along with Neku and Beat was odd, the fact that Fake Shiki and Fake Rhyme changed their behavior just so to match with the feedback that Coco got from Neku and Beat was subtle, but juuuust enough for a perceptive player to catch, and I really enjoyed that. (For instance, after Neku mentioned that “Rhyme” was acting awfully distant toward her brother, Fake Rhyme started calling Beat “big bro.” There’s also the fact that Kariya and Uzuki’s personalities were swapped, and that Coco said “isn’t this how they are?” meaning that her information about them was second-hand . . . and another point to the fact that she was the one behind everything. Oh, and the fact that Coco doesn’t know what Shiki really looks like, and thus Fake Shiki looked like Eri . . . and Coco wouldn’t have known Shiki’s true motivation for her entry fee, hence the “I forgot,” and so on.)

All of that said, aspects that I didn’t enjoy (length and cliffhanger aside) as much were . . .

Fridging both Shiki and Rhyme (or, well, their fake selves) was unnecessary. In all honesty, as much as I love Beat and his friendship with Neku, I think that “A New Day” was a wasted opportunity to not have Neku partner with Rhyme. We never got to know what her play style was in the original game, and she’s the only one of Neku’s new friends that he never got to partner with. She’s just as capable of a Player as any of the rest of them (arguably more so given how clever she’s shown to be despite her age), and we barely got to see her personality or characterization in the original game due to how early on she got erased. Although “A New Day” was short, I would have really liked to partner with Rhyme for it, to see how she and Neku interact on their own, and to see what kind of play style she brings to the table. I’ve always headcanoned that she used psychs outright like Neku (i.e. a variety of pins), but I wonder what Nomura always envisioned for her. I would have liked to see that. Aside from which, not only did we already go through Beat’s despair over having Rhyme erased in the main story (which means that going through it again here was a re-tread of what we literally just got done seeing), but I also felt that both his and Neku’s reactions were . . . extremely underwhelming. Beat cried and attacked the shark, but otherwise he got over Rhyme being erased a second time pretty quickly. As for Neku, he goes from shouting, “Don’t you touch her!” at Beat at the end of the third week in the Game when Beat goes to knock out possessed!Shiki to just sort of . . . accepting that Shiki was erased without really caring in “A New Day”. There wasn’t even really any drama about it at all, despite how she was his primary motivation for fighting during weeks two and three. So not only were they erased for the sake of manpain, but they were erased for the sake of manpain that was barely explored, at that, especially since Neku and Beat thought this was real at the time and thus had no real reason to get over it so quickly. (And I mean, I get that Coco had that happen because she didn’t want Neku and Beat to figure out that Shiki and Rhyme weren’t real, which they were pretty close to doing, but still. Doesn’t change the fact that it felt unnecessary for the most part.) And honestly, I’m really not kidding about the wasted opportunity re: Rhyme. I would have loved to have partnered with her. Why we couldn’t have that instead I’ll never understand. (I mean, in-universe I suppose that Coco might have chosen Beat because he is notoriously stupid, but like . . . come on. Let us partner with Rhyme, SE! We’re not asking for a lot, here!!)

The whole bit with “Yoshiya” wasn’t explained and felt out of place. As much as I loved Joshua’s characterization, Yoshiya is another story. The over-the-top stuttering was bad enough, but there’s also no real explanation for why he behaved this way. At first I thought that perhaps this was a time travel plot and that this was how Joshua was before he died and ended up becoming Composer, but not only was that not the case, we have no explanation for why this did happen at all. Why would Coco believe Joshua acted like that? What reason did she have for thinking that? He was so far out of character that, looking back, it’s really jarring. (Still, I’ll take Yoshiya over KH3D “Joshua”, so that should tell you something about how I feel about KH3D.)

We never got a real name for Hype-chan. It’s been all these years and we still have nothing to call her but “Hype-chan,” smfh. But no, really, what’s her name? What’s her story? I want to know and yet I may never find out. This kills the Scrawlers.

All in all I did enjoy it, missed opportunities and raised questions aside, and I really want the sequel. Here’s hoping we manage to squeak enough sales to get it. It would be nice. (Especially since the fact that the sequel would likely be made especially for Switch should mean that the control issues would be smoothed out. One can only hope.)

[aion-rsa]

Why Pokémon Has Endured For 25 Years

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This article is presented by:

In 1996, Joseph Tobin was a professor of early education at the University of Hawaii when he decided to walk into a hobby store in Kaimuki for field research.

“They had some Pokémon stuff—the Japanese versions of the cartridges,” Tobin recalls. “People could buy them in this store before they were even available elsewhere. We interviewed the owner and decided that Pokémon would be a really interesting thing to study.”

Tobin had a pre-existing interest in Japanese culture from time spent in Japan as an exchange student and therefore continued his research in other hobby shops and toy stores throughout Honolulu. As the years progressed, he traded Pokémon cards with children who were adamant that he would not get ripped off in lopsided swaps. He followed as a colleague’s six-year-old son spent 90-plus hours with his Pokémon Blue cartridge for the Nintendo Game Boy, learning to read, understanding maps, and calculating sums in the process.

The years of Poké studies culminated in Tobin hosting an academic conference in 2000, where educators, anthropologists, and other cultural experts gathered in Honolulu to discuss this massive, yet certainly fleeting, Pokémon phenomenon. The findings and arguments of the conference were collected in the insightful and thoroughly-researched, yet tragically named, Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon.

“We thought we better hurry and get this out before the craze is over,” Tobin says.

25 years later and the Pokémon craze is nowhere near over. 

Today, Pokémon is one of the most successful, if not the most successful entertainment entities in human history. Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, having taken in an estimated $88 billion in revenue. According to eBay, there were 160 million searches on the platform for Pokémon cards last year, and they outsold even baseball cards. In December of last year, a Base set 1st edition PSA-graded 10 “shadowless” Charizard card sold on eBay for a staggering $350,100. The Pokémon games are now in their eighth generation and have sold over 340 million units. The long-running anime is in its 24th year and features more than 1,100 episodes. 

