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skyward-floored · 1 year

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Aftermath

@telemna-hyelle this one’s for you :)

A sequel to a whumptober I wrote last year, I’ve had a few requests to do a little something more with it so here we are! This isn’t too long, but it’s something, and I especially hope you enjoy Tellie <3

The previous part

(And before anyone asks, no, Legend and Fable aren’t siblings here. thanks.)

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The fight was over.

Legend let out a sigh of relief as he leaned on his sword, wincing at the dirt and blood coating both it and himself.

The sorcerer who had attempted to overtake Hyrule Castle in Legend’s absence, imprisoned Zelda and killed so many of her guards, had been destroyed, and the kingdom was safe... again.

Legend felt a burst of anger, and took out a cloth to begin cleaning his sword. I leave for a few months and every insane mage from here to Holodrum decides its a good time to kidnap Zelda.

They weren’t even sure the sorcerer had been a hylian, since he’d bled black whenever Legend had struck him in the fight. And when Zelda had finally managed to hit him with her golden light, he’d disappeared with a shriek into a cloud of dark ashes. Zelda had confirmed he was gone when she’d disintegrated the pile with a flick of her finger, but that didn’t mean all of the monsters the sorcerer had brought along with him weren’t still around.

Legend sighed, and looked over at the rest of the Links.

They were deciding now whether to split off in groups to make sure the castle was truly monster-free, taking a moment to patch up any injuries before leaving. Legend watched as Hyrule came over to him, and asked if he had any preference as to what group he went with.

“I’m staying with Fable,” he said simply, glancing at where Zelda stood. She hadn’t moved much since the battle had finished, and Legend had been about to go check on her.

“Would you like some of us to stay with you?” Hyrule asked, and Legend shook his head.

“I’ll be fine. Go make sure there’s no more of that filth’s army hiding in here,” Legend said as he wiped off his sword with more force then necessary.

“You’re sure you and Fable will be okay by yourselves?” Sky asked gently from nearby, “today was a lot... for both of you.”

Legend glanced at Zelda again, then back at his sword.

“We’ll be fine,” he repeated after a moment, wiping away one last streak of blood. “We’ll join you at some point.”

Hyrule and Sky both hesitated, then nodded, Sky glancing once at Fable before they both joined the others. They filed out of the room, having finished their preparations, and Legend and Fable were left alone in the uppermost tower of the castle.

Legend breathed out, suddenly feeling rather tired as he sheathed his sword and joined Fable’s side. She continued to stare outside as he approached, and Legend studied her as a breeze from the broken window blew her hair around her face.

“Hey,” he greeted, and Fable hummed in reply.

Sunshine caught the dirt and grime still coated on her dress, lighting up the fabric and showing just how filthy it was. Legend could still see the remnants of tear tracks on her face as well, along with dark circles under her eyes, and he hesitated as he looked at her. Fable seemed exhausted, and Legend shifted his weight, wondering if she would prefer to be alone.

But he wasn’t keen on letting her out of his sight any time soon.

Not after she’d fallen to pieces in his arms only a few hours ago.

“Zelda?” he asked eventually, when the silence had stretched on for a long time between them. “You weren’t hurt at all, right?”

His voice sounded loud in the large space, despite how quietly he’d spoken, but Fable didn’t seem to hear him, her gaze fixed on the view.

Legend frowned. It was unusual Fable would be so quiet, even after such a mess. She was usually so lively, quick to offer a smile or a comeback to a quip, and he hadn’t seen her this downtrodden since... probably since he’d been reported dead after nearly dying in a shipwreck.

Ahh, not today, he thought as red-haired memories tried to push their way to the front of his mind. There’s been enough reliving the past lately around here.

“Zelda?” he prompted again after it had been a little while, and she swallowed, then turned and smiled at him, her eyes still a little red from her earlier tears.

“I’m fine, Link. I don’t believe any of his or the monsters’s attacks hit me. None of this blood is mine,” she said with a little chuckle, looking at her skirt.

She brushed some dust off, then looked at Legend, meeting his eyes with an unreadable look in her own.

“How about you? I think I saw him hit you once or— oh, you are hurt!” she suddenly exclaimed, eyes widening as she noticed the blood on his sleeve. She immediately drew closer, taking ahold of his arm, and Legend swallowed at her sudden proximity.

“It’s not that deep Zelda,” he tried to protest, but she was already rolling up his sleeve by his injury.

Legend winced as the fabric pushed against it, and blinked down at the cut on his forearm, his arm smeared with red and still sluggishly bleeding.

Hm. Well maybe it was a little deeper than he’d thought.

“Not that deep— Link, how did you not notice this?” Fable asked in dismay, and Legend shrugged, wincing again as she turned his arm.

“I was kind of busy with some other things,” he pointed out, but Fable wasn’t really listening to him, and ran her hand along the skin by his slice. Legend almost jerked away from the touch, but Fable was careful, and he did his best to hold still as she wiped away some blood.

“I have some bandages in my study,” she sighed, leaving his sleeve rolled up. “Hopefully nothing was disturbed in there.”

Before Legend could reply, Fable took him by the hand and led him out of the main tower, her fingers tight in his. After the initial shock and scramble not to drop it, Legend held it just a little tighter as they walked, relieved, even though it was encrusted with dirt and blood, that it was warm and alive in his.

While they’d been fighting the sorcerer, he’d revealed he’d been planning to sacrifice Zelda to try and bring back Ganon— which, wow, what an original plan there— and he’d turned most of his attacks on Legend, angered that Zelda had been released from his clutches and foiled his plans.

Like Legend would ever let her be used like that again.

He was only glad they’d made it before any kind of sacrifice had taken place. If he’d had to watch anything like what Agahnim or Yuga had done to her again...

Legend shook off the angry thoughts as Fable pulled him into her study, the usual mess of papers coating her desk. It didn’t look as if the sorcerer had made it into here, and Fable tugged him over to her chair and sat him down. She then opened a few drawers, mumbling under her breath about where her medical kit was.

“Zelda,” Legend tried again as she rooted through her desk, “I could just drink a potion, you don’t have to bother, really, it’s not that—”

“If you say “that bad” again, I’ll put bandages over your mouth so you’ll stop,” Fable threatened, then pulled out a box with a small smile. “There we go. And even with a potion, it still needs to be cleaned.”

She pulled an extra chair over next to him, and opened the box, pulling out a cloth with which she wiped the rest of the blood away. Legend watched her in silence as she worked, feeling a little tingle every time one of her hands ghosted along his arm, but focused on ignoring the feeling. He could have easily done this himself, and probably shouldn’t be troubling her, but was nice not to have to clean it up himself.

It didn’t take Zelda long to clean and then bandage the slice, but she didn’t completely pull away once she’d finished, her hands still holding his arm.

“This’ll probably scar,” she said quietly, an apology in her voice. “Even with a potion.”

Legend shrugged. “What’s one more?” At least it wasn’t one from a dumb accident.

Zelda swallowed, and looked down at where she was still holding his arm. She carefully let go of it, and Legend looked at her eyes, the normally bright blue stormy with emotion.

“...You’re certain he didn’t hurt you?” he asked after the silence had stretched between them for a while, and Fable nodded, brushing a hand across her cheek.

“He didn’t. Just locked me up, Link. And he’s gone now, I’ll be fine,” she continued smoothly, placing the unused medical supplies back into their box. “Why wouldn’t I be? Just because I was kidnapped again and almost sacrificed again so that Ganon could be brought back again, and couldn’t do a thing about it, that doesn’t mean I’m not fine, why wouldn’t it? I’m perfectly—”

“Zelda,” Legend interrupted, raising an eyebrow at her. “You were sobbing into my arms not three hours ago.”

She wilted a little, and tugged both arms around her waist, lips pressed into a thin line.

Legend had the distinct feeling that had been the wrong thing to say, and mentally kicked himself. Now what did he do? He wasn’t good at this touchy-feely stuff, that was Sky’s job. What was he supposed to say?!

He waited a minute for Fable to speak, but she didn’t say anything, and he swallowed.

He and Fable has known each other for years at this point, dealt with one crisis after another together, but even after all of that, he still wasn’t sure how close they were. They were friends certainly, close friends even, but their relationship had always been a little unusual. Especially after Mar— the shipwreck, it had been hard for Legend to spend much time with her, too many similarities at play.

But they were still friends. What could he say to her now?

He hadn’t really been thinking earlier when he’d grabbed her into a hug, he’d just seen her panicking and crying and done what he thought was best. He wasn’t sure if that would be the best option right now... but then again, Fable looked truly awful, and she could probably use another hug. But would she want one from him?

Goddesses preserve me, I’m hopeless at this.

“Link?”

He shook his head, banishing his messy thoughts, and looked at Fable, meeting her eyes again.

“Thank you for saving me,” she said quietly, and Legend blinked in surprise, not expecting her words. “I’m sorry you had to do it yet again. And calm me down, I have no excuse, it was just... it was too much, all at once. Too much like that night.”

Legend’s own memories of that night flickered in the back of his head, his throat tightening at the memory of his uncle’s dying words, a bloodstained sword pressed into too-small hands.

“I know. It’s okay,” he replied in a gentle voice. “Besides, it’s in my job description to rescue you, isn’t it?” he said with a cheerful smirk.

Fable almost laughed, and he felt something warm in him at the sight of her smile. But it soon faded again, and she squeezed her eyes shut a moment, not looking at Legend when she reopened them.

“Link, do you mind if..?” she whispered, leaning forward a little, and Legend found himself nodding before he could truly think through the request.

Fable leaned over and squeezed him, resting her head on his shoulder as he blinked in surprise. Legend belatedly raised his arms and hugged her back, and something warm settled in his chest at the touch, soothing the leftover storm of emotions from the day.

He sighed, and rested his head on her shoulder as well.

“We did it again,” he said, voice coming out more tired then he wanted it to. He rested a hand on her back, and felt Zelda relax a little. “We stopped the bad guy. Ganon didn’t come back, and we’re okay.”

“We did it,” Fable repeated a little shakily, her voice muffled in his shoulder. “Again.”

Legend swallowed, and tightened the hug, Fable doing the same.

He still wasn’t sure how he felt about everything that had happened today, and would probably be replaying some moments in his nightmares for a while. But being here, hugging Zelda, both of them still reeling from the reality of yet another attack on the kingdom, it felt... okay.

Like even if another crazy Ganon fanatic tried to bring him back tomorrow, they would have each other to lean on.

And it would be okay.

Fable squeezed him again, and he squeezed her back, neither of them caring how they were only getting each other dirtier.

It would be okay.

#watch how inconsistent I can be calling her Fable or Zelda #linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu legend #lu fable #legend/fable #linked universe fanfic #tw injury #and mentions of blood #writing from the floor #fic #these kids are so tired please give them a break (I say not giving them a break)#this was mostly written today so I may edit it a little when it goes on ao3 #but not right now I gotta go make some s’mores

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bokujou-monogatari · 4 months

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genuine question! whats the difference between sunshine islands and island of happiness?

To put it simply, Sunshine Islands was Hikaru Nakano's attempt no.2 of a story he felt did not execute correctly. They are not sequels or remakes, but rather, Sunshine Islands seeks to retcon the events of Island of Happiness entirely.

In Island of Happiness, the main theme of the game is building a community from the ground up. You are washed ashore of a shipwreck while you were on your way elsewhere to become a rancher. Taking the opportunity to make lemonade of lemons, those thrown overboard and onto the aptly named Sunny Island decide to reclaim the remnants of a town that once existed there but is no longer after a catastrophic event that occurred in the past. They helped themselves to the remaining buildings, restoring them to a habitable level, and you - the player - are to take what appears to be an old ranch. It continues like this, with major milestones of the game being met through upgrades to the town and ranch commissioned at the blacksmith's and also the player's own achievements. Eventually you begin to see the town return to a flourishing level with new tourists, new residents, and unlocks.

While there are mostly the same features of Island of Happiness in Sunshine Islands, in regards to differences, the most noticeable is how the games both start out.

With Sunshine Islands, the game has you pick your character traits such as name, birthday, and gender, and then the omniscient narrator tells you that a secret belongs to the Sunny Islands and you as the rancher are The One who will uncover it. You are then presented with a montage of the town, where everyone is already present and - by purest coincidence - brand new to the town. For whatever reason. It already names you as The Chosen One, any sense of community founded through ones' efforts are at best diminished, and the sense of intrigue around what happened in the past is...not any less, but there's no hidden mystique about it. It's presented as "here is a mystery that only YOU can solve" rather than being intrinsic to the unlocks themselves.

Main story aside, there's also a key difference in the presentation of heart events. In Island of Happiness, there were multiple branches to a Heart Event. For example, there would be three outcomes to the first event, and subsequent events are branches of other events leading to a choose your own adventure love story of sorts. According to the Shogakukan-published guide for Sunshine Islands (JP only), Nakano said fans expressed discontent at this new style of heart events as often times they would receive undesired outcomes from picking "incorrect" choices. These incorrect choices did not bar anyone from marrying their chosen partner, but they did create elements of tension (as one would realistically expect if you were to offend them!) Because of this, Sunshine Islands returned to the regular heart event system of previous games.

And, a little acknowledged fact is that Island of Happiness is meant to parody the Mineral Town setting and its cast. If you take a look at the layout of Island of Happiness, and compare it to the map for Mineral Town, you'll notice some overlap. Also characters like Elliot and Natalie being counterparts of Rick and Popuri, among others. With the islands split apart in Sunshine Islands, this parody factor is mostly down to just the cast themselves.

Apart from the above, the only other details I can think of off hand are the addition of button controls and two new marriage candidates in Sunshine Islands.

#i do not like sunshine islands #i dont like The Chosen One tropes outside of JRPGs and specific games where it makes more sense #i will always hold steadfast to the idea that island of happiness while clunky should have been left as is #story of seasons

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ac-liveblogs · 7 months

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FF7 Rebirth: 40% a good game, 60% a waste of my time

The short of it is that FF7 Rebirth feels like its just taking a longer route to get to the exact same places as the original, and while its highs are extremely high for the most part it's an exhausting game full of padding designed to mask the fact that there really wasn't enough to do to justify the decision to split this into three full-length games with a triple A price tags.

It didn't take its unique premise far enough to justify the changes it makes, and it deviates too far from the original premise to feel like a satisfying remake. The new elements feel half-hearted, the new stuff is great, it's a really mixed bag.

The long of it is this;

It took me awhile to figure out why I liked Scott Pilgrim Takes Off but had so many issues with Final Fantasy 7 Remake (and later, Rebirth). The two have similar premises; through what appears to be time travel, one (or more) of the main characters affect the timeline to try and get a different result than the one they ended up with. They're both kinda sequels to the original property designed to build off your pre-existing knowledge and give you a new but similar experience to the one you already had. So... why'd I like one, but not the other?

Eventually, it hit me. Because Takes Off booted the titular Scott from the main story, his love interest - Ramona Flowers - took center stage. The story had been disrupted in such a way that not only were events forced to play out incredibly differently, but because they did the characters were able to grow and address their relationships with each other in new, different ways - and we as the audience gained new or greater understandings of them because of it.

I like new characters I never gave a second thought to before because I saw different sides of them, and I feel like the original story was enhanced for having Takes Off as a kinda-sequel. Both of those things were only possible via the time travel plot - you could not have gotten the same effect by merely expanding the original Scott Pilgrim, because it would have made the narrative far more convoluted. Scott could not defeat Ramona's exes and Ramona could not have reconciled with them in the same plot.

So then the question becomes - are the time travel, flash forwards and alternate continuities in Rebirth worth it? Do I feel like FF7 is improved or enhanced for having them? Do I feel like I've learnt more about the characters, or that they've learnt more about themselves? Are 7 Rebirth's time shenanigans an earnest attempt to revisit the same characters through a very different lens under very different circumstances to reach a greater understanding of the original source material?

Well, no. The addition of those elements to FF7 Rebirth feel like the devs decided they had to do something different to the original 7's main narrative, but had absolutely nothing to say. They wanted to acknowledge that almost everyone knows their plot and wink at the audience over it, but didn't have the guts to go wildly off course. The main vibe I get is that we're taking more convoluted steps to get to roughly the same location - SE is jangling shiny objects in front of my face and throwing mystery boxes at me in the hopes that I'll open them, but at the end of the day despite all the whispers, the multiple timelines and the questions about what on earth Sephiroth's new plan could possibly be, I have reached no greater understanding about any of these characters or the original plot for having wasted my time on this.

And that has problems - Rebirth knows it doesn't have a lot of plot twists, so it assumes you already know what the Big Ones are and doesn't even bother trying to maintain the mystery or build an engaging narrative around them. You know Cloud thinks he's Zack, you know Aerith dies - why bother keeping them a secret when we could spend that time calling back to Crisis Core, bouncing in and out of 'the Zack timeline' or wondering if maaaaybe Aerith might survive this time? (Hilariously, it calls back to Crisis Core incorrectly - that is not degradation, that is not what degradation does).

Cloud really does end up feeling like a puppet - while he never had agency, Rebirth doesn't even bother pretending. Cloud's mental instability and Sephiroth's manipulations are dragged out over tens of hours instead of a few shocking scenes, so when the game tries to cash in the intended shock factor of those scenes I felt like I'd already seen everything in them happen in the game at least once before. If we really are supposed to have the illusion of being able to defy fate, surely Cloud attempting to kill Tifa could have resulted in some changes that might have resulted in a different outcome at the Temple of the Ancients...?

No, of course not. That would be too big a change to make, and Tifa moves on past Cloud's murder attempt with assurances she believes in him. She's absolutely fine getting into an enclosed space with him, alone, and still has no issue keeping the love triangle going. Was there any point to including a new murder attempt at all, beyond showing Sephiroth can control Cloud? The thing we already knew he could do?

At the end of the day, nothing really changes. Fate holds, and Cloud's story feels like a casualty in his own game. If Rebirth's plot deviated meaningfully enough from the original that the player figuring out what happened early felt worthwhile or meaningful that wouldn't bother me, but it doesn't - so it just feels like one of gaming's most effective rugpulls was dismantled so the player could get to see Zack and Sephiroth more often.

That's it in general - if I felt the plot deviated meaningfully enough from the original (and let me see new sides of the world and characters) that the changes felt worth it, like in Takes Off, I'd enjoy myself more and I'd be able to appreciate what 7R was trying to do. Given SE has already confirmed this will loop back into Advent Children and despite a splash of multiversal time travel paint over the top of events that played out exactly as they were supposed to in the original though - I kind of doubt that will happen. This weird middle-ground is just unsatisfying. Commit to the new plot or just do a remake. It feels like SE is too scared to do anything really wild beyond offering harmless fanservice, though.

