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420thewritersroom · 2 months

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Bloody Rage

Back with another "Raiden is in emotional turmoil" piece, this time inspired by the ending of the Blood Moon season. Had a lot of fun writing angry, budding Dark!Raiden stuff. Doesn't really scratch the vampire itch I was slightly getting, but this was fun to write regardless

Characters: Raiden, Kung Lao, Liu Kang (He's only here for one scene)

Word Count: 1,306

Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Blood

"I'll be fine, Raiden."

"I can handle a little mosquito bite."

"You don't have to worry about me, Raiden. Let's just focus on the mission at hand."

Raiden gazes at the pole where three of his closest associates struggle in vain against the searing hot chains that bound them. They writhe in bestial fury, like an animal trying to break out of its cage. They gnash their teeth, mouths filled with blood, eyes blazing in raging blood lust as they bite at the air while emitting animalistic snarls. If it wasn't for the fact that Raiden was staring down an exiled ninja, an immortal princess...And his best friend...Raiden would've thought them nothing more than animals.

What is he thinking? Even Raiden couldn't bring himself to denounce his friends to such a title. They were suffering, if not from the seething chains, then it was from the disease that demanded they consume flesh and blood. Every so often, one or all of them would exhaust themselves. The pain from their restrictions and their empty stomachs eventually catches up to them. And where their frenzy would once be in full bloom, it ebbs away as their voices become nothing but pathetic whimpers of pain. And then the begging starts. Their growls wither away as weak pleas attempt to allure any who would listen.

"Please, I'm hungry, thirsty."

"Just a drop, I'm not asking for much."

"I beg of you, please, you're hurting me. It's still me."

This only worked once, Raiden remembers. It's how Tomas got infected with the Vaeternian curse. In the beginning, when none of them knew who or what they were truly up against, Tomas, with his loveable bleeding heart, was just trying to help. They were able to capture a victim who was bitten and turned. Days, they were nothing but a ravenous monster. Until one day, they meekly, like a limping dog, asked for just a "taste." That they only needed a small amount of blood, then they would be normal for just a short while. Didn't help, too, that this individual was a close friend of Tomas. So he took the bait.

Raiden still remembers the slow, deteriorating state Tomas endured as the curse cruelly turned him into a monster. And he would be the first victim of the Earthrealm Warriors that had to be contained. The rest would follow suit as they fought off against Nitara and her army of Vaeternians.

He just...He just wished Kung Lao wasn't one of the victims that would fall to the curse. He almost hates him for getting bit, not because of his incompetence, his slip-up; that led to him getting tagged, but because the son of a bitch tried to hide that he was in pain. It was a week later when Raiden saw the tell-tale signs that Kung Lao was infected. Paler skin, longer canines, dimly red eyes, a desire for blood, the writing was on the wall. He remembers scolding Kung Lao for practically endangering everyone by hiding this truth. He should've dragged him over to Liu Kang, it was for his own good, for everyone's well-being, that Lao was locked up.

"I'm fine, Raiden. Really, I am. I'm not going to hurt anyone, I can fight this."

Raiden may be upset about Kung Lao lying about his curse, but the thunder wielder could never forgive himself for...Believing him. Against his better judgment, against the specific directions of Liu Kang, he took his friends' word over any screaming reason that told him to not take Lao on his word. But he did. He doesn't even remember why he listened to Lao. Was it his determined aura? The look of confidence that he was beyond being taken over by the hunger? Or was it that childish, naive idea that Raiden still held for his friend? That despite his shortcomings, Kung Lao always found a way to rise to the top. He never let cold, fever, broken bones, and, in some instances, death, slow him down. So why would a vampiric curse be the one to bring him down?

Raiden gazes at the pole where three of his closest associates struggle in vain against the searing hot chains that bound them. They writhe in bestial fury, like an animal trying to break out of its cage. They gnash their teeth, mouths filled with blood, eyes blazing in raging blood lust as they bite at the air while emitting animalistic snarls. If it wasn't for the fact that Raiden was staring down an exiled ninja, an immortal princess, and his best friend, he would've thought them animals. And where sympathy would've bubbled to the surface to the point of nearly choking him, Raiden felt none.

Instead, anger, like a roiling, vengeful thunderstorm, builds within him. He wanted nothing more than to fry alive the bastard who turned each and every one of his friends. He wanted to wrap his fingers around an unmarred, Vaeternian neck and squeeze. Squeeze until their eyes popped from their sockets, and their skin turned purple from the asphyxiation. Oh, but whoever turned his best friend would get the worst treatment. He can already see it. It would be slow and painful, just like the infectious curse that they spread when they're too unbothered to finish the job.

They would die from a thousand paper cuts, slowly bleeding them out until they were BEGGING to be fed, or better yet, pleading to die. But he would grant them no such mercy. He'd shock them, small sparks that would gradually escalate until they were given the electric chair treatment. He would violently rip out their fangs, and continue to do so until their body could no longer regenerate the bone. Raiden would actually greet their jaw area with a couple fists, maybe even a hammer. Yes, keep hammering away at their teeth until they all shatter and fall apart, one by one.

In fact, now that he's remembering this, the Vaeternians are known for their regeneration capabilities. He wouldn't even need to shock them back to life to ensure that their suffering is prolonged. He could keep them roped up in electric shackles, the shocks keeping them occupied while he gutted them like a pig at a slaughterhouse.

"Raiden..."

The choked sound of Kung Lao's voice tears Raiden from his violent fantasy. The thunder wielder slowly turns his gaze to Lao, his face filled with an unsettling look of passivity.

"Raiden, please. It hurts," Kung Lao whimpers, the sound of sizzling flesh emphasizing his point, "Raiden! Please!"

A pain in his heart lightly pokes at Raiden. He never thought he would see the day where Kung Lao was begging for anything. A prideful, cocksure, swagger of a fighter, now brought to his knees in a state of submission. Yet, Raiden can't find it in himself to pity his friend. Kung Lao didn't need pity, plenty had been given to him. His friend deserves to be liberated, his attacker executed for putting his friend in so much pain.

"Raiden..."

The farm boy is slow to respond to Liu Kang's call, his head turning to face the Fire God. A pang of shame creeps under his skin, and he lowers his eyes, "I'm sorry, Lord Liu Kang. I...I wanted to see him."

"I know," the Fire God approaches Raiden, placing a hand on his shoulder as he gently guides him away from the courtyard where their vampiric allies remained. "We are working diligently to find a solution for them. Geras has been searching for a possible timeline that was able to cure the Vaeternian curse. There's still hope for them."

"...I know..."

Yet, despite these affirmations, Raiden can't shake the anger, the need to break something, to hurt someone. It isn't enough that Kung Lao, Tomas, and Kitana are cured.

It just isn't enough.

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Angry Raiden is my favorite Raiden, can you tell :D

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat 1 #mk1 raiden #raiden #mk1 kung lao #Kung Lao #Liu Kang #mk1 liu kang #Fire God Liu Kang

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scorpionrising · 4 months

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there is love that doesn't have a place to rest — ch. 2

pairing: finan x fem!oc word count: 2709 content warning: this fic deals explicitly with the trauma of sexual assault. while there are no drawn out, graphic scenes, it is made explicitly clear what is going on. for context: oc is uhtred's daughter and was captive in dunholm for all her childhood. proceed with caution. additionally, expect canon typical attitudes, behaviors, violence, etc.

read on ao3

“and if i would've known how sharp the pieces were you'd crumbled into i might've let them lay" –big red machine ft. taylor swift, renegade

“Why are ya’ doin’ this, Lord?”

“You know why.”

“No, I really don’t.”

Ravna knew she ought not to be eavesdropping. Her father would be quite cross if he found out, but her time at Dunholm taught her several things. The first being how to sneak around without being caught. She did not catch the beginning of her father’s conversation with Finan, but she could surmise enough what it was about.

“Finan.”

Father sounded pained, as if the words were being choked out of him. She dug her nails into the bark of the tree she was behind to keep from poking her head out. Surely then, they would see her.

“Lord, I belong at your side on the battlefield.”

“I trust above all others, but what’s more important is Ravna trusts you above all others.”

She bit her lip to refrain from letting out a gasp.

Finan sighed audibly. “She will not take kindly to ya’ leaving me here to spy on her.”

“You are not spying.”

“Oh, I’m not?”

“Just keep her safe, and make sure she eats.”

“Lord, is that not what Gisela is for? I’m a warrior, not a nursemaid.”

The metallic taste of blood bloomed on Ravna’s tongue. A nursemaid. The urge to storm out there and confront them both nearly overtook her. A nursemaid! She wanted to scream. The last four years, she had thought Finan to be her friend—a true friend. Just as Sihtric was; just as Osferth was. She had for so long thought them equals. Clearly, he did not feel the same and saw her as a mere child. Squeezing her eyes shut to keep from crying in her rage, Ravna reached up to where her teeth had split her lip and rubbed the blood away.

“She will not talk to Gisela. She will not talk to me. She talks to no one as she does you.”

Had he been reporting her words back to her father all this time? Her stomach churned. How many of the abuses she suffered at Dunholm that she spoke only to Finan of to spare her father the heartache did he know about?

Perhaps she really was no more than a child, because she had been silly enough to think of him as an individual rather than her father’s man. Anger surged through her, a defense from the rushing wave of sadness pooling beneath her ribs.

“Surely Sihtric would be better suited for the job. They grew up together, and his wife just had a baby.”

“I need Sihtric to spy—”

“Lord, you have me acting a spy here!”

“Finan!” Father’s words came out in a venomous hiss. “You will remain here, and you will take care of Ravna.”

“Very well, Lord.”

“Osferth will stay as well. Invite Ravna to train with you both. It will serve her well. She ought to learn to protect herself.”

With her father’s tone a bit lighter at the end, the two men began to walk away. Once she could no longer hear their footsteps, Ravna let out the short sob she had been holding in and sank to the ground. Back pressed to the tree, she drew her knees to her chest and pressed her forehead down. She stayed like that for some time, switching ceaselessly between furious and horribly sad.

Still gnawing on her raw lip, Ravna hoisted herself up and marched straight for town. Nursemaid, she thought with a scoff. She was no child. She would prove both her father and Finan wrong. She did not need someone charged to look after her. She had survived on her own well enough at Dunholm.

She entered the hall in a storm of rage, kicking up dust and dirt behind her as she stomped up the stairs to their living quarters. She slammed doors behind her, kicked objects out of her way, flung her boots off and across the room. It was a good thing she was alone. If her father or Finan dared show their faces anytime soon, it was likely she would make an attempt at stabbing them.

“I’m a warrior, not a nursemaid,” she mocked in a horrible mimicry of Finan’s brogue. She blew a raspberry and entered her room. “Pathetic.”

She flopped facedown onto her bed and sprawled her arms out. She would remain here until someone came to find her, and they would need to drag her from the bed if they wished her to move.

Eventually, she must have fallen asleep, because soon flames were licking at her skin. They curled around her limbs like scorching hands, forcing her limbs apart and clawing at her throat. Smoke entered her lungs and her vision went hazy. She was burning.

She coughed desperately, praying it would be enough to keep the fumes from choking her. She coughed and screamed and thrashed until—THUNK!

She came to, no longer on her bed, but in a heap on the floor. She must have banged her head, because it was throbbing with a large lump forming on her forehead. Quietly cursing, Ravna rubbed her eyes and grabbed the bedpost to use as leverage to stand up. The world spun, all out of order for a moment.

“Sister?”

Feilan’s sweet voice drifted through the closed door. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes once more and wrenched the door open. Her little brother’s eyes did not even reach her hips, but they were gleaming up at her as wide as can be.

“Mama sent me to come get you,” he said quietly. “Father is leaving.” His nose wrinkled and he looked around past her. “I heard you shout.”

“I merely fell from my bed,” she said, running a hand over the braid she had slept in. “I am well.”

His eyebrows crinkled together in concern that was perhaps too great for a six year old, but he stuck his bottom lip out and his hand as well. She forced a smile and took his hand, allowing him to lead the way down the stairs.

Everyone was gathered down in the hall; Sihtric and Sig and their baby, Osferth, Hild, Gisela with Stiorra in her arms and Father at her side, and Finan—the great traitorous bastard. Father grinned at her, as though he had not been plotting with Finan a few mere hours before to spy on her.

“And to think, I thought I’d be leaving without a goodbye from my eldest,” Uhtred said, raising his arms out as if to hug her.

Ravna permitted the hug, but cut it short. If he noticed her aversion, he hid it well. But then, a crease formed between his eyes.

“What is this on your head?”

He raised a hand to her face and she promptly swatted it away while ducking out of his reach.

“I fell,” she said.

“Are you well?” he asked suddenly, fretfully. “Perhaps you should sit down—”

“I am fine!” she snapped.

It was rare that Ravna ever thought to raise her voice. She did not like loud, sudden noises, and the shouts of men did little to make her feel at ease. She kept quiet for a great many reasons, but especially because she did not want to frighten others as she had been frightened. Father looked even more concerned now, which only served to infuriate her further. She was neither soft nor fragile, and she hated being treated as such.

She had been thirteen when her father pulled her from the dark cells below Dunholm, but she was no longer that shivering, bruised child. Yes, the nightmares still plagued her, but if they had not stopped in the last eight years, she just supposed she would have to live with them forever. Just as she had been doing. Shooting her father a vicious glare, Ravna stomped over to Sihtric to wish him goodbye.

“Do not get yourself killed,” she said sternly.

“He has already gotten this speech from me,” Sig said. “But we both know he won’t listen.”

“No, he’s too pigheaded,” Ravna agreed.

“I will not have you two conspiring against me while I am gone,” Sihtric said with a frown.