In defense of Tobin and The Rise and Fall of Pokémon’s title, the franchise, created by Game Freak and Nintendo, did seem like it was on the ropes in the early 2000s. “Pokémania” had largely died out and financial markers like the Pokémon card market had cooled. But Pokémon didn’t need a lengthy Pokémania to become one of the most successful entertainment franchises ever. To find success, all Pokémon needed was a consistent track record of innovative creators behind the scenes and a dedicated fan base of children—and eventually adults—willing to catch them all. 

“This will probably be something you hear from me and the rest of the team at Pokémon a lot. But Pokémon really is for everyone,” says Daniel Benkwitt, Senior Manager, Communications & Public Relations for The Pokémon Company International. “As long time fans will tell you, Pokémon has always been around throughout many iterations. The fans have been dedicated to Pokémon for 25 years, no matter when they came in.”

Benkwitt has a unique perspective on the nature of Pokémon’s ebbs and flows. Now working on the franchise’s 25th-anniversary celebrations, Benkwitt joined the Pokémon Company during Pokémon’s 20th anniversary—the same year that the massively popular augmented reality mobile game Pokémon Go debuted.

“I was excited to work on an exciting franchise, but who knew what it was actually going to be once Pokémon Go had launched?” he says. “Truly, Pokémon Go on the 20th anniversary brought Pokémon back into the zeitgeist.”

In many ways, Pokémon Go served as a reminder of what the Poké die-hards already knew: this is Pikachu’s world and we’re just living in it. Whether it be through the series of beloved games, a highly successful card game, long-running anime, or sheer power of brand alone, Pokémon is one of the last quarter century’s big pop culture winners. 

The reasons why Pokémon survived its early fad status to blossom into a titan of entertainment are varied and innumerable, but it all starts with accessibility.

“There’s a variety of different ways and different touchpoints that fans can enter into Pokémon. My personal story is the anime,” Benkwitt says. “For a lot of folks, it was the video games, because that truly is the core of the franchise. Everything emanates out from there.”

Let the Poké Games Begin!

Pokémon Red and Green first premiered in Japan on Feb. 27, 1996. Its English counterparts, Red and Blue, would arrive in North America in 1998. Just about everything that’s appealing about the Pokémon franchise is apparent in those first two installments: exploration, training, trading, battling. The games capture creator Satoshi Tajiri’s experience of collecting insects as a boy in Japan, scaled up and fine-tuned for a larger, and eventually more Western audience. 

The games have evolved over the years, moving from a Matrix-green original Game Boy sprite display to the gorgeous, full-color three dimensions of Nintendo Switch. Along the way, new generations of fans have found their respective access points into the games and the franchise at large.

Pokémon content creator Ron Sroor is part of the next wave of Pokémon fandom, having been born after Red and Blue even debuted. He knows as well as anyone that the appeal of Pokémon has been constant, even if the heights of the franchise have waxed and waned. 

“To the people who were around at the beginning of Pokémania, it seemed like it was dying down, and it definitely was,” Sroor says. “But it never stopped being big. It was going from the biggest thing ever to just a normal, big thing.”

Like Benkwitt, Sroor came to Pokémon through the anime before coming to appreciate the larger tapestry of the franchise through the Pokémon Black and White games, which are set in a world approximating his native New York City. Now Sroor interacts with Pokémon fans via a variety of creative YouTube videos in which he discusses elements of the games like tier lists for powerful Pokémon, and shares his own artistic Pokémon renditions.

“I think the Pokémon are the draw of the franchise. They’re the perfect formula for creating creatures that aren’t too monstrous, but also not too childish or too cute,” he says. “Every single Pokémon is based on something, whether it be an animal or myth, and every location in the game or in the show or whatever is based on places in the real world.”

Cardboard Craze

Though the Pokémon series of games were the progenitor of the franchise, Pikachu and friends quickly proved too big to be contained by only one medium. The Pokémon Trading Card Game was first published by Wizards of the Coast in October 1996, just eight months after Red and Blue’s debut. These days, the Pokémon Trading Card Game (now under the auspices of The Pokémon Company) is considered one of the “Big Three” TCGs, alongside Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!. 

Competitive Pokémon TCG player Andrew Mahone recalls experiencing the first wave of Pokemania when he was in fourth grade. 

“1999—it was everywhere. Kids were playing the cards at recess, at the pool, wherever we went. I got captivated by the initial craze as it was the cultural phenomenon happening at the time. And being 10 years old, you’re the same age as the hero in the Pokémon franchise. So it really hit home with me there.”

Like many other kids of his generation, Mahone set Pokémon aside throughout his high school years and picked up a diverse array of other interests like soccer, skateboarding, and competitive running. It was during college, however, that Mahone met back up with the franchise that never truly went away, playing Pokémon Diamond and Pearl on the bus to and from track meets.

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By Anthony McGlynn

“I fell in love with the franchise all over again doing that, and I played the DS game for hundreds of hours throughout my college career. When I graduated college, that’s when I was like, ‘Okay. Well, now I want something else that’s competitive to do now that I’m done with sports.’ That’s where I got into competitive Pokémon.”

Mahone attended his first competitive TCG event in 2012 and won his first regional championship in 2015. By 2017, he was making YouTube videos about the competitive Pokémon TCG scene. That channel has now evolved into his multimedia enterprise Tricky Gym, supported by Full Grip Games.

As part of the Pokémon TCG diaspora, Mahone has had a front-row seat to the game’s latest renaissance, this time likely driven by young adults looking to connect with their past while stuck indoors due to COVID lockdowns.

“We see a lot of young adults now in their mid-20s and 30s revisiting Pokémon because they have such strong nostalgic feelings for it. It came out in this very impactful time in their early childhood.”

I Wanna Be the Very Best…

One of the reasons that so many adults have warm fuzzies for the franchise is the storytelling around it. Premiering in 1997, the anime story of Ash Ketchum and his quest to become a Pokémon master has been a constant companion of the franchise through 24 years and hundreds of episodes. It also had a tremendous impact on the woman who would one day voice the young hero of Pallet Town.

“It was hard for me even as a kid to see it as a fad, because of the show,” Sarah Natochenny says. “It had heart, relatable characters, and adorable, unique creatures. This wasn’t just a game or set of toys. Pokémon had a story.”