But don't get me wrong - there's plenty of new content for a lot of old characters in Rebirth, and a lot of it is really good. Barrett, Nanaki and Yuffie have skyrocketed to the top of my 'favourite FF7 characters' list because Rebirth was able to expand on their personal stories and characters in new and exciting ways, and from Remake onwards I've been extremely invested in Rufus Shinra where before there were days I'd forget he existed. Aerith is a consistently strong character across the entire game, but she would be strong in the exact same ways with or without the time shenanigans. In general, the 'minor' main characters come out of this really well (if you're not Cid Highwind. lmao)

If you asked 'do these changes expand your understanding of these characters/their stories' about most of the time spent chasing our original cast - my answer would be yes. For the most part, I feel like the Wutai subplot benefits Yuffie and expands Shinra as an antagonist, the Gi's inclusion was awkward but could deepen Nanaki's character, the Temple of the Ancients was fun and sad in a way the original wasn't right up until Sephiroth showed up in person and the extra time spent in Costa del Sol and the Golden Saucer made me care about my party and their relationships with Cloud. There's a lot of good here.

Although, those changes were the result of modernising/updating and tweaking existing plot elements - these strengths were in spite of the 'time shenanigans', not because of them. In my opinion, the time we spend with the party, fighting the Turks or the stories in existing locations are the best parts of the game. I'd expect them in the remake either way, and if 7R didn't mess with the timeline I'd not expect them to be absent or have changed at all. They're completely divorced from Sephiroth's nonsense and stronger for it.

In two full priced games, I can explore less of FF7's world and I get less main character story than I did in FF7 disc 1. Several locations are missing - including Rocket Town and Wutai, which had to be saved for 'part 3'. The loss of Wutai is to be expected, since 7R is still seeding that conflict, but it would've been nice to be able to engage with it beyond Shinra execs discussing it in board meetings. The loss of Rocket Town has seriously changed Cid's character, including his reason for joining the party - he has a worse one, now.

7R's desperate attempt to cover up for the fact that you get less world map and less story than you did in disc 1 are the side quests, the extra filler dungeons shoved between almost every settlement and the massive open world. The side quests are a mixed bag and there's a valiant attempt to make the dungeons interesting by forcing party changes and changing the playable character, but too much of it in quick succession gets exhausting.

The real issue is the open-world, where the main things to do seem to be hitting various kinds of checkpoints to get lore your characters should already know, find items, upgrade materia or fight minibosses. The open-world is huge, but there's not a lot to do out there, and you've already seen every activity the open-world has to offer by the time you've cleared the first region. It strikes me as the sort of pointless time-wasting inclusion a game has when the devs commit to expanding a 40 hour RPG from the 90s into three full priced triple A games without bothering to consider if there's enough story content to justify the split.

Which there isn't. If 7R cut the bloat and packaged Remake and Rebirth as one game, I would probably have felt a lot less exhausted playing them. As it is, completing the side quests and exploring each region before heading to the next one feels like a chore. I feel like the split is not going to be justified by the end result - and the ~mystery regarding Sephiroth's plots, mysterious only because it's being split up over three installments, is not going to be worth the wait.

It's Time Compression. My dude is doing Time Compression But More Bigger and less relevant to his character concept, and with it my hopes of an 8 remake go swirling down the drain. No, seriously, they're just riffing 8. They're riffing 8 even more now. This is just Final Fantasy 8. Won't someone listen. They're remaking the wrong game-

There are other minor plot points that grind my gears in Rebirth, but they're all largely that - minor. I did enjoy the card game, at least.

So in the end, my main takeaway is that 7 Rebirth is an over-bloated game that tries to pretend it has more to say than it does, and while when this game shines it shines BRIGHT, most of the time it's an exhausting slog that has left me feeling more confused and disappointed than anything. I don't think the time shenanigans have actually added anything beyond fanservice, but the expansions to the existing plot points were largely really good. This game made me laugh harder than anything else this year, and it made me cry. It also made me frustrated beyond belief.

Red XIII is the best character in this game by a mile, Aerith is a close second.

I'm unlikely to replay this game - I don't have the stamina for that - but I might revisit certain cutscenes. That's about it, really.

#ac plays ff7r #ff7r spoilers #it might sound unkind to say its a waste of my time #but realistically the only things i'd want to replay are the rufus and turk fights. and the card game.

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randomrichards · 2 years

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THE TOP 10 BEST FILM OF 2022

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

GLASS ONION

Rian Johnson proves he’s still got the touch with another subversively comedic addition to the Knives Out franchise. He delivers the twisty mystery, unique characters, and witty dialogue we know and love from the predecessor. There are side splitting gags galore from the characterizations (Dave Bautista as an MRA influencer who still lives with his mom) and the dialogue (“Please tell me you don’t think sweatshops are where they make sweatpants”).

DECISION TO LEAVE

On the surface, Decision to Leave is a modern film noir about a kind detective who develops an infatuation with a femme fatale after her husband falls off the top of a mountain. But as you would expect from a Park Chan-Wook film, the film becomes something much more.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Decades after the original best picture winning classic, Edgar Berge adapts Erich Maria Remarque’s classic anti-war story of a small group of eager young Germans who enthusiastically sign up to fight during WW1 only to be destroyed by the horrors of war. Many films show the devastation of war and its traumatic effects, but this film showcases the terror of being in the battlefields.

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH

Puss competes against a group of baddies to reach a wishing star in the sequel nobody asked for that ended up being way better than it had any right to be.

First, it uses Spider-Man: Into the Spider verse’s animation technique to create an animation style that resembles illustrations come to life and create some dazzling action scenes. It also gives Puss some unforgettable villains ranging from the hilariously sociopathic Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney) to Dreamwork’s most terrifying villain the Wolf (Wagner Moura). Finally, it gives Puss some depth as he is forced to confront his mortality and how his obsession with his legacy has kept him from forming meaningful connections.

TAR

Cate Blanchett gives one of the year’s best performances as a narcissistic and well-respected composer whose actions eventually comes back to haunt her.

THE TOP 10 LIST:

10) THE MENU

Satirical Comedy and unsettling horror make strange bedfellows in this unique tale of a Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), an average woman who joins her foodie boyfriend (Nicholas Hoult) to an all exclusive dinner led by renowned chef Julian Slowick (Ralph Fiennes). What they don’t know is that Julian plans to deliver some just desserts for his latest customers.

The plot plays like a mystery. With each dish served, we try to guess what Slowick’s got planned for these elites. And Slowick’s motives grow more and more unsettling. It’s best to go in knowing as little of the movie as possible.

The actors are more than game for their respective performances. Fiennes is unsettling as a stern perfectionist who has a bone to pick with all of them. Taylor-Joy makes the perfect audience surrogate as she calls out the absurdity of the food arrangements. The rest of the cast play into the caricatures of their characters from Hong Chau as Slowick’s fanatical waitress to Janet McTeer as a pretentious critic. Hoult in particular relishes his role as a devoted know-it-all. Just the scene of him crying over tasting bread accompaniments without the bread is sure to bring a snicker.

This film ruthlessly mocks the elitist foodie culture. Most of the customers care more about the status than the meal, never just enjoying the dishes. With each dish, Slowick calls the customers out on their privileges.

Available on Disney+

9) THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

In a small village in WW1 era Ireland, Padraic Suilleabhain (Colin Farrell) and Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) spend their days enjoying glasses of Guinness at the local pub. But then one day, Colm decides he doesn’t like Padraic anymore and cuts him out of life to focus on making music. But the daft and offended Padraic can’t seem to take a hint much to Colm’s annoyance and Padraic’s spitfire sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) chagrin. The locals aren’t much help, with many prying to know more about this incoming feud..

After earning acclaim (and some awards) with his Hollywood features Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, writer/director Martin McDonagh returns to his roots and reunites his In Bruges stars Farrell and Gleason. McDonagh brings his trademark dark comedy to a folksy environment from his biting dialogue (“If punching a policeman is a sin then we may as well pack up and go home”) and surprising violence.[1] It also fits into McDonagh’s reoccurring theme of men who are unable to handle emotional moments like mature adults. While it can be devastating for a friend to sever ties with you, but Padraic can be clingy. Colm isn’t helping matters by threatening self-mutilation. Farrell and Gleason’s performances prevent these two from being unbearable. Farrell stands out by bringing a childlike eagerness and naivety that makes Padraic likeable.

At the same time, McDonagh regards these characters with empathy. He shows as much understanding for Padraic’s gratefulness for his simple life as he does with Colm’s need to create a legacy through his music.

Also, McDonagh does an excellent job of creating a sense of environment with the village. There’s also a strong sense of community in this village, with everyone knowing each other. There is also a unique set of personalities in this village, from the eccentric old Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton) to the timid Dominic Kearney (Barry Keoghan). This simple area feels like a warm and inviting home many would like to live in.

The Banshees of Inisherin is a dark delight.

8) THE BATMAN

Who would have thought that there’d be a Batman movie that could pull off the feel of a David Fincher film? But Matt Reeves (along with co-writer Peter Craig) surprises the world with DC’s answer to Se7en and Zodiac. He brings the world a young Batman (Robert Pattison) in his second year who attracts the attention of the Riddler (Paul Dano), whose killing off key political figures in Gotham City. As he tries to get to the bottom of the Riddler’s murders, Batman comes to realize how corrupt Gotham’s world truly is and is forced to confront the sins of his father.

After two dark and gritty reboots of Batman and a post-pandemic world, this version really needed to impress. And it didn’t disappoint. Reeves delivers refreshing takes on every aspect of the iconic franchise. Gotham City has never looked seedier than it does in this film, with endless rain, decaying infrastructure and array of street gangs. This Batman we get is a young man who has let his Batman persona consume his life to the point where he barely has anything to do with Bruce Wayne.[2] But the most surprising update is the complete reinvention of The Riddler. This villain goes from being one of most mocked of Batman’s rogue’s gallery to being a Zodiac-like menace who seems to be constantly 10 steps ahead of everyone[3].

All these characters work because of the performances. Pattison proves himself a worthy Batman whether he’s interrogating Oswald (Colin Farrell) or taking down an army of muggers. Paul Dano weaponizes his everyman looks to hide an intimidating and sociopathic genius behind the green mask and distorted vocals. Farrell goes beyond the heavy makeup to create a ruthless, fast-talking version of the Penguin. Zoe Kravitz’ performance is probably the most comic accurate portrayal of Catwoman, especially when it comes to her dynamic with Batman. That’s not even getting into how Jeffrey Wright and Andy Serkis perfectly capturing the essences of Jim Gordon and Alfred respectively.

There’s also way more focus on the Detective aspect of Batman than in most versions. While we do see him in some kickass action scenes, for the most part, we see the World’s Greatest Detective use his sleuthing skills to solve the Riddler’s twisted riddles and investigate crime scenes. This brings more focus on the intrigue of the mystery.

And that score. That glorious musical score. Michael Giacchino delivers an epic, booming score worthy of joining the batman scores provided by Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer.

It’s not a perfect movie. The biggest problem is the running time, which can lead to some dragging scenes that will be too much for some audiences. But the strengths of the film make up for these flaws. Here’s hoping Reeves keeps this up for the inevitable sequel.

Available on Crave

7) BOILING POINT

Writer/Director Philip Barantini seems to have taken a lesson from Uncut Gems on how to make a film feel like a relentless panic attack when he made Boiling Point; a tense drama about a stressed-out head chef (Stephen Graham) trying to get through the busiest night of the year.

Barantini and cinematographer Matthew Lewis make the risky move of shooting the whole film in a single take. It is easy for this to become gimmicky, but they use it effectively to emphasize how stressful it is to work in a restaurant. As the camera moves across the kitchen and into the dining area, it’s clear there’s no escape from the stress not even when head chef Andy Jones heads to his office to try and catch his breath. The rumbling of the kitchen as Andy sits alone in his desk makes it clear he has nowhere to hide.

Barantini also keeps the stress going by surrounding the environment with multiple clashes. The dishwasher’s upset that her replacement is hours late. The sous chefs and head waiter are at each other’s throats. Andy’s co-owner has invited a critic to dine with him. Barantini does an excellent job of balancing the multiple storylines within the short 92-minute screen time. He even manages to create some satisfying set ups and payoffs. One perfect example is a reoccurring arc with one chef whose constantly being told to roll up his sleeve. The revelation behind this arc with stay with you.

Boiling Point has a phenomenal cast who all deliver compelling performances as they scream over each other trying to get their point across. Usually typecast as the villain, Graham delivers his best performance as a man trying to keep it together while his life is going down the tubes. He makes you feel his hopelessness and overwhelming strain as he downs bottles of whisky, trying to get through the day. Even at his most self-destructive moments, you feel for him.

The result is a drama that does a better job of keeping the audience at the edge of their seat than most thrillers wished they could.

6) RRR

With the growing interest in Tollywood films, RRR makes the perfect gateway drug. Rarely in recent years has there been an action film so unapologetically epic as RRR, which has broken into the mainstream.

As with many Tollywood action films, Director S.S. Rajamouli, co-writers Vijayendra Prasad and Sai Madhave Burra along with the cast and crew take every element of the epic action flick and turn them all up to eleven. In a time when there is a call for more flawed, relatable protagonists in movies, RRR gives us a duel of superhuman action heroes performing impossible feats of agility. The opening scenes alone have rebel leader Komaram Bheem (NT Rama Rao Jr) chasing a wolf and a tiger and misguided soldier Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan Teja) leaping over a fence and fighting a whole crowd to capture one suspect. Let’s see the Fast and Furious franchise have its heroes leap over a bridge on a motorcycle or a horse and swing on a rope carrying the Indian flag to rescue a boy from a fire.

While there is a pressure for films to keep any messages nuanced and subtle, RRR serves as a three hour middle finger to the British Empire. That empire is embodied by the mustache twirling Scott and Catherine Buxton (Ray Stevenson and Alison Doody) who literally kidnap a little girl and kill the mother in the first scene. There would have been a danger of the villains being cringe, but Stevenson and Doody savour their villainy like a classic Disney villain. Even they get in on the over the top violence, with Mr. Buxton firing a machine gun while flying out a crashing car. It makes their downfall more satisfying.

If that isn’t enough, RRR also has musical numbers as epic as the action scenes. They manage to appear in the unlikeliest of moments like a motorcycle/horse race and one character being tortured with a whip. Most notable standout is a dance off between the heroes and one snobby British soldier.

But at its core, RRR is a story about a friendship between two men who don’t realize that one’s supposed to arrest the other and a tale about a tribal leader on a mission to rescue a little girl from rich captors. The fact this film makes us care about story and keep the audience hooked over its long screentime shows the power of this epic.

Available on Netflix

5) THE NORTHMAN

After taking the horror genre by storm with The Witch and The Lighthouse, writer/director Robert Eggers gives us something completely different with The Northman. In contrast to his previous low budget A24 arthouse horror flicks, Egger’s latest is a big budget epic historical action flick. It may be his most accessible film, but that doesn’t stop him from bringing his boundary pushing style into this film.

The Northman is Hamlet-like revenge tale of Almeth (Alexander Skarsgaard), a Viking prince who seeks vengeance on his uncle Fjolnier (Claes Bang) who kills his father King Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke) and marries his mother Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman). After years in exile, Prince Amleth disguises himself as a slave and enlists the help of an enchantress (Anya Taylor-Joy) to bring down the King Fjolnier the Brotherless.

Eggers brings a refreshing take on the Viking historical drama with his trademark style. Like his previous films, Eggers (along with his co-worker Sjon) goes out of his way to make his stories as historically accurate as possible. As a result, we get the ugliest side of the Viking life. The images of people in chains makes it clear that Amleth’s family owns slaves. When Amleth’s in exile, he joins a group of Vikings in pillaging and terrorizing innocent people. In one horrifying scene, those Vikings trap women and children in a cottage and burn it down. Keep in mind that the protagonist watches this happen.

What’s strange is that Eggers also includes fantastical moments that draws from Norse Mythology. The result is otherworldly imagery of Amleth meeting with the Seeress (Bjork). It doesn’t seem like this should work, but somehow these elements make strange bedfellows.

Unlike his previous films, Eggars doesn’t go for historically accuracy with the dialogue. As a result, the audience has a better grasp of what the characters are saying. The dialogue is still kind of Shakespearean but just enough to the characters are still easy to understand.

Of course, the action scenes are awesome with the blood and dismemberment you expect from an R-rated movie with Vikings. It leads to a most metal ending with Amleth and his uncle going head-to-head in a volcano in their birthday suits.

With this film bombing at the box office, it’s doubtful Eggers will ever have the means to make a film as epic as this one.

Available on Crave

4) GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO

2022 was the strange year where we got three Pinocchio movies in a row. After listening to Pauly Shore butcher lines and Disney butcher their original classic, most moviegoers knew Guillermo Del Toro’s stop motion version would be the best one by default. But even without the other two films, there would still be major anticipation for Del Toro’s first animated feature film. With his trademark fleshed out mythology, creative character designs and compelling storytelling, many expected him to perfectly capture the macabre tone of Carlo Collodi’s tale. What we got is a refreshing take on the classic take on the wooden boy who longs to be a real boy.

Del Toro (alongside codirector Mark Gustafson and co-writers Patrick McHale and Matthew Robbins) perfectly balances capturing the story’s dark tone and core storyline while changing many elements of the story. This Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) is a lot closer to the disobedient troublemaker of the original story than Disney’s sweet but gullible character. Like Collodi’s tale, this story has our hero causing grief for his creator/father Geppetto (David Bradley), being led astray by crooks and trouble making teens only to suffer the repercussions before the climax of trying to escape from inside the whale. It even includes both the Christian undertones of the original story and even its dark comedy (among them a reoccurring gag of Sebastian the Cricket (Ewan McGregor) constantly being squashed.) It also borrows a bit from the Disney version with the Blue Fairy (Tilda Swinton) bringing the puppet to life and the cricket trying to guide him.