Ravna smirked and looked over Sig’s shoulder at their son. The boy’s eyes had not been open once any time she had gone to visit, and she wondered if he shared the same mismatched eyes as his father.

“I can hold Bjørn so you two can have a proper goodbye,” Ravna offered.

Sig grinned. “He got his proper goodbye this morning.”

“Sig!” Sihtric hissed. “The baby!”

“The baby is too young to understand words, husband,” Sig said, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “Here, Ravna, you can take him if you like. He’s getting heavy in my arms.”

Ever so carefully, Ravna reached out to take little Bjørn from Sig. With her oldest friend’s son in her arms, she could feel some of her anger sapping out of her. It was hard to be infuriated when holding something so sweet and small. She hummed quietly, bouncing the child in her arms as a tiny smile crept onto her lips.

Ravna held him until Sihtric and her father left the hall together, already locked in fierce conversation about the rogues they were sure to encounter. Heaving out a great sigh, Ravna handed Bjørn back to Sig and made her promise to reach out if she needed help. Gisela had even offered her a space in the hall, but Sig—ever the self-sufficient woman—declined quite gracefully. Very pointedly ignoring Finan, Ravna marched straight for Osferth.

“I’d like another lesson on your Holy Book.”

Osferth’s face split into a grin. “Of course, Lady.”

He held his arm out for her. Snorting, she placed her hand in the crook of his elbow and began to walk.

“You know you do not need to call me that.”

“Oi! You two!” Finan called after them. “Wait!”

Ravna rolled her eyes, which Osferth certainly noticed, giving the look of surprise that overtook his face. His surprise did not come as a shock, of course. How often did Ravna treat Finan with a sweet smile and wide eyes? Perhaps she really had been acting like a child this whole time; well, no more of that. She could be just as independent as Sig.

“Is everything alright?” Osferth muttered.

“Yes, of course,” Ravna said, smiling and batting her lashes.

The monk’s face darkened by a few shades and he briefly looked away from her. He cleared his throat and avoided eye contact with her until Finan reached them.

“Where ya’ off to?”

“Prayer,” Osferth said.

“Alone,” Ravna added sternly.

She did not think she could bear to be around Finan right now, not with the knowledge that he would be likely reporting all her comings and goings back to her father. Would he write it down so he would not forget a single action she took? Or would he commit it all to memory and just inform Uhtred of the exciting bits?

At her unusually cross tone, Finan and Osferth alike widened their eyes in shock. It was rare she ever got snippish, and even more rare for it to be directed towards Finan. She glowered, tightened her grip on Osferth’s arm, and began pulling the monk after her to walk away. If Finan thought he was being left here to act as a nursemaid, he could spend his time with the actual children.

She led Osferth through the woods to the spot she loved so much, and sat down in a huff. There was a small smile toying at his thin lips as he mirrored her position. They sat close, facing one another with their knees touching.

“So,” he began, “why are you angry with Finan?”

“I am not angry at Finan,” Ravna said defensively, scowling.

“Could’ve fooled me.” He grinned a bit teasingly. Then, his face organized itself into something a bit more somber. “Something is clearly bothering you, Lady.”

“I’m not a lady,” she said, half blushing.

“You’re an ealdorman’s daughter,” he said as though she needed to be reminded of it. “That makes you a lady.”

She rolled her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. The air was getting warmer each day, and soon she would be able to swim in the river without catching a chill. With summer came a sense of freedom she constantly longed for. It was a happier time, and Father’s eyes always had less worry in them when he looked at her.

“Ravna,” he whispered.

She snapped her eyes towards him. Just like her father, and Gisela, and Sihtric, and even Finan now, there was a look of deep concern clouding his blue eyes. She clenched her jaw and tried to ignore the rush of anger. He reached forward tentatively and placed his hand over hers atop her knee.

“What is troubling you?”

Was it pity in his eyes, or was it something else?

“Everyone thinks me a child,” she finally said after a long moment.

“Who is everyone?” Osferth asked. “Because I certainly do not see a child before me. I see a woman grown.”

“That is different,” she said. “We are… of an age, with one another.” She wrinkled her nose and looked down at his hand covering hers. “I speak of Father and Gisela, and Beocca and Thyra, and—”

She stopped herself before she could say the last name, but Osferth saw straight through her.

“And Finan?” he asked her.

She was not proud of how her face burned in response. Embarrassed at how obvious it was, she pulled away from Osferth and brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs.

“I always thought him to be my friend,” she said quietly, ashamed at how stupid she had been all these years. “I thought he saw me as I am, not merely his Lord’s daughter.”

She was not proud of the bitterness she heard creeping off her tongue as she spoke, but Osferth never judged.

“You should not let it bother you,” he said in that quiet, contemplative voice of his.

“But it does!” She exploded, falling backwards to lay across the large boulder. “What of when I have a family of my own? When I am a mother, will my father still have his men watching my every step to report back to him?”

“I think it’s hard for him,” Osferth said. “He lost you when you were still a child, and he thought you dead for eight years, and when he found you again, you lived in Winchester with your aunt until you reached majority.”

“And that is my fault?” Ravna asked, shooting up with blazing eyes. “He did not yet have Coccham and I could hardly galavant across the country with him!”

“I did not say that,” he said gently. “I mean to say, you left his life as a child and reentered it as a woman.”

“It has been years,” she hissed.

“But far less time than you spent away from him,” he said.

She hated how he was right. Letting out a loud groan, she slumped back down and stared up at the cloudy sky through the tree branches. The birds above were chirping some absurd song, louder even than the rushing of the water below them.

“Your father loves you, Ravna,” Osferth said, a heavy sigh falling from his lips curdling the words a bit. “Many cannot say the same.”

She thought briefly of Kjartan, and the bruises he would paint across Sihtric’s skin, but what was most prominent in her mind was King Alfred. His cruelty to Osferth was an understated one. Whelped onto a servant girl, tossed into a monastery without a second thought, and never acknowledged. It always brought an overwhelming sadness to her heart when she thought of it. She reached a hand out until her fingers found his, and she grabbed onto him.

“You are loved, Osferth,” she said. “Surely you know this.”

She turned her head to look at him. His head was bowed down, the hand she was not holding tracing the cracks in the boulder. He glanced back at her and smiled just a bit.

“Now, tell me about Eve and the apple again,” she commanded. “I do not understand it.”

#finan x oc #finan fanfic #finan x reader #finan the agile #the last kingdom #tlk fandom #osferth #sihtric kjartansson #uhtred of bebbanburg #finan tlk #tlk fanfic #finan #tlk uhtred #tlk season 3 #mark rowley #the last kingdom fic #osferth x reader

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kana-daydreams · 5 months

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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞

[ 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈 ]

summary: this piece follows the canon plot of Enies Lobby arc in which you are a marine unfortunately under Spandam's command, but happen to be on the side of the enemy. genre: gen cw: violence, mild swearing wc: 2k Kana's notes: This is my first attempt at a reader-insert fic, so read at your own risk. Also, this is a one shot. I just chose to divide it into three parts as personal preference. Anyways~ enjoy my little rose petals. 🥰

Specks of ashes pollute the air around you from atop the Tower of Law and the faint scent of smoke wafts past your nose as your wide eyes stare up at what was once for decades, a universal symbol of justice.

I can’t believe it. They burnt the flag!

You continue to watch in horror as the flames eat away at the blue and white fabric of the World Government flag until you’re suddenly torn out of your stunned state at the shrilling scream reverberating against your eardrums from beside you.

"Are you insane?!"

You turn to look at your boss, Spandam, a man with lifeless lavender hair and a leather mask, flourishing his arms angrily at the six individuals standing in line several feet across from you atop the parapet of Enies Lobby's courthouse.

"Don’t think that you’ll be able to survive after making the entire world your enemy!" Spandam finishes, shrinking back when one of them lets loose, a war cry in response.

"Bring it on!"

You direct your gaze at a young boy donning a red vest paired with blue knee-length shorts and a straw hat dangling from a string around his neck, his face more than familiar to you, even though this is the first time you are seeing him in the flesh. A boy with one of the largest bounties and the captain of the infamous Straw Hat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy.

"Robin! Say you want to live!" He screams at the top of his lungs, directing his attention at the tall, slender woman with dark hair to your right.

At his words, you notice her bite down onto her quivering lips as uncontrollable tears gush down her tan face stained with bruises, and your own lips subconsciously tilt into a frown.

You fold your arms and think to yourself that the boy pirate was wasting his words on a dead woman. Dead because she'd given up on life due to a fate she could never outrun. However, you're taken aback when momentarily the voice of said woman echoes throughout the once tense air, an underlying and longing desire clinging to every word that cries its way out from within the deepest depths of her soul.

"I want to live!" She steps forward, and without a care, leans over the partially damaged stone wall in front of her. "Take me to the sea with you!"

A wide and satisfying grin graces Luffy's expression as well as his crew's and as if on cue, the drawbridge of the courthouse starts gradually lowering, stirring up panic in your boss and excitement in the CP9 members who, like you, had been silently observing the entire scene.

One of your hands reaches to rest on the hilt of your sword, preparing yourself for the pending fight. Though, as the drawbridge reaches barely halfway across to the tower where you stand, it stops, and you hear Spandam heave a sigh of relief from beside you.

Cowardly bastard.

He pulls Nico Robin harshly by the arm before barking orders at you to secure Cutty Flam standing further to your left who’d earlier somehow broken himself free from his chains.

Keeping your hand still on the hilt of your sword, you step forward approaching him with tentative steps, but you stop when you hear a click, followed by the subtle sound of whirring and your eyes flicker down to his exposed abdomen which to your astonishment, opens to reveal some kind of compartment.

You're both freaked out and amazed by the sight, but only for a moment as your hand moves to unsheathe your sword when he reaches into his augmented body, retrieving weathered parchments of paper.

He reveals it to be the blueprints for the ancient weapon, Pluton, which Spandam demands he gives to him, but like the flag, it is incinerated within minutes and by Cutty Flam himself.

Spandam fumes at what was his chance for a promotion and in his dramatised rage, stalks up to him and with a hard shove, pushes the machine man off the tower.

He is however saved from falling to his demise when a train with a painted face of a shark, hurls off the courthouse, midair at lighting speed and crashes into the storey beneath them.

Sheer panic grips Spandam. Not due to the train crashing into the building, but rather because of the Straw Hats who’d hitched a ride on it, meaning that they were here, in the Tower of Law.

Spandam with a firm grip still around Nico Robin’s arm, drags her along as he paces towards the gaping hole in the wall behind them, destroyed earlier by Cutty Flam when he attempted to escape with her.

He then bellows out to you and one of the CP9 members, Rob Lucci, to act as his sword and shield, ordering the remaining CP9 agents to eliminate the Straw Hats.

"Why are you stopping?" Spandam stops to look at his prisoner behind him in the dim light of an underground tunnel.

You and Lucci who flank either side of him, follow suit looking at Nico Robin whose attention is fixed in the direction of the entrance you came through minutes ago.

He calls out to her once again, but she continues to ignore him, too occupied with whatever it was that had caught her attention.

Spandam grits his teeth at her stubbornness and orders you to get her to start moving. You send him a curt nod before moving to grab her by the arm and start pulling her gently towards you. When she doesn’t comply, you tug on her arm again, this time with a bit more force.

"Keep moving," you say, your voice stern.

She follows your instruction and you keep behind her as she walks, but she instantly stops when she’s met with Spandam’s face mere inches away from her own.

"Don’t tell me you still think the Straw Hats are coming to your rescue?" He cackles and Nico Robin recoils to dodge the rain of saliva that falls from his mouth. "How stupid!" He continues to tease her for holding onto the vain hope that her friends would come to her rescue, since there were no signs of them throughout their entire journey through the tunnel, and because he firmly believed there was no way the pirates could find their way around in the tower’s maze.

"We should get going chief." Your voice abruptly cuts him short of his deranged laughter and although he casts you a frown, annoyed that you’d interrupted him, he relents.

As the four of you ready yourselves to continue on your endeavour to reach the Gates of Justice, a familiar voice rips its way out from the distance behind you, echoing off the stone walls.

Spandam’s eyes widen and his motions become frantic when he recognises who the voice belongs to.

Monkey D. Luffy.

It seemed that you were up against an intelligent opponent, your thoughts surmised. He had to be if he was able to find the secret passage that led to the tunnel, but since you didn’t know Luffy personally, you didn’t know better.

"I’ll take care of the pirate, chief," you tell Spandam, but before you could move, Lucci puts a hand on your shoulder, and you crane your neck to look up at him.

"Take the chief and Nico Robin to the gate, I’ll handle the straw hat," he says, not giving you time to respond as he begins to saunter in the direction of the entrance.

You watch as his tall figure recedes further down the tunnel. "Show off." You scoff under your breath before grabbing a hold of Nico Robin, ushering her and Spandam in the opposite direction.

Minutes later you’re marching up a winding staircase, your view of the outside world still concealed by tall brick walls.

In front of you, Spandam yells into a transponder snail trying to get into contact with the other CP9 agents he’d left behind to deal with the Straw Hat pirates.

"Hey! Are you listening? Say something!"

No response comes from their end and your expression shadows one of dread realising why when you notice the golden transponder snail in his left hand.

"Chief?"

"What?!" He snaps around, giving you a disapproving look.

You point a finger at his hand. "That’s not the correct snail."

"Huh?" His brows crinkle in confusion at your words and he looks down at his hand, his expression soon mirroring your own.

Robin, who comes to realise the situation due to Spandam loudly announcing his careless mistake of requesting a buster call, screams at him to cancel it, her expression overtaken with pure fear.

"Cancel it now or it will be a disaster!"

Spandam doesn’t listen to her pleas, not even when she recounts her devastating, first-hand experience of the catastrophic effects that follows a buster call.