Natochenny is an artist with eclectic talents and interests. After winning a bronze medal at the Junior Olympics in rhythmic gymnastics in 1999, she studied at the Strasberg Theater Institute for four years while also doing improv at UCB, and taking voice and dance classes on the side. In 2006, she auditioned for the role of Ash Ketchum in the Pokémon anime’s English dub, taking over for the role’s progenitor, Veronica Taylor.

“Pokémon was the biggest job I booked. It was only my second voiceover job, after a medical industrial,” Natochenny says. “I was the perfect age when Pokémon first came to America, and I loved the show and remember begging my parents for the cards. I had one deck. I have no idea where it is or whether or not there was a million-dollar card in there.”

Since 2006, Natochenny has voiced Ash, his mom Delia, along with a host of other human and Pokémon characters (Buneary being a particular favorite because it’s very cute). As part of the Pokémon 25th anniversary, Natochenny is most looking forward to wrapping up work on Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle, along with some of the other planned festivities. 

“I’m looking forward to celebrating with fans and continuing to bring joy to people who grew up with my portrayal of their favorite character. I’ll also probably dance to the music that comes out, so tune in to my social media to see if those dance classes paid off,” she says. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

25 Years of Pokémon

As Natochenny suggests, The Pokémon Company indeed has big plans—musical and otherwise—for the franchise’s 25th anniversary.

The team has been working on the celebration for over a year and has partnered with UMG and Katy Perry for a year-long musical campaign called P25 Music. Other corporate partners include Build-A-Bear Workshop, General Mills, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Jazwares, Scholastic, Mattel, Funko, PowerA, and The Wand Company (which is manufacturing a lifelike Poké Ball). And there are still more announcements to come.

“All I can say is, stay tuned because the rest of the year is going to be quite exciting with more surprises. Pokémon likes to surprise its fans,” Benkwitt says.

One thing that wouldn’t surprise its fans is if Pokémon one day observed a 50th- anniversary celebration, or even a centennial. It certainly wouldn’t surprise Tobin, who is still an early education professor, now at the University of Georgia.

“I’m not surprised that [Pokémon] has lasted this long in the sense that I think it’s really good,” he says. “It was really cleverly designed and it has a really rich narrative. I’m happy to see that it’s made it.”

Shop Pokémon on eBay today!

The post Why Pokémon Has Endured For 25 Years appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3aJSIfe

[oskarwing]

Video Game curse

Sam sighed and rolled his eyes. “Could you turn the game quiet please, Dean?” Sam asks. “You don’t have to play it that loudly...”

“I’m not playing! I am doing research.” It was their new case. So much weirdness was almost too much even for them.

A girl witnessed her brother getting killed by a creature looking a lot like Bowser from Super Mario, a group of friends got attacked by Trevor from GTA five, one died the other two are still in the hospital, a boy was beaten up by Nathan Drake... everything seemed to be about video games. They called Charlie to use her expertise on the topic to see if there were any connections between the characters, but seemingly there wasn’t really.

Sam sighed and looked through the files they already had. It wasn’t much but at least the victims were seemingly connected. They were all big nerds loving the Games they got attacked by.

And now Dean uses the case as an excuse to play Pokemon Alpha Saphir on the Nintendo 3 DS.

“Yeah show ‘em!” Dean shouts. Sam looks over his shoulder. “You named it ‘Cas’?” He asks his brother amused.

“Shutup, it has the same color as his eyes.” Dean mumbles, face flushing red.

“Yeah, it’s blue, but I don’t see any other similarities...” Sam looked at the Pokemon that was seemingly a Mudkip. “Dean... come on, we have to get going, you know we wanted to talk to the boyfriend of the guy that got beaten up by that climbing-guy... Nathan... the boyfriend's name is Steve Davidson.”

Dean sighs and closes the DS. “Okay. Let’s go to the guy.”

“So you are saying that Thomas was totally into that Nathan Drake Game?” Dean asks. That fits with the other guys. 

“Yeah... Tommy... he always loved Uncharted. Just like Dennis, they used to talk about it a lot... but Dennis also loved the old retro stuff you know...” Steve says the poor kid has red-rimmed eyes, probably cried a lot, since his boyfriend still didn’t wake out of the coma.

“Wait, Mandy’s brother... they were friends? We didn’t get that impression after our interview with Mandy and her parents.” Sam says raising his eyebrow.

The boy laughs sarcastically. “Yeah, I bet. They didn’t like Tommy that much...”

“Really? Why’s that?” Dean says leaning forward a bit.

“Why? Why the fuck do you think, agent? ‘cause he’s gay, obviously. They didn’t want their precious son to have contact with a guy like that... they damn religious... like ‘God doesn’t like fun’-religious, like most of the town... Tommy and I wanted to move because of that. Especially after the fire...” The guy stops and looks on the ground.

“Fire?” Sam asks.  

“N-nothing...” He stands up. “I shouldn’t talk about this... please go now.”

“Well, that was weird...” Dean says as he sits down in the Impala. “What kinda fire did Steve mean, no one else mentioned any fire...”

Sam nods. “But I’m guessing that it was recent if it had any influence on Tommy’s and Steve’s decision to move. We should definitely look into this.”

“Soon,” Dean says and puts his hand on his stomach. “Now I am hungry. Let’s find a good Diner...”

They are waiting to get their orders, both of their gazes locked onto screens. Sammy’s on his laptop, researching the fire and Dean’s on the 3DS, he has to fight an Arena Boss soon and his Pokemon need some training.

“Dean! Get this. There really was a fire in town only a few months ago and guess where.” Sam says with a smug smile, that Dean doesn’t see because he’s still playing.

“Dunno.” Dean feels ready to get into the Arena now. Or should he wait? He doesn’t want his Pokemon to die again...

“In a video game store, doesn’t that fit a bit too well with this very video game themed murders?”

“Maybe... a bit.” Dean looks up from the DS, just to look down again.

“Dean. Focus!” “I am focused...” “Then put that thing away...” “Just one sec...” “Dean!”