But this film also makes a lot of changes from the original story. First, Del Toro sets the film in Italy during Mussolini’s reign. Not only does this fit into Del Toro’s reoccurring theme of life under fascism, but it brings nuance to the original story’s message of obeying your parents. While the film does have Pinocchio deal with consequences for misbehaving, the film also shows the dangers of blinding obeying those in power and makes the case that disobedience is necessary when it involves doing the right thing. The film also fleshes out the characters to bring complexity. While Pinocchio is still a disobedient troublemaker, he also has his heart in the right place and will stick up for others. Geppetto is a broken man grieving the loss of his dead son Carlo (also Mann). Sebastian is a wannabe writer who makes his home in Pinocchio’s chest. Del Toro also brings in an array of unique characters from ruthless ringmaster Count Volpe (Christoph Walz) to terrifying fascist enforcer Podesta (Ron Pearlman). All the actors do excellent jobs of making their characters engaging, especially Mann.

Co-Director Mark Gustafson perfectly brings Del Toro’s trademark style into the animation world, resulting in some unique visuals. Pinocchio has never looked more wooden with spiky wooden hair, tiny black dotted eyes, and multiple nails in his back. The Blue fairy aka the wood sprite (also Swinton) is this otherworldly blend of Hari Krishna and a mermaid. Death is this sphinxlike creature in a world of blue sand. What’s most notable is how the settings and character design resemble classic storybook illustrations come to life.

The film is also a musical, with songs created by composer Alexandre Desplat alongside Del Toro and lyricist Roeban Katz. The old timey style perfectly serves to further the narrative and reveal more about the characters, but they don’t stand out the way Encanto’s songs did. The one exception is “Ciao Papa.” When Pinocchio pours his heart out to his long distant father, you can feel that longing so much it may bring you to tears.

No wonder many see this as the front runner for the Best Animated Feature Oscar.

Available on Netflix

3) AFTERSUN

Most filmmakers try to make their films memorable. Aftersun is a rare film that feels like a memory.

On the surface, it’s a simple story of a single Dad (Paul Mescal) and his daughter (Frankie Corio) taking a trip to a Turkish beachside resort. There is no real plot. No central conflict. It’s just segments of a father and daughter on vacation. At least, that’s what it seems like at first. Hidden in plain sight are signs of the father hiding some personal pain from his daughter.

In her debut feature, writer/director Charlotte Wells takes us into segments of this vacation, even replaying some moments on camcorder. The result is a film that feels like we’re entering the daughter’s memories as she tries to understand her father.

The strength of Wells’ filmmaking is how she avoids the temptation to dramatize any element of the plot in favour of making it as naturalistic as possible. Never does she make it clear what the dad’s going through. You only get the most subtle of hints. She only applies any artistry with the ending that will stay in your mind long after the credits roll.

That’s helped by the performances by the two leads. Mescal and Corio bounce off each other perfectly, making us believe they are an actual family. They both also maintain low key naturalization throughout the film.

Put all these together and you get an unassuming drama that stays with you long after the credits roll.

2) (TIE) BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND, GOLDEN DELICIOUS AND YOU WILL LIVE FOREVER

I admit that I have a habit of putting ties in my lists, not helped by me including a three-way tie in this one. But these 3 films have so much in common that I felt they deserve to be put together. Well, that and these are probably the least known films on this list, and I feel they deserve more attention.

All three are Canadian films centered on LBGT teens who move into new locations, which leads to developing deep relationships. They’re similar yet different. The most important commonality are the compelling stories of relatable, flawed young people trying to fit into their world and figure out what they really want in life in the process.

First, we have Before I Change My Mind. Set in 1987, the movie centres on Robin (Vaughn Murrae), a non-binary preteen who moves to a small Albertan town from the US with their father (Matthew Rankin). There are of course questions from the students what Robin’s gender is. To fit in, Robin tries to befriend the school bully Carter (Dominic Lippa). On one hand, it makes it easier for Robin to form friends. On the other, it leads to Robin making misguided decisions.

Director Trevor Anderson and co-writer Fish Griwkowsky capture the everyday life of preteens as they make snide comments during music class, pick fights with each other and just hanging around in the living room. What makes this film special is how it captures the difficulties of being a preteen. Robin and their classmates try their best to fit in with their peers. Sometimes it can be found in healthy activities like hanging around in the mall. Other times it comes from misguided decisions including sneaking into their parents alcohol or in one student’s case, completely changing his personality after being bullied.

The film also captures the frustration of dealing with emerging emotions you have no understanding of and now healthy means of channeling them. That’s especially true with Robin who has no idea of their own gender identity since non-binary wasn’t a common term in the 80s. As a result, they become targets for fellow classmates who keep demanding to know if they are a boy or a girl.. Being non-binary themselves, Murrae makes the audience feel how lost Robin feels. Anderson and Griwkowsky do an excellent job of using subtext to capture this feeling. And they never offer any easy answers.

There are also some funny moments in the film. When gym class separates the boys and girls, Robin sits in the middle. Robin and Carter try to convince a drag queen (dressed like Madonna) to buy them beers. But the comedic high point is the school’s disastrous rock musical rip-off of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Next, we have Golden Delicious. Jake (Cardi Wong) seemed to be living the perfect teen life as a basketball player whose relationship with his girlfriend Valerie (Parmiss Sehat) is popular on social media. But he finds his life turned upside down when new student Aleks (Chris Carson) moves next door. As Jake and Aleks both train for the basketball team, Jake is forced to confront the pressure his father George (Ryan Mah) places on him.

Director Jason Karman (through Gorrman Lee’s screenplay) channels his youth to capture the pressure of having to live up to expectations. Jake tries his best to please his father, despite not being the best skilled in the team. Georges’s pressure is embodied by the old, decaying basketball hoop he forces Jake to practice on. Through Aleks, Jake’s confronted with the fact that he has never learned to live for himself.

Lee also fleshes out Jake’s family, who is dealing with their own pressure. George and his wife Andrea (Leeah Wong) are trying to keep their Chinese restaurant afloat, but the stress of running the restaurant has taken its toll on Andrea. When their daughter Janet (Claudia Kai) discusses her interest in being a chef, Andrea tries to forbid her. Janet has her own arc where Janet tries to create her late grandma’s dishes. This family feels so achingly human and relatable.

Of course, there’s excellent chemistry between Wong and Carson as their characters build from a friendship into a relationship.

And finally, we have You Can Live Forever. Rebellious teen Jaime (Anwen O’Driscoll) is forced to live with her aunt Beth (Liane Balaban) while her mother recollects herself after her husband’s death. Beth is a Jehovah’s Witness whose husband Francois (Antoine Yared) hopes to be the leader of his congregation. While being forced to attend sermons, Jaime develops a friendship with fellow devout Marike (June Laporte). Soon that develops into something more, which is risky in a homophobic fringe community.

A romantic film like these lives and dies on the chemistry between the leads. When two leads have such differing personalities/worldviews, it’s very important that the two leads have convincing chemistry for the relationship to make sense. O’Driscoll and Laporte pull that off beautifully, conveying a warm intimacy between Jaime and Marike as they hide in plain sight with little intimate gestures. It helps that both actresses make their characters feel like real people. O’Driscoll portrays Jaime as a typical teen whose big glasses and grunge wardrobe hides a slightly rebellious teen frustrated at being stuck in a situation outside of her control. Laporte makes Marike a timid girl devoted to her religion yet forms an infatuation with Jaime. Writer/Directors Mark Slutsky and Sarah Watts avoid the temptation of melodrama in favour of grounded empathy. They allow us to understand what Marike finds in her faith while showing how it can be stifling for Jaime.

All three deliver achingly human stories of young people trying to find what they truly want in life.

1) EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

In a time when franchises consume movie theatres, Everything, Everywhere All at Once came out of nowhere to deliver an everything bagel the zeitgeist can sink its teeth into.

Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) finds herself dissatisfied with her life as a struggling Laundromat owner, further aggravated by her goofball husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), her contentious relationship with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) and her overly critical father (James Hong). If that wasn’t bad enough, she’s being audited by the IRS, forcing her to deal with an austere IRS agent (Jamie Lee Curtis). Suddenly, Evelyn finds Waymond possessed by an alternate version of himself and Evelyn’s tasked with saving multiple universes from the mysterious and all powerful villain known as Jobu.

The Dynamic Duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert already proved their originality with their music video Turn Down for What and their feature film debut Swiss Army Man. Who would have thought they could create an existential tale of a mother daughter relationship involving googly eyes, hot dog fingers and a ratatouille parody?

As you expect from the Daniel’s previous works, it delivers on the weird and hilarious imagery (often involving leud objects). One minute, Waymond is gluing googly eyes on everything, and the next he’s taking down security guards with a fanny pack. That’s just one of many examples of the creative and well-choreographed fights scenes the Daniel’s have in store for the viewers. Only they could image fight scenes either involving Waymond intentionally giving himself paper cuts or henchmen trying to shove a trophy up where the sun don’t shine.

With moments like these, you would never expect anything profound in the film. And yet, the Daniels somehow balances these silly moments with deep, philosophical themes. Evelyn comes to realize how the little choices she made in life can have major outcomes after glimpsing versions of herself as a famous actress, a kung fu artist and a chef. Her journey also forces her to reexamine her perceptions of her husband and reconcile her relationship with her daughter. The battle between Evelyn and Jobu shows how perception can alter how one handles the meaningless of life. It’s surprising how deep this film can get.

The result is a cinematic miracle that delivers a truly unique experience.

Available on Prime Video

[1] When Colm threatens to cut off his fingers if Padraic talks to him again, you know a finger’s going to come off at some point.

[2] So consumed that he only has around 3-4 scenes as Bruce Wayne. It’s funny. In his Godzilla reboot, he barely showed the iconic monster on screen. For The Batman, we get all the caped crusader we could ever want.

[3][3] He also seems to be doing a better job of getting rid of corruption than Batman is.

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dvandom · 4 months

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Isekai commonalities

After giving a fair amount of thought to the matter, I think there's three main points that separate isekai from similar story types such as voyages of exploration.

The setting is substantially different from what the protagonist(s) are used to. Not merely a difference in culture, there's differences in how the world is assumed to work (magic, higher technology, psi, nonhuman sapients, etc).

The protagonist(s) arrives in a manner that is unusual and/or unintentional. They may be able to find their way back later for sequels, or even open up regular transport, although that changes the nature of the story if they do so.

The protagonist(s) brings one or more assets that are rare or absent in the world where they find themselves. This could be as simple is a fresh outlook on the situation which lets them find solutions the locals wouldn't think of, or something more overt like magical powers gained during the journey or enough knowledge to introduce technology to a low-tech world.

The rest is negotiable. The protagonist may remain in their own body, may be reborn in the local equivalent (such as Flynn in Tron), or be reborn as an entirely new person/monster/vending machine. It could be one-way (especially if they didn't so much take the bus as get run over by one), the story could end with returning home, or there could even be repeated visits during the course of which the protagonist has to decide how to split their time or if they should settle down in just one (Dorothy and Oz).

Point 3 does exclude some older stories that might be considered proto-isekai, such as Rip Van Winkle (1. The Future, 2. Magical Sleep) who doesn't really bring anything to the party IIRC. Fairy ring stories do hit all three points because mortals have flaws and virtues that the fair folk lack.

This whole line of thought was kicked off by someone else realizing that Big Trouble in Little China was an isekai, and I think it hits all three of my points, although #3 is a bit oblique.

Chinatown is not just culturally foreign to Jack Burton, there's the whole, "Oh yeah, there's actual magic here," thing.

Jack really just blunders into the whole thing. He didn't mean to get mixed up in Lo Pan's low plans or even spend a lot of time in Little China.

What does he bring? A fool's own luck and an outsider's arrogance, which end up breaking so many carefully laid plans through stupid good fortune. He does the thing the plan never anticipated because no one would be so STUPID.

Of course, Jack doesn't reincarnate, or even really change a whole lot thanks to his experience. He returns to his normal life on the road at the end (albeit with the promise of more weirdness in his near future). And frankly no one would believe his story.

Isekai can be further subdivided into categories alluded to above.

Odyssey: The goal is to get home, even if they never do. (Odyssey itself, Star Trek Voyager, Farscape, Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, etc.)

Just Visiting: Getting home may be a secondary goal, but there's something they want to do while in the other world, and are given reason to believe they can get home reasonably easily any time they really want. (A lot of the fairy ring stuff, Randolph Carter's dream quests, Tron.)

That Time I Got Reincarnated: For whatever reason, going home is not an option. Either literal reincarnation following death, a voluntary exile, or something else. The key point is that the story focuses on what to do now in this other world, because it's home now. (Star Trek Discovery they know they can't go home, all of the Truck-kun stories in modern Japanese-flavored isekai.)

First Contact: All of the isekai points are hit, but eventually the story progresses to the point that the two worlds become more connected and it stops being an isekai to travel between them. The 1980s Transformers cartoon started off as an isekai for the Cybertronians, but by the third season Earth has diplomatic relations with Cybertron and travel between the worlds is fairly normal if still uncommon and expensive.

#isekai #story theory

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mayordeas-clone · 7 months

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i just finished my second playthrough of octopath traveler 2. probably gonna ramble a bit in response. there will be spoilers perchance. (huge emphasis on ramble because i really am just saying whatever shoots out of my ass)

the epilogue gets me really emotional for some reason. the scene where the travelers part ways, each leaving in the reverse order you recruited them. oouuggh. i am in pain. i know ill be keeping them together for eternity while i attempt to beat galdera in this run, but the reality that these guys all have different ambitions in life and therefore they need to split off eventually to pursue those ambitions makes it a very bittersweet finale. at least there’s the class reunion at the very end, but still OOUUGHH THIS GAME MAKES ME ILL IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE

on that note, the fact that there’s a proper ending, a proper sequence where the travelers talk to each other and reminisce on their journey and eventually part ways AT ALL really makes this experience special and a cut above the previous game.

bc it reminded me of just how strange the ending fight aftermath of OT1 was. like after you beat the true final boss of that game, pretty much nothing happens. like you get the ending sequence with kit saying thanks but then the game hands you your prize money and now there’s nothing left to do. the travelers just don’t give a FUCK. there’s also the issue of the travelers from that game never interacting or discussing amongst themselves about the revelations learned in the gate of finis; granted, octopath 2 is not flawless in this regard either (like, agnea witnesses a flashback involving tanzy being fuckin sacrificed to extinguish the flamechurch torch and had absolutely no comment) but it was pretty bad in octopath 1. the whole questline to unlock the true final boss is hidden in a chain of sidequests that quietly unlock after beating everyone’s story, whereas in the sequel, it’s a proper sequence the game tells you about and encourages you to prepare for. so i really appreciate the strides the sequel took to tie the overarching story and links between all of the travelers’ quests more tightly. it really makes me feel like all of the travelers are actually pals who decided to travel together and help each other achieve their many missions and goals, and when that’s all over there’s an actual ENDING. TO THE STORY. the strangeness imo of octopath 1’s final battle is that the journey doesn’t feel over even though it definitely is. you know what i mean?

i also just. ADOREEEE the cast of this game. i did like a few characters in the first game like Tressa, Alfyn, and Therion, but again the fact that they never interact outside of missible (and to be honest forgettable) travel banters and NEVER as a collective unit made it harder for me to get attached to them as a whole. were they even friends with each other lol? who knows. plus i feel like a lot of them were kinda pretty basic rpg archetypes? like i found ophelia to be extremely boring bc she feels like the basic cutout of what a nice healer character should be without many extra wrinkles to her to make me interested (though it has been a while since i’ve played the first game). of course, octopath 2 is no stranger to archetypes (no piece of fiction is tbh) but i just feel like there was more emphasis on making the individual travelers and their stories more interesting. octopath 1 laid the groundwork with the ‘eight characters, eight stories that all secretly connect by the end’ concept (plus the GOOD ASS BATTLE SYSTEM) so the sequel could polish it into a nice, respectable shine. it makes me giddy looking back on the ways octopath 2 improved on the flaws of the first game. because i LOVVED the original octopath, but the sequel captured everything i loved and added more stuff. ITS GOOD. ITS VERY GOOD. ALL OF THE NEW TRAVELERS ARE MY BELOVEDS!!!!!!!!

it’s probably a cliché thing to bring up at this point, but the difference in ways the two games handle their eight-character cast and how they interact with each other is oddly reflective in the respective games’ box art. like, the first octopath had all the characters walking in one direction, their own path, all parallel to each other. whereas in octopath 2’s case, they’re all hangin out!!! isn’t that swell! :D

i also liked the improvement of the boss battles that bookend each traveler’s story in terms of their relevance to the individual stories. namely, i like how all of the travelers have a dialogue break between phases (the bosses have distinct phases now! makes them feel more separated from the ones leading up to them). ppl really liked when ophelia talked to mattais during her fight, or therion talking to darius, and now everyone has a personal one-on-one with their final boss. this couldn’t be done with all of them in octopath 1 since some were unspeaking monsters (though ochette was able to pull that off in this game) or opponents that only appeared so the travelers could solve a specific problem (like tressa and alfyn), so no previous attachment was there. in general i love how all the final bosses had some kind of connection to the travelers, big or small.

ochette feels remorse and sympathy for the darkling since it became corrupted because she didn’t choose it as her companion as a child. castti feeling betrayed by trousseau losing his way and becoming nihilistic and genocidal. or throné losing her marbles after finding out the truth of the blacksnakes, and her palpable RAGE during her fight against claude, the only thing motivating her is seeing him dead and breaking the vicious cycle he birthed. osvald’s is obvious because harvey is a mega-bastard, but when you fully boost as osvald during that fight he screams “HARVEY!!” which is super satisfying (oh, and i absolutely love how this game adds in special lines for certain bosses, adds a more personalized touch to each traveler’s boss encounters~). partitio clawing his way to topple roque’s greed and monopoly on technology he believes could change the world forever. THE FUCKING DANCE OFF BETWEEN AGNEA AND DOLCINEA. OOUUGHGGH THE SONG OF HOPE PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND TOO 😫😫😫😫 MY FAVORITE SONG IN THE OST. temenos also feels a bit of vengeance facing off against kaldena, given she was responsible for the deaths of two people he was very close to. and lastly there’s hikari, who fought and lost much to reach the moment he can finally confront his tyrannical brother.

it’s so scrumptious. not to mention the way each character’s theme is woven into the final boss theme during the second phase. actual galactic brain move on the part of yasunori nishiki and everyone else apart of the creation of this game’s ost. i love how there’s a greater emphasis (and consistency) of each character’s theme, namely in how their battle preludes actually take from their character theme rather than just being something else that uses similar instruments. it’s another thing that was really cool and unique from octopath 1 and now made even better and more impactful in the sequel. i especially love osvald’s theme, every iteration of it. the way it’s combined with ‘journey for the dawn’ is actual peak.

um what else…… i guess i kind of alluded to this earlier but the way the stories intertwine is much stronger in this game which made connecting everything together really satisfying. it helps that this sequence is an actual part of the road to reaching the Ending of the game (the credits! i think the credits rolled in the last game when you beat your protagonist’s story. which is kind of crazy town to me looking back…) rather than unlocked through a chain of sidequests (im still not over that im sorry). the moonshade order’s members exist throughout all of the characters’ stories, whether they’re the puppet masters at the top (oboro, arcannette, and claude) or people that were manipulated into the cause (trousseau and tanzy) or simply loyal followers (petrichor, harvey, and ori). the presence of The Shadow, mentioned in 6/8 stories, laying hints to the overarching evil before this final chapter sequence begins. ooooohgh it’s so cool. i wish i could experience the final chapter for the first time again, i remember being so excited going through it (down to all eight travelers talking to each other at the beginning!!!!!!!). i know the final chapter isn’t perfect since a lot of the information is given through Reading rather than actual cutscenes (and again, tanzy’s involvement with the moonshade order and her death elicits zero reaction from anyone that met her), and tbh it would have been cool if we actually fought some of the other remaining members akin to the battle with arcannette (i know the monster near the toto’haha torch is implied to be petrichor, but she’s the only member that never met any of the travelers, and it would have been cool to confront her outright).

this would be where i put my whole rant about agnea and partitio's stories and their relevance to the grand story, but i made it its own post! you can read it here if you want to consume more of my octopath brainworms.

woooh that’s all i have to say. apologies for the text wall, it will probably get longer when i conjure more thoughts </3

i love this game, it’s very good even though it’s very easy to break the battles in half.