Instead he argues that his mistake served a virtue highly valued by the World Government: Justice.

You fight the urge not to scoff and roll your eyes at his alleged reason though you can't hide your grimace at what he says next.

"If we need one hundred deaths in order to save one thousand lives, we’ll kill those hundred without hesitation on the spot. Besides, those incompetent soldiers who couldn’t stop the invading pirates are better off dead!" He cackles in hysterical laughter, but it fizzles out when he realises everything he said was broadcasted to the entire island of Enies Lobby through the regular snail transponder in his other hand.

He tries to play it off, though you know only a fool would believe his lie and right after he finishes his fib, Robin takes the opportunity to warn everyone to evacuate the island.

Aggravated by her insolent action, Spandam slaps her, the brute force of it sending her toppling down a couple flights of stairs.

Below you, her body lies limp and Spandam leaves your side, making his way towards her.

He looms over her, his cold harsh voice ordering her to get up, not caring about the injuries she had just sustained.

Robin winces as she peers weakly up at him. "Cancel the buster call right away. There might still be time." She continues to persist, but Spandam only responds that his pride is worth more than the life of his subordinates.

Still her resolve doesn’t waver, and irked by this, Spandam grabs her by the collar of her leather zip-up dress, pulling her up and after they exchange a few words which involved him mostly bragging about Lucci’s strength, he raises a leg preparing to punish her for her unyielding spirit, but finds himself unable to do so at the hand that seizes his leg.

His eyes trace their way up to the arm of its owner, coming to rest on your face. "What the hell are you doing marine?!" He tries wriggling his leg out of your firm grasp.

"Stopping you from killing her, chief." You let go of his leg and he staggers back falling with a heavy thud onto the stairs. "Don’t you need her alive?" You reason.

"I wasn’t going to kill her, you idiotic woman!"

Your expression remains passive at his insult, though inside you rages a war to keep yourself from bashing in his head for insulting you.

You should have already gotten used to his abrasive words considering you've been working under his command for a few years, but they—he—always tended to test your patience.

"My apologies chief. I misread the situation." You reluctantly outstretch a hand to help him up.

He ponders whether or not to accept your help, still salty that you stopped him from unleashing his anger on Nico Robin.

He eventually takes your hand and while you help him up, Robin uses it as an opportunity to escape down the stairs.

Alerted by this, Spandam pushes you aside when he rises to his feet and starts chasing after her.

You mumble out a curse at his ungratefulness before following behind them, almost crashing into his back when he suddenly comes to a halt.

You watch as he reaches for the sword slung over his shoulder and mutters to it, a command.

He then brandishes it forward and the blade immediately transforms into the head of an elephant with a razor-sharp trunk.

The creature extends out of his sword and surges forward like a serpent at high speed, aiming at Nico Robin and upon contact, it slams her against the wall, which cracks under the strength of its force.

Part II - Part III

#𓇻 kana's op ddrms #zoro x f!reader #robin x reader #one piece #enies lobby #x female reader #op x reader #spandam x reader #canonverse #no romance #spoilers

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fourseasonsfigs · 5 months

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Building Block Figs - Catching Light

Continuing on from the last Building Block Figs - Basking in the Sun and Building Block Figs - Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake, Part 1 and Part 2, we have this wonderful set.

These figs make me laugh - I love them so much! I don't know why, I just find them ridiculously charming.

This building block set is 1,544 pieces, measures 8.4 x 17.6 x 15.6 cm, and is rated 10 hours. I did indeed take all 10 hours to build this, if not a little bit more.

Here is the sales pic of what the finished product is supposed to look like:

Cute, isn't it? As usual, sellers do a much better job of setting the scene than I do. I will say, though, that I did make two little tweaks to the set to make it a bit more canon compliant. Can you spot them?

It'll be easier to tell as we get better pictures, so I'll get into it!

First, here's the box of doom bricks. Like the others, this came in a generic sales box, with a super handy little unsnapping tool, and a sticker with a black and white image of the set and QR code instructions.

Once again, you'll notice my line up of extra bricks from the previous sets hanging out in quasi-neat little rows. Originally I figured I'll leave them all out in case I ran short of any, but in reality, this set maker gives me extras of each color every time. Which is handy, as you will see for later posts, when I make some adjustments to the fig sets to make them a bit more canon compliant.

As you can see, there's a LOT of extra bricks left over. To be honest, there shouldn't be so many white bricks - those are from another set that I made a major change to. I'll post about that one tomorrow.

Here's the different order of assembly - I went ahead and started with the base and tree, as they suggest.

As you can see, this is a very beautiful terrain here. I did not remember this area being so green and flowery from the show - in fact, I remember it being kind of sandy and desolate, but my memory is pretty lousy, there might be a scattered flower or so. Let's check.

HUH. There is not a flower in sight, is there. Hmmm. Well, this is kind of gonna bother me. Maybe I should have looked up the inspiration before putting together the entire 10 hour plus set, huh! Well, the little flowers are easy enough to lever off.

Hmm, anyway, moving on (for now).

So a couple things here. First, as you can see, there are only two green colors. I mean, one normal color really - the light green here is actually a neon green. It's brighter than it looks here. It looks great here, don't get me wrong, but now all I can see is the very sandy terrain of that screenshot.

Second, I tried something a little different here. It actually takes a long time to sort all the individual bricks, so in an attempt to shave off some time, I decided to experiment with this set. As you can see, I dumped the entire bag out to the right and am just picking out individual pieces as I go.

You'll note it's now evening. This tree took a LONG time to build. I actually timed myself up to this point, and to get to this mostly-done state took 2 hours and 58 minutes. I was pushing hard, too, because I really, really wanted to get the whole tree done that evening before I went to bed. But there was no way. I was too tired and was hitting the point where it was less fun and more work. So, despite really not wanting to, I summoned my inner adult and called it a day here.

Fast forward through time to the next day, and I'm all bright eyed and ready to bust this tree out. And it's done! I like this tree a whole lot...I think they did a beautiful job modeling it. Imagine if they had the full Lego suite of colors and special pieces! It would be really something. I kind of like it this way though (although I would take more colors, I can't lie). It really has an old-school style charm.

You can see the grey rock there where Lao Wen will be propped up against. And of course, the cheerful greenery and pink and yellow flowers.

Feeling VERY accomplished, I put the tree aside, and moved on to A-Xu.

Yep, looks pretty good. I was a little surprised they picked the medium blue color instead of the dark blue color, considering how bright the dark blue color actually is. But this looks fine too.

I am going to proudly say that I did, in fact, knock this fig out in record time. I've put together two and a half A-Xu figs by now (the half is going to be explained tomorrow, I promise!), so this third one went like a breeze.

As you can see in the back, I couldn't help myself, I was starting to make a few little piles of the colors I was working on. The big messy pile of bricks was kind of a pain, and I had to keep resisting the urge to sort them out.

And here he is! All done. He has a very solemn no-expression on his little brick face, which is appropriate. Can you see how there's a little bit of a neck (nothing too saucy or anything), the thin white layer of his under-robe, and then the lighter blue layer? I love it. Very charming. We also have his black belt with a bit of the tails.

It was yet another evening by this time, but since I did manage to finish him before I went to bed, I did indeed sleep the sleep of the righteous.

I woke up even brighter eyed and with pep in my step, ready to rock this last fig out. 10 hour assembly time? I don't think so!

I had now made three Wen Kexing brick figures, so the fourth one was gonna be just as quick as A-Xu was, no doubt. I pulled up the instructions on my phone, and got ready to go. 95 steps for our battle-weary Valley Master, huh? Huh. That's kind of a lot. But considering A-Xu was 85, not too bad. The tree was 119, by the way.

As I looked at the picture, however, I noticed that they had Lao Wen's (virtually) omnipresent hair wispies here. Given that this red wedding costume is the one outfit where his hair is pulled back all the way, it kind of bugged me. Which is funny because I've never liked how he doesn't have the wispies with this hair style on the show. It's my least favorite look on him, which is too bad, because I did like how they at least mixed his hairstyles up some. In my defense, I feel like I'm right (so right!) about how much better he looks with the wispies with this hair style, because you could see it at the concert. And he looked spectacular.

Anyway. Warring between my extreme desire for him to have the wispies and the simple fact of it not being canon, I started to build.

I got the first big chunk done very quickly indeed. Many of these figs are done where you do a big piece, and then set it aside while you work separately on the next piece. This is where I was.

And that's where I stayed, for a long time. I built this piece three times. I had to completely disassemble the entire thing the first time I built it, because I was off on my brick count, and the second time I had to disassemble it down to the first third.

Part of the problem was the way the directions were. As you can see, they still have the first "set it aside" part showing up on the directions directly under the new piece. Unfortunately, all that red blended into each other when I rotated the image around, and it was very easy to accidentally think I needed more or less pieces than I actually did.

I went ahead and built it with the wispies, as directed...and then just couldn't do it. I disassembled half the head and re-built it again without them. I also think that this fig, just like Lao Wen, does not look as good without them, but canon is canon.

Unfortunately, it was so late and I was so tired by the time I finished him (and yet also pretty jubilant), that I forgot to take a pic of the finished fig! Yes, I literally finished this set late last night, despite my best intentions of finishing it up and then triumphantly posting about it on the same day. It did, in fact, take longer than the 10 hours build time.

It took a long time, in general. My finger tips have actually toughened up a bit, so they don't feel sore from snapping the bricks in place, but my neck isn't all that pleased with me from hunching over these various sets for so long. So, I've been taking a few more breaks to stretch and do other things.

But, I woke up early today, and very happily took this set's beauty pics in the clear light of the morning. I love it!

I love how this set all fits together. We have the tree growing over the edge of the base, and Lao Wen there leaning up against the rock. A-Xu is standing with his elegant posture, and their little brick hands are reaching out to each other. Cute cute cute!

Wow, this light is great. I clearly should get up early to take fig pics more often.

The tree looks great, I think (and not just because I spent hours building it!).

This is a good view of the rocks behind Lao Wen here, and his big ponytail (I do like this part of his hairstyle).

The green doesn't look so bad on the ground, I think. I'll pull off the yellow and pink flowers, and maybe make a brown patch on the corner closest to A-Xu. That'll keep it colorful but make it a bit more like the show.

A-Xu's hair looks great, as usual. You can also see how I removed the wispies on Lao Wen's hair. I'll get a close up later so you can see it better.

Shoot, not my best pic - can't really see any of the detail on A-Xu's glorious night-black hair.

There we go, now you can. Oops, I see I knocked a tiny piece out of kilter on the bottom of his hair, I'll have to fix that. But! Here you can see both changes I made from the instructions - the lack of wispies of course, and then I made Lao Wen's guan gold instead of white. This took a while too, because I didn't have enough yellow pieces. The only yellow I had from any of the sets was literally from the yellow flowers here and the few extra they gave me of it. I actually pulled a few yellow flowers off the base there and replaced them with green or pink, just because I needed them for his guan. I then also carefully checked to see what internal yellow bricks were covered up by the black of his hair, and replaced them with black so I could save the yellow ones for the parts that did show. I'm very happy with how it turned out! It looks just like the white one, except, you know, yellow.

I don't know why they didn't originally design it with yellow, given that it is gold on the show, and they had already included yellow bricks with this kit. Maybe they felt the white stood out more or something. Anyway, it was bothering me it was white, so I'm glad I was able to figure out a way to make it work.

Alright, we're back around! And a bit of a different angle here, so you can see the poses a little bit more clearly.

Alright, a true top-down pic here. May I just say one more time how much I like this tree! The detail in A-Xu's guan is really nice too.

The bottoms-up pics are always tough here with the bases. Not a flattering picture, sorry A-Xu!

A close up of our noble shixiong with his little hand outstretched...

...and our weary shidi. What a great set, I love it! I'm so delighted by it, I can't even tell you.

Alright! come back tomorrow, for the much hinted at next set. And the last one, for a while - I have to wait for the remaining sets to be sent to me.

(Come back tomorrow, she says, as she still has some assembly on the last fig to do! I'll wake up bright and early tomorrow, and hopefully finish up).

Material: Plastic bricks

Fig Count: 506

Scene Count: 35

Rating: They're actually both reaching for their light

[link to the Master Post Index]

#word of honor #wenzhou #wen kexing #zhou zishu #word of honor merch #shan he ling #figthusiast

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emberwood-if · 2 years

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An Emberwood Halloween: 2022 Special

Halloween has rolled into the sleepy town of Emberwood in the shape of a festive carnival. You and the Dufner residents (and E) have decided to take a break from the craziness in Emberwood for some well deserved reprieve.

Dress up in a costume (or don't) and hang out with the group or your favorite RO. Remember: be sure to have fun and enjoy the lighthearted atmosphere because it does not last :)

Features:

Go ferris-wheeling with Alex

Play a stall or two with Perry

Go on a swing ride with K

Go pumpkin carving with N

Get lost in a corn maze with Dani

Grab a bite to eat with F

Go to a haunted house with E

Or engage in a very mature and adult round of hide-and-seek with the Dufner residents, but be careful: you can lose.

(This is non-canon bonus content and isn't part of the main storyline.)

RELEASE: PLAY THE SPECIAL

Some notes:

Though the individual routes take place in a non-canon point in time in which romantic feelings have been established, I have added options that aren't so...overtly romantic? Of course, it is still romance-coded, but for those who do not enjoy romance, I feel it can still be enjoyable in some way or the other.

The stories are short and sweet (at least for me), as well as the group route. The group route works in a way that you can make one choice and lose, or you can go through more than one scene before you lose. You may or may not interact with the characters depending on what you choose. It's really just a fun side story for those who do not want to play any individual character scenes, but for full transparency: the individual routes have a bit more meat in them, mostly because some of their backstories are sprinkled in the conversations (very briefly, but yk). The group route is pretty brief, mostly because I accidentally deleted a third of it in writing like last minute and wanted to rip my hair out.