The blonde waitress interrupts their quarrel. “Gentlemen. Your order...” Then she spots Dean’s DS. “Sir. Honestly, in your free time you can do whatever you want... but in our establishment, we don’t need games of the devil.” She says.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Dean looks up. What has the waitress against his DS.

“We believe in the lord and do not encourage any kind of devilish behavior...” The waitress says and goes away.

Dean puts his DS away with a bit of a pout. “Don’t get what’s devilish about my poor Game...”

“Maybe the hypnotic impact it has on you...” Sam says and starts eating. “What I wanted to say is that during that fire three people died. Two customers and the owner...”

“So you’re saying... vengeful spirit?” Dean asks.

This time Dean sees Sam’s grin and rolls his eyes. “Let’s check it out.”

The video game store is burned down completely. Dean looks at it. “Well, I’m guessing we won’t find anything useful here.”

“Nope...” Sam sighs nothing here. “Completely burned down.”

“And that’s good if you ask me!” An elderly man behind them says loudly. “Our priest is right. The stuff that this devil sold...” The man’s face twists in disgust as he shakes his head. “It’s good that he burns in hell now that bastard... tries to get our youth...” The man spits out and walks away. 

“Well, have a nice day too...” Dean says, looking at Sam who seems just as irritated.

“I guess this town just has something against Games... I mean first the waitress, now that guy...” Dean raises an eyebrow. “Almost seems like the video game characters are trying to get revenge...”

Sam looks at his brother thoughtfully. “What if... there was another part of the article... apparently the cause of the fire wasn’t clear... the police looked into it... but dropped it after a few weeks. Because ‘there was no reason to believe that the cause was malicious arson’ one policewoman even got fired because she didn’t stop nagging.” 

Dean grins. “Huh... and that guy just talked about a priest... so...”

“I’ll take the policewoman,” Sam says fast, not wanting his brother to get all of the fun.

“Aw come on... I don’t wanna talk with a stuck-up priest...”

Dean hates Sam, hates his stupid puppy dog eyes and how he always gets through with the stuff he wants.

He looks around in the church the only one in the small town. It’s not very big but there are a lot of people sitting around and preying. All of them are eyeing him strangely.

He eyes the pictures of the saints, all of them seem to look at him judgingly.

“Can I help you?” Dean looks at the small priest. “Yes... uh, are you the priest here? I’m Agent Chinaski, do you know a place where I we could talk, privately?” The priest shakes his head and looks at him sternly. “I have no secrets in front of my sheep.” He says and Dean sighs.

“We are looking into the things that recently happened in the last few weeks.” Dean starts and the priest nods. “Tragic... all of them... I wished I got to save them...”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Save?” The priest nods. “Yes... they were all involved in those awful, awful games...” “You mean the video games, right?” Some of the people start to whisper horrified. “Yes. They capture the youth, devilish, devilish things...” The priest's eyes narrow. “You are not... also a victim of them... are you young man?”

 “Me? No... no. I don’t... have the time. Being an Agent and all...” Dean smiles.

“Realy... Agent Chinaski... don’t you know that lying is a sin?” The priest asks and Dean feels the warm breath in his neck. He turns around... Behind him stands a big blue monster... a tall monstrous version of the Mudkip he named after Cas. 

Before Dean can say anything it attacks.

The visit at officer Bell’s hadn’t got Sam very far. The only thing he now knew was that the local priest seemed to have a personal grudge against video games and that he often rambled on about it in his services, something Sam had already figured and Dean probably knows more about it anyway, since he got to visit the priest himself.

Where is Dean anyway? Sam tries to phone him for the sixth time but no one is answering. Is he still at the church? Sam decides to go to the church himself.

It’s a short walk from the motel to the church and Sam has a bad feeling... Dean would have answered him long ago.

Dean runs for his life. The damn monster close behind him. He can hear the loud THUNK! THUNK! of its feet.

Dean is constantly slipping in puddles of water the Mudkip leaves.

Dean doesn’t even notice where he is running to. The Mudkip chases him into a forest and soon Dean stumbles over a wet root.

When he looks up the Mudkip is over him.

“MY DEAR SHEEP! THE SINNER WILL SOON BE WIPED FROM THIS EARTH. HE AND ALL THE OTHER SINNERS WE HAD TO SACRIFICE FOR GOD WILL BURN IN HELL!”

Sam has a bad feeling that Dean is the ‘Sinner’.He listens anxiously the service that the man is holding in there. People are cheering loudly at the idea of people burning in hell, yet another clue on how brainwashed the town looks up.

He looks around there is a small barn just behind the church... it looks very new. Sam goes and opens the door.

Dean is drowning. Drowning in water from a freaking Pokemon... that is looking down on him.

He’s trying hard to catch his breath again, but there is no way, his lungs are full of water... he looks up into the eyes of the Mudkip.

Eyes that suddenly don’t seem like those of a video game monster at all. They look like Cas’...

In the barn, the smell of fresh wood mixes with the ones of different herbs. There's a plan on one wall, a plan on how to burn the video game place with exactly three people in it. Sam looks over at a small table in front of him. On it lays a book... seemingly... magic.

Sam reads the first page.

When three sinners burn in the place of their sins, use their ashes to bind their souls, then they will clear the earth from the rest of the sinners...

Sam looks over on a small altar is a bowl with ash and some herbs... and oh god... Dean’s name is written with blood all over the altar. Sam wipes it fastly from the altar, hoping it will help Dean. Then he looks at the rest. He decides to just knock over the altar and hopes that is enough for the spirits to get freed. He calls officer Bell and tells her that he has found evidence that he has found evidence that the priest was involved in the fire. 

Now he needs to find Dean.

“Dean! Dean, wake up... wake up...” Someone is clapping his cheeks.

Dean blinks fast and looks into his brother's eyes. He coughs loudly and tries to sit up.

“Easy there... easy...” Sam says when he slips down again. “Damn... what happened.” 

“Cas... Cas tried to kill me...” Dean mumbles and coughs.

“Cas...?” Sam is really worried now. “Cas is not here, Dean...” 

“Not that Cas... the other one the... Pokemon...” Dean sighs and coughs loudly again. “Dude... let’s get out of this town...”

Sam doesn’t object.