#mayor talk #8path 2 #octopath traveler 2 #octopath 2

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still-a-morosexual-help · 2 years

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Top 5 crack thoughts you’ve had

In general???? Because there's so many? Do dreams count because all my dreams are so so weird?

In the end, I decided to go with fic ideas that may get eventually written but probably will just live in my head

5. So I have a mammon x mc fic called Interlude which takes place between S1 & S2 and a kinda sequel to it called From the Other Side which takes place between S2 & S3. In the 2nd fic MC's got a better apartment because they've got a roommate who Mammon notes makes the apartment smell flowery, despite not being present in the fic. This roommate absolutely belongs to a cult of exorcists and every once in a while MC walks in to their flat to find a poor demon, angel or just any other supernatural being (sometimes it's just a plain old human) tied to a chair in their living room inside. MC reacts to this with their typical "My life is already so goddamned weird this might as well happen" attitude

4. Little Mermaid AU! Levi makes a deal with the sea witch (solomon) so he can go buy anime merch, he makes the deal despite the fact that 4 of his brothers who had previously gone to said sea witch for various reasons never returned home. Levi gets turned into a human and literall fish outta water shenanigans occur, he does make reluctantly make friends with a human (MC) who lives in the little beach side town. MC also has a particularly thieving crow friend

3. MC, Mammon, Beel & Levi go to comic con or something similar. Levi & Beel immediately split off, MC & Mammon stick together. The whole fic follows the three different storylines. Levi's trying to buy a very rare collectible item shit spirals outta control & he meets up in a rush with the others at the entrance saying they need to get outta there quick, clutching the box but also covered in bloody handprints and with ripped clothes. Beel ends up in some kinda eating or taste testing competition but ends up going overboard and happily eating objects that human beings definitely cannot eat, he too ends up at the entrace needing to quickly run from the place. Mammon & MC notice people lots of people looking at Mammon & eventually realise they live in a world where Wizardess Heart (created, unknown to them, by Simeon) is a MUCH bigger deal - meaning Zeus Brundle is MUCH more commonly recognisable - the two of them then get together to Scheme™. And yes they too end up having to run from the angry masses

2. Human AU? Where Lucifer is the long suffering single father of his 7 kids (Lilith included). I imagine it having a very Malcolm in the Middle-esque vibe? Lois & Lucifer are so close to being the exact same character. This has been rotating in my head for a whole year - so many of the malcolm in the middle scenes would fit with the brothers😭

1. I actually wrote this one and after Certified Idiots (which is mammon x mc) it's got the most kudos which I'm stupidly proud of : Harley asks Batman to be her bridesmaid when she marries Ivy. One of my favourite comments & one that has stuck with me for years is from this fic where the person said the fic played in their head like a demented cartoon which yeah that was absolutely the vibe I was going for

#asks #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me!#shall we date? obey me!#swd obey me #shall we date obey me #swd obey me!

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sheliesshattered · 8 months

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My window to order was starting to narrow, so I finally pulled the trigger on the Captain Accreditation License prop I'd been eyeing for my Batuu Bound birthday outing coming up. It's such a silly little detail, but the reviews are filled with people talking about getting to use it in Galaxy's Edge when the Stormtroopers stop them to ask to see some identification, which sounds like a fun interaction. And like, I can make a great deal of soft kit, I can even put together my own greebles out of foam -- but laser engraving is way outside my wheelhouse and tool access.

But before I could order it, I had to come up with a bunch of info to go on it, like name, home planet, ship type, that sort of thing. I had a basic idea of what sort of character I wanted to portray with my outfit for Batuu, but filling out the info for the pilot's license really made me lock down a bunch of details, which eventually evolved into full on original character creation.

It also got me started in learning to read Aurebesh, the Star Wars transliteration alphabet, but that's a whole other rabbit hole, lol.

Character wise, I started with my absolute love of piloting the Falcon in Smuggler's Run (my desire to do so again was one of the major reasons for deciding to do this for my birthday) and my fav in the sequel movies, Benicio Del Toro's "D.J." character. (The very brief political commentary about weapons manufacturers profiting off both sides of the war, and his little "live free, don't join" axiom are just so amazing, I still cannot believe we got that in a Star Wars movie.)

I also took into account that the timeframe for Galaxy's Edge is between Ep 8 and Ep 9, in roughly 34 or 35 ABY (years after the Battle of Yavin, at the end of Ep 4), and that I want to do the lightsaber building activity at Savi's Workshop the day we visit. The Etsy listing for the license also had an interesting little note about choosing a homeworld, calling out that 'because of well-known galactic events' Alderaan would only be an option for characters over the age of 40 or so. That comment got my mental gears turning, and sent me down the path of researching the year that Disney's Batuu is set in, etc.

At that same time, I was trying out different potential hairstyles for keeping my waist-length hair controlled during a day at Disneyland while still looking Star Wars-y. I tried a couple of Rey inspired hair styles, but eventually settled on something much more like Leia's looks in Ep 5 and Ep 6, with multiple braids wrapped around the crown to form a full circle. It's easy and comfortable and will keep my hair from tangling and works well with my hooded wrap thing, so I decided that hairstyle would be part of my look, and part of my character building.

So at that point I had: pilot, politically unaffiliated, soon to own a lightsaber, emulating Princess Leia and/or Alderaanian hairstyles, and grew up mostly after the fall of the Empire and probably wouldn't remember (or only just barely remember) the destruction of Alderaan. On that last point I was splitting the difference slightly -- if I translated my real age now into the Star Wars timeline (and Galaxy's Edge being set in ~35 ABY), then I would have been roughly 8 years old when Alderaan was destroyed. But in reality, I was born shortly after Ep 5 came out, and my earliest memories of Star Wars are knowing all about the movies, playing Star Wars make-believe with other kids in the neighborhood, and being excited that Ep 4 was going to be airing on TV.

After a lot of noodling on this, while sewing or driving or trying to fall asleep, the character started to come together in my head. Her mother was born and raised on Alderaan, but around age 20 (in 2 or 3 BBY, roughly) met a dashing young pilot on a freighter passing through, fell in love, and left Alderaan to be with him. They got married and lived mostly in the hyperspace lanes for a couple years, jumping from place to place. When she found out she was pregnant, she temporarily went back to Alderaan to be with her family and have her baby there. In the last year before the Battle of Yavin, she had a baby girl she named Samæni Ray, and after a few weeks she and the baby left Alderaan to meet up with her husband again.

So none of them were on Alderaan when the Death Star targeted and destroyed the planet. In the wake of the tragedy, the Alderaanian diaspora would have pulled together all across the galaxy, trying to get word of anyone who might have survived. And then, a miracle: Princess Leia somehow survived! The princess that Samæni's mother had grown up idolizing from afar, someone similar to her in age and physical appearance (pictures of my real mother from the 1970s bear a striking resemblance to Carrie Fisher in the same time period) -- the princess that Samæni's mother had loved for as long as she could remember, she not only survived but she stepped up to lead the Resistance against the Empire!

You know those people in real life who like, collected merchandise about Princess Diana? Yeah, that's Samæni's mom, but with Princess Leia, lol.

The war to overthrow the Empire only lasted for another 5 years or so, ending with the Battle of Jakuu in 5 ABY. So I figure Samæni might have vague early childhood memories of her parents celebrating the end of the war. They weren't actively members of the Resistance, and Samæni's father was much more politically neutral, preferring to focus on his work as a freighter pilot, but as far as Samæni's mother was concerned, anything Princess Leia did was a blessing on the galaxy, so it would have been a big deal for her, both during the war and in the years after as the New Republic was established.

During those early years of the New Republic, Samæni's father's freight business continued to do well, and she mostly grew up in her family's Gozanti-class cruiser, as they moved things from one planet to the next. She learned to pilot at her father's side, eventually sat for a pilot's license exam as a young adult, and then struck out on her own. Samæni's first job as a pilot was for a company that operated light freighters as party ships, allowing those with modest disposable income to see the galaxy in style but without the expense of a yacht cruiser. (The company probably had a ridiculous tagline like: "From here to thar with an open bar!")

Since those early jobs-for-hire, Samæni saved up enough money to buy her own little light freighter and start an inport/export business in which she (and her partner Jack) go to outer rim worlds to buy antiquities, oddities, and rare objects and bring them back to an upper-middle class clientele in the core worlds and inner rim. Their current ship is a bit of an antique itself, a Kazellis-class light freighter that is flashy enough to fit in in the nicer areas of Coruscant, but hard-working and easily repairable enough to take Samæni and Jack to all those far-flung worlds with treasures to acquire. Their ship has room for some larger pieces, but most of the cargo area has been converted into full-time living quarters, since they rarely stay planet-side for very long.

Their home-port is the ecumenoplis planet of Denon, an inner-rim world that sits at the intersection of two major hyperspeed trade routes. Denon was the closest thing to a homeworld that Samæni had growing up, and her parents have since retired to the equatorial area of the planet, in a community with a lot of other retired pilots and haulers and ship mechanics. (Her father's favorite local cantina is named for the CEC catalog part number for a replacement hyperdrive lever. He and all his old pilot buddies think it is hilarious.)

Samæni's mother continues to talk about Princess Leia like they are close friends (despite never actually having met her), and keeps informed on the rise of the First Order and the resistance to it mostly because she has set up HoloNet news alerts for General Organa. But Samæni takes more after her father in that regard, doesn't particularly care about politics or taking sides in any civil war, other than how it impacts business. The destruction of the Hosnian system by the First Order's Starkiller Base is enough to push Samæni towards siding against the First Order, but she still isn't about to rush out to join the Resistance, either.

Her pilot's license lists Denon as her homeworld, and it would take some dedicated digging to find that her planet of birth is actually Alderaan. She only lived there for the first few weeks of her life, and her only memory of it is how sad it's always made her mother. The traditional hairstyles and the stories about Princess Leia are really the only parts of the culture that she inherited. Samæni has never wanted to talk about being from Alderaan with anyone, and as the Empire's successor has come to power in the last few years, it's seemed even more dangerous to let anyone outside of close friends and family know that she is technically a survivor of the last time a galactic power was going around destroying planets.

Samæni and Jack are heading to the outer rim world of Batuu to visit Dok Ondar's Den of Antiquities, and follow up on a tip about Savi's crew of 'scrap metal' gatherers, in case there's something there that might sell well on a core world. Arriving to find that both the Resistance and the First Order have a presence in Black Spire Outpost will be less than ideal, but Samæni and Jack have been to enough rough ports across the galaxy that they know how to keep their heads down and stay out of trouble.

And hey, if First Order troopers stop to ask them for ID, Samæni will have a genuine pilot's license to show them. ;)

#Batuu Bounding #Star Wars original character #2024 mood #my original characters #Samæni Ray #Samaeni Ray #pronounced sa-MAHN-ee #the spelling was a whole thing -- I didn't want it to be a real-world name or place AND to look good written in Aurebesh #but there's an Aurebesh letter for the combined ae vowel sound that makes it 6 letters long instead of 7 #and with that spelling the only real-world thing that comes up with a google of it is an Icelandic word. I can live with that #I haven't done character building like this since I was originally preparing for Wasteland Weekend #the process is fun and I love the way that it informs the corresponding clothing/costume design #and in that sense this post is relevant to:#hooded wrap #Batuu vest #scrappy sweatshirt project #which I started yesterday but haven't taken any pictures of yet #info on that coming soon #and also relevant to the tag I was using before I decided on my character's name:#my SW/BB OC #I think it's still in my queue but there's a post I've reblogged with that tag on it #that talks about how Leia's survival of the destruction of Alderaan would have been viewed by people outside her immediate circle #that post also helped jumpstart a lot of my thinking about Samæni's parents #who no -- do not actually have names at this point. but hey it's fun to have places to continue to develop the backstory #I also want to come up with a name for Samæni and Jack's Kazellis-class ship #Jack said 'Ravencrest' half joking but I think that might stick lol

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peregrineggsandham · 1 year

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Been playing Dark Souls I for the first time, blind. It's my first-ever Soulsborne game but after really enjoying other games that have been compared to Dark Souls for a variety of reasons (encouraging exploration, interconnected world, lore/plot that is drip-fed through sparse dialogue and item descriptions, combat that is challenging but fundamentally fair, environmental storytelling, themes of light/dark not necessarily corresponding one-to-one with good/evil, "dark fantasy" setting in general, secrets upon secrets upon secrets) I decided to give it a shot.

Have been completely blind so please no spoilers, even though this game is now 12 years old. All I know about the lore is... uh... Aviators music. Really enjoying having context for songs I've loved for years. Fading Light really hits now, it's awesome.

Thoughts below.

[Edit: an absolute shit-ton of thoughts below, sorry y'all, it just kept going.]

...I am loving this game, y'all. I understand why it's a classic and damn, I think I'm gonna end up playing through the whole series. Eventually. Too bad Bloodborne doesn't have a PC port, because I hear it has a more explicitly Lovecraftian vibe and I am here for that aesthetic.

...Will say that this is entirely blind save for one googling which amounted to "hey I consistently suck at bosses that require me to split my focus because I have a hard time tracking moving things on a screen, but... Ornstein and Smough are a pain in the ass for everyone, right? right? they are exactly the kind of boss I tend to be very bad at but it isn't just me right??"

(very glad to see the answer was yes, finally gave in and summoned another player for help. Thank you Percy, whoever you are. I think I could beat them solo, I was getting either of them in their giant forms to about half-health pretty consistently, but by then it had been far, far too many hours and I have real-world things to do, I really couldn't spare the time to keep trying. for now. maybe later.)

(felt kinda bad about it for a bit but then with the Lordvessel in hand holy fuck I have fast travel now and it feels amazing I went into the magma-y depths and took care of the... whats-his-name, the guy who acted just like the Stray Demon. Having beat the Stray Demon, it only took a couple tries, and then I one-shot the one after it, whom I think was called the Centipede Demon but whom I have dubbed Crawly.)

Currently throwing myself at the Bed of Chaos, who feels more "environmental hazard" than "boss" but after the rest of the... gauntlet?... kind of a nice break.

(Admittedly I realized late that it was a gauntlet - I beat Ceaseless Discharge right after Quelaag and then learned there was nowhere to go afterwards, whoops.)

Lore Musings:

(Look I know I'm probably super off - this game is very old and has sequels and I'm sure people have spent literal months of their lives piecing it all together, and believe you me I will be watching lore videos... after I have finished the game. By which I here mean "gotten all achievements". Which, google tells me [I like to check these things] will take three playthroughs. So it'll be a while, and it's fun to piece things together on my own! Feel free to hint cheekily at things that are right and wrong here but please don't spoil.)

I've been told I am to succeed Lord Gwyn and take his place to "link the first flame" and prolong the Age of Fire. Mm. Right. So. That seems lovely. Really, honestly, lovely - the world is beautiful. Worth keeping it going, I think.

(I had an initial theory that, having kinda passed its natural endpoint, the whole world was basically "undead" - lumbering on after it was supposed to have ended. So that prolonging it would effectively curse everyone to eventually go Hollow. But it sounds like "linking"/succeeding Gwyn would actually return things to how they were a millennia ago and solve this whole undead problem.)

......However. Two issues there.

First Issue: One of my favorite games of all time is Hollow Knight, which I've heard is rather DS-inspired. I definitely see how. Not just the metroidvania design and emphasis on challenging bosses and drip-fed lore, but themes. Light and dark. A sacrifice to keep something at bay, who is failing in their duty, who needs to be replaced. Now, I'm not going to rely on a completely different game to inform my understanding of this one's lore, but...

... But... well, this isn't a permanent solution, is it? Something like a thousand years ago, as I understand it so far, shit went down. People started becoming undead, Gwyn went off to Do Something About It. (Also the Witch of Izalith fell to Chaos around that time? Will get there.) Havel went Hollow and was locked in his tower, presumably by Gwyn (which was my original clue that Gwyn/the Lords were still alive after their whole Lords vs. Dragons showdown, since it meant Gwyn had to still have been around when the zombie problem began - love this piecemeal lore).

Gwyn "linked the flame" (the First Flame? what did he link it to? current bet is the Shrine, since that is what it is named - maybe that has something to do with why its Firekeeper, of all of them, seems to have some terrible penance she is performing). Now it's my turn? But Gwyn was a Lord (whatever that means? current guess is Lord=God but we've heard of more gods than just the four, so honestly I'm gonna base my Lord=God assumption entirely on what happens when I collect a Lord's soul and whether they look like the other unique souls in my inventory, since that would imply they're a similar kind of soul).

I am not a Lord. I'm just some dude. a flawed vessel, if you will.

Meaning that eventually - and probably less than 1000 years from now, someone is going to have to succeed me. (Was Gwyn even the first?)

How far will this go? How long can this last?

We're prolonging the inevitable.

