#but in retrospect this is par for the course

[rottmnt-brainrot-hours]

You know how the Mad Dogs vaguely guess at what Mayhem is during the first episode? And Donnie specifically thinks he’s “some kind of nuclear St. Bernard”?

I just looked it up and... Donnie. Have you ever seen a St. Bernard. Why would you namedrop a breed you can’t recognize??

For reference:

This is a St. Bernard.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

I fired up Halo: CE with my nine year old a couple weeks ago, we played through the first couple levels

He has been… asking about Cortana

Not like, I dunno, he just asks to be reminded what her name is, and just kind of mentions her existence

It might be nothing

😬

[aayakashii]

violence sometimes might be the answer

Lyca defenders UNITE!!!

Warning: a bit of violence 🤫 this isn't proof-read yet so pls forgive the occasional typo or grammar flounder lol also it can definitely be read as platonic too, you're just very protective of your werewolf 😔

"We have to go! We have to go! Come on, hurry up!" Lyca tugged you and Subaru by the hands, forcing the both of you to trot clumsily behind him while he dragged you towards the cafeteria.

"Lyca, calm down!" Subaru chastised him, but made no actual effort to stop him on his tracks and neither did you. In fact, all you did was laugh.

Lyca had been talking about that day the entire week – the cafeteria was having pudding as dessert, and he desperately wanted to try it. He even made you and Subaru promise not to eat at Sho's food truck because he didn't want to go all alone to the cafeteria to try it.

And knowing how prejudiced most students were, you two agreed and promised you'd keep him company (and between you and Subaru, you also promised to keep him safe).

Thus, he dragged you to the crowded cafeteria and excitedly waited in line, all just to try that pudding. You could only hope it was going to live up to his hype.

Par for the course, you were very much aware of the looks and whispers of the students surrounding you. Luckily, Lyca seemed to be able to keep it all as background noise most of the time, but you still had a hard time keeping quiet whenever some stuck up elite student curled their lips in disgust as they looked at Lyca.

Subaru fidgeted on his spot, also painfully conscious of the awful comments made towards his friend. That was one of the many reasons why he preferred to eat at the terrace – less people, less judgment. But how could he, or you, deny a request like that from someone who spent such a large portion of his life away from the simple enjoyments of life? Lyca just wanted to eat pudding. How could that be so bad?

As the line moved forward, Lyca began to worry. There were just a few little cups left and too many people around him.

He bounced on his heels, laser focused on how many people were grabbing the dessert he wanted. A relieved smile spread onto his face when it was finally his turn to order his food and there was still one pudding cup left.

As he reached for it, however, a pale hand swatted him away and snatched the cup before him.

“Frostheim students have priority over lowly monsters.” a man said, cutting the line in front of Lyca, and staring him down in disdain with a wicked smirk plastered on his face.

Lyca glared at him, clenching his fists, and his mouth opened to retort, when he suddenly remembered you were standing just a few steps away.

Rui's voice echoed into his mind. “If you cause troubles, it won't bring problems just for you, but for the Honor Student as well! You don't want that, do you?”

And Lyca didn't want that.

Instead, he closed his mouth and unclenched his fist, looking down at his feet and breathing deeply, until he felt like he wouldn't rip the student's throat apart.

The student huffed in contempt and walked away, maneuvering towards his seat.

Behind him, you felt your face burning. Your eyes were trained on Lyca's hunched back before you and you barely registered Subaru muttering curses under his breath. All you could feel was searing hot rage. It bubbled in your stomach and spilled down your guts, drenching your insides in vengeful anger.

You did not notice when you began walking purposefully towards the student. All you knew is that you were seeing red.

You were deaf to the sounds of Subaru calling your name and blind to Kaito and Luca waving at you as you passed by (and their confused faces when you ignored them).

In retrospect, you probably have never felt that much rage before. Not when Taiga strapped you to his torture chair, not when Leo shit talked you at the end of your mission with Vagastrom, not when Romeo yelled at you for whatever stupid reason. None of that could hold a candle to the fury that seeped through your pores at that moment.

You realized, as you stomped loudly towards the Frostheim student, that you could excuse the awful treatment towards you, but you drew the line on anyone harming Lyca.