ALSO: the mc is…slightly pre-set. I was not thinking of diverse options but more of just how to propel the story forward. In future specials, I think I’ll stick to bold/shy and different types of MCs, but as this is my first, I decided to go with my gut haha

there’s really no trigger warnings except for quite a bit of cursing (and f-bombs) and F’s route has to do with eating. So there will be mentions of food and eating ! Please be wary of that! <3

As always, as I do not have beta testers (yet) if you find errors, typos or formatting problems or any of that sort, please let me know and I'll fix them asap. This is just a fun side piece I did, so please don't take it too seriously!

Hope you enjoy <3

#Halloween special stuff #emberwood #interactive fiction wip #interactive fiction #interactive novel #if this doesn't release tomorrow #then the world has ended #hope you guys enjoy it!#choice script #dashing don

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morgana96 · 11 months

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Rewriting the Lancer Quests

(Warning: Spoilers for Lancer Quests, but with heavy canon divergence)

A while back, I wrote a critique of FFXIV’s Lancer Quests, where I talked about how they’re tragically bad compared to other job/class quests. I’ve thought a lot about how I would write the story differently given the chance. And while it took forever to put it all together, I'm finally satisfied with this rough outline I came up with for a potential Lancer Quests rework!

This rewrite is what I’ve adopted for my Warrior of Light’s canon, and while the main characters are mostly the same, I’ve also included some who weren’t in the original storyline - including original characters created specifically for this new narrative.

It’s nowhere close to a fully polished script/draft, and anything here could change if I come up with something better. But I'd love to write this out as a full story someday, as well as other stories featuring my WoL!

Lancer Quest Rewrite Outline

Level 1

The quest remains mostly the same up until WoL returns from the canon first trial (killing 3 ladybugs, 3 squirrels, and 3 funguars out in the Black Shroud).

When reporting back to Ywain, a Wildwood Elezen in Wood Wailer uniform interrupts. This individual, named Gauvain, insists that pest control is hardly a difficult task, even for a two-bit adventurer. He goes on a rant about how the guild shouldn’t be reduced to recruiting unqualified outsiders to their ranks.

Ywain is quick to denounce this behavior, harshly reminding Gauvain that the Guild’s founder, Mistalle, developed their current techniques by learning from other nations and groups. He advises the disrespectful Wailer that if he’s so against “outsiders”, perhaps he should find a fighting class more aligned with his ignorance.

Humiliated by this reprimand, Gauvain angrily skulks off, muttering complaints and swears under his breath.

Ywain apologizes to WoL, promising to report Gauvain’s behavior to his superiors. He explains that a lancer learns best from experience, and that in time, WoL will steadily hone their abilities with strategy, technique, and understanding of courage.

He encourages WoL to continue practicing, and that he is looking forward to their promising future as a lancer.

Level 5

The quest is the same as canon until WoL returns from the collapsed pillars outside of Spirithold.

WoL’s conversation with Jillian (the guild’s receptionist) is cut short when another guild member enters in a panic. When asked what’s wrong, the frightened man reveals that there’s a corpse floating in the water right near Westshore Pier. A horrified Jillian rushes to inform Ywain, while WoL quickly heads outside to the scene.

When WoL arrives at the pier, the body has already been pulled from the water. It doesn’t take long to recognize the deceased as Gauvain, the Wood Wailer who had previously belittled them.

Ywain, along with Wood Wailer Captain Swethyna Brookstone, arrive at the pier not long after. The corpse’s extensive injuries make it clear to Swethyna that this was likely not an accident. Ywain also notes that there are several deep wounds likely made by a lance, and that the assailant is likely far from a novice.

Ywain apologizes to the WoL, claiming that the seriousness of the situation might end up delaying their training. However, WoL offers to help in piecing together what happened. While Ywain is initially reluctant to put such pressure on a recruit, he can quickly tell that the WoL is determined, and agrees to their offer of assistance.

Swethyna states that she will take care of the body’s removal and autopsy - she suggests that the others return to the guild and stay vigilant, as there’s now an assumed killer on the loose. Unbeknownst to any of them, a figure is watching the pier from a distance. He says nothing, but seems amused by the sight before him, and sneaks off as the shaken crowd of onlookers starts to disperse.

Back inside the guild, Ywain congratulates WoL for their success at Spirithold, and also thanks them for their willingness to balance their training with the impending investigation.

He admits that he and the deceased weren’t exactly on good terms; Gauvain had previously vied to become guildmaster and felt “cheated” out of it when Swethyna offered the role to Ywain instead. He was regularly belligerent towards not only him, but other lancer recruits he deemed “unfit” for the lance.

Regardless of his personal issues with Gauvain, Ywain insists it’s his duty to find his murderer, especially when the motive remains a complete mystery. He prioritizes focusing on WoL's training for now, and promises to update them as soon as there are any developments.

Level 10

Ywain greets WoL, saying he can tell they’ve been working hard at their training. He also reports that they’ve already begun investigating the murder of Gauvain.

Based on current findings, Gauvain was likely tortured and killed elsewhere before being thrown into Whispering Gorge. He was a first class sergeant in the Third Spears - a branch of the Wailers deployed in the Central Shroud - which makes it especially strange that he was found in water connecting to the East Shroud. Ywain theorizes that this could be an indicator of malicious intent; the killer could’ve wanted the corpse to be found by the lancer’s guild, perhaps due to some sort of grudge.

Ywain insists that they’ll need to piece together Gauvain’s final hours in order to get the answers they seek, so he asks WoL to meet him at Bentbranch Meadows in the Central Shroud, where he will provide them with further instructions.

Once at Bentbranch, Ywain explains that he intends to find potential persons of interest - those who may have known Gauvain or simply seen him before the murder. He asks WoL to cover the Bentbranch area while he surveys the Jadeite Flood, and recommends they meet up at the Bannock when they’re finished.

WoL questions three different individuals, and quickly learns that Gauvain has an extremely infamous reputation.

One woman at Bentbranch Meadows - a Duskwight Elezen - hardly knew the deceased. But she does recall an instance where he spoke derogatorily to her due to her race. She claims it doesn’t surprise her that someone finally grew tired of the man’s ego and prejudice.

At Galvanth’s Spire, a Miqo’te Wailer who served under Gauvain claims that the man was rude, condescending, and hypocritical. Many under his command greatly disliked him, with the only exception being a man named Thibault, an equally condescending second class sergeant who would regularly join Gauvain on patrols.

A fisher at the Mirror Planks admits that while out in the woods gathering grubs to use as bait, he’d witnessed Gauvain taking bribes from poachers. He wasn’t noticed but didn’t report the incident out of fear of retaliation. He also reveals that there was another Wailer present with Gauvain at that time; he didn’t recognize the other man, but notes that he was another Wildwood Elezen with slicked back brown hair.

At the Bannock, WoL approaches Ywain as he talks with the Third Spear Chief Sergeant. After informing him of what they’ve learned, Ywain reports that he’s heard much the same through his inquiries, and he is disgusted that Gauvain would abuse his power in such a way.

The Chief Sergeant, based on WoL’s description, theorizes that the other Elezen the fisher described was Thibault, adding that complaints about him and Gauvain were becoming more frequent in recent months. She had started filing a report to have the two suspended for their behavior, but is even more unsettled to hear these new bribery allegations.

Ywain theorizes that these misdeeds could be connected to Gauvain's murder. He also states that Thibault is definitely a potential suspect; if he was involved in the bribery scheme, he might have killed Gauvain in order to increase his own ill-gotten profits.

The Chief Sergeant informs them that Thibault left for a patrol near the Naked Rock in Greentear bells ago, and assures that the Third Spears will give their full cooperation in the ongoing investigation. Ywain asks WoL to locate Thibault and have him report back to the Bannock, adding that it’s best they not reveal the details of why to him just yet. The guild master also advises them to stay vigilant, as the area is a known raptor nesting ground.

When WoL arrives at Naked Rock, they discover a deceased Thibault, and must fight off a pack of anole raptors looking to make a meal out of the corpse.

It doesn’t take WoL long to realize that Thibault wasn’t the victim of a raptor attack; his injuries are nearly identical to those suffered by Gauvain. But as they process this turn of events, they are suddenly interrupted by the voice of a stranger, who callously mocks Thibault’s fate.

WoL comes face to face with another lancer - a Duskwight man with white hair, dark skin, and vibrant pink eyes. With little reluctance, the man reveals he is the one who slaughtered Thibault, acting disappointed because he’d hoped to watch the raptors chew on Thibault for a while longer. But now that WoL has caught him in the act, he insists they’ll just have to be the raptors’ next course.

The man charges, seeming intent to attack. WoL does not flinch, taking a defensive stance and maintaining eye contact. However, the tip of the lance stops just short of WoL’s face, and the assailant retreats with an amused smirk.

The impressed stranger - Foulques - claims WoL seems different from the Lancer Guild’s usual whelps. He suggests that they should forsake the Guild and allow him to become their personal mentor instead, arguing that their skills would be fully realized under him.

When WoL refuses, Foulques calls it a waste, claiming they will inevitably find only disappointment and betrayal with the guild. He decides he will simply have to show them - and all other lancers - the consequences of crossing him, and quickly vanishes.

When WoL returns to the Bannock, Ywain is shocked as they tell him what they encountered. He apologizes for unknowingly sending them into imminent danger, but is proud of how they maintained their composure in the face of such a dangerous adversary.

Since he’ll need to inform the Third Spears of the murder and the body’s location, Ywain advises WoL to return to Gridania ahead of him, where they can discuss these new developments.

Back at the guild, Ywain says that Thibault’s body has been recovered, though he’s frustrated that any answers the man held have now died with him. He states that while this Foulques seems to be their culprit, his statements to WoL indicate that his spree is unfortunately far from over. Furthermore, he remains convinced that Gauvain and Thibault were not random victims, as the vitriol, disdain, and violence towards the deceased are hallmarks of a personal vendetta.

For now, Ywain decides he will try to find any information on their suspect that he can. Until then, he encourages WoL to continue honing their skills, especially since Foulques is still out there and his future plans/targets remain unknown.

Level 15

Ywain informs WoL of several updates regarding their investigation.

After gaining more testimony from Central Shroud residents, the Third Spears have confirmed the legitimacy of the accusations against Gauvain and Thibault. Along with accepting bribes from poachers and bandits, the two were also extorting money from vulnerable civilians. The news has become the talk of Gridania, and the Wailers are now working overtime to investigate similar corruption within their ranks.

Ywain also reveals that he’s discovered some surprising information on Foulques. According to guild records, the murderous lancer was actually once a member, but was convicted and imprisoned for stealing money from the guild’s personal coffers. He was previously thought to have been killed during the Seventh Umbral Calamity, as the chaos and destruction resulted in several casualties at the prison where he was being held.

While Foulques motives remain a mystery, Ywain remains convinced that Gauvain and Thibault must be connected to a bigger picture. He insists that their best option currently is to locate and question more of the pair’s associates; these individuals are not only potential partners in their crimes, but also potential targets on Foulques’ hit list.

Since the Third Spears are already underway with their internal investigation, Ywain says he’s been asked to begin the same process with the East Shroud’s Fourth Spears. He asks WoL to assist him and sets their meeting place at Josselin’s Spire.

Upon their arrival, Ywain advises WoL to be discreet with their questioning. Direct accusations of wrongdoing might cause their targets to panic, shut down, or retaliate, so they should start with the more casual topic of familiarity with the victims. He also suggests that WoL look for any unusual reactions and responses, as this could be a sign of someone trying to hide information.

Two of the Wailers WoL speaks to are calm and forthcoming. The first barely knew the victims’ names until news of the corruption came to light, while the second was familiar with them many years ago, but was extremely put off by their conceited personalities even back then.

However, a third wailer that WoL approaches - a Hyuran man - quickly raises several red flags. He becomes strangely nervous and defensive when simply asked if he ever knew Gauvain and Thibault, berates WoL for “harassing” him, and gives the unprompted opinion that the ongoing internal investigations are a waste of time and resources. This Wailer ends up leaving in a huff, stating he has a training exercise to lead.

When WoL tells Ywain of this strange behavior, he agrees that this man might be someone to keep an eye on. Since the man stormed off without identifying himself, they seek out a superior officer - the Fourth Spear Chief Sergeant - to help with identification.

Based on WoL’s account, the Lieutenant deduces that the suspicious individual is likely a third class Sergeant named Ashton. According to the Lieutenant, he was close friends with the victims during their guild training days.

When news of the murders broke, many of the Fourth Spears had expected Ashton would need time to grieve. But instead, the Sergeant seemed agitated by anyone offering their condolences, and he’d become unusually anxious and jumpy in the field, as though he thought something - or someone - was watching him.

Just as Ywain and WoL plan to question Ashton further when he returns, panicked pleas for help suddenly ring out from the forest. WoL, along with Ywain and the Lieutenant rush in the direction of the cries, only to find three Wailer privates, heavily injured but alive.

One of the recruits explains that while they were conducting their training exercise, a lancer they didn't know emerged from the woods and attacked them. She recalls that they were easily beaten despite their best efforts, and that Ashton, instead of defending them, was terrified and ran away screaming for his life, after which their assailant abandoned them to pursue the sergeant.

WoL and Ywain quickly realize this assailant must be Foulques. The Lieutenant states that he'll get medical help for the injured privates, encouraging Ywain and WoL to give chase before Ashton ends up like his former friends.

Using the private’s story and footprints left behind, WoL and Ywain track their targets back to the Central Shroud. They eventually find the two at Lifemend Stump behind the East Vein waterfall, where Foulques stands menacingly over an injured and frightened Ashton.