[bastardnev]

Steal Your Heart Ch. 3

nev may be a loser, but he’s WADE’S loser

(crossposted from ao3)

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: World Wrestling Entertainment, Professional Wrestling Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Wade Barrett/Pac | Adrian Neville, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added Characters: Wade Barrett, Pac | Adrian Neville, Other Character Tags to Be Added Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Thieves Summary: Random happenings in the lives of Wade, a detective, and Neville, a thief who took a liking to him and decided to tag along with him during his investigations.

Wade let out an impatient sigh, resting his arm on the car window and propping his head up while his other hand gripped the steering wheel. No matter what state he went to -- be it back in New York or here in North Carolina -- he always found himself stuck in rush hour traffic. The rain that had been falling all afternoon certainly wasn't helping much either. I swear, it's like everyone forgets how to drive whenever it rains... Wade grumbled to himself, rolling his eyes when the person in the car behind him started repeatedly honking their horn. "Yes, because that's totally gonna fix everything!" Wade complained. "That's gonna get us out of this mess quicker."

"Ooh, you tell 'em, Wade," Neville chuckled from the passenger's seat, not looking up from his DS. Wade looked over and noticed that he was completely focused on the screen, his tongue poking out from between his lips as he did whatever the hell it was that he was doing.

Wade forced his gaze back on the road and was about to respond when the horn honked again and cut him off, and he leaned his head back against the seat, letting out a deep sigh. "The universe is actively working against me, I swear to God," he said, prompting another laugh from Neville. He knew that it was a bad idea to meet up with the witnesses this late in the day -- when he knew that once they were finished it would be around 5 PM -- and yet he did it anyway. Had he proposed that they do it earlier or even on a day when the weather wasn't so poor, then this whole thing could have been completely avoided.

"Dammit, come on!" Neville huffed after having fallen silent again. "Just stay in the damn ball, you bastard..."

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to catch Lugia."

"Lugia? Nev, are you really playing Pokémon right now?" Wade snorted. "What are you, a child?"

"No, I'm not, but I do like to have fun, unlike you," Neville snapped back, pursing his lips and raising his eyebrows at Wade for a moment before going back to playing.

"Wow, okay," he scoffed. "I didn't realize that this was such a sensitive topic for you." Wade needed to learn to keep his mouth shut. The last thing he needed was an angry Neville -- if provoked, Neville might steal his wallet. Again.

"You should try playing it one of these days. I think you'd really like it."

"I've never really been much of a video game person. I'm all thumbs with controllers."

"I'm gonna name the next non-legendary that I catch after you. I'll raise you to level one hundred."

"I feel so honored," Wade replied sarcastically, watching as a raindrop slowly slid down from the top of the windshield. What he would give to be back at the hotel at that moment, warm and dry and not sitting in a car surrounded by so many impatient drivers...

"... God, and now I'm out of Ultra Balls!" Neville annoyedly switched the system off and shut it, setting it down on top of Wade's notepad, which was resting in his lap. "I'll try that again later. Lemme tell ya, catching legendary Pokémon is pretty much impossible. Their catch rate is so damn low... How am I supposed to complete the Pokédex when they make it so freaking difficult?"

"I'm gonna pretend like I understood what you just said," Wade replied. His eyes fell on the DS. "Y'know, Nev, I've been meaning to ask you: Where'd you get that thing, anyway?"

"This old thing?" Neville picked it back up, admiring it proudly. "Well, where do you think I got it from, Wade? Take a guess."

Wade thought for a second before he smirked. "You stole it, didn't you?"

"Correct!" Neville ran a hand over the top of it, his finger tracing along a small crack. "It was easily my most successful heist. You wouldn't believe the hours of entertainment I've gotten out of it. It doesn't owe me a damn thing."

Wade noticed that the traffic was slowly letting up, and he was able to move his car up, but it still seemed like they would be stuck there for a little while longer. Letting up or not, it was still bumper-to-bumper, which meant that the person in the car behind them was sure to start up with the horn again any second now... Wade knew that they needed to pass the time somehow, so he looked to Neville and asked, "Why don't you tell me about it? The heist, I mean. How'd you pull it off?"

"Oh my God, it was awesome, Wade. Literally no one saw it coming! I caught them all off guard." Neville suddenly grew incredibly animated, like he was thrilled that he was given the chance to talk about his thievery. Wade got the feeling that Neville probably didn't know many people who would listen to him ramble about his illegal activities, and the fact that Neville trusted him enough with this information made him smile.

"Well, go on now!" He encouraged him, motioning with his hands for him to continue. "No need for the suspense. Gimme the details. Where'd it take place?"

"It was in the hotel in Miami. Y'know, the one we met in?" Neville explained. "In addition to being murderous, the people that work there are really inattentive."

"As seen by the fact that no one noticed you were secretly staying there for months."

"Exactly! No one even batted an eyelash when I swiped this bad boy from the lost-and-found."

Wade's brow furrowed. "Wait, you got it from a lost-and-found?"

"Yeah! I was snooping around one night and found it sitting in there with a game and a charger. They were all dusty, like they'd been there for awhile before I found them. I figured that since no one else seemed interested in giving it the proper care that it deserves that I would take it for myself. None of the staff even knew that I dropped by." Neville grinned at the white DS, his tongue poking out from between his teeth. "So oblivious. I was so proud of myself afterwards."

Hold on a minute. Wade was confused. A lost-and-found is full of items that people lost, and in most cases no one ever drops by and claims them. In the end, it technically didn't matter who took the DS, be it Neville or the actual owner. Is he saying that the best heist he's ever pulled off was picking up a lost item? One that had been left behind for months that the owner probably forgot about?

The silence in the car was broken by the sound of the car horn going off again, and Neville was the one to let out a frustrated noise this time. "God, can't you just honk your horn back at him?" He reached towards the wheel.

"Hey, hey, we're not doing any of that today," Wade swatted his hand away. He drove the car up a little further, what Neville told him still at the forefront of his mind. If that was the biggest thing that Neville had ever done since becoming a thief, then did that mean that he wasn't much of a thief at all? No, there had to be more to it than that. There must be more that he's not telling him. "So that was how you stole the DS, huh?"

"Mmhmm. And I don't regret a thing."