"Excuse me" you tapped the man on the shoulder. He wasn't much taller than you, which worked wonderfully for what you wanted to do.

"What do you want?" He turned around and narrowed his eyes at you, clearly annoyed that you interrupted his way to his table.

From then on, it all went by quite quickly.

You grabbed his cup, filled to the brim with grape juice and threw it on his face without missing a beat. As he blinked away the sticky liquid, sputtering, you picked up the pudding cup and placed it unceremoniously on the table beside you – you would give it to Lyca after you were done with the asshole.

"What do you think you're doing, bitch?! Are you crazy?!" the student yelled, but instead of answering, you flipped the plate of spaghetti he had picked up onto his face, pushing hard, until he almost lost balance. The plate crashed on the ground beside his feet and he tried to avoid stepping on it while noodles ran down his face, hair and uniform, obstructing his vision.

You quickly snatched the tray away from his hand, throwing it far behind you, barely registering where it landed. You pushed him down with even more force.

The man finally fell hard onto the ground with a loud thud, yelling as his hand was pierced by one of the plate's broken pieces. You stepped over him, leaning down to pull him closer to your face by his necktie. He coughed, bringing his arms towards his face, trying to shield himself from you.

"Listen here. You act like an asshole towards Lyca one more fucking time. And I will kill you. Do you understand?" You murmured through gritted teeth, eyes wide and nose flared up. The student whimpered under you, eyes shut in fear and blood dripping down his hand.

"Do you fucking understand?! Answer me!" You shook him, yelling, and he mumbled apologies incoherently.

You opened your mouth again to yell, when a pair of hands grabbed you by the shoulders and began pulling you away from the man.

"That's enough! Enough!”

Behind you, Luca shook you in order to snap you out of your rage-induced trance.

You inhaled sharply, blinking fast, and let go of the student's tie, letting him fall down again with another harsh thud. You felt your senses come back to you as you turned around and saw Luca and Kaito staring at you, horrified. A few steps further, Subaru and Lyca were also standing, watching your meltdown with something akin to bewilderment on their faces.

"Let's get out of here, quick." Luca began pulling you by the hand while Kaito almost ripped his own hair out in concern. You nodded mindlessly, stepping away from the man that was moaning in pain behind you.

Before you could leave the cafeteria and run away from all the prying eyes that were locked onto you, you looked to your side and snatched the pudding you had stolen from the boy. You were going to give it to Lyca.

"What on earth did you think you were doing?!"

After running as fast as your legs could take you, you stopped near your dorm's entrance, with Luca, Kaito, Subaru and Lyca beside you. Luca was giving you a disapproving glare that almost made you regret your attack. Almost.

You breathed deeply, trying to calm down your racing heart before answering.

"He bullied Lyca." you told Luca with a determined look on your face.

That seemed to have caught Luca off guard.

“We-well! But even so!” He stuttered, trying to explain his point “You're the Honor Student, you can't do this type of thing!”

You looked away, feeling the burn on the palm of the hand that grasped the student's tie. Adrenaline sure was a crazy thing. In a normal setting, you'd never be able to lift someone's weight like that with just one hand.

“I know. I'm not sorry though.” You muttered.

“...” Luca stared at you, grimacing.

“I know what I did was wrong.” You continued “But I'm not sorry! If Lyca can't defend himself because these assholes will whine and cry to their daddies at the littlest threat, then I will defend him.” you pointed to yourself and sustained Luca's gaze, unwilling to change your mind.

Beside you, Lyca scrunched his eyebrows and looked at his feet, a red blush tinting his face. Subaru tried hiding a grin behind his hand, doing his best not to escalate the situation.

“I- I understand where you're coming from, but... the Academy will probably punish you, you know?” Kaito added “Bu-but I totally get your point! Those guys are jerks!”

You shrugged, carelessly.

“I'll talk to the Chancellor or something. I don't know. I don't care! I'm sick of these people!” you raised your voice again and they flinched.

What were they going to do? Kill you? Lock you up? Wow big deal, you'd just be hurrying up the process since that's what they'd do anyway if you weren't cured. If you were going to suffer sooner or later, you'd like to at least defend your friend before that.