Ashton addresses Foulques by name, begging the rogue lancer for his life. He insists that “what happened” wasn’t his idea and that he was pressured to go along with it. But Foulques isn’t swayed in the slightest by this, claiming that his cowardice only makes him even more pathetic in his eyes.

Upon noticing their uninvited guests, Foulques shows great disdain for Ywain, despite Ywain having never met him before. He claims he’s not surprised that the guild master would waste time rescuing a “sniveling coward” and claims it's a disgrace that he would have WoL’s talent dedicated to such a task.

Foulques discloses that a pack of man-eating wolves have recently been using Lifemend Stump as their den, hence why he chased a wounded Ashton to this spot. The sergeant’s blood has drawn their attention, and both WoL and Ywain proceed to fight off the wolves in order to keep him from being killed (this would be a modified version of the canon level 15 instance).

Foulques, while annoyed that Ashton still lives, admits that he’s impressed by the display. He once again laments how WoL’s talents are wasted by the “Coward’s Guild”, and even offers them a place at his side if they finish off Ashton for him. Ywain, frustrated by Foulques’ reckless violence and insults towards the guild, demands that he surrender and explain himself.

Foulques shocks Ywain and WoL by revealing that he, Gauvain, Thibault, and Ashton were all co-conspirators in the guild robbery. Eventually, Foulques felt guilty for what they’d done and tried to convince the others to confess with him. But the others turned on him, successfully taking advantage of prejudice against Duskwights to pin the entire crime on him.

The rogue lancer concludes with a declaration that he won’t stop until his former “friends” and the rest of the Lancer’s Guild are destroyed, before swiftly fleeing the scene of the attempted murder.

Despite being clearly disturbed by what they’ve just learned, Ywain maintains his composure, expressing his gratitude for WoL’s help. He plans to bring Ashton in and turn him over to the proper authorities, and asks WoL to wait for him at the guild so that they can debrief these recent events.

Back at the Lancer’s Guild, Ywain confirms that Ashton has been arrested and is currently being interrogated. While it might take some time to confirm the legitimacy of Foulques’ story, his gut feeling is that it’s the truth, especially considering Ashton’s earlier pleas for mercy.

Ywain assures WoL that he will let them know of any updates, intending to show them a new technique (Piercing Talon) in the meantime.

Level 20

A solemn Ywain takes longer than usual to notice WoL’s presence. He states that he’s glad they’ve arrived, as Swethyna was looking to speak to them. He goes to fetch her, though he's clearly still distracted by his own thoughts.

Swethyna personally thanks WoL for helping to bring the recent crimes to light. She admits that it infuriates her that this corruption occurred under her watch, but that as captain of the Wailers, she must accept full responsibility for these failures, and vows to make amends to those affected.

She announces that Ashton has not only confessed to his involvement in the guild robbery, but also identified the true mastermind behind the plot - a high-ranking Wailer Lieutenant named Nicodeme. The imprisoned sergeant also admitted to helping Gauvain and Thibault in more recent crimes, which were also masterminded by Nicodeme.

She’s already contacted Nicodeme for a “strategy meeting" at the Guild/Wailing Barracks with the intention to confront him. As the two driving forces behind the investigation, she would greatly appreciate if WoL and Ywain would join her for it.

Ywain initially fails to respond, but eventually snaps out of it, apologizing and excusing himself to get some fresh air. A concerned Swethyna asks WoL to go after Ywain, stating that since the last time they were in the guild, the guild master has become increasingly depressed and distracted.

WoL finds Ywain at the dock of Westshore Pier, and he asks for their forgiveness for his current state. He admits to them that Foulques’ story has left him feeling an immense sense of shame and guilt, despite the fact that the situation occurred prior to him having any authority in the guild.

Ywain tells WoL that before becoming guildmaster, he was a highly accomplished Wood Wailer along with Landenel Peaumasquier, his dear friend. Landenel was regularly judged unfairly because his father was a known criminal, and one day, that pressure and ridicule led his friend to make a crucial mistake in the field. Not wanting to see his friend unfairly penalized for a momentary lapse of judgement, Ywain took the blame for the entire incident, and was dishonorably discharged from the Wailers as a result. It was Swethyna who learned of his innocence and promptly righted the situation, offering him an apology on the Wailers' behalf and the position of guild master.

While the decision nearly cost him everything, Ywain insists he never regretted standing up for his friend, and that he can’t imagine the intense pain and hurt Foulques must have felt when his “friends” betrayed him.

When Ywain asks WoL their opinion, they agree that while Foulques’ actions are reckless and dangerous, his anger and resentment are understandable. Ywain agrees with this sentiment; while he can’t condone the murders and Foulques’ endangerment of innocents, the guild was also at fault for all this; their desire for an easy and swift resolution failed not only Foulques, but the co-conspirators’ future victims as well. Regaining his conviction, the guild master is determined to not only stop Foulques’ spree, but also hold those who set the man down his destructive path accountable.

WoL and Ywain head back inside soon after, and both agree to Swethyna's request to join the confrontation. Swethyna, glad to see Ywain’s self-assurance restored, thanks them as the time for the meeting draws near.

Nicodeme arrives at the Barracks, finding Swethyna, Ywain, WoL, and several Wailers waiting for him. The lieutenant questions why someone like WoL is present, insisting that confidential Wailer intel should not be shared in the presence of "civilians".

Swethyna shocks him by quickly revealing the true reason behind the meeting, listing out the serious crimes he's been accused of and demanding an explanation from him.

Nicodeme adamantly denies any involvement in the robbery or any other crime, claiming that Ashton is falsely naming him in an effort to save himself from harsher consequences. However, in his haste to dismiss the accusations, he accidentally mentions the exact amount of gil stolen in the Guild robbery - a fact that was never publicly disclosed.

A frantic Nicodeme starts to show his true nature. He takes out his lance, throwing insults and threatening violence in a desperate effort to escape his collapsing house of cards. The other present Wailers initially reach for their weapons in response. But Swethyna requests that they back down, instead asking WoL to handle the situation. Ywain encourages WoL to take up the challenge, which they do.

At first, Nicodeme scoffs at this, mocking Swethyna and Ywain for being so overconfident in "an amateur". However, WoL successfully bests him in battle. (This would be an instanced conflict, replacing the two canon instances that occur at level 20).

A flabbergasted Nicodeme can't comprehend how he could lose to a novice. Swethyna, however, claims this outcome was inevitable; she insists that WoL embodies the true values that Mistalle founded the Lancer's Guild on - courage, adaptability, and open-mindedness - and calls Nicodeme out as a fraud, a coward, and a common criminal.

The disgraced lieutenant is arrested for plotting, committing, and covering up the past robbery, as well as for his more recent crimes. Ywain expresses how proud he is of WoL's victory and takes some solace in the fact that the co-conspirators can now do no more harm.

However, this victory is short lived, as an injured young lancer recruit rushes in, terrified and bringing bad news. The recruit claims that she'd been with Jillian - the receptionist - on an errand at the Adder's Nest. But on their way back, they were suddenly attacked by none other than Foulques, who abducted Jillian by threatening to kill the recruit if she didn't come quietly.

Ywain is clearly distressed by this turn of events, but rationalizes that panicking will do no one any good. He notes that Jillian was likely taken as collateral, meaning that there’s a good chance she’s still alive. He plans to organize a search effort, imploring WoL to keep their eyes and ears open for any sign of the two.

Level 25

Ywain informs WoL that the search for Jillian has unfortunately seen little success. However, a written missive - supposedly from Foulques - was found outside the guild just under a bell ago. Swethyna will join them shortly to share its contents.

Upon her arrival, Swethyna confirms that the missive lists Foulques demands. Unless they meet him out in the North Shroud's Alder Springs the following day and hand Nicodeme over to him, the vengeful lancer threatens to take Jillian's life. He also swears to subsequently continue to slaughter more lancers at random until those demands are met.

While she holds no sympathy for Nicodeme, Swethyna insists that allowing Foulques to be his judge, jury, and executioner would violate the former lieutenant's right to due process, something she can’t set a precedent for breaking. She also adds that even if they give Foulques what he wants, the man’s own words indicate that his hatred for the guild will not be so easily quelled, and he might kill Jillian and others out of hatred for the guild regardless.

Ywain previously suspected this would be Foulques’ next move, and reveals he’s come up with a plan to deal with this exact situation. He asks WoL to bring him several items from across various parts of the Black Shroud: black bat wings from the East Shroud, kedtrap leaves from the South Shroud, and balloon bomb ash from the North Shroud. He claims these items are integral to his plan, and that gathering them will also be a test of WoL’s progress with their lance work.

WoL must defeat several black bats, kedtraps, and balloons in order to progress (all are spawned at the locations marked by Ywain on WoL’s map). Upon their return, Ywain praises them for their swift work.

Ywain reveals that the items WoL retrieved are ingredients to concoct an alchemical potion - one which will allow him to temporarily take on the appearance of someone else. He then announces his plan to impersonate Nicodeme and trade himself in the exchange for Jillian.

Swethyna, shocked by this dangerous plan, adamantly expresses her disapproval; she warns that Foulques may lash out in retaliation, and that it’s far too risky for Ywain to confront him alone. But Ywain insists that as current guild master, he must take responsibility for what Foulques has become and save Jillian, even if it puts him at risk.

WoL proposes a compromise by offering to “deliver” the disguised Ywain to Foulques; this way, if the situation escalates, they will at least have numbers in their favor.

Swethyna backs WoL’s suggestion, insisting that she can also have a backup team waiting at Fallground Float. Though initially reluctant to put anyone else in danger, Ywain accepts these terms.

Ywain plans to have an alchemist concoct the potion within the day. He thanks them for being willing to risk their own safety to help Jillian, before telling WoL they'd both best prepare for the upcoming battle.

Level 30

With the hostage exchange swiftly approaching, Ywain states the transformative potion is ready and that they will rendezvous with Swethyna at Fallground Float before putting their plan into action. Before departing, he compliments WoL as one of the best lancers he’s ever trained, and that no matter what awaits them, he will follow their example and face Foulques and the guild’s past mistakes with courage.

Just as she promised, Swethyna has assembled a back-up team, and encourages Ywain and WoL to contact her by linkpearl should the exchange morph into a physical confrontation. As Ywain prepares to take the transforming potion, he tells WoL to let him know when they are ready to head out.

As WoL reaches the exchange spot with “Nicodeme”, Foulques arrives soon after with a restrained Jillian. She attempts to apologize to WoL for getting them into this situation, but is cut short by Foulques, who orders her to remain quiet.

Foulques seems rather satisfied that WoL is the one to bring him “Nicodeme”. Once again, he tries to encourage them join him instead,

However, Foulques becomes suspicious of “Nicodeme”; the rogue lancer claims that the disgraced lieutenant's prideful and arrogant nature would never allow him to be quiet in the face of his doom. He raises his weapon, fully suspecting that he's been set up.

With their plan compromised, Ywain has no choice but to reveal himself the potion antidote he brought along, much to Jillian’s shock and Foulques’ fury.

Ywain attempts to talk Foulques down from his anger, reminding him Jillian has nothing to do with what happened. He informs the rogue lancer that all those involved in the robbery and coverup have been identified and arrested, and that they all will be stripped of their titles and imprisoned for their numerous crimes.

Foulques claims this isn’t good enough, and that he wants to personally watch the life leave their eyes for what they did. He insists that if they won’t give them what he wants, he will simply take out the three of them a a final message to the guild to stay out of the way of his revenge.

An final instance similar to the original takes place, except Ywain is present and assists in subduing Foulques. (At one point, Ywain continues to fight Foulques 1v1, while WoL must free Jillian from her restraints before a fatal attack on her can be completed, after which she will run off to get help. WoL will then rejoin Ywain against Foulques until the fight’s conclusion).

As the instance ends and Foulques seems to be reaching his limit, Jillian returns, having managed to reach Fallground Float to get help. She is joined by Swethyna and her backup team.

Foulques insists WoL and Ywain finish him off, but Ywain refuses, insisting that more death won’t solve this problem.

Ywain proceeds to apologize to Foulques for the injustice and mistreatment he faced years ago. He claims that the guild failed not only him, but all of Gridania and the other victims of the co-conspirators, and that the prejudice he was subjected to betrayed the very ideals the guild was founded on.

Ywain also states that while he can’t change what happened, he - as current guild master - takes full responsibility to right the wrongs of his predecessors. He insists that Foulques, as one of the victims of those wrongs, deserves to see that justice come to fruition.

Foulques seems genuinely taken aback by Ywain’s declaration, but his only response is a curt (yet also sad) laugh. He claims to regret nothing, and that he has no intention of returning to a dank cell. But he does admits that perhaps WoL and Ywain are perhaps not the cowards he’d assumed they were.

Foulques intentionally steps backwards over the cliff (unlike the canon original, where he falls in panic/by accident). WoL and Ywain rush to try and stop him, but by the time they reach the edge, he’s already disappeared into the misty chasm below.

As the Wailers secure the scene, Jillian thanks WoL for saving her life. Ywain also thanks them, insisting they’ve clearly mastered the art of lance work. But while he’s glad that Jillian is safe, he regrets that he was unable to get through to Foulques in the end.

However, Swethyna notes that while she can’t be sure, it’s possible that Foulques might have survived the fall. Her team have yet to locate a body, and while she must hold him accountable for the murders, she hopes that Foulques - wherever he is - will take Ywain’s words to heart and let go of his hatred for his own sake.

Ywain informs WoL that he will accompany Jillian to the healers to have her checked over for injuries. He encourages WoL to take their time in meeting with him back at the guild, as they are doubtlessly tired from the fight and shouldn’t overexert themselves.