"So what about some of your other heists? What's the next big thing that you've done?"

"Well..." Neville drew out the 'l' at bit his lip as he thought, clicking his tongue a few times. "There was this one thing I did recently at a store that I thought was pretty sweet."

"Ooh, alright." Wade liked the sound of that -- things could actually be stolen from a store. "What kind of a store was it? A jewelry store? Did you steal a bunch of diamonds?"

"No, it was a convenience store," Neville responded. "Took a bag of Skittles when the cashier wasn't looking. You wouldn't believe how little attention those people pay, especially when it's after dark."

"I... I see..." Wade knew just from experience how skilled Neville was at stealing. Had it not been for him and his abilities, the case in Miami would have taken much longer to solve since Wade would be working on his own. Neville has this talent, but he doesn't even use it properly... He acts like he's a big criminal, when really his biggest crime is just petty theft! Once again, Wade found it almost funny how he of all people was the one griping about Neville not committing any serious offenses.

After what felt like forever, the traffic was finally moving, and Wade hurriedly stepped on the gas pedal before the person in the car behind them exploded out of pure rage. It was once they were driving steadily that Neville asked, "You okay? You've been thinking for awhile."

"I'm fine," Wade replied. "Look, kid, I know I've told you this before, but... You are a very interesting person, you know that?"

"An interesting person, and an amazing thief." Neville grinned.

"Yeah, sure, you're amazing." Not too long after he said that, Wade heard the sound of the Pokémon game that Neville had been playing start up again. "You're giving it another shot?"

"I don't have a choice!" Neville tapped the stylus against the screen. "If I give up, then I'm just letting Lugia win. I can't have that!"

"Nev, it's only pixels."

"They're more than that! You would know if you actually played."

"Oh my God, you really are a child..." Wade breathed a sigh of relief when he saw their hotel, and he drove into the parking lot.

[countdowntocake]

50 Personal Questions

Rules: fill this out and tag at least one person you’d like to know more about! Or just fill it out! Or don’t! Answer only some of them! Make up your own questions! “What kind of requirement is that”, you ask? A reasonable one! Who am I to tell you what to do? Anything goes! Tagged by @leorysxi Tagging No One! 1. What kind of food can’t you stand?
Anything that's really cheap or really processed (basically most candy and junk food, except for some quality chocolate). Also coconut. Fuck coconut. 2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick?
As of right now, having to remember princess lessons in MidCin and IkeSen. If I could just store infinite stamina (or at least like 10 hours) I'd be such a happy camper. 3. Have you got any useless talents? Idk if it counts as a talent but I can do multiplication, addition, and subtraction from left-to-right. 4. If you could be really really good at one thing, what would it be? Remembering things. 5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking. There are plenty, but off the top of my head Andy Biersack for guys (I don't even listen to BVB but I do listen to his solo album lol) and Zendaya or Sofia Vergara for ladies.
 6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid? Daydreaming or playing video games (I got my first hand-me-down DS when I was 7). 7. What is something you’re proud of? I'm plenty cocky about a lot of things, but if I had to pick it would be that I was selected out of like 700 kids in my middle school to represent them in a young leadership conference during my first year there.
 8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate? Vapidness in general. 
 9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower? Definitely a leader (see number 7)! One of my young childhood memories was when I was at the beach on vacation when I was maybe 6, and I was trying to direct a bunch of other little kids on how to build a proper sandcastle (I'm now currently discovering my interest in the field of architecture, funnily enough).
 10. What kind of student are/were you? Extremely curious, tends to monopolize the teacher, teachers pet, has never dipped below a 3.7 GPA.
 11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life? I have absolutely no clue tbh.
 12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion. The inevitability of my own death. 13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable? Yes, and the first that comes to mind is Edea Lee from the Bravely Default series. She's the daughter of the Grand Marshal (king) of her kingdom, and was raised to follow in her father's footsteps. Though her somewhat biased education had led her to see the world in a very black/white way, her world view is forced to change as she journeys out into the world and joins the other heroes of the story. She wants to make her father and teachers proud, but does not hesitate to disobey them and her state when she sees the consequences of their actions. She's proud, headstrong, and kind (plus she loves food lmao I love Edea and I could talk about her for hours and I'm literally going to name my firstborn daughter after her and no one can stop me). 
 14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties? I don't really go to parties unless they're small gatherings with friends or family, and the idea of drinking in public terrifies me so idk I'll figure it out eventually.
 15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone? It will definitely take awhile. I can get crushes, sure, but if and when I start looking for someone to spend/dedicate my whole life to, I plan to find the right one the first time.
 16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends? This is going to sound shallow but 100 casual friends. No matter how perfect we are as friends, only spending time with one person wears thin after awhile.
 17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak? Neat-freak, but not extremely so. I just like me some good organization!
 18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy. When I think of cozy, one old southern home in my dad's family comes to mind. In the middle of a town as rural as can be, it's a large, charming white cottage surrounded by massive oak trees. The only sounds that reach it are the occasional train the crosses the edge of the property. Whether I'd be out on the porch swing overlooking the yard, the sunroom in the back with an old couch along an entire wall with a massive window, or even perched in one of the massive oaks on the property, I'd stay there forever and nap.
 19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday?
Like I said, I'm totally naming my first daughter Edea. 20. What was your favorite book as a child? When I was in second grade, I used to get in massive trouble for reading the Young Nancy Drew series in math class. I also love the Harry Potter series, and found a book called The School for Good and Evil on the first day of 6th grade and have loved the series since.
 21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about Snapchat, Jake Paul, fidget spinners... I could go on.
 22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated. Marina and the Diamonds! I hear everyone talking about Halsey or Lana Del Ray, but no one ever talks about Marina and her awesome music! ;-;
 23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose? I have no clue, but someone I could get comfortable with at least (not a guy, I'm way too shy!).
 24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday? I'm just going to be generic and say travel the world.
 25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat?
If it's something I feel confident in my knowledge/ability to debate about, then I'll never hold back. 26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in?
I'm not one for fads usually, so I don't really have an answer. 27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for?
Idk, I was a pretty cool kid. I usually knew when something was too dumb for me. 28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable?
A quick wit. 29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.) I usually make a wish-list, but I've always gotten plenty of video games, and in recent years I've been receiving jewelry as a gift more often (mostly from my mom because we watch JTV together sometimes and she knows my taste lmao)
 30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones? I only know English fluently, but I'm learning Spanish in school, slowly but surely.
 31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside? The countryside definitely has its draws (see number 18), but I've also lived in a city all my life and the convenience of everything is really nice...
 32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving? I never would have thought it as a kid, but I actually love reading nonfiction. You don't have to struggle to find something with a good story that's suited to your tastes, and you get to LEARN stuff.
 33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else?
I guess it depends on what type of spotlight. If it's just drama/popularity, then no thanks, but I definitely want appreciation for what I do and what I've a accomplished so far. 34. Favorite holiday? Easter for pastels and nostalgia, Mardi Gras for fun and family, and Christmas for gifts and candy.
 35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously? PLANNING. Because STRATEGY. IS. ALWAYS. (srsly tho don't try to get me into a plan that hasn't been thought out yet because I will ask a million questions and start planning everything for you)
 36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.) Most things wouldn't be the same now since I did them as a child, but honestly if I could replay Breath of the Wild with a blank slate I totally would. I tried to take it slow but still ended up rushing the story ;-;
 37. What hobbies do you have? Still video games and daydreaming :p but now with the lovely additions of fanfiction and YouTube!
 38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have? Teleporting? You can't kill a man with it, but it's still pretty useful.
 39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you? (Depending on how you met me) I'm super polite and apparently "talk fancy", or that I swear like a sailor in the most deadpan way.
 40. Something that took you way too long to figure out? I can't remember anything off the top of my head...
 41. Worst injury you’ve had? I've never broken a bone, but once when I was like four I got this HORRIBLE carpet burn on my chin from watching cartoons on my stomach at a friend's house.
 42. Any morbid fascinations?
Not really. 43. Describe your sense of humor. Dry, often dark, and is typically enhanced by timing and delivery (deadpan, usually).
 44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose? I'm honestly pretty happy where I am. The past sucks in terms of conveniences and sanitation, and where I came from plays a huge part in who I am.
 45. Something you are irredeemably bad at? Probably dancing.
 46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through? When I was younger, my mom would ALWAYS correct me if I forgot to say ma'am or sir, but I'm so glad she stuck with it because now it's ingrained in my brain and helps me to be acknowledged/liked by my teachers and other adults.
 47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.) Face tattoo! It doesn't have to be that big, right? Theoretically it could just look like the perfect makeup permanently on my face (and lord knows I'm too lazy for makeup). But realistically, I'm never getting a tattoo. 48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist? Realist? I like to operate under "prepare for the worst and hope for the best". I'm confident in my ability to get myself where I want to be, but I know I'll have to work for it. 49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you? Probably something about my mind or abilities. I love being complimented on my looks of course (the other day when I was getting my hair done for school a stranger told me I have beautiful hair and I'm still happy about it), but whenever someone in MidCin compliments me as a princess I almost always screenshot it.
 50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you? (In real life) I'm not a total stuck-up bitch. Yes I'm confident in myself and yes I came from a relatively well-off background, but I like to think that I'm nicer than I first appear.