“... we'll talk to the Captain for you.” Luca announced, after a few moments of silence.

“We will?!” Kaito screeched.

“You will?!"

“Yes. Bullying is unacceptable, after all. No one should be discriminated against, no matter who they are. It's shameful behavior for a Frostheim student.” he put a hand over his heart and you knew he was being sincere.

“Luca...!”

“But!” He raised a finger “You can't do this type of thing anymore!"

You nodded frantically.

“Okay. I'll apologize to Jin too.”

“And to the student you beat up?”

Your face fell.

“No. Not until he apologizes to Lyca.” you pointed at the werewolf, to make your statement clearer

“I don't need an apology!” Lyca yelled, face burning red.

You shook your head.

“I don't care. They gotta treat you properly whether they like you or not! It's basic human decency! Otherwise I'll keep beating their ass.”

“Hey!” Luca reprimanded.

“Oh.” You cleared your throat “Sorry.”

He sighed.

“Okay... well. We'll think of something to tell Jin, right Kaito?”

“Y-yes!” Kaito gave you a thumbs up “We'll defend your side, somehow.”

You and the two Frostheim students fidgeted in place for a moment, feeling awkward.

“W-well. We better go then. News travels quickly. Don't get into more trouble!”

You smiled and bowed deeply.

“I won't! Thank you Luca, thank you Kaito!”

As their figures retreated towards the way to Frostheim's dorm, you got up from your position and began dusting off your clothes. There were droplets of sauce and grape juice on your blazer and you frowned at the sight of them.

Suddenly, Subaru stepped beside you and leaned a bit closer, covering his mouth as if he was going to tell you a secret.

"You know... I think you looked so cool defending Lyca!" He grinned mischievously with an embarrassed blush on his face.

“I did?” You scrunched your nose and grinned back.

Lyca scoffed.

“I didn't need defending! I was fine!” He pouted “B-but... thank you... that was really cool…” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his head.

You playfully messed up his hair, earning a growl from him.

“I'll always defend you. You can count on me. And by the way, here it is.” You extended your arm towards him, grabbing his hand.

“What is it?” He asked, looking at the cup you placed on his palm.

“It's the pudding you wanted. It's yours now.”

Lyca stared wordlessly at the pudding that started the whole mess, mouth agape.

Beside you, as he shook his head, Subaru began laughing.

[heresthestorymorningglory]

Hello Nurse

Summary: When hospitals are a big fat no, you find yourself a nurse friend

A/N: Listen y'all this NSFW 18+ should be par for the course at this point. So like....just don't okay?

As always, the inspo is thanks to the Goosecord and my beautiful partner in crime @ken-dom for keeping me from going completely off the deep end. (I have a Six problem)

This definitely will not be the last you see of him

Enjoy my loves! <3

The incessant pounding only got louder as you cautiously made your way down the dark stairs into the darkened front hall. It was two thirty in the morning, whoever had the gaul to be this insistent had a death wish.

You flipped the light on and yanked the door open, not bothering to check who was on the other side first; in retrospect probably not the smartest idea, but you were too tired and too annoyed to care. 

“What?!” you nearly shrieked “Do you have any idea-” you stopped abruptly when you realized who was standing…leaning was probably more accurate, on your front porch. 

“Six..��� you breathed  “Jesus you look like hell” 

“I need your help” he strained, pushing himself off the door frame with a grunt just long enough to stumble inside. You were the only one he trusted, the only one he could come to.

You closed the door, turning to look at him in the light. He was covered in dirt, bruises and blood, someone else’s you had hoped, but based on the way he was swaying on his feet just standing in front of you, you wagered not. He was soaked from head to toe.

“What the hell happened?!” you tried to keep your composure, ushering him to the living room and sitting him down on the couch 

“Got loud,” he whispered, “Went sideways.”  He didn’t want to give you the grisly details, you didn’t need to know although he knew you were smart enough to figure it out on your own.

“Hey,” you snapped your fingers in front of his nose “Eyes open, no sleeping” 

Your own sleep forgotten as you flip into nurse mode, digging the first aid kit out of the hall closet and kneeling on the floor in front of the couch. 