(Also what does "linking the fire" entail and is this a Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas situation.)

Now, you could easily frame "prolonging the inevitable" as either a good or bad thing.

(1) Theme of persistence and hope: Even if the end is inevitable, isn't it worth fighting to drive it back as long as possible? Just because everything ends doesn't mean we shouldn't give up and wait for it to happen. We must fight to keep the fire lit, as long as we can.

(2) Theme of acceptance and change: Yes, everything ends and the end is inevitable - fighting that will only lead to despair. Ends are not bad, change is not bad, and letting change occur is not giving up - it is only witnessing the start of a new age. Even if we can bring it back to its former glory in some day, is the world not, by this point, undead?

Is that a bad thing to be?

Even if it isn't, is there new life that we are preventing from existing?

Now of course you can argue that there is not new life! What is to come is darkness! It is devouring, consumption, end, ash, blindness! (Funny, though, isn't it how all of those things can come also from wildfires.) Dark is bad. Obviously. Of course we don't want the end to come, when all it will bring is despair.

But then, that's the Second Issue:

"Falling to dark", the end of the age of fire, it's all presented as quite horrible. Fair enough! It does, indeed, seem to be! Certainly darkness is a corrupting force - Gwyn's soul (?) split into four, Four Kings, falling to dark - don't know what that's about yet, I imagine I have to find some way to drain New Londo to find out.

Point is, darkness is bad! Very bad! Everyone is quite insistent upon this! Dark=bad. Falling to it = bad.

....

........Except I'm in Lost Izalith right now and it's. uh.

not gonna lie, it's pretty bad here.

and it's very, very bright.

Here, in this lava-lit city, where Solaire himself found a "sun" so blindingly beautiful he lost himself to it. Here, where the witches who had mastered fire - mastered light - fell just as hard.

Light, it seems, is just as corrupting a force.

"Chaos" is more confusing - I think it's effectively the primordial base from which light and dark arise, aka "Disparity", will have to watch the opening cutscene for a third time. But that doesn't seem quite right since seems to be more light-aligned, what with the chaos fire pyromancies and seeing how the witch and her daughters were corrupted by chaos. not dark. they did not fall to dark.

Again, haven't figured out what's going on with the Kings yet, but...

...I am not convinced that dark is evil.

And I'm not convinced that clinging to light is the right thing to do.

Fantasy likes to paint darkness as stagnation and death, light as life and change.

But as I understand it, both light and dark arose from Disparity, which had something to do with the First Flame. They were created at the same time. There is no such thing as light without a corresponding concept of darkness. They are equals.

Stagnation, emptiness, those aren't characteristics of darkness, they're characteristics of the ancient world, the one the dragons ruled/existed in. Dragons which might (?) have been made of stone, the #1 metaphor for something firm and unchanging and eternal (geologists everywhere just rolled their eyes). Eternity, immortality, that predates light and dark.

The concept of decay and death requires a concept of life, of change. A world of dark is not a world without change. Things still died in the Age of Fire; it is not eternal. (that's rather the whole "problem", actually). Hell, Nito is apparently "first of the dead" and he was born of flame like the other Lords as per opening cinematic. Things will, presumably, still live in some future Age of Darkness.

...the entire point of disparity, of fire, was the introduction of the possibility of change.

........so it kind of feels that the perpetuation of this world, a world of Fire Unchanging, would be just... a shallow and ill-fitting recreation of How It Used To Be during the age before disparity came to be.

Like. Look. Uninformed blind-playthrough timeline here: There was Stagnation, all stone and dragons. Then, Disparity was born, Change, and with it Light and Dark. The Souls of Lords were found, and used Light to fight against Stagnation. (I feel like Dark would have worked just as well.) They built a world of Light.

Now everyone is upset that Change is happening? My dudes you built this place out of one half of Change incarnate. It does that! It's almost as if you didn't really want Change, you just wanted a new world of Stagnation in which you ruled as gods.

A new eternal kingdom, made of fire instead of stone.

But fire isn't stone. Fires go out, eventually. And are rekindled.

....Funny, it's almost like a classic dark-light-dark-light cycle. The story is so close to "there was dark, then light, now dark is coming again and everyone fond of light is trying to stop it".

But it's not.

Because there hasn't been dark - at least, not a full-on Age of it. I think. I dunno, there are two more games and I haven't finished this one yet but...

...I suspect that that kind of cycle is exactly what would happen if this age ended! Dark is born of disparity, too! It'd end eventually, and a new Age of Fire would be born, and so on, ad infinitum, until even change itself changes and the cycle is broken, because an infinite cycle is really just its own kind of stagnation and one day someone will have to make that choice.

But that's not this story. This cycle hasn't even started, because fire is clung to so tightly.

Maybe that's not a bad thing. Again, infinite cycles, not great, but... more natural, certainly. And if dark is destruction without rebirth, decay without fertilization of new soil, despair and suffering without relief, then, well, I can't say I disagree.

...............but is it though? all I have been told of it comes from its kings and those who followed them. maybe they are corrupt and unwilling to give up their power. or maybe, more likely, they are only afraid of the dark.

....We are afraid of the dark when we do not know what lurks in it. Souls of Lords, found in the flame - they're children of light, then? What do I know so far, that is born from the dark? Anything?

........yeah I have no idea if I am reading really really really too far into this but from what I know of games that take inspiration from this and from what osmosis of its Themes has entered pop culture I really don't think I am. (and hell, even if I am, it's super fun)

I don't know if I'm going to have the choice to succeed Gwyn or not but I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer is yes given that the achievements list gives two endings named "To Link the Fire" and "The Dark Lord" (the latter of which... uh... vaguely ominous)

also side note what the fuck is humanity

and also talking about Lords why has no one mentioned the furtive pygmy since the opening cutscene. "so easily forgotten indeed"

Four souls for the Lordvessel: Nito, the Witch, Gwyn in four pieces via the Kings…. and Seath? The dragon? Not the pygmy. What happened to the pygmy.

[rewatched cutscene] "then from the Dark, they came" are those humans. those look like humans.

something is very weird here.

WAIT FUCK corollary to 49

"Then from the Dark, they came" humans. found lords in the flame. are humans are born of dark like lords are of light?

.....well what the fuck does that mean?

if lords=gods, are humans "dark" things that have been ruled by light for millennia? i mean, that's not so bad, light is lovely, big fan of fire, I am a bona fide swamp-dwelling pyromancer fire is my jam 10/10 would solve all my problems with arson wait are we the fucking "dark souls"

I mean we exist during this Age of Fire, but we're also turning undead. A problem the gods don't (?) seem to be having.

…We are afraid of the dark when we do not know what lurks in it.

What if we are what lurks in it?

...........alright now I'm reading too much into this. But I LOVE this kind of lore where things all just feel… kind of off? As if there is some big picture you can't -quite- see.

I am under no illusion these questions'll be answered perfectly in-game, and I'm well aware there are 12 years of figuring all this out for me to catch up on! But damn if it isn't fun to specul-

THE HUMANITY ITEM. IS A FUCKING. BOSS SOUL ITEM. IN INVERTED COLORS.

.........

Gripes:

...not many. But the one thing. My nemesis. In this game. Is the god-damned keyboard menu controls. Look, I get that this was made for controller! I do! But I do not own one! Navigating the weapon/item selection is one thing, I'm [checks steam] 84.7 hours in [...oh god, really?? holy fuck. dear lord.] and have finally gotten a handle on that!

But the button to unequip an item in the equipment screen is the same as the button to switch to inspection in the... item screen. whatever you call it. and I suspect this would actually be the same for controller.

How many times have I unequipped something when I meant to look at it? many. 84.7 hour in, how often do I do this still? usually.

...also I only found that bonfire in Sen's Fortress via combination of friendly player message and sheer dumb luck holy crap that would have been a nightmare y'all didn't need to make them that hidden.

......also it'd be very nice if NPCs had some sort of indicator of their name, or mentioned it more than once. I remember Solaire (...RIP, poor dude found his new sun, I carry his talisman in solidarity) and Quelana (because it's so close to Quelaag) and Eingyi (he's mentioned in an item description and the whole... egg... thing haunted me for ages before I met him) and Sif (because why would you make me kill a good pup, guard dog wolf with sword, best friend, she [? female name in Norse myth, not sure if character is also female] was protecting her master's damned grave she did not deserve this) and for some reason Laurentius (dunno why that one stuck) but everyone else gets monikers. Onionman. Bird Friend. Sad Friend. Blacksmith. Bigger Blacksmith. Deader Blacksmith. Sadder Blacksmith. Cheshire Cat Lady.

(Frampt is remembered now because Gwynevere says his name but in my heart he is still Mr. Teeth.)

..........yeah that's all I got, honestly, I have loved everything else about this game.

WAIT NO

ONE MORE THING THAT I REALLY HATE

so there are all these player messages before female characters with no tops reading "great chest ahead"

ha ha very amusing yes chuckle chuckle

BUT

you know who has a very well-defined chest on full display right there in your face and for whom I have never seen a single "great chest ahead" message?

SMOUGH.

i realize that he is wearing armor but i have no reason to believe it isn't form-fitting and true-to-life. dude may as well be topless. there is no smough boobs appreciation and i will not stand for it.

To conclude, I present two pieces of evidence:

"Since his sores were inflamed by lava from birth, his witch sisters gave him this special ring." - Orange Charred Ring item description

"...the Witch of Izalith and her Daughters of Chaos..." - opening cinematic

Diversity win! Ceaseless Discharge is trans.

#sam says stuff sometimes #dark souls

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teenageread · 1 year

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Review: A Court of Mist and Fury

Synopsis:

Feyre survived Amarantha's clutches to return to the Spring Court—but at a steep cost. Though she now has the powers of the High Fae, her heart remains human, and it can't forget the terrible deeds she performed to save Tamlin's people.

Nor has Feyre forgotten her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court. As Feyre navigates its dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms—and she might be key to stopping it. But only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future—and the future of a world cleaved in two.

With more than a million copies sold of her beloved Throne of Glass series, Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her seductive and action-packed series to new heights.

Plot:

Freya was to live in peace with the man she loved. After surviving under the mountain, Tamlin took her back to the Spring Court, and for three months, locked her in the house for protection from those who wanted to hurt her. Where she loved the Spring Court and Tamlin, she did not want to be locked away but to roam freely without guards escorting her every step. Begging, pleading, and eventually giving up as Tamlin could not see the harm he was doing to her by keeping her locked up all the time. The only time she was escort-free was her walk down the aisle on their wedding day; however, she was not alone even then. Rhysand shows up, claiming for his week with her, and rushes Freya in her wedding dress back to the Night Court. Seeing past the glamor, Rhysand presents the Night Court as Freya finds herself enchanted by this made-up family, a hidden city, and a room full of dreamers just like herself. With her heart split in two, Freya must decide to become the most powerful fae in history if she wants to become Tamlin's wife and spend her days behind closed doors, or can she become something more within the Night Court.

Thoughts:

Sarah Maas picks up steam with this second installment of the series, giving us a better sense of the series' overarching plot. With the first book essentially ending with Freya going off to live happily with Tamlin, I was excited to see where this book picks up and what more Maas can add to the series. Giving us a three-month gap, Maas starts us right back to the Spring Court with Freya upset at Tamlin for putting her on house arrest. With every chapter, except for one, taken from the first-person view of Freya, you truly see her character grow based on her choices, use of language (it is a lot more explicit), and her feelings towards other characters. For example, Maas had Freya seeing Tamlin as a god-sent in the first novel, and in this one… not so much. Still, this one dives deeper into Freya's feelings and goes for the heart of every girl, realizing her first boyfriend was actual trash, especially when she is given something to compare him with. Which is how Rhysand got moved up from a secondary character to the main stage. Exploring more into his character arc, Maas makes his personality believable and gives us his flirty personality up close as Freya. He shares much hilarious and steamy conservation together. Yes, steamy, as Maas ranks up sex in this novel that can make anyone blush, as Freya does not hold back what she wants. Maas does the word sequel justice as this book opens up the world farther than the first novel, expands on its history and culture, and gives us fun new characters to treasure (like Azriel) that you can grow a connection with. I truly find nothing wrong with this novel, as Maas, with her easy writing, kept the plot moving at a great pace and had twists embedded at just the right spots. I truly just love the conversations the characters had with each other. Truly the only nitpicking thing would be the length at over six hundred pages, but even at that size, there are not too many things that I would want to cut out. For those on edge after the first novel, this one will definitely decide if you want to continue with the series or leave it at that. Personally, I cannot wait to get my hands on the third novel, as the cliffhanger ending Maas leaves us on is just cruel!

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

#A Court of Mist and Fury #A Court of Thorns and Roses #Sarah Maas #book review

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untold--stories · 2 years

Text

I realized I haven't posted about my WIPs in ages so I should uh, probably do that at some point again. So.

Main WIP: Finding Magic

It's a High Fantasy story, and I'm currently working on its 4th draft! Once that's done I'll ask a friend to read it, incorporate the feedback, ask other friends twice more and maybe then I can start trying to get it published?? Feels unreal but here we are. Story follows Runa and Laith who, after getting a strange letter from Laith's grandpa, leave their home village and go looking for him, accompanied by a Duskian (regarded as Evil, I used to have just named them demons and still need a new German name for them lmao), a unicorn, and a dog.

Seldnacs

Seldnacs are an open species by FelonDog over on dA, but they're original enough I'm putting them here - They're getting mostly short stories, but will pop up every now and then.

Started but currently on kinda sorta hiatus

Changes: This one, along FM, was one of my first stories and I definitely want to finish it eventually... Bear with me because you'll be able to tell it started when I was a teen lmao. It's kinda sci fi-esque, the story starts with a strange laboratory experimenting on mostly teens and children by adding animal DNA to theirs, basically creating beastfolk, just that it often isn't as pretty as most fantasy beastfolk. The characters eventually decide to try and fight/escape, leading to them having to figure out how to survive now that they look Like That.

Rainbow VN: An Urban Fantasy Visual Novel/Dating Game; it'll have six different characters, and the plan is that every character gets a Get To Know route followed by a route split into Romance, Friendship, and Supernatural routes. Quite a bit has been written for a NaNo once, but I gotta re-plan a lot of it.

Unnamed Horror WIP: Another former NaNo WIP, its first draft is pretty much finished but it'll need a lot of editing. It follows two kids whose trip to the local woods turns south when they end up somewhere very, very far away from home...

Solarpunk WLW WIP: Started for last year's NaNo, though I actually had to give up that year 😔 It has, as the WIP title suggests, a Solarpunk setting (futuristic but very hopeful, lots of Green Tech, etc), the protags are two older ladies (70s-80s) who meet and fall in love.

Fallen or Loyal: After humankind got sapience, the Heavenly Host split into the Loyalists, who want to follow God's Plan and lead humans back into Safety, and the Fallen, who believe that humans' free will is more important than safety. I've already written quite a bit, but I'll probably have to re-plan a lot of it and figure out where I wanna go.

I've been rotating these in my brain

Unwanted Transformation: It definitely needs a better title lmao, set in the same world as Finding Magic; a young woman got cursed by a Duskian to be in a dog's body for reasons she doesn't know, and she's trying to get a young Orc guy to help her a) track down the Duskian and make him explain, and b) get back to her friends and girlfriend.

Dracula Sequel: I may have Dracula Daily Brainrot, and a Vampire OC lying around with no story to be. I'll hold off on actually starting until DD is finished (vampire was originally a Van Helsing OC, but I want the story to follow the OG book more closely), but it'll be about revenge; a while after the happenings of Dracula, one of Drac's "children" (biological from before he was a vampire? Someone he turned? Idk yet) decides she's finally ready to get revenge on the people who killed her father.

Hyenas: I just really like Xenofiction and love hyenas; the story will probably follow a young spotted hyena who's just left their pack and has to join a new one, working their way up from the bottom, but naturally, there's now things threatening her new pack. I'm considering adding some fantasy elements (like, say, the yeens having magic), and/or including more hyena species aside from Spotted Hyena.

Rebels with a Cause: In a cyberpunk dystopia setting, a ragtag group of misfits tries to take the unjust government apart. Still gotta figure out a lot about what said government is actually like... Doing... Tho.

#long post #my wips #writeblr #writerblr #I have some more on Indefinite Hiatus but the post is long enough as is #finding magic #changes #Seldnacs #rebels with a cause #rainbow #rainbow vn #NaNo 2020 #nano 2020 project #nano 2021 #Nano 2021 project #dunno how to do read more on mobile sorry mates

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hua-fei-hua · 5 years

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*makes grabby hands* give me the sequel spoileriessssss (★ω★)

*eVIL CACKLING*

spoilers under cut (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧. we’re talking about so many spoilers.