Back at the guild, Ywain once again expresses his gratitude to WoL, and admits that he’s not sure he can teach them much more. He claims that while WoL was technically his student, he learned just as much from them, including how courage to admit to past failures is just as important as courage in battle.

Ywain insists he will not allow the guild to return to disregarding its shortcomings, as doing so will only delay the necessary steps to make amends. He concludes with his hopes to create a guild that even Foulques could be proud of. Lastly, he agrees to teach WoL one more technique (Lance Charge) and encourages WoL to remember to visit once they move on.

~~~

And that's a wrap! Thanks so much for reading!

If you enjoyed my writing, please consider sharing and leaving feedback!

#Final Fantasy XIV #FFXIV #Lancer Quests #Ywain Deepwell #Foulques of the Mist #Canon Divergence #Long Posts #My Writing

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noctusfury · 1 year

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Chief of the Shivering Shores (HTTYD/Riders of Berk)

Hello, my fellow Furians! Welcome to another article for the HTTYD Fandom. Today’s topic will dive into an interesting scene of dialogue in “Dragon Flower” in Riders of Berk. In this one scene, we hear Stoick say this:

“I’m heading off to my yearly meeting with the Chief of the Shivering Shores...”

Now, the interesting thing about this is that this is literally the only mention of this “Chief of the Shivering Shores” fella in the entire franchise. Neither the rest of the DreamWorks Dragon series, nor Race to the Edge, nor the short films, nor the other films, not even the comics or video games ever mention this guy after this episode. The Shivering Shores is used as the setting for the comics and video games when it comes to dragon root and dragons and the like, but after “Dragon Flower” there is no more mention of the Chief of the Shivering Shores or the Tribe he heads.

Personally, I think this was rather stupid and bad writing. One shouldn’t introduce us to a character or a place that’s apparently “important” for the plot, and then never have them show up again. The guy literally was a straw-man plot-warmer whose only function was to get Stoick out of Berk so that the dragon flower incident would happen for THIS episode. And they had the audacity to make this guy sound like an important guy as well! Like, to the level of a jarl/earl or something. In writing, you NEVER introduce us to a person or place via mention or appearance unless they’ll be important to the plot later on. It’s just a waste of story and a plot hole.

Now, perhaps I might be a bit biased because I personally wanted to see this “Chief of the Shivering Shores” and see what the guy’s like. (I say this, but there’s no way I would’ve accepted him if he was in the comics or video games, since they’re inaccurate as catapults. XD) But oh well... I suppose I shall have to do it myself, eh? ^_^

Anyway, I’m digressing.

What’s really interesting to take note of is the only info — literally — we get on the Chief of the Shivering Shores is this:

“The last man who showed up without a gift left without a head.”

I mean, this may be the only info we get, but this is probably the most important piece of info we will probably get on the guy. Why? Because this gives us some insight on the politics in HTTYD, as well as to the implied importance that this character holds, if only in the Inner Isles or the Western Archipelago.

In HTTYD 2, Stoick mentions “a great gathering of chieftains” which was assembled to discuss the topic of the dragon scourge which plagued the Inner Isles/Western Archipelago. Essentially like the Assembly at the Thing, a historical gathering during Viking Times where Norse communities came together with markets and the like, and leaders discussed important topics and settled legal matters. Think of it like a combo of a festival, congress, and court system all at once.

In this case, this is probably purely just a gathering similar to an individual community’s Council of Elders, but with the gathering of Chieftains, with the possibility of their own Elders and Heirs attending as well. However, based on the events of Stoick’s story, it’s implied that it was just the Chieftains and they all died except for him, leaving the Heirs, which had remained unscathed, to pick up the mantles of their fathers’ chiefdoms and pick up their lives again. Obviously, Osvald the Agreeable wasn’t in this Gathering, since he died several years later after this event — either implicating that Osvald was unable to attend, or Berserker Island isn’t part of the Western Archipelago or Inner Isles (which, in fact, would be canon, since the Island of Berserk in the Books is in the Eastern side of the Archipelago).

Now, as to why what Stoick said in “Dragon Flower” concerning the Chief of the Shivering Shores is so significant is the fact that he was able to behead someone simply for not coming with a gift — and with no repercussions, at that — and that Stoick had to go to the annual meeting with the Chief of the Shivering Shores, as in actually go to the Shivering Shores at-location. And he does this annually!

“I’m off to my yearly meeting with the Chief of the Shivering Shores. The last man who came without a gift left without a head.”

From this, we know 2 things from the implications of this statement:

1) Vikings coming to the gathering are expected to come with a gift to present to the Chief of the Shivering Shores.

2) This gathering of chieftains happens every year, and is always held on the Shivering Shores.

With these two points, we can assume, then, that the Chief of the Shivering Shores must either be a High Chieftain, Jarl, or Petty King of the region, and holds a significant amount of power and influence in the political sphere of the Inner Isles/Western Archipelago. He would have to be in order for these meetings to always be held on the Shivering Shores AND to have the right to kill whomever he pleases if they don’t come with a gift or some other offense — to the effect of affecting other Chieftains, particularly Stoick, to take gifts with them when they travel to Shivering Shores.

Another reason to support this theory is the scene in the flashback we see in HTTYD 2 as Stoick tells his story with his encounter with Drago.

Obviously the quality is rather blurry regardless, as it’s a flashback, and it’s difficult to see clearly, but the one detail we can see clearly is a bearded Viking sitting on an elaborately carved chair / throne of two dragon heads intertwined. When you compare the throne to the others in the rest of the cutscenes, you’ll notice that they’re not as elaborate as the one that one Viking is sitting.

Even Stoick’s throne is rather simple in nature compared to the “Dragon Throne”. Then there’s the dozen or so Vikings that are sitting on tables, though we can’t be certain whether they’re chieftains or retainers belonging to those chieftains. No details are said nor shown.

Regardless, this scene, if we take what we’ve gleaned from “Dragon Flower” and HTTYD 2 thus far, both in quotes and in scenes, we can make an educated guess/assumption that the Viking in that elaborate throne might possibly be the Chief of the Shivering Shores.

Due to this, I headcanon that the Chief of the Shivering Shores rules over either the Inner Isles or the Western Archipelago, and the other chieftains are his subordinates. Or, at the very least, has enough strength, influence, power, and charisma to cause other chieftains to defer to him as an authority-figure. Because there is no way in Helheim that he can decapitate a man for not bringing a gift without retribution unless he’s a powerful authority-figure who can get away with it.

I also headcanon that the reason — or one of the reasons — for the gift-giving is as a security measure. Since Drago came along and killed all the chieftains at the gathering 10 or so years before, and with dragons no less, and did all of this without presenting any gifts, it’s obvious that from now on, anyone who comes without a gift is obviously a spy working for Drago, and thus should be eliminated. And the others, who also lost their predecessors, would mostly likely agree to this, not wanting a repeat of what happened last time.

There’s also the possibility that the Chief of the Shivering Shores knows about Berk living with dragons, since Stoick was able to fly to the Shivering Shores and back on Thornado unscathed, without any Vikings trying to kill them. Though, whether this means that they know and accept (or tolerate) this or Stoick hid Thornado and kept the fact that he flew to the Shivering Shores on a dragon a secret will never be known. Though I’m not sure how he’d be able to do so without anyone raises a few eyebrows. But whatever. I guess it’s up to us to decide on what happened there.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about the Chief of the Shivering Shores. I had a fun time writing this article and I hope you enjoyed it, too. Thank you for reading. ^_^

What do you guys think? Who do you think the Chief of the Shivering Shores is as a character? Do you agree with what’s written in this article, or do you have a separate idea of what he’s like?

If you have any theories, headcanons, ideas, etc, concerning the Chief of the Shivering Shores, please reblog and give us your two-pence. ^_^

See you in the next article! Have a marvelous New Year!

Long Live the Night!

— Noctus Fury

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cimeret · 2 years

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It’s been a few days since Tales of the Jedi aired, but I wanted to check out the Ahsoka novel that the last episode seems to be largely based on. Some more thoughts and opinions about the last two episodes under the cut.

Practice Makes Perfect

Despite the fact that this was the shortest episode, and also the one that gave us what felt like the least amount of new information on the characters and events—I enjoyed it. Yes, it might have been a bit fanservicey in parts, playing on nostalgia, but not in a way that I personally found distracting. Just seeing the characters smiling and joking and being friends really felt like a much needed breather after all these depressing episodes that came before. I especially liked the little exchange between Anakin and Obi-Wan at the beginning and how Anakin later stole Obi-Wan’s joke. What can I say, I just love their whole lineage and in general I’m a sucker for the idea that small things like jokes, mannerisms etc. might be passed down from master to padawan. (I like to imagine there might have been a similar scene between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan once; Qui-Gon’s dry "took you long enough" in the Kenobi series was delivered in a similar vein, after all.)

I'm also endlessly grateful that they finally realized how important it was to translate Obi-Wan’s mullet into his animated design. The effort paid off. This is where the full power of a Jedi Knight unfolds on screen. It truly is his most glorious form.

And on the one hand, Ahsoka trying to parry blaster shots for basically the whole episode might be a little repetitive, but on the other hand, the animation is just so well down and she moves so fluidly and gracefully, I felt like I could watch her all day! Also, Anakin’s rather cold and pragmatic "again … again …" gave off some really dark vibes, considering how Ahsoka was unconscious for a full hour at the beginning and was still dizzy and staggering around after getting up! That’s some tough love, Anakin! I enjoyed the conflicted feelings I got from watching all these repetitive scenes building up! Respect to the troopers who agreed to help Ahsoka with her training and hung around for all those hours until she woke up again.

This whole part was really bittersweet and it works so well because we all know exactly how it’s going to end …

Another thing I really liked was the overall progression of the episode, as we see Ahsoka at different stages in her life, connected in this snapshot-like manner by the theme of an exercise she performs. It was almost like an art montage. I feel like that’s where the real strength of this short episode format might lie. The Dooku episodes were great, but a complex story such as his can’t fully unfold in the short running time of the episodes and I was always left with the feeling of getting mere glimpses and impressions rather than a cohesive story. Which can also be cool, but then I would have liked them to really double-down on the idea. His first two episodes already explore the same theme anyway. I would have loved an artsy montage of him and Qui-Gon traveling the galaxy to Kevin Kiner’s atmospheric soundtrack.

An already fleshed out character like Ahsoka can really shine in this format if the script manages to show us new, overarching connections in her story. Like little puzzle pieces coming together in new, unexpected ways. Something similar could also work for lesser-known Jedi. I just think that with these short episodes, I would like it better if the stories focused more on certain unifying themes and motifs and tried less to explain personal developments and complicated character changes. Especially with a title like "Tales of the Jedi", the possibilities here would be endless. Let the Order be the main character and not so much the individual members.

None of this is to say that I don’t like what we got! As far as the official Star Wars canon goes, this is the content I’ve been most excited about in years. And this is despite the fact that I’m more of a live action fan and admittedly always had a hard time getting into Filoni’s Clone Wars.

Resolve

I am so torn about this episode.

On its own, I really enjoyed it. There were so many great things about it. Padmé’s funeral, oof. Back after ROTS, that was one of the scenes that stayed with me for a long time, and they did a wonderful job of capturing its sad magic in the animated version. Bail Organa is great in every scene he appears in, honestly. And I liked the little story of Ahsoka going into hiding, doubting, trying to live a normal life and finally finding a reason to keep fighting. It mirrors Obi-Wan’s journey on Tatooine, and I think that’s very realistic and understandable since they were both so close to Anakin. I suppose most of the surviving Jedi would probably have gone through something similar after their whole family was murdered, but of course, it hits hardest for Obi-Wan and Ahsoka.

Most of the inconsistencies with the Ahsoka novel don’t really bother me. Sure, they could have simply adapted the novel or Filoni could have come up with a new and original story for the final episode. But the story we ended up getting was nice, and I’m okay with there being two slightly different versions, one in the show and one in the book. There’s so much Star Wars material that either overlaps or soft-retcons or outright contradicts each other, and I see the galaxy as more of a playground where you pick and choose the things you like the most to play with. I don’t mind Disney and Filoni doing the same. In general. I also don’t mind if, in general, they leave out the romance storylines in the process of adapting something for the screen. In fact, I actually might prefer it when Star Wars sticks to themes like friendship and family, because so far I’ve never really liked the way it has handled romance and romantic love.

But at the same time that’s exactly my problem.

Because I could have enjoyed the episode on its own, but knowing that the role of the white farmer girl is black in the novel and quite clearly has a crush on Ahsoka… I just don’t understand why these changes were made? Yes, pick the things you like the most to play with, but if all the new toys you give us are the same bright red sand molds, what else am I supposed to take away from this except that you seem to hate anything that isn’t a bright red sand mold? I’m sorry for the metaphor. It’s one thing to decide you want to skip the romance, but then, the romantic relationships that we actually get to see on screen are purely heterosexual (and rarely a model for good, healthy relationships, but that’s a whole other point). And this episode would have been the ideal opportunity to include a queer character to finally bring in some variety! The farmer girl and Ahsoka already had a bit of chemistry going on. Sprinkling in a bit of innocent romance wouldn’t have distracted from the main story, but could have fit in nicely and organically with the characters and the plot, as can be seen from the original novel. It wasn’t even like there was too much going on in the episode already and they couldn’t have fit the one or two lines of dialogue they would have needed anywhere.

I wish I didn’t have to think about it so much, but it really annoys me because it literally would have been so easy and I just don’t get it!

Also, Ahsoka just looks gorgeous in every scene. It’s absolutely no stretch to imagine that people might be crushing on her. Seriously, how does everyone in this show look so pretty?

There were many other things in this episode that I enjoyed, such as the Inquisitor and his brief duel in which Ahsoka overpowers him as nonchalantly as Indiana Jones shoots that swordsman in Raiders. That was awesome and fun to watch!