[clubpenguinheadcanons]

Ah I found your blog again! I looked everywhere for the old URL on my links and thought you left forever! Phew! As you finished the first de game got any hc for Gary being missing part? That would have hurt Ace and when he got the partial amnesia when he got back (slight AU I had of it was worse than he let on on it not just being about how he got stuck down that mine for a few days). Glad to find u again! Hugs! ~Ace anon

Ah! I am so sorry Anon! I didn’t mean to make you worry! But yeah, I changed my URL to be more fitting ouo;

Ooooo, I like that! Honestly, I think that would make a bit more sense with G being there longer. Which kinda makes me feel that there is more room for some headcanons owo Yada Yada more undercut.

BTW this will be the idea that Ace/Agent is the same from the Club Penguin Missions and the first DS game is the same person. So like questions of who G is, and other basic introductory stuff doesn’t apply. As well as going with the idea he was there longer. So like some interactions might be different ouo;;;

G was in the Mines for a day or two longer than assumed. It was just that when he missed his meeting with The Director did they know he was truly missing.

At first, they thought he was taking a sick day or was just taking a day off.

Funny enough, the day before they realized he was missing, Ace had a mission to scout around and see if Herbert’s lair was still being used.

So Dot disguised herself as G to give out that mission.

Ace was so confused with how different G was acting.

“G are you okay??? Seems that you have a cold…” “Err, yeah *coughcough* (oh please just go do your mission).”

That was when she realized how competent Ace was and that led to them getting inducted into the EPF.

So of course when Ace found out that G was gone, not only were they worried sick, they were confused. They saw G the other day??? And he was sick??? So maybe he took a day off? But if he didn’t call The Director, so guess not??? So like did he go missing after they left? As well they were searching for Herbert.

Ace at first freaked out, thinking that Herbert caught him and now held him captive in someplace who knows where! Ace, you are like…3-4 years too early for that.

They bring this up to The Director, who just nodded and said that might be a lead, but for now to use evidence that they could find.

Of course, that theory goes down the drain when they find G and no Herbert tracks/fibers.

Which made Ace not know if that’s a good or bad thing.

While G, oh boy, him being trapped under a minecart for a few days is no good.

I feel that G would’ve had a concussion/some sort of head injury from hitting his head. Especially if it was from cart surfing and made him forget what happened.

So like he just finds himself waking up under a mine cart, not knowing how long he was knocked out for, or where he is at first and how he can’t get himself out.

He’s just disorientated and freaking out, trying to get out, but he just hurts all over and is just too weak to lift a minecart up. Then again, those things are heavy. So he strains himself trying and just stops.

So he just lays there, hoping that someone would come by and maybe get him free. He checks his phone to see if it works, but sadly it’s broken.

He hears other penguins at first and starts calling out for help. Sadly though they don’t hear him and they just leave.

This happens a few more times, well until none of the minecarts come back so no one else can go down there.

Which can be really disheartening, because, hey, the only chance of being saved is gone.