WHOO so this is like the number one spoiler that i keep under wraps but anyway.

while iida the horse is a reincarnation of someone, it isn’t actually the iida in the dekusquad -- it’s actually tensei. that’s part of the reason why he never talks in orchid, even though deku sometimes would with uraraka. the other part of that reason is bc he’s currently unaware of his status as a reincarnation.

the fact that he even reincarnated into a horse and not, like, an actual human being is like this whole thing. i hadn’t thought about it much during the writing of orchid, but in this down time between, i read this nice chinese novel (translated bc i am not literate enough o(TヘTo)) abt these two gods who had to reincarnate into mortals seven times as punishment for fighting, and for one of the lifetimes, they were reincarnated into animals bc they’d gotten into the wrong reincarnation pools bc they were fighting. basically what i’m guessing happened to tensei is that there was some crazy shit happening in the afterlife (i’ll elaborate on that in a sec) that led to him reincarnating into an animal.

i didn’t actually come up with the plot twist that iida wasn’t dekusquad tenya iida until probably around chapter two, hence why at the start you get that one iconic line where iida gives momo the “some sort of horse lecture” look, but i lucked out with no lines there. i had a friend sketch designs for humanoid versions of uraraka n deku in orchid, but not iida bc spoilers LOL

i also mentioned a lot in comments that the bakugou that appears at the start of orchid is already in the middle of his character arc due to some shit happening that led him to be the co-captain in the first place. what actually happened is dropped at the very end of orchid (that he was neighbors with deku and he kinda killed him), after its foreshadowing, but i don’t think people have connected all the dots. it’s one of the things that gets focused on in peony so now i get to talk about it hereeeeeee :D

so what happened a few weeks (maybe months) before the start of orchid was that bakugou was being his normal asshole self hanging out with deku, and they decided to have an archery contest to see who could shoot more accurately with a bow and arrow. The idea was to see if they could shoot a plum or an apple hanging off on a branch over a river without disturbing even a single leaf on the tree. Bakugou went first, obvs, and izuku went to fetch the arrow back and climbed the tree, but the bough broke beneath him, and he was swept away by the current before bakugou's eyes.

bc the contest was bakugou’s idea, he blames himself bc even though he never particularly liked deku, he’d never paid his behavior much mind. it’s kind of like a what-if for in canon when deku was like “what would you have done if i’d actually jumped?” where suddenly he has to deal with the permanency of his consequences and the fragility of life.

nezu knows all this bc he’s a celestial rat man who runs the government and sees great character development potential in him. bc literally no one wants a seventeen-year-old (todoroki) running a military thing by himself, nezu gives bakugou the position as co-captain knowing that his experiences would have him greatly valuing individual life.

side note, this is why in chapter six, when bakugou’s doing the archery demonstration and kiri volunteers, this is a moment that’s not only important to kiri (in his arc of becoming bravery) but also bakugou bc it was with a bow and arrow that he accidentally killed deku.

anyway, on the topic of nezu, bc he’s an immortal celestial being, when he calls endeavor only “second best” of his generals, he’s referring to all time. this is bc all might’s status has kind of waffled around through time.

at first, when writing orchid, i was planning on keeping him alive and he would just be a general of another army that i don’t remember if he was gonna be elaborated on. later, i decided “nah he actually just died a long time ago and has become an epic legendary figure that inspired bakugou n deku to become great military leaders” and then more recently, i decided, “actually, wait no. he’s a semi-celestial being, who, for reasons i haven’t yet decided, came to the mortal realm, but due to reasons i haven’t yet solidified, has accidentally ruined his body, gotten captured by demons, and has gone missing” and that’s what’s been messing up everyone in the afterlife that ended up in deku n tensei getting reincarnated into animals

that’s actually one of the main plots of peony. i’ve always planned to have two plots going on in peony, the first one obviously being abt tdmm getting married and all the crazy preparation that goes into it whilst also diving into how the war affected them with the overall question to be answered is “how do you go back to normal once all the previous pressures have been removed but bc your biggest successes were the result of that pressure, you have no idea how to cope?”

the second plot revolves around izuocha going on some magical quest (at first i had no idea but now it’s all might) in which there would be a subplot containing the reveal of iida == tensei =/= tenya and then going over to the iida family home to check out what’s going on there (i will elaborate more on that later), and then at the end ochako n izuku would be transformed into humans (maybe temporarily, maybe permanently) as reward for their good deeds (tensei would choose to remain a horse i think), and then it would end w/izuocha going back to wherever tdmm is at that time (i’ve always imagined it to be at the wedding itself, but we’ll have to see where the pacing takes us; bc this is going to be a slightly anachronistic story, i have to do intense timelining) and revealing the whole secret story of why they were gone. and probably giving bakugou a mindfuck bc oh my god man he just spent like two or three years accepting what happened how could you do that to him

side note, bc of the tdmm wedding plot, peony is the first story i’ve written where, if i wanted, i could organically work smut into the plot, but bc i don’t like smut, it’ll just be a fade to black if i choose to allude to it at all.

so among the things the trio sees in the iida household is actually fuyumi, and although that’s basically been in my plans since the conception of peony, lately i’ve been waffling on it lately lol.

see, what happened there was a ghost marriage btwn fuyumi n tensei bc that’s a thing. your fiance/e dies? ghost marriage will make them happy. women don’t typically take second husbands, which is part of the reason i’m waffling over this choice now bc really if we’re going with advantageous arranged marriages, then huwumi would have been the more obvious choice (though hawks didn’t exist yet at the time of this idea)

anyway another cool trivia fact about orchid that gets elaborated in peony is the fact that momo had a sworn sisterhood back home that included more than just itsuka and camie, although those two would have been the ones she was closest with. a sworn sisterhood is basically just a group of girls living in the same village/area that are all around the same age, and their parents pool resources for the girls’ dowry later on in life. once they all get married, they typically go their separate ways (unlike kindred spirits/laotong), although they will attend one another’s weddings. among the girls in the sworn sisterhood also include tooru and mina, the latter of which implies that momo and kiri actually lived very close by all their lives, but for various reasons have never met.

tooru would obviously be married to ojiro bc c’mon they’re cute and deserve more attention. mina, before i settled on the idea of her being childhood friends with kiri while their families aggressively try to turn into lovers, was actually supposed to be married to just some dude living far away who came back for the tdmm wedding, but i couldn’t figure out who that dude would be. i considered aoyama, as i was partial to that ship at the time, but he’s the matchmaker. now, i think if i were to pair her up at the end, she’d marry sero bc i’ve come to prefer that a bit more now.

i know that sero is also a horse here but hear me out. i retconned this in my head at around the time i came up with the all might idea. what happens is that when they meet sero everyone’s just like "wait but dude like. we thought you were talking about your horse" and kaminari's just like "nah that was just as a joke" bc kamisero are childhood friends/neighbors and they have joking homoerotic subtext while mutually acknowledging that a) they are not each other's types and b) kamijirou is canon

oh i almost forgot to bring this part up lol. so what happens to natsuo also gets covered in peony. he’s still alive and perfectly well; he’s just living with his maternal grandparents, who work in the death industry.

this has to do with color symbolism. red is for luck and prosperity; white is for death. the reason endeavor wanted to marry rei in this au was bc he saw her white hair (which made her a very undesirable bride) not as a curse or bad omen on himself, but rather upon his enemies. that’s why dabi, who has naturally red hair (in this au anyway), became heir to the estate and shoto (whose half red, half white hair represents equal parts prosperity and death) the military legacy.

despite being an undesirable bride, rei was still an only child, however, and so as part of the marriage contract, endeavor was to return the first male child with white hair to that side of the family (technically making him no longer part of the todoroki family) to carry on the family business. after scarring shoto, rei would have also been sent back as a form of divorce.

hmmm i think that’s all the major trivia for peony/orchid that completely recontextualizes some moments of orchid

#asks #phew man i have never told the internet any of this :D :D :D #looking through my notes i think i originally planned to have the bkg n kiri backstories revealed in orchid #through a late-night bonding conversation #but eventually just decided to split it off into a sequel #orchid is actually one of the only fics i've ever written that has room for a sequel and was written with that in mind #sometimes people ask for sequels to my oneshots but the problem with that is that #those oneshots are already entire stories. if i haven't told everything i wanted to tell in a story #then i simply would not mark it as complete #anyway has it been five tags yet?#peony spoilers #just in case for whatever reason i drop off the face of the internet #and some poor soul comes by years later having fallen in love with orchid and wants to know more #and goes scouring my tumblr for clues #that is a very specific circumstance and i only bring it up bc that is a thing i have done personally. :C #*shouting into the void* STARRAN WHERE DID YOU GO WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN IN AMOTODAN #i know i say i have very little of peony planned out and that's true plot-wise #but concept-wise i actually have a lot of ideas really solidified wow #stardust-make-a-wish

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cazimagines · 3 years

Text

Perfectly exasperating

Synopsis: You really disliked Zemo, but one person you disliked more? John Walker. After bonding over how you disliked him with Zemo, you have the unfortunate situation of running into John. He flirts, insults, and hurts you and Zemo is ready to put him in his place.

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings/Tags: Use of swear words, John Walker being a dick, soft Zemo, protective Zemo

Author’s note: I was not intending this fic to come out as long as it did. This was one of the ones I had been putting off to write other stuff till I finally pulled myself around to writing it and ended up getting really into it. Funny how that happens.

Masterlist

Sequel

Part 3

Part 4

“Would you care for a Turkish delight?”

You bite the inside of your mouth in annoyance, refusing to even look at him. Instead of forcing your eyes to focus on a spot in front of you, not moving them in the slightest. Zemo waited for a few moments before sighing and turning away from you.

“You’ll eventually have to talk to me, y/n” he exclaims as he walks over to the kitchen side of the room. You were sitting in the safe house Zemo had provided. There wasn’t much to do, just sit and wait till the funeral started. Zemo sought to communicate to you to keep you two occupied, but you didn’t want to talk with him, so you didn’t. You just sat on the settee, staring at the sofa opposite you while Zemo walked around looking through the cupboards for food.

You were pissed when Bucky revealed he broke Zemo out of prison.

The avengers had been your family. Whenever you needed them Steve would be there to offer you advice, Tony there to make you laugh. Nat there to beat up whoever required it. Everything was wonderful in your life. For once. And he had ruined it.

He caused the family you loved to split, hate each other, and that left you alone. So alone. Losing both Tony and Steve made you more mad at Zemo. He robbed the last years you could have spent with them, so yeah, no wonder you refused to talk to him.

He loved to annoy you, though. Any moment he got he was beside you, creating sarcastic remarks about what was happening, trying to joke around with you. Trying anything to communicate with you. The worst of it was when he insisted you had to be his date on the mission in Mandripoor. Feeling his arm wrap around you, a kiss to your temple, the smell of his cologne flooding you, drawing you in. It pissed you off knowing how easily you fit into the role of his date. Yet you knew deep down why. Every time he made a snide remark, you had to bite your tongue to stop making one back. Every time he tried to joke with you, it took all your effort not to snort. You hated him and everything he does, yet you could sense a fondness growing for him, just a slight one, in the deepest corner of your heart. Left there to be locked away. Never acknowledged.

“So, the new Captain America, huh? What’s he like?” you hear Zemo ask, leaning on the counter of the kitchen table, his eyes burning into the side of your head.

You feel bile rise to your mouth as he spoke.

John Walker.

John fucking Walker.

If you hated Zemo, you despised John Walker. Just thinking of him brought a scowl to your lips. Steve meant everything to you. He was a father figure to you. He stood for all you believed in. He was your hope, your light in the darkness. And John Walker seemed to tarnish it. You wouldn’t have minded him if he was a different mascot for America. If he became America’s new hope. It was the fact that they called him Captain America. That he had the shield. The title belonged only to Steve. He claimed he wasn’t trying to replace Steve, but that is what he was doing. Him being called Captain America felt like a spit on Steve’s memory. People would forget him, everything he did for the country he loved. They would only focus on John Walker, and you detested that.

You didn’t blame Sam for giving away the shield, unlike Bucky. You could understand why he did it. That shield held such a responsibility, such a legacy it seemed impossible to ever live up to. No, you blamed the people who took the shield away from the museum. Without Sam’s permission. They should have asked Sam. But of course they didn’t care. They didn’t care at all.

“I see by your reaction that your impression of him isn’t a pleasant one,” Zemo says, bringing you out of your thoughts and back to reality.

“Have you met him?” he asks

You try to hold back your opinion, but John Walker made you so frustrated, you knew if you didn’t rant about him you would burst.

“Yes. He’s a dick,” you spit out

Zemo quickly straightens up, surprised you actually answered one of his questions.

“Oh? Are you finally speaking to me.” he inquires, walking around the kitchen counter towards you.

“Don’t push your luck” you mutter, side eyeing him as he sits down opposite you. Sam and Bucky were out leaving you alone with Zemo. At the moment you were all waiting till the funeral. Zemo claimed there were a few hours to kill before everyone had to gather. Sam and Bucky decided to check out the town, make sure they knew it well in case a situation occurred where we had to dash. They had forced you to babysit Zemo.

“No, no, I like to hear you talk. Please, if talking about how this new Captain America is a dick is how I get you to speak to me, then let’s continue.” Zemo says, pouring out a glass of whisky for you and him. He holds the glass out to you, an eyebrow raised. You sigh, grabbing the glass out of his hand and drank, feeling the warmth creep up your throat. Zemo chuckles as he watches you, leaning back on the sofa, his arms resting on top of it.

“My, my. The man must be terrible if just the thought of him is making you talk and accept drinks from me,”

“He’s so infuriating! He thinks because he is Captain America he can stick his nose in other people’s business!”

“Ah, so he is one of those people. Doesn’t understand boundaries. How rude,”

“And get this, he got annoyed at us! Telling us we should stay out of his way when he is the one getting in our bloody way!”

“No” Zemo fake gasps

“Yes!” you exclaim, going into a rant, “I can’t even bear to call him Captain America. He doesn’t deserve to be called that. His actual name is John Walker. He claimed he wasn’t trying to replace Steve, but that is exactly what he is doing! And how he talks to me as well. He’s so condescending, treating me as if I am a kid while trying to compliment me and act like he’s all that in front of me,”

Zemo’s eyes narrow and he places the glass down on the table between you two, “You mean he flirts with you?”

“If you could call that pathetic excuse flirting. I suppose. It pisses me off though,”

“I can imagine. He sounds nothing like what Steve was. Nothing like his legacy,”

It was your turn to narrow your eyes, watching Zemo curiously. “I assumed you hated Steve”

“I never hated him. No. I can admire what he stood for, I just find unrealistic. All superheroes are flawed. Innocents will consistently be collateral damage while superheroes are allowed to exist.”

You stare at Zemo, amazed. Not realising the silence you were making. You had always thought he hated Steve. It always seemed that way. Yet he didn’t? Knowing he didn’t hate the guy you always viewed as a father figure mattered to you. And you don’t know why.

Zemo stared back at you. He was studying your eyes, trying to figure out what you were thinking. He didn’t realise what he thought about Steve would have affected you, but it appears he was wrong.

“Don’t worry y/n we’re back and guess what! We found your fav-” Sam shouts, opening the doors of the room and strutting in but he pauses, noticing you and Zemo staring at each other from the sofa’s. “What’s going on here?”

Zemo is the one to pull out of the eye contact trance, smirking as he looks over at Sam, “We were just discussing John Walker.”

Bucky who had followed Sam in grounded at hearing Zemo utter that name. “Perhaps you two would like a drink and join us in considering how much of a dick he is?” Zemo asks, raising his glass to them.

A few hours later you walked down the street following Zemo to find his associate. You didn’t appreciate how secretive he was being, but you understood it. He had many people who wanted to get him, and the second he wasn’t useful to us. He would be doomed.

“It’s too dangerous for you guys to be pulling this shit” you hear a whiny voice shout. Peering up, you notice John Walker and his sidekick ‘Battlestar’ or whatever jogging down the steps towards you.

“Ah! How did you find us now” Bucky shouts with his arms raised, striding towards them.

“Come on. You really think three Avengers can walk around Latvia without drawing attention,” his friend responds.

“No more keeping us in the dark,” John mutters angrily

Zemo, who you were walking besides, turns his head to you, “I understand what you mean by infuriating”

You chuckle as John looks angrily between you two, “You can start by telling us why you broke him out of prison,”

“He did that himself technically” Bucky replies, and Zemo grins at you, as if bragging about it.

“Aw, this better be an unbelievable explanation-” John Walker exclaims, reaching up to you.

“Hey take it easy before it gets weird,” Sam suggests, interrupting John.

“I know where Karli is,” Zemo reveals to John Walker, his seductive accent sticking out from the rest of them. He tries to walk past John. You, Bucky and Sam follow, but John stops him, placing a hand on his chest.

Zemo glares ahead, disgusted at John for even daring to touch him.

“Well, where” he says, getting into Zemo’s face

“All we know is, it’s a memorial so we are going to intercept her there,” Sam adds, trying to defuse the tension.

Zemo grabs John Walker’s hand and pushes it off him, striding forward again, and you jog to catch up with him.

“See why I call him a dick now,” you whisper

Zemo smirks, looking back at you, “Yes. He’s perfectly exasperating”

“What? No. Wait. No! No! Stop. Hold on. Stop. Okay?” John exclaims running forward and stopping you all in your tracks again after something Sam had said. “I think we are way past reasoning with her”

Zemo just stares ahead, fed up with John while you groan in annoyance. Not being able to even bring yourself to look at the man in front of you.

They argue for a few moments while you and Zemo stand idly to the side, Zemo glances at you rolling his eyes making you giggle. You smack his arm slightly trying to get him to stop making you laugh, but that only makes Zemo chuckle along with you. Eventually they calm John down but he glares over at Zemo, “We will deal with you later.”

“I’m sure it will all come to an agreeable conclusion” Zemo says, gesturing with his hands. He walks ahead, searching for his associate while John Walker moves beside you. You try to pick up your pace, but he keeps up.

“So working with a criminal now. Not very avengery like. I thought Zemo hated Steve. I wonder what Steve would think of you working with him,” he mutters peering at you.

“Need I remind you-you are also working with him now,”

“Come on, darling, don’t be like that,” John responds grinning, placing his palm on your back.

“Get your hand off me” you growl scowling at him

“Most women would fawn over me” John cockily resorts, still not removing his hand

“She asked you to remove your hand” you hear Zemo state, glancing over you see he had stopped walking forward, turned around and was now glaring at John. “Do I need to remove it for you?” he says angrily.

John frowns at Zemo. Finally, taking his hand off you and striding up to Zemo. Zemo tilts his head, his jaw clenching in fury as he stares at John.

“You are nothing but a dirty criminal. Don’t think for a second you can talk to me like that,”

“I will when you are being rude and disrespectful towards a lady,”

John scoffs, peeking over to you, then back to Zemo. Everyone else was standing to the side, not sure if they should intervene or not.

“What did she suck you off or something?”

Chaos ensured.

Bucky and Sam had to leap forward to stop Zemo from launching onto John while Battlestar had to hold John back. “Too far man, too far” he muttered to John

Zemo was snarling at John, his teeth bared in rage. His hair had fallen loose from their usual position and was hanging down over his forehead, giving him a more wild look. The vein in his neck stood out, twitching. His eyes were raging with fire as he looked at John. He kept trying to push past Bucky and Sam to get to John, but eventually gave up knowing it was futile.

You were standing at the side, shocked that John would have the ego to say something like that and at Zemo’s rage towards John for saying it. John adjusts his head. Not looking you in the eyes, but looking in your direction. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t of said that”

Pulling your senses together, you walk up to John, glaring at him. “Yeah, you damn well shouldn’t have. You’re a dick. Nothing like Steve. You never will be,”

John wrinkles his nose in anger, frowning at your remark. You walk over to Zemo now that Bucky and Sam had let go of him. You give him a nod, showing your appreciation, and he nods back, though still glaring at John.

“Who I choose to associate myself with is none of your business. Who I choose to suck off is none of your business. Perhaps you can go fuck yourself and learn a bit of decency,” you spit at him.

A brilliant thought crosses your brain for another way to twist the dagger of your dislike into John. You reach out and grab onto Zemo’s hand, clasping it.