But this episode also got me thinking about how I often have a hard time liking Star Wars for what it is, and enjoy it much more for what it could be. Or perhaps more accurately, for what I make of it. Like I said, most of the time I don’t have that much of a problem with it, I just overlook the things I don’t like so much and hype the things I do love, and it’s a lot of fun analyzing and transforming these stories in my own head. I often think about what I would have done differently or what I would have liked better, and I love how these characters and stories can spark such creativity and make me dream. That’s what I’m here for.

But sometimes all of this also leaves me feeling very, very frustrated.

#star wars #tales of the jedi #ahsoka tano #this was over way too quickly #still hoping for season 2 #i don't mind all the retcons and inconsistensies in canon #i'm happy living in my fanon/headcanon world anyway #and there's something to be said for being able to headcanon so many characters as aro/ace #still some gay representation would be nice #i still remember how queer obi-wan made me cry #well off to writing fanfiction i guess

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apartmentnumber4 · 2 years

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Jonathan Byers Headcanons as someone who grew up in Indiana and knows a lot about the punk scene

Disclaimer: I’m largely ignoring seasons 3 and 4 because I did not like them and also believe season 2 wrapped up the show pretty well. I could go on a separate rant about that that I might post if people are interested but…

Also trigger warnings for some mentions of like self harm and drug use

First one that I have to get out there is that in season 2 that scene where he doesn’t know the girl at the Halloween party is Siouxsie Sioux is BULLSHIT he’s an outcast punk who reads Vonnegut of COURSE he would know who Siouxsie Sioux is. I don’t think he would get super into her music but he would definitely know who she is. He gets into more goth music as he gets older but as a young adult/teenager he is pretty much on the punk side of things.

He was probably one of those people who were born depressed. A combination of Lonnie being a piece of shit and genetics would combine to make him a miserable kid. I think he was probably pretty existential even as a ten year old and this combined with the Byers having an already shitty reputation contributed to him being an outcast kid. He definitely didn’t want to play tag or superheros, instead wanting to read or watch TV or listen to music and this also contributed to why he never had long-lasting friends.

Along with this the Byers were likely way more casual about things that most adults in a small conservative town in a conservative state would not want their kids to know about and that made parents wary of him. I don’t think he ever gathered children around to tell them about things, but he would say stuff without thinking. He was the type of kid to deadpan say what sex is to a fellow seven year old and leave the parents clutching their pearls.

I think when he was fourteen he had a short-lived self-harm habit. Joyce or Will probably found a bloody tissue in the bathroom trash and asked if he’d hurt himself making dinner or got a bloody nose and it would freak him out so much that he quit then and there, but it definitely is a thing that happened.

He would be genuinely proud that so much early punk music came from the Midwest. He definitely was into The Stooges and DEVO. He had at least some interest in Iggy Pop, and his favorite Stooges album would be Raw Power. Being in the Midwest, he would appreciate just how many songs from these kinds of bands were about being in a shitty town with nowhere to go, and realistically this would be the stuff he would have the easiest access to because of proximity. Pere Ubu’s Final Solution would have been his favorite song for at least a few months. When Big Black released Kerosene he listened to it for days on end

He definitely has an individuality complex. He was of course outcasted, but he also would grow to take some pleasure in being different. He genuinely sees himself as superior to popular kids. We know from the show that he sees himself as having a moral high ground over jocks and whatnot, and I don’t think that ever goes away even as he gets older. He just learns to turn it down a bit.

When Whip It came out it was secretly devastating to Jonathan because now something he liked was popular. Likewise, I think he probably liked Blondie’s first album but started disliking them when they went in a more pop direction. As he grows older he goes back to liking them and appreciates how they were willing to do a bunch of different things, but he has to hate Blondie at least until he’s 25 for “selling out.”

Most people I know either really like the Sex Pistols and hate The Clash, or really like The Clash and hate the Sex Pistols. Obviously, he’s a Clash fan so he has to hate the Pistols. When John Lydon was revealed to be a trump supporter his teenage self was so retroactively happy to be proven right*

Not necessarily a head canon but I think it was intentional that they made Jonathan and Will be Clash fans. The Clash was one of the more outwardly left-leaning punk bands of the time. While most punk bands would put out a message of leftist ideals, The Clash were pretty active in their efforts. One of the more well-known examples of this is the Rock against Racism event that they helped put on. There is a story along with this event where Malcolm McLaren, who was the Pistols’ manager, went around giving out Nazi arm bands and the Clash came on stage and said that if they caught audience members wearing the bands they would be kicked out. Considering Jonathan being the supportive brother to Will who is (obviously) gay, it makes sense that he would be more into bands that actually adhered to left leaning ideals.

I like Bad Brains so I’m going to go ahead and say Jonathan was also into Bad Brains.

A lot of punk bands were also into Reggae, and he tried to get into it but never could in the way he wanted. It wouldn’t be something he hates, but it wouldn’t be his favorite either.

I know in the happy ending he goes to NYU and all, but realistically I don’t think this would happen, and instead I think he’d end up at Indiana University for a few reasons. Tuition would be cheaper - I know that at least right now in 2022 the in-state tuition for some New York schools is more expensive than IU’s out of state tuition. IU has a pretty good arts program and it's a Big 10 school so it would look good. It’s a known research school as well. He would not go to Purdue because it's a STEM focused school and he wouldn’t go to Ball State because it's regarded as a trash school for people who don’t have any drive. He definitely lives in the Collins dorm his first and probably second year. For those of you who don’t know, Collins is (or at least used to be) the dorm hall that was known for having all the weird artsy kids. It was for the stoners and punks and goths. You used to be able to paint your walls at IU as long as you painted them back come move-out. I don’t know if he would paint his walls or not, but if he did it would probably be some ugly yellow or green color. I have no basis on this, I just know it in my heart.

He would (of course) study photography but I have a few ideas of how this could work out:

One, the most obvious, he’s wanted to go into photography for years and doesn’t have to think twice about majoring in it

Two, he would have a freak out about money and decide to major in something boring like Econ, Business, or PolySci for job stability. After a semester he’d realize how much he hates it and switch to Photography

Three, he majors in something else like journalism and minors in photography (or double majors). I think this is a possibility because he would believe this makes him more marketable to the job market.

I think it would be cool if he took some classes revolving around music as well. I know there used to be a history of The Beatles course, which he might take even though I don’t see him as being a Beatles fan. He’d enjoy some sort of music production class, but would never learn an instrument himself. I could propose a fourth Major option where he ends up going into music engineering on the off-chance he doesn’t go into photography.

At some point in his early college years he would have a major breakdown regarding everything that has happened in his life. I’m talking smashing glasses, throwing books out the window, getting the RA involved, the whole nine yards. He probably is made to go to the IU counselors but since they have a limited number of times you can go for free he doesn’t stick around. He gets a therapist later in life around mid-late 20s.

I don’t think he and Nancy would stay together. I just don’t. They would probably break up sometime in their second semester of Freshman year, and Jonathan would then go on to have a bunch of short-lived relationships with alt girls.

You know that Kurt Cobain quote that’s like, “I am not gay, but I wish I was to piss of homophobes?” I think Jonathan has a similar mindset and dates a couple of dudes in college but ultimately comes to the conclusion that he’s straight.

He doesn’t ever get married. I don’t think he has one life partner either. He has serious relationships, but they end at some point. When he’s young this disappoints him a lot because he wants a happy ending that his parents didn’t have, but as he grows older he comes to accept this and enjoy the time for what it is.

In college he gets really really into drugs. He wouldn’t be a heavy drinker for obvious (Lonnie) reasons, but he would try a lot of shit in his early 20s. The most obvious is weed, which he would enjoy a lot, but he probably dabbled in ecstasy and coke as well. He would try psychedelics exactly once and have such a horrible trip he wouldn’t ever do it again. Post college he gets put on an antidepressant and gets a Xanax prescription. He most definitely takes more Xanax than he should but it never officially gets to the point of addiction.

Jonathan moves around a lot as an adult. He would stay for a while in Bloomington before moving. He definitely lives in New York for a couple of years, and probably some in California. Eventually (I think around 35-36) he would move back to be closer with his family, either to Chicago which is relatively close or Indianapolis. He would not go back to Hawkins.

Either a reluctant democrat or doesn’t vote at all. Indiana is so gerrymandered that its almost impossible to turn it blue, and then when he’s moving around he lives exclusively in liberal states so he never feels like he has to.

*The Sex Pistols used a LOT of Nazi imagery and so its not really retroactively being proven right, more like a pattern being fulfilled. However a lot of punks, especially British punks from what I’ve seen, used Nazi imagery and it was generally at the time seen as being done for shock value. I don’t think it would be out of character for him to look at that and not immediately think that the band was conservative or really supporting Nazi beliefs. Also I’m not saying I support the sex pistols or their use of nazi imagery. I think it’s pretty abhorrent, and would never use those symbols.

#stranger things #jonathan byers #ST #ST Jonathan #Stranger things Jonathan #Stranger things Headcanons #ST Headcanons #Jonathan Byers Headcanons #long post

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jasonsutekh · 2 years

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Fantasia (1940)

A series of animated shorts to accompany famous classical music using abstract shapes, Greek mythology, and demonic encounters.

As an experiment in the uses of music for animation and film it’s a noteworthy piece of cinema history and there are several sequences which are still very much enjoyable today. The exploration of the unity between different forms of music and the film medium is interesting and varied, reminding modern audiences of what still may be possible with further innovation.

Due to some of the classical movements being so recognisable and iconic it leaves others far less dynamic and even tame by comparison. The Pegusus sequence for example is mellow and entertaining but slow and uneventful because it’s framed by scenes too similar so it feels like repetition and loses when contrasted with more amusing or simply faster sections. They’ve also made the male Pegasus black and given his snow-coloured partner the tell-tale feminine eyelashes but since Pegasus himself is canonically white in the original myth I’d choose to believe this is a particularly stylish version of Pegasus living his life with his goth girlfriend.

The animation styles vary a fair amount which isn’t surprising considering how many individuals worked on the numerous sections. The stories were all interesting and the coherent narratives juxtaposed well with the looser more surrealist parts. It’s the attempt at artistic experimentation that makes this collection more than just a series of shorts.

Overall each section is short so there’s little time for development in anything but the music. The audience is made passive since we’re guided through each stage by a controlling voice which gets literally self-congratulatory at one point. The least enjoyable scene is probably the centaur one since some of the love or lust interests appear to be child-like and many of the characters are nude but devoid of genitalia or nipples which makes the sequence appear like a macabre symphony on castration.

5/10 -Can’t find a better example of average-

-The dinosaurs in the film are depicted as dying from mass drought because the asteroid extinction event theory wasn’t published until 1982.

-The first Disney movie to be released on VHS tape.

-The Rites of Spring section was used in many schools for a time as a way to teach children about evolution.

#Film #Review #Fantasia #1940 #Animated #Kid's Film #Children's Film #Fantasy #JasonSutekh

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thescrapbookingscientist · 25 days

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Bimonthly Media Roundup

-One Piece Film Red (Movie) - The first of the One Piece movies we've decided to watch despite being the newest, largely because of a reference in the story proper implying it's canon. I've heard this is one of the better movies which is not a great sign even if I did mostly enjoy it. On the good side Uta is an interesting character with a great design and voice, and despite her "self-insert OC" backstory I do actually like her relationship with Luffy and the Shanks pirates, it's cute. I like musicals and while I do feel most of the songs could have been presented better they all sounded pretty good with a few standouts going straight to my spotify. The plot of the movie wasn't at all what I was expecting, though it was pretty interesting, like. damn Uta. On the bad side the story did have middle-drag as it was longer than it needed to be, and featured several batshit decisions from Shanks and Uta's adoptive father figure. I understand that they wanted to reach a certain conclusion (one that I didn't particularly like), but the actions they took to get their were so dumb and mean that I was too busy being frustrated at the writing to be invested in the latter half of the story. I'm still glad I watched it and would maybe watch some of the musical scenes out of context again but I would really only recommend it to hardcore One Piece fans and do so with an asterisk.

-Firewatch (Video Game) - A friend recommended a play through of this to me, and while it wasn't quite what I was expecting it was pretty interesting. The visuals were gorgeous, the dialogue was naturalistic, it had a pretty intriguing mystery and the ending did a good job of cementing the themes of the dangers of too much isolation and escapism, which I can respect. That being said I can't say it's overly memorable: visuals aside it's just too short and only has 1 character with a notable personality, who I wouldn't call particular memorable either. I'd say the experience is like reading a good short story - there's a message there that's well presented and I agree with but there's only enough material for a single 2 page essay rather than a full analysis/fandom experience. Which is fine not everything should be that, It's done well for what it is.

- Fallout (TV) - First season completed and I have to say it was pretty darn good - Video game adaptations have been killing it lately. The 3 leads all did a great job at introducing us to the various factions and perspectives of this world while individually and collectively exploring the mystery of how the world got this messed up. I understand why The Ghoul is so tumblr famous given he's a morally grey monster with a sympathetic backstory, though my personal favorite was Lucy and her determination to not let the cruelty of the world make her cruel in kind, though given the ending she might have a relapse in the second season. I can't say the story was entirely unpredictable though there were a lot of fun twists and turns, the ultimate conclusion we are leading towards is certainly a depressingly realistic one when you push the capitalist mindset to the extreme. It's also funnier than I expected which was a nice bonus. The dried out apocalypse atheistic with an ultra violent world isn't really my usual cup of tea but I don't have a lot of negative things to say about this, it was a solidly enjoyable watch that I would recommend to anyone who can stomach a bit of light gore.