As well that he doesn’t even know how he got there, so as far as he knows, someone trapped him there and just waiting for him to die, or for them to come back and reveal some secret plan.

He really was hoping that someone captured him, at least then he knows that someone is there.

So he waited, and he waited, and he realized that it was probably night time, but you can’t really tell when you are trapped under a minecart in the mines. So he tries to sleep, but he can’t.

Too anxious to fall asleep, yet staying up just hurts. So he tries to distract himself. Maybe play some mind games?

Nope, his head hurts too much to try that. Apparently calculating big numbers while just getting hit on the head can hurt.  

At least being in the dark doesn’t hurt.

Although there is a faint hissing sound which is just irritating.

I think after a day or so of G getting trapped, he like, might cry or have a breakdown. Because like, being trapped in a place where you don’t know how you got there or if you are ever going to get out might put a lot of stress on you.

 Which would give him a headache after, so he’s just moaning and groaning in pain and just done.

 Then this all leads to Ace finding G in the Mines.

 G is just so freaking relieved.

 Like goodness, of all the people to find him! Wasn’t he suppose to meet up with them for a mission?

 Guess he either did that mission, or he missed it. Time is an illusion to Gary at this point.

G through the rush of being saved does have a moment of clarity with helping Ace to get him out. As well that he wants to try to seem as okay as he can be to them.

 Finding out that the geyser was in the mines was a relief, that means Ace doesn’t have to leave G to get some helium.

 Because how much worse would it be to leave someone right after you found them? Not so good.

 Ace gets the minecart to float up, and G’s just laying/sitting there. Like the dude hasn’t really been able to stand up in a few days. So he tries and is able to, but he just feels like he will just fall down.

 As well that the cave is just so much brighter than under the minecart like it hurts his head. So he just can’t really see and needs a minute to adjust. So he’s just leaning on the wall, because of heck. Who turned the lights on?

 Which freaks Ace out, because he looks like he’ll just fall over. As well that it seems that he was under there for longer than a day? But he was there a few days ago for the mission? If he was sick and this happened could he have gotten sicker??? As well he has a bump on his head and can’t remember, so like that’s no good.

 So like, Ace goes and asks G if he’s alright and if he needs.

 Which G denies that he needs any help because he doesn’t want to worry anyone!

 Yet he’s just stumbling a bit, so Ace decides that they’ll just help him anyways.

 Which he appreciates, because he just doesn’t feel too well and having someone to lean on feels nice.

 I feel that if they were to hug (cause Ace is so relieved that he’s alright) G would just accept it graciously, because, good grief, he’s alive!

 During that time Ace would tell him about how they were recruited into the EPF and how they are training to use the puffles.

 Ace asks him about the last mission they went on and if he still has a cold.

 Which makes G so confused, because like…was he there for that mission??? He thought that Ace went searching because he missed their mission? Or maybe he was out longer? As well that he doesn’t think he has a cold? Maybe he did?

 He doesn’t know, and just says he doesn’t remember.

 G just wants to go home and relax for a day or so.

 Of course, he has a concussion/some sort of head injury and is advised to not be in work for a few days.

 But he convinces them that he’ll be fine to go to work after a day or two of recovery instead.

 Cause like, he doesn’t do anything that’s too strenuous, and he won’t be mine carting anytime soon. It’s not like he’ll get injured any further…right?

 The days leading up to the protobot incident was just terrible, to put it lightly.

 Sure, when Ace saw G return for the first time they were worried and asked G if he really should be in work.

 He would’ve answered truthfully, but like…nah, don’t want to worry anyone! So he just says that he’s fine and there’s nothing to worry about.

 Until like, everything happens. He’s just tired and still feels out of it. 

 As well that his head just hurts, a lot. Adding that with him needing to complete the Snow Trekker, the Robot Locator, and the other inventions that are needed to help with the mission are not helping.

 So he would be taking more breaks than usual.

 I feel like he would get frustrated, since sometimes things don’t click with him like they should, so he gets stuck at certain parts and he knows he would’ve had certain inventions done faster if he didn’t have a head injury.

 Thankfully Ace was able to help with putting the final pieces of the Snow Trekker together and was willing to test drive it (I feel like Ace would play Country Music while wearing a cowboy hat while driving the Snow Trekker…just me? Ah okay owo;;;).

 Honestly Ace would’ve checked on him more, but, duty calls, so they couldn’t.

 Which to G was good, because if he wasn’t doing anything, he probably would just turn the lights off and just be relaxing in his lab, like sitting with his head down on a table because of freak everything.

 He would try to seem better than that to every agent and The Director.

 But maybe not Dot, since I feel that those two are in similar positions of power, so the two understand and knows that sometimes you just gotta trek on, even when you shouldn’t.

 But she’d tell him to take a vacation after this mess is over since him doing this was a bad idea in the first place.

 As well when finding out that the whole chaos on the island was from his inventions, I feel like he would get a bit upset/depressed. Because like…you make these things and they just cause problems and terrorize the people that you are supposed to protect??? Thankfully The Director didn’t chew him out right then and there (perhaps because Ace was there), but afterward I feel like The Director might make a comment like “please make sure your inventions don’t go into the wrong hands or cause chaos again.”

 Which would just sting because, hey, stuff happens??? Of course with him, the whole island can become a giant mess.

 I think G would be ridiculously depressed sometimes about how his inventions tend to go into the wrong hands and just how it fucks everything up. Whether it’s the plans, or the parts of a machine, or just…the machine itself turning rogue.

 As well when the Ultimate Proto-Bot took him…I think that would’ve made things even worse.

Like Ace just saved the town and the day!!! And now G is missing again and there is an island-wide emergency?! Quick! To CPI! Oh wait…that’s 9 years too early…

Finds out that the Ultimate Proto-Bot took G and the puffles. Ace has to calm down PH that they’ll get them back.

With the whole thing of the Ultimate Proto-Bot falling, spinning, flying, and crash landing. I feel that G probably would’ve gotten another head injury or something.

Then at that point, when the whole island is saved, he will be taking a nice vacation to recover.

Because, gosh darn it, that penguin needs a vacation.

Ah I hope you like this!!! owo