The action causes everyone to turn wide eyed to you. Including Zemo. He glances down at your hand in his then back to yours, surprise in his gaze but he immediately covers it up turning back to John smirking. He turns to behind himself, then back to the group.

“My associate is up ahead,”

You all turn to look forwards and see a little girl staring at you. Walking forward again, gripping his hand, Zemo nods to the girl as you all approach.

“Hello my friend,”

He holds out some money, a lot by the looking of it, and says to her, “This is for your family”

The girl hastily snatches it, obviously in need of it, and you can’t help but feel your heart warm a bit, seeing how kind Zemo was being to her.

“Can you show us the way?”

She beckons with her hands and walks forward. Zemo looks back at you, nodding to make sure you were okay, then follows her.

“What the hell” John murmurs from behind.

Following the girl, she leads you to a building. She turns, pointing inside a doorway, and runs inside not to be seen again.

“Karli’s in there,” Zemo tells the rest of the group. Sam replies and heads inside to talk to her while John suddenly grabs Zemo’s arm and yanks him against the machine on the wall.

Zemo moans as he is shoved into it, the hard outer piece hitting into his chest roughly.

“Hey. You’ve got ten minutes” John shouts to Sam as he takes out a pair of handcuffs and attaches them to Zemo.

“Really” Zemo mutters as John cuffs him to the machine.

“Then we are doing things my way,” John declares ignoring him

“Aggressive” Zemo jokes, though from his eyes you could still see the anger he harbors towards John.

He twists his head to watch John stride forward, staring at Sam, then back to him. “But I get it”

You wander over to stand by Zemo as you wait for Sam to talk to Karli.

“This day has brought a lot of changes. This morning you refused to say a single thing to me and now just moments ago you were holding my hand,” Zemo speaks quietly to you.

You shoot him a glare, “I did that to agitate John,”

“Sure, that was the only reason” but you knew from his eyes he didn’t believe you. They sparkled with amusement as he looked down at you.

“That cuff must bother you” you mention glancing over at them.

“I don’t mind. I quite enjoy cuffs, in the right setting of course,” he quips.

You turn on your side, looking at him, your lips curling into a smile. If we are going to play that game, you thought.

“Oh, what setting would that be?”

Zemo’s smile deepened, enjoying seeing you play along, “I’m sure you would like to know”

“Do you have to do this here!” John exclaims, glaring at the two of you. You quickly step back from Zemo, forgetting that you two had company. Your eyes snap to Bucky’s with worry, but he wasn’t looking at you. He glared at the ground, not seeming to care what was happening between you and Zemo.

After that Zemo tried to engage you in conversation again but you effectively ignored him, going back to how you were treating him earlier, which you knew was frustrating him.

John was looking down at the shield, then squeezed the bridge of his nose with his fingers, panting. Both you and Zemo glanced up, watching him cautiously. You glanced at Zemo and he stared back, confirming you were both thinking the same thing about Walker.

He got up and started shuffling towards the doorway. Both you and Bucky eyed at each other for the first time with the same recognition in your eyes. You leave Zemo’s side to walk over to where John was.

“No, no, no. This is a bad idea,” John mutters as he paces around. Zemo watches him like a hawk while you and Bucky stand side by side, arms crossed.

“It hasn’t been ten minutes, John. Sit tight,” Bucky replies.

“Don’t do that. Don’t patronize me,” he spits back, pacing around.

“He knows what he is doing,” you reply

There’s silence for just a moment. You watch as John turns towards you and walks fast, hitting his fist against the shield, “I’m going in”

Bucky walks forward and places his hand on John, stopping him from moving further.

He tries to antagonise Bucky, trying to make him guilty for what could happen to Sam. And you could tell his words were influencing him.

“You will not be going in till ten minutes are up,” you state sauntering over to them

“Oh, so the whore has something to say,” John spits out

In the back, Zemo growls, tugging on the cuffs that connected him to the wall. You feel the outrage prick up on you as John’s remark.

“Don’t call her that” Bucky says, glaring at John

“She’s been openly flirting with the terrorist over there, so yeah, I think it’s appropriate to call her that,” John bites back

You rush forward, attempting to punch John in rage, but he was able to sidestep you and brings the shield up, connecting it harshly to the side of your head. Pain soars across your face as you fall down onto the ground. You groan, your eyesight going dark around the sides and black patches covering parts of what you could see.

“BASTARD” you hear someone shout with a beautiful accent. From the floor, you can’t make out much of what is going on. Someone with a metal arm attacking another guy. A man with a shield being attacked by a man in a trench coat. It was all too confusing for you. You just wanted to sleep.

You could feel yourself fading in and out. Your eyes begging to close. You could hear shouting. Someone talking.

Your head was raised. Someone was holding it in their hands. Your vision is blurry but as they get nearer your eyes could focus on them. Beautiful brown eyes, messy brown hair, cute thin lips. It was him.

“Y/n!?” Zemo shouted at you, “Y/n stay with me”

“My head hurts” you mutter to Zemo as he lifts you up, placing you against the wall. Slowly your eyesight came back, and you could see your surroundings. Only you and Zemo were left.

“Zemo, where is everyone?” you ask turning your head, but in doing so it makes you feel incredibly dizzy. You groan as Zemo places a hand on the side of your face to stop you moving.

“They went after the Sam,”

“I need to help them!”

“No, you need to stay here and recover,”

You look over at the wall then back to Zemo, “How did you get out of the cuffs?” you ask

“Ah well…” Zemo says and glances down at his hand, your eyes follow and widen seeing his hand, bruising covering it, his thumb sticking out at an odd angle.

“You broke your hand to get out!?”

“Well, I couldn’t let him get away with saying those things and hurting you,” Zemo mutters, smiling slightly but you could see the pain flickering in his eyes, “I gave him a well-deserved punch in the face”

You chuckle at the thought. Leaning forward, you kiss him lightly on his forehead, a gesture of you wanting to ease his pain. You move back just in time to see him looking at you, surprised, before your vision faded.

Taglist: @multiyfandomgirl40 @ineffablebean @freyjasamael @avgravy @huntheimpossible @checkurwindow @there-goes-thefighter @bunniwritesx @montypythonsholysnail @yallgotkik @wonderwoman292

#zemo #baron zemo #helmut zemo #zemo x reader #zemo x y/n #zemo x you #i love zemo #tfawts #marvel #daniel brühl #sam wilson #mcu #john walker

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not-a-space-alien · 2 years

Text

Watch Your Step: Chapter 12: Welcome to the World Wide Web

HAPPY MERMAY!!! A certain merman may appear later in this chapter, and in his honor I got a commission made, which you can see here.

Another update since my last chapter, we made a gt discord server! There are many servers like it, but this one is ours :p You are ABSOLUTELY allowed to join even if we've never DM'd before, I see some of you in my notes a lot but for the life of me I can't remember all of you to send you an invite. If you're over 18, just message me if you'd like to join.

EXTRA big thanks to @appelsiinilight for their help with this chapter. Their willingness to share their perspective has helped me throughout this whole story to make the narratives about disability and English as a second language more respectful and authentic.

As usual I also have @static-stars for helping me hash out worldbuilding details, who convinced me to add mermaids in the first place >:3c

the next "chapter" ended up being way too long, so I split it into three parts. I also decided this triple-barrel chapter will be the ending to this story (so total of 14 chapters and an epilogue), HOWEVER! don't fear, because I will be continuing to write and the sequel will pick up right where this leaves off, I just thought this was the point where it made the most narrative sense to insert breaks. This story #1 as well as the series is called Watch Your Step....the next story....well, you'll just have to see >:3 I also started a series on AO3 to reflect these changes, which you can subscribe to if you don't want to miss the continuation.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy!

Story masterpost.

AO3 link

Thistle was excited by his new little castle; in fact, he was thrilled to bits with everything he’d picked out from the store, once he realized they were his to keep. They represented a step forward in his life, transitioning to a more dignified life than the one he was living now: one in which he had privacy and personal belongings. However, he soon became much more enamored with something else they’d brought home: the phone.

He wasn’t really interested in it at first; he’d seen Marcy, Teddy, and Colin all absorbed by these mysterious, possibly magic rectangles at various points. He’d even been shown images and scraps of writing on them before, but they’d always been yanked back away from him eventually. He still wasn’t really sure what they were, or how to use them for anything.

Marcy was determined to help him figure it out. She set up the device on her own, then lay down on the floor next to Thistle and demonstrated how to pull up the contacts list. He had three contacts, each with a picture next to them. He seemed delighted by this, reaching out to touch Marcy’s picture. He seemed surprised when the screen changed, calling Marcy’s phone.

Marcy got up to the other side of the room and answered her phone. “Hello? Who is this?”

Thistle giggled, tilting his head towards the top where her voice was coming from. He skittered down to the bottom where the microphone was. “Me.”

“Me who? How did you get this number?!”

Thistle wiped the smile off his face, furrowing his brow.

“It’s a joke,” said Marcy, giving an exaggerated laugh.

He mirrored her, clearly not understanding, but relieved that they were joking around.

She spent the next few hours with the internet disabled on the device, showing him the various functions he could access, the flashlight, the calculator, the camera, the messaging app. She held her phone next to his and let him see that anything he typed in and texted to her would show up on her phone. He went absolutely wild for this, and slapped the screen in an uncoordinated way to put together a string of gibberish that he then sent to her.

He’d need a little bit of practice. It was made for someone with much larger fingers.

Marcy was starting to get afraid of what would happen when she finally let him use the internet. He seemed like he was going to explode from excitement just leaning over the phone and tapping the icons, gasping with delight at the moving sounds and colors. After about the fourth or fifth time he called her and demanded she go answer his call elsewhere in the house, she took it from him and discretely moved some of the more…purchase-oriented apps off the home screen, disabling them so he could only access the ones she set with the parental controls.

She leaned the phone in the corner where his castle was, plugging it in. She disabled the lock screen and demonstrated how to tap the power button to turn the screen off and on. He nodded along, then immediately zoomed in on the contacts list again and called Colin.

“Hello?”

“Colin!”

From the dining room, Colin’s face appeared, leaning over the table. “Hey, bud! You sound so big!”

“Phone! Sui ovaudio? Min? M’ova aun!”

“Yeah! You got it!”

Marcy gave it a day for the novelty to wear off. He lost interest after a while, probably thinking that he’d explored all the features the phone had to offer and there was nothing left to discover. At this stage, Thistle privately thought it was a little stupid that the three humans were on their devices so frequently. What could they be looking at so often?

He found out soon enough. Marcy took the phone and turned the WiFi on. He clung to her shirt, leaning over her shoulder to watch her comparatively huge fingers swiping and tapping way faster than he’d been doing with the width of his microscopic hands.

She used parental controls to disable everything except YouTube kids, a dictionary app, and an encyclopedia app. Still, paranoia got the better of her as she put it back down in the little corner in the living room Thistle was making for himself.

“If anyone asks for credit card info–the numbers on these little cards–see, here? These numbers. Don’t give it to them. Don’t tell anyone where you are, or how old you are, or how big you are, or–You know what, I don’t think anyone is going to be able to DM you on wikipedia or the thesaurus…But remember that some of the stuff on here isn’t necessarily true. Well, most of it is. The stuff you’re looking at is mostly reliable. Well, except for the kid’s shows and whatnot. Oh God, YouTube kids has comments disabled, right? Yes. Okay, you can have an account to save videos to watch later, but that’s it, okay? You can’t type any comments in. No comment boxes. Don’t talk to anyone. Well, you need to type in to search for words. Well…”

Thistle received all her instructions absolutely bewildered. She plugged the phone back in and set it up for him. “Okay. Go ahead. You’re gonna learn English way, way faster this way, and it’ll keep you from being bored.”

Baffled, he cautiously leaned over to examine the phone, his miniature knitting still clutched to his chest. “Ko?”

“Uh… L-Lem… Lemu? Lenu.”

He brightened up. “Learning?”

“Yes!”

“Reading?”

“Yes! And watching.” She pointed to the TV.

Thistle eagerly scuttled over, standing before the device, practically the same height as him. He reached out one delicate finger and tapped the encyclopedia app.

A smattering of article previews came up, an assortment of pictures, and the blinking cursor on the search bar. He furrowed his brows.

“Here,” said Marcy. She demonstrated how to bring the on-screen keyboard up. “Write what you want to read about here, and it’ll give you something to read.”

She typed in clown fish. A wall of text came up, broken by colorful pictures and clickable links.

Thistle’s face lit up, and he sat, stretching his arms out to put one on either side of the device, an extra large TV. She advised him to sit back slightly, thinking vaguely that being close wasn’t good for someone’s eyes, right? And then left him to it.

***

Marcy turned out to be right. Thistle’s language skills skyrocketed, as did his understanding and knowledge of the human world. He absorbed vocabulary like a sponge, so despite his imperfect grasp of syntax, his speaking went from broken, frustrated fragments to fuller, richer, more confident sentences shockingly fast.

He spent most days reading or watching educational programs with subtitles on, seemingly determined to make the most of this new tool he’d been given. Marcy would occasionally check in to give him something else, kid’s literature, books on tape, podcasts, materials written for ESL learners. She could see the delight on his face when it clicked, when he actually started to understand what was being said, the change of noise and nonsense becoming words and sentences that meant something.

They fell into a routine of sorts. Usually there was at least one of them home to sit with him. When he wasn’t reading, learning, listening, or watching, he did activities with them. On the days when he was alone with Colin, they watched movies and sports games. When he was alone with Teddy, he did crafts and art. He painted his wooden house, a nice little scene with green paint for grass and sky blue with clouds up above. When he was alone with Marcy, he chattered excitedly about whatever articles he’d been browsing and what he’d learned. Sometimes all four of them were together, and she could feel Thistle radiating happiness, seeming like he was about to burst. It was starting to feel like they had another roommate, who just happened to be five and a half inches tall. Five point five six, Marcy declared when she measured him with a ruler, or 14.1 centimeters.

He kept a journal, crafted from Post-it notes bound into a book, written in Pixish. Marcy watched him write in it almost every night, feeling a twinge of sadness. The immersion of having no one and nothing that shared his native language was certainly conducive to learning a new one, but the isolation must be heart-breaking. She made attempts to reciprocate his effort and learn, but she had never been very good at picking up new languages, and of course he didn’t want her to read his diary. She also had her attention split because she was still trying to learn her own things in grad school…her dissertation was starting to stress her out again.

She never let the dregs of everyday life distract her from making time for him, though. She paid close attention to him. Franz Kafka be damned, if someone she cared about was a bug, she would love them all the same.

As his language skills increased, his accent also noticeably changed. Before, his English had been accented in a way that sounded vaguely Italian, or some other romance language. It suddenly veered very heavily into sounding more British.

Marcy suspected this was because of the amount of Peppa Pig he had been watching. This was confirmed when she had to gently explain to him that oinking at the end of your sentences wasn’t a standard manner of expression in English.

He also seemed to be embarrassed to learn that the language he was learning was called English. When she pressed him, he sheepishly admitted he’d been calling it “Giantese” to himself.

All three humans found this uproariously funny. Marcy asked what his own native language was called, thinking surely it must not be named after the species, right?

It turned out it was. This was when she found out it was called Pixish. He seemed to think this was normal. His hours with Dora added Spanish to his vocabulary as well, and he peppered it in sentences sometimes. He didn’t seem to grasp instinctually that there were multiple languages that humans spoke, instead thinking that he was learning some universal, pan-cultural language.

Marcy was gobsmacked by this, because it implied to her that wherever Thistle came from, there was just one language per species, or that there weren’t foreign languages at all. She had to pull up the encyclopedia entry on human languages and try to explain it to him. He seemed to get it eventually, and he seemed embarrassed, as though he should have known all along.

That seemed to be a big theme. He was very, very excited to learn, and eager to ask Marcy questions, but no matter how gently and encouragingly she answered, he usually seemed frustrated to not know. The amount of knowledge he was jamming in that little head of his over such a short period of time was impressive, and she made sure to tell him, but he had bouts of frustration, seemingly fed up with being adrift in an environment he barely knew anything about.

He also expressed the desire to go outside a few more times, but Marcy always gently rebuffed. Outside would be an environment he knew more about, and would be more comfortable in, but she was still rattled from what had happened last time…She knew she wouldn’t be able to put it off forever, though, so she always promised him they could try again soon.

Just…not right now. Especially not when she heard that damn dog loose outside again.

It was safe inside, though. There was usually at least one of them home to keep an eye on him, and Marcy was nervous about leaving him home alone. But they all agreed that it should be fine if they put Mochi in the basement.

***

“You sure I can't cat up?”

Marcy turned from the basement door, where Mochi was pitifully sticking her paws under the door and meowing, to Thistle, standing on the banister by the stairs. The little fairy had his hands in his pockets, watching her.

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Marcy. “Sorry.”

Thistle got down on his hands and knees, peering down at Mochi’s pleading paws. “Awww, Marcy! Sad cat! She wants playing with me!”

“Right,” said Marcy. “That’s what I’m worried about. She also wants to play with her toys.”

Thistle pouted, stretching his emerald eyes wide.

“Nope,” said Marcy. “Sorry. If no one is home to keep an eye on things, there’s a locked door between you and the cat. We agreed on that. No exceptions.”

Thistle folded himself into a sitting position, crossing his arms and looking sour. “Uhn, fine.”

“You have done nothing besides cuddle her for the past three days. I saw you.”

“Not true!” Thistle stuck one finger in the air. “I also read everything in the encyclopedia about fishes in Percomorpha.” He tossed his hair over his shoulder, then put one fist on his hip and the other to his chin. “That's tuna, seahorses, anglerfish, and pufferfish.”

“....right.” She gathered her backpack and lunchbox. “That’s great, sweetheart, but why don’t you read something a little more, uh…”

Thistle rocketed to his feet, vaulting over Marcy and landing on the coat rack. “Useful? You're saying useful? It’s not useful to, ko ae vi, fish? Know fish?"

“No, no,” said Marcy, feeling obligated to backpedal, as a biologist who worked in a field many people thought was useless. “It just seems like you might want to prioritize reading about, like, society and language and stuff.”

“...but they named one the jellynose.”

Marcy very gently bumped him into her hand, raising him up and giving him a kiss, planting it right on his chest. “You are adorable.”

He giggled, pushing her away. “Go to work.”

“Maybe I should make you get a job now. Pay rent.”