- Land of the Lustrous (Manga) - Wow so it finally ended huh? I'm not really sure I have the right qualifications or mindset to dive into the series as a whole right now but it certainly is one of the most unique stories I've ever read with a truly "suffered more than god" transformation story for its protagonist. The Buddhist philosophies along with the story taking place over hundreds of thousands of years adds a lot to the uniqueness of the story, at least reading as a western fan, and has certainly made me think about ship of Thesus and purpose of creation questions far more than I have otherwise, which I commend it for though it certainly prevents me from recommending it as a light read. It's too bad it likely won't get more than the first season animated anytime soon as it would be a great one to watch people react to with all the insane twists and turns it takes. Anyway I love you Phos, thanks for the story and may you rest.

- Dungeon Meshi (Anime) - Shapeshifter and Nightmare episodes both very good. The shapeshifter taking its appearance based on others perception of you is a very cool concept which is a good puzzle to work out the real one and Marcille's nightmare focusing on her fear of outliving all her loved ones is really heartbreaking and well visualized, Good job all around.

- Six of Crows (Book) - Not much to say at this point, I like the concept as "heist team consisting of oddballs with highly specialized skills" is a great setup. I'm enjoying it well enough as a slower listen, though I do feel I would be more into it had I read it when I was younger as opposed to now.

- Pokemon Infinite Fusion (Video Game) - Really great fangame, had a lot of fun both playing this and looking up the various fusion designs on the website. Will probably post my two teams eventually. Huge props to everyone who contributed, both the sprite artists (for fusions and regular pokemon) and the writing (lots of clever little jokes or quests). Truly a testament to fandom creativity.

- One Piece (Anime) - Shockingly we have finally caught up, at least anime wise and wow what a journey it was. I'll still be obsessed with this for a good while so I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to talk about the series as a whole as I jump into the manga, but for now in short there's certainly many issues with sexism and stakes but despite that it really is an incredible story with loads of great characters, worldbuilding, relationships, comedy, and mystery, I definitely understand why it's one of the biggest media in the world. For the more recent stuff I'll say that I overall liked Wano though the raid really did drag, I'm quite disappointed that Yamato didn't join the crew as I really liked him, big trans win with the bath scene, and I adore everything about Gear 5 and have re watched those scenes many times now. The way it's animated and it's theme are great, but mostly I just love that Luffy's peak is him being a funny little silly guy who makes people laugh, it's very him and is a great final form as the representation of joy. Egghead has also been fun so far, I love the new OP and style change and the island is pretty fun, I also like Bonney though considering her real age they need to stop focusing the camera the way they do. This is long enough so I'll stop here but I hope to make some One Piece tierlists and memes here soon.

- Genshin Impact (Video Game) - Not a fan of the rhythm style games in the current event but always happy to see Itto and Miko show up.

Listening To: Nonsense Speaker by 000, Tounges & Teeth and Metaphor by The Crane Wives, HateKiller by WON, Dream Girl Evil by Florence + The Machine, Imu's Theme from One Piece OST, White Wedding by Billy Idol, GUY.exe by Superfruit, Promiseland by MIKA, All the Boys by Panic! At The Disco, Achilles Come Down cover by Annapantsu, Fences by Paramore, Dial Drunk by Noah Kahan

#my post #weekly roundup

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 3 years

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Would you say that Loki being tortured by the black order/thanos/the chatauri is not quite canon but more than fanon? For me, it kind of sits in that weird in between place where technically we haven't had complete confirmation but yet there seems to be enough evidence that it's more than just fanon?

hahaha so I got this ask, uhhhh, a while ago and I was going to do a short answer but then I started tossing out bullet points and once I had those I wanted to link them to posts discussing those things in more detail and now it’s September and I definitely got this within like, a week or two of the show finale, sooooo anon whoever you are I hope you’re reading this blog enough to know that I finally got around to answering your question 😬

anyway yeah, that's basically where I come down on it. it's never been made explicit, but I think it's also fair to say that Loki's alliance with Thanos wasn't an equal partnership at the very least, and canon heavily implies it wasn't a fully willing one either and Loki went through some seriously bad shit during his missing year. extrapolating that to "Thanos had him tortured" is an interpretation, but it's also an interpretation that makes sense of a huge pile of canonical evidence--more sense in most cases, I would argue, than any alternative explanations. I mean, there are possible alternative explanations for a lot of these individually, of course, but not all of them, and I don’t know that there’s much else that pulls together all these pieces. plus all this speculation is happening in the first place because we aren’t explicitly told what a lot of these things mean, so a torture-related reason is just as likely to be accurate as an alternative one.

and when I say “a huge pile of evidence,” there’s...well, there’s a whole lot, at wildly varying levels of significance, and also wildly varying levels of detail because I just want to finish this post already:

he looks burned or otherwise messed up in the post-credits scene in Thor (could be from something not related to Thanos! but if that’s the case it’s still pretty relevant in terms of, you know, Loki’s missing year being Bad Shit)

intro scene in Avengers--sweaty, pale, dark circles under eyes, almost collapses while walking out, basically collapses into the truck and seems to need to brace himself just sitting/kneeling there (like above, could be from something else, like...coming through a portal that hasn’t been properly stabilized is hard on the body? but I don’t think we have any additional evidence to support that specific idea, as opposed to the likelier one that stabilizing the portal was necessary just to make it bigger and keep it open) (link also includes Thor post-credits scene)

also he's obsessed with making others kneel to him, and he comes through the portal kneeling, head bowed, so the former seems kinda weird if the latter was completely voluntary

his back seems to be hurting again after Thor yanks him out of the quinjet and dumps him on a mountain

his conversation with the Other--Loki postures a little but then goes still and silent with tears forming in his eyes and allows the Other to circle around behind him, threaten him, and visibly hurt him; clearly shaken when he comes back. adds up to YIKES.

we all remember “He will make you long for something as sweet as pain” but as far as evidence goes, I find “You think you know pain?” to be even stronger, because it seems...fairly definitive and personal, implying that Loki has experienced significant pain and the Other knows about it, either because it happened on Sanctuary itself or because it happened during Loki’s missing year in general but was significant enough that it came up later (as in, it was discussed, or there was physical evidence when Loki got there)

here’s another great post going over evidence of Loki carrying out the invasion under duress

edit: here’s another one

I always kinda thought "burdened with glorious purpose" could imply someone else did the burdening (which is...only part of the reason I did get super annoyed about it being turned into a context-free catchphrase even before the show, yes, and then the show made that about 10 times worse--not so much in episode 1, I think it's reasonable to assume he's still somewhat under the scepter's influence in the opening scene, but I mean the way the other Lokis and the marketing absolutely ran it into the ground)

Fury says “this doesn’t have to get any messier,” and Loki replies, "I've come too far for anything else." on Avengers Tower, he tells Thor, "it's too late to stop it.” I’m not saying those lines indicate torture, or really anything at all specific, but they do seem relevant in terms of Loki not being the mastermind of this whole mess

"I remember you tossing me into an abyss" indicates possible memory issues, which is...also pretty damn relevant

the scepter is shown affecting the Avengers' moods just by being in the same room, and Bruce even grabs it without realizing (they’re all human except Thor, who doesn’t seem as affected, but it’s still textual evidence of the scepter affecting people without being deliberately used on them)

as a textual comparison, there's a huge contrast between the way Loki behaves toward the Other and by extension Thanos, and the way Ronan behaves toward both of them in GotG, which also implies some things about the differences between those alliances

Ragnarok post-credits: Loki seemed to recognize Sanctuary II and was immediately horrified/terrified, compared to Thor who just looked kinda confused

Infinity War: on the one hand Thanos maybe doesn't know Loki’s Jotun (”well for one thing, I’m not Asgardian”) and that's weird, but on the other, he knows Loki well enough to know the most effective possible way to make Loki give up the Tesseract, and the way he kills him is like...unnecessarily personal, not to mention unnecessary in general because he could’ve just backhanded Loki into the wall, used the Power Stone to explode the ship, and teleported out. instead he wanted Loki’s pain and fear because he liked it. it is really not a stretch to suppose that this was also true when they first knew each other.

and despite the show not really addressing this, at least not directly/explicitly, it actually does provide several new pieces that also fit the theory:

additional (possible) evidence of spinal issues and other indications that he’s frequently in pain--which could of course be from the battle, the Hulk-smashing, and the Tesseract dumping him in the desert, but the fact that Avengers gives us two different pre-battle scenes of possible back issues indicates they might’ve already been around (i.e., from Sanctuary) and just worsened by the battle etc.

he’s absolutely terrified the instant he sees Thanos onscreen in the Time Theater--I mean, the first thing he sees is himself trying to stab Thanos and Thanos stopping him, so yeah, it’s...probably reasonable to assume Thanos isn’t going to have a nice response to somebody trying to stab him? but for somebody who doesn't know the specific context, which show!Loki doesn’t, it could just be part of a battle, and/or it wouldn't seem out of the question for Thanos to just smack him aside. but Loki seems to know immediately that something awful is about to happen and he isn't surprised when it does...only when it actually leads to his death

edit: here’s a fantastic gifset juxtaposing scenes from Avengers, Infinity War, and the show, and basically it just makes all my points for me

edit, January 2024: I didn't realize until much later, but you know how that gifset above juxtaposes Ebony Maw's creepy "even in death you have become Children of Thanos" quote with Loki stuff? well, the actual Loki episode in Legends season 1, which is literally just a clip show catching audiences up on his time in the MCU before the show, also does exactly that. so I'm not saying that Marvel's saying Thanos actually considered Loki one of his kids or at least one of his potential kids for a minute there, with everything that implies given the way he treats his actual kids, but like. I'm not not saying that, and it's interesting, isn't it? Thanos wouldn't even be the only person to use Loki's insecurities and daddy issues to get him to do something (you know, because Mobius literally tells him he's doing this).

edit: when Loki tells Mobius that he hurts people because he’s had to, he’s referring to a lot of things, and he doesn’t necessarily mean “I have literally been hurt by people who will hurt me again if I don’t make them happy” but also, I mean...he could mean that, and putting this scene together with the conversation between him and the Other is...really something.

there’s an early scene on Lamentis where Loki might just be out of breath again as he is many times during the series (from, I would imagine, a lack of ability to stay in shape over the past year, so that’s...also a thing), but he might also be fending off a panic attack--from scary situation in general? orrrrr from dodging asteroids, something that potentially could have happened on Sanctuary, which is itself an asteroid field? I recognize this is kind of a stretch but like, I'm just saying, it does fit

Similarly, his abilities (physical and magical) are pretty damn inconsistent and this is a possible reason

"I've lost track of the number of times I’ve been killed"--either it's hyperbolic bravado that's way more nonsensical than his usual, or...??? combine this with “no resurrections this time” and it’s INTERESTING

additional extratextual evidence:

there’s an Avengers deleted scene where the Other contacts him two more times, once before the battle really gets going and once midbattle (thanks @scintillatingshortgirl19 for the link!). the first time doesn’t look too bad; the second time, though, the contact definitely seems to hurt him. maybe that's not deliberate on the Other’s part like it was before, but it also means the Other is cool with causing him significant (and distracting) pain in the middle of a battle? and also shows he's always watching? plus there are two different instances shown here, only one of which shows Loki reacting with obvious pain when contacted, which certainly could indicate the Other is doing that part deliberately

Hiddleston interviews--didn't give specifics but did say Loki's missing year was Very Very Bad, a struggle to survive a very precarious existence, run-ins with the universe's worst people, lots of brushes with death, etc.; specifically compared it to being kidnapped by terrorists, which doesn't necessarily mean that Loki was kidnapped by terrorists (or that his situation was directly comparable to Tony's in Iron Man, but I assume that’s what he was thinking about), just that it was that level of scary and dangerous, but...it's also a very specific comparison to make!

Marvel confirmed in Loki's bio that the scepter was influencing him and he didn't know it, so although this doesn’t necessarily rise to the level of mind control, torture, etc., it’s still...very relevant

Aug. 2022 edit to add: remember the fan theory that MCU Loki’s eyes are green, but they’re blue in The Avengers because of the scepter’s influence/control? not as blue as the other people completely controlled by the scepter, obviously, but blue enough to suggest Loki wasn’t really in control either? I think this has been mostly debunked as a legit theory based on things like...Tom Hiddleston has blue eyes and there’s no evidence he’s worn colored contacts or had his eyes digitally recolored while playing Loki, so any apparent color change is likely the result of lighting or fans recoloring screenshots after the fact. on the other hand, comics Loki has green eyes for sure, and I’m fairly certain the original Thor posters recolored his eyes to be extremely green and then just dropped that later...and even as late as season 1 of the Loki show, Marvel can’t make up their minds on his eye color as shown in a couple of official licensed figures from the exact same line of toys. the toys in particular almost certainly weren’t intended to mean anything except lousy quality control, but on the other hand if Marvel keeps refusing to be clear about this, then I’m absolutely going to continue finding evidence where none was intended.

so--yes, Loki being tortured by Thanos is...not canon, strictly speaking. but I’m also never going to say it’s just fanon, because there’s a ton of evidence supporting the idea that Loki was not fully in control during the invasion and was doing it under a combination of duress and external influences, and “said duress included actual torture and/or the use of the Mind Stone” is like, maybe one step beyond that. it’s an interpretation, sure, but it fits well enough that it’s an extremely reasonable interpretation, to the point that it seems very possible at least some of the people in charge of Loki’s story did actually intend to imply it.

#loki meta #my meta #loki #marvel cinematic universe #loki show #the avengers #thor: ragnarok #avengers: infinity war #guardians of the galaxy #thanos #thor #conversations #anonymous

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