Thistle twirled a strand of his shiny black hair around his finger. “Sorry! If the…ehm…Ko ea vo…? Government! I'm not exist.” He stuck his tongue out. “No driver’s license. No security number. No ID."

She smiled at him, delicately brushing his hair back. “I think Colin will be back at 3 today. You feel okay about that? Being by yourself for a while?”

He puffed out his chest, putting one hand on it regally. “Of course, Marcy. I can alone. I don’t scared.”

“Right. Well, if you change your mind, you can always call me, okay? I might be able to come home early, anyway. I have a lot of computer work to do, so I can probably work from home.”

“Okay.”

“Man, I really don’t want to go….They’re giving me more instructions for that video project I told you about, I really don’t want to do it…” She sighed. “Well… I’ll call you when I’m on my lunch break to check in, if I can find the time.” She thought about saying I love you again. She hadn't said it since that first time, and now she was too scared of what would happen now that he might actually understand what it meant.

He didn't notice her lingering indecision. He was preoccupied with thoughts of someone he could talk to now that he was left alone in the house. “Okay. Talk you later."

Thistle stood in the window, watching her walk to her car. She occasionally looked at him over her shoulder, waving. He waved back. She mistook his interest in her departure as nervousness, and gave him another reassuring reminder she would call him at lunch, shouting muffled through the glass.

He gave her a cheery thumbs-up, and she beeped her horn as she pulled out of the driveway.

As soon as she was gone, he dashed into the living room, practically leaving skid marks, and hurled himself up at the fishtank.

He misjudged his landing slightly and ended up banging into it, conking on the glass and scaring away the fish that were lounging nearby.

He shook his head, then looked up. The merminnow was still on the anemone where he spent most of his time, and he’d rolled over to give Thistle a deathly glare.

“Sorry! Hey! Hey, look!” He held up his rubber fish, pressing it against the glass and pointing to it. “It’s you! That’s you! See? You! Ria! Ria! Ari! Hey!”

Nemo closed his eyes, mouth slightly ajar, and let out an inaudible sigh that released bubbles from his nose and mouth. He rolled over and shielded his face with his hand, as though to block him out.

Thistle tossed his rubber fish off the end table; it bounced and rolled across the carpet. He crossed his arms sourly. “Hey! You hearing me?”

The tailfin flicked at him dismissively.

Now was the time to break out his new weapon: his more advanced grasp of Giantese….or should he say, English. “You’re rude. I’m favoring you! Ee…. aralvi faon. Doing a favor. Maybe I’d tell Colin you’re here? He’ll back at 3.”

Nemo’s fins stopped their idle rustling.

“I want t’tell. But I don’t.” He twirled a lock of hair around his finger. “So maybe you’ll talk t’me?”

Nemo rolled over, face scrunched up in a hostile expression. Thistle suddenly doubted himself.

Nemo lifted off the anemone and pumped his tail to get up to the top of the fish tank. Thistle heard the sound of the flap of the lid opening, and felt a slosh of water from up above. He craned his neck to see Nemo leaning out from the top, locks of his sopping wet hair pointing straight down at the Pixie, framing a scowling face. “What do you want?”

Shaking with excitement, Thistle flickered his wings and leapt up onto the half of the lid that was still closed. “I just want to talk!”

Nemo retreated back into the water slightly, only leaving his chest above the surface. He crossed his arms and rested them on the lip of the tank, hunching over. “Okay, fine. Talk to me then, if you’re going to threaten me over it.”

Thistle suddenly felt guilty. “Er–I’m not going to tell actually.” He knelt, bouncing with excitement. “I just–I just want to talk really! Please!”

Nemo sighed. “Well, why don’t you give me a worm, then?”

Thistle blinked. “A worm?”

“Those worms they get for you! I only get to eat the fish food, and whatever they happen to leave close enough for me to climb out and get!”

“Oh!” Thistle was suddenly delighted by the opportunity to share his bounty. “Okay! Wait right there!”

He leapt down and jogged into his little castle, where he’d stashed the plastic cup of worms. He snapped it open and took one out, then rushed back over.

“Here!” he said, panting as he alighted on top of the tank again. “They’re good really!”

Nemo snatched it and dove back down into the water.

Excitement fading, Thistle leaned over, peering into the water, watching the shaky, wobbling shapes beneath the surface. He watched as Nemo sunk into his anemone again, snarfing down the worm.

He waited. And waited. Finally, Nemo’s orange face reappeared at the top of the water. “Oh, you’re still here?”

Indignant, Thistle said, “Wh–Yes?!”

“I figured since you talked to me, you’d got what you wanted.”

What? He’d barely said two words! “Talk–I only–”

“Can I have another one?”

“What?” He hadn’t even said thank you the first time! “Why would I even?”

He leaned back in the water, hands laced behind his head. “Well, they’re really good, and I can’t get them on my own. Only seems fair, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah I guess you…Wait! No, no it doesn’t!”

Nemo chuckled, slapping the water with his tail languidly. “Whatever. They are really good, though. I can see why you’ve gained weight eating them.”

Thistle put a hand to his belly. “Huh? Weight?”

“Yeah. You’ve definitely gone up a pants size or two.”

“Well, I….so what?” He’d said it like it was a bad thing. To Thistle, being fat meant you and your hive were good at foraging.

“The humans think it’s bad. They think it makes you ugly. They think it means you’re lazy.”

Thistle’s cheeks flushed hot. “What?!”

“Doesn’t it make it harder to fly?”

Thistle flickered his wings, looking over his shoulder at them. “I can fly, it’s okay. Wait…Lazy, you said? Ko, ne, Marcy is….”

Nemo grinned impishly. “You think she’s fat?”

Thistle flushed again, unsure if that was rude to say. He did think Marcy was fat, but he also didn’t think that was a bad thing…but the way Nemo said it… “She’s work all the time! Always! More than…Pilio iuan…anyone else…any other human I know!”

Nemo rolled his eyes, idly squirting a drop of water out between his two front teeth. “You only know three humans.”

“...So?! She doesn’t ugly!” Thistle knew that what humans considered attractive was different from what pixies considered attractive, but to most pixies, it was desirable for females to be large. Marcy–and Teddy too, for that matter–therefore represented a cartoonishly exaggerated archetype of the pinnacle of femininity, which he honestly tried not to think about too much, lest his mind start wandering in indecent directions.

Nemo looked at him tiredly. “Well, whatever. If I talk to you, will you give me more worms, then?”

Why was he being so mean? Thistle almost regretted working so hard on his language skills, just to understand his one potential friend thought he was annoying. His eyes watered. “Why would you hate me? Ceve… neo pao…Nemo, surely you like a talk at least a little?”

“You don’t think my name is really Nemo, do you?”

That caught Thistle off guard. “Uh…? Well, what is it really, then?”

“Hah! Wouldn’t you like to know!”

“Well….Yes, that’s why I ask.”

They stared at each other in silence for a second.

The fishman sighed. “You can’t pronounce my name. It’s only pronounceable underwater, by someone with gills.”

Thistle perked up. “Oh! It makes sense! Your language does under the water!”

“Yeah.”

“You learn to speak…ahm…” He pointed to the TV. “You watch a lot like me, to learn?”

“Yep.”

“So you also have to have…” Gah, what was the word for it? He’d just read this. He sucked in a few breaths in an exaggerated way.

“Lungs?”

He nodded and pointed.

Nemo flared his gills and sucked in a breath at the same time, making a weird popping sound. “Of course I have both. What kind of chump breathes with only lungs or only gills?”

Thistle found himself oddly embarrassed now, as though he’d chosen lungs only in a moment of arrogance thinking he wouldn’t need gills. “Well, ehm…” Suddenly all the questions he’d so desperately wanted to ask had slipped out of his grasp, mind coming up empty. “How are you….ehm…How did you get here?”

“How did I get here? I put myself here.”

“Well, yes, but–but how? Where did you come from?”

“From the ocean.”

“...And??”

Nemo held out his hand. “Worm.”

Thistle scuttled down back into his little house and came back with a worm. Nemo took it and bit its head, chewing and savoring with his eyes closed. “Mmmm…”

“Well?”

Nemo nibbled on the wiggling legs, pulling one off and rolling it around in his teeth. “It’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing. A lot of aquarium fish are caught in the wild by humans, who bring them back to give them to other humans to put in their aquariums.”

Thistle tightened his fists. “They kidnapped you, too.”

“For the last time,” said Nemo. “I did it on purpose. I’m here because I want to be here. I could leave if I wanted to.”

“Nuh-uh!” Thistle shook his head. “You’re lying! How would you?”

“I’d go out through the mail slot.”

“Hm?”

“The slot in the front door. I’d just climb out of the tank and out the mail slot. Boom, I’m outside.”

“Okay…and then what?”

“Then whatever I want!” Nemo slapped his tail on the water in a frustrated way. “I don’t know! Why do you care so much? I don’t want to leave.”

“Don’t you have a family?”

“I don’t need things like that. All I need is what I have right here. Plenty of food, a nice anemone, a nice place to live with clean water, and best of all: no predators.”

Thistle looked sad. “Yes. Predators are scary really…with no family to help.”

“I told you I don’t need a family or anything like that.”

“But you said no predators was best of all. You came here for to be safe?”

Nemo flared his nostrils angrily. “I can take care of myself. I got in here by myself, I like living by myself, and when I want to leave, I’ll leave by myself.”

Thistle suspected he was more scared than he was letting on. “But you’re not alone. Colin cares for you.”

Nemo grit his teeth.

“And you’re afraid of Colin knowing you’re here.”

Nemo flipped his tail and sent a cascade of water at Thistle, who jumped back. “Okay, fine!” he yelled. “I’m small! I’m very small, and easy to eat! Is that what you wanted me to say? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Uh…”

“And if Colin found out I was here, it would be easy for him to pick me up and carry me around and do whatever he wanted to me! I’ve seen you crying about Marcy doing the same thing to you! How are you going to say that stuff to me like you don’t understand?”

“I do understand!” said Thistle. “But you don’t have to pretend–”

“I’m not pretending anything! I really don’t need anyone else! I’m only pretending to be a clown fish!” Nemo’s voice had started to wobble. “And I don’t want to talk to you because you’re going to get me found out! Don’t draw attention to me! Just stay away from me! I don’t need anyone else!”

Thistle knelt again, tucking his hair behind his ear. “That fish in the movie, the one that’s you... A predator killed his family. Right?

“Shut up,” said Nemo.

“Did you–”

“I’m done talking to you.” Nemo lunged, muscular back bending as he dived down, flashing into his colorful tail giving one final slap on the water. Thistle got a last faceful of droplets showering over him as he leaned forward to plead with him.

He sat on the lip of the fish tank for a few moments, dripping, disappointed. I suppose I kind of deserve that.

But Thistle was nothing if not persistent. He flickered down onto the floor, feeling in command of the living room. The creature in the tank could say whatever he wanted, but he still had to wait a full six hours alone with Thistle until anyone else came home. Thistle would just try again later…. Maybe he’d start with a worm next time.

———————————–

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#gt #g/t #gianttiny #giant/tiny #fairy #fluff #angst #hurt/comfort #angst with a happy ending #size difference #my writing #my original writing #watch your step

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honeydew-mel0n · 3 years

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Can I request Vergil chaperoning his daughter at her prom dance? Thank you! 🙏🏼

So, remember what I said about writing a semi-soft Dadgil? I got really excited to write Dadgil (that isn't the fucking dadV sequel) and this concept is so funny to me but,,,,,, this was a little difficult. I don't actually know anything about dads, or prom.

But!!!!! Thanks for the request!

Dad!Vergil × Daughter! Reader (chaperoneing her junior/senior prom)

Last Dance of the Night

“Are you sure you can’t do it?”

You whisper into the mouthpiece of the phone, shooting glances up the stairs, being able to catch a glimpse of your father straightening himself up in the hallway mirror. “No can do, I know it’s really important, and I'd love to be there but- Hey!”

You jolt back at the sound of your brother's voice through the phone, once again looking up the stairs to check if he heard the loud squabbling coming through the phone. He’s frozen in place, trying to assess something. Before pushing back his hair.

“Anyway, look Bug, I can't. I'm busy.” A sigh leaves your lips as your shoulders slump. “You’re useless.” “HEY-”

You hang up, quickly dialing another number on the rotary. You listen to it dial, half expecting him not to pick up, but it clicks and there's a hefty sigh from the other end. “Devil May Cry.” “Hey, Uncle Dante. I, uh, need your help.” “What happened?”

You tap your foot on the carpet. “Sooooo, prom being tonight, I checked the list of parent chaperones who signed up. And…. Dad's name was there.” There’s silence on the other end for a good minute before a roar of laughter. “Please, you could show up for him, and don’t even have to stay. Sign in, then sneak out the back door. They’ll see that you’ve already signed in and won’t let him in.”

As the laughter continues on and your hope dies, why did you ever think you could rely on your family? The hair on the back of your neck shoots straight up. Oh no. You slam the phone down and turn on your heel. Trying your best to pull a smile that didn’t show how scared you are.

“Hey dad.” His face is blank, there’s no sign of anger. “It’s getting late, shouldn’t you be on your way already?” You nod, swallowing hard and trying to find an excuse.

“Just made a quick call to Nero. Big day, he’s really excited for me. I really should get going though…” He just nods, wrapping a lace shawl around your shoulders. You drop the nervous smile and a real one forms, his thumb rubbing the fabric gently. “You look lovely.”

“Thanks Daddy.” You hop onto your tiptoes, and he leans down just slightly. You press a kiss to his cheek.

You slip out the front door waving a goodbye, knowing full well he was watching you from the window. It didn’t take much power walking to escape his view before ducking into your date's porch. Quickly checking to see if you were followed before you decided to knock.

Their mom opens the door, a delighted smile splits her face. “Oh my gosh Honey! You look so pretty!” She welcomes you in, taking you to their living room. Quickly hurring off to get her child. Looking over their happy family photos you smile melancholy.

There are loud footsteps, and your date stops abruptly, jaws going slack. “Wow…”

You both wave goodbye to their mom as you walk to the overcrowded gym. The staff stand in a row on each side of the door, screaming and cheering as all of the students make their ways inside.

You cringe as teachers in their 40’s fake enthusiasm, their only real joy being that most of you will soon either be gone for the summer and the others leaving at the end of the year and be some college professor's problem. Your eyes scan the room before ducking behind a wave of people. “*Babe, what the hell?” “My dad.”

Their eyes widen as they look through the crowd, finding him quickly before returning their gaze to you. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” your face warms. “I was caught up in the moment!” You two try to walk casually to a table and sit down.

God the decor was bad.

If you’ve ever seen the 70’s version of Carrie, where the prom decor was aggressively cheap and 70’s… That, but worse. The gym still smells like last week's basketball game, and no plug in air freshener is going to erase that.

Kinda smells like your uncle's shop.

You both keep your heads down. “What did you tell him?” “Last week I told him that I didn’t have a date, and that I was going with a group of friends because we all couldn’t get dates.” They narrow their eyes. “Babe, why?”

“He pretends he doesn’t but… he worries a whole lot about me. I knew he’d stalk you if I told him the truth. But hey, you aren't a boy, so maybe he won’t react badly.” Their eyes widen and you shiver, it’s that icy stare you know all too well. They swallow, before straightening their collar. “What about our plan to sneak out?”

You look around at the four different doors. “We’ll find a way, give it an hour.”

“I figured out a way to get out, but I do want to dance with you first. I just need to use the bathroom first, wait for me, okay?” you nod and watch as they walk past a crowd of people and seemingly disappear.

The lights dim and time passes, things eventually become more lax. You wanted to move around to try and get a escape path (and to experience what you can of prom), but your date refuses to get up at all, especially to dance and make something of the time you have.

They clear their throat and start to get up, leaning down and whispering.

And you wait.

And wait, and wait. Maybe, maybe they did disappear. Looking over the groups and couples dancing, and those who were still sitting like you, they were nowhere. Not in here at least. You sigh, sinking down in the uncomfortable metal chair.

More time passes, and nothing. You start to wish you’d just gone with some friends, maybe then you wouldn’t have gotten ditched and actually had a good time.

The clock ticks on, and it's becoming more obvious that the staff are getting ready to kick everyone out. The D.J. has been playing straight slow songs for the past 20 minutes, and you’ve had to watch couples and friends slow dance together and two people get crowned king and queen.

You tried your best to seem happy, like you were enjoying yourself.

Pulling out your phone you see a notification from your dates account. They posted 7 minutes ago. It’s a video of them and their friends fucking around outside of a conveniance store in prom suits and dresses. You feel yourself tear up, slouching lower in the chair. The lights and people become blurry, c’mon, you don’t want to cry.

A hand comes to rest on your shoulder, you look over your shoulder to see your father looking down at you. “Y/n.” “Hey Dad.” You say, no longer having anything to hide. Not that you can hide anything from him for long.

He takes the seat your date had, lips pressed shut in a permanent scowl, just like normal. It didn’t scare you, that's just him. “It seems your companion abandoned you.” You scoff, pulling up your shawl. “Yeah…” “You’re upset.” “That obvious?”

You laugh at your own joke. If he’d been your brother, he would’ve laughed too. But he sits there awkwardly, not knowing how to comfort you in this situation. “They couldn’t even give me one dance before they left me either.”

The current song playing stops and you can hear a few people whine at the idea that the next would be the last of the night.

A hand is extended to you, your fathers, he stands waiting. It's not an option, it's a demand. You take it, getting up and following him.

The song starts and he starts to dance, but you trip over yourself. Stepping on his feet several times.

“Sorry… I forgot how to dance.”

Both remembering too-small tiaras being shoved in his hair, little feet with sparkly plastic princess slippers on his, and a random song playing in the background. Trying desperately to teach you how to dance after you’d begged him to.

Forgot.

You watch him smile, just slightly. The darkness giving him the anonymity to do so.

He never did, but you had so much fun.

“That's fine, just do what you used to.”

You step onto his feet, making you move the same as him. A question burns under your skin before you chew your lip. “You’re not mad at me?” “For?” “Lying about who I went with.” There’s a low growl like sigh. “We will deal with that later.”

You nod, not worrying about it now. Resting your head on his chest, closing your eyes, tears streaming down your face now... All of what happened melts away, the safety of your father makes it go away. He always does.

#devil may cry #devil my cry x reader #vergil sparda x reader #vergil x reader #dadgil #daughter reader #Vergil x daughter reader #prom #vergil sparda #Big brother Nero #Nero is present for like a second #same with dante #requests

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