This wasn’t the first time he had stumbled to your front door battered and bloody; no hospitals, that was his number one rule. Lucky for both of you, you worked in one…

Upon closer inspection, you noticed Six had stab wounds, all over. His arms, his thighs, his shoulders, through his hand. 

“Jesus Christ” you breathed realizing this was going to take more than your first aid kit. “I know I asked what the hell happened, but don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” 

You pulled yourself up from the floor and went to find clean towels and washcloths from the bathroom before hanging your robe on the back of the bathroom door and pulling your scrubs from earlier back on. You grabbed your sewing kit and the bottle of bourbon you kept in the kitchen before setting it all down on the coffee table across from the couch. 

He watched you flit around the room collecting things and then you disappeared down the hall, and when you came back you were in your nurse’s scrubs. He had never admitted it to anyone, but there was just something about a woman in scrubs that did it for him; hospitals were a hard no, especially in his line of work, but in finding you all those years ago he had lucked out ...but he had never told you either…

It had been almost six months since he’d seen you last, he almost considered not coming at all; he hated just barging into your life, typically in the dead of night and in need of some form of care. You never seemed to mind though, on multiple occasions he had offered apologies for doing exactly what he had tonight and every time you dismissed it with a wave of your hand before sending him on his way with a kiss on the cheek. 

He had told you when you had first met that he didn’t do relationships, couldn’t, it was too risky. You had agreed, your schedule at the hospital didn’t allow for much of a personal life regardless but fate had kept putting you in the other’s path consistently since then. He found solace in the fact that no matter the time on the clock, he could show up on your front porch and you would help, no questions, no judgment, no hesitation. 

“Clothes off,” you said simply and Six blinked slightly taken aback making you laugh “Unless you want me to sew you into those?” 

You stood, pulling out what you needed to patch him up watching him struggle to move. You rounded the coffee table moving to stand in front of him. “Can I help?” 

You had known him for years, and patching him up was never a big deal, but you had never seen him this mangled before, usually it was a cracked rib, a broken nose, or a bullet in the shoulder; nothing that required him to strip down to nothing but boxers in your living room in the middle of the night. The thought made your stomach flutter as he nodded silently. 

His stomach clenched feeling your warm fingers curl against his sides, sending shooting pains all over, his heart slamming in his chest, he was amazed it had blood to pump still. You were gentle, careful not to touch any of the wounds hidden under the fabric, but he could see the worry in your face slip through your concentration but only briefly.

Six lifted his arms, just high enough as you grabbed the hem of his t-shirt, lifting it gently over his head and tossing it out of the way. Looking down at your hands, they were stained red and you realized what you had initially thought to be water making his shirt damp was actually blood.

You wiped your hands on the front of your scrub top before rinsing them off with the rubbing alcohol from the first aid kit. 

He stood just long enough to kick his boots and pants off before flopping heavily back on the couch. You gave him the once over, fingers brushing gently over his shoulder blades as you climbed on the couch to examine his back and sides.

He had to remind himself to breathe properly as the soft material of your scrub top brushed against his bare arm, your breath warm on his shoulder, your fingertips warm on his back as you surveyed his wounds. 

“Good news is, most of these I can just Steri-Strip closed” you smiled, using his broad shoulder for leverage to push yourself up off the couch “Your hand needs stitches though”

He nodded just grateful for a place to sit and breathe for a minute; not having to have his guard up or watch his back. This was safe, you were safe.

“Were you shot?” you asked, eyes wandering over his bare chest he noticed as you took his injured hand, wiping it clean as gently as you could manage. You asked the question so cavalierly it almost made him laugh

You looked up at him when he didn’t answer immediately and he quickly dropped his gaze to his lap with a shake of his head “No, just stabbed”

“How many times?” You asked, putting the cloth aside and sanitizing your needle 

“A bunch” 

You rolled your eyes as you thread your needle before handing him the bottle of bourbon “You know, I have half a mind to make you go to the hospital”

“Guess I’ll just bleed out on your couch then” 

"That would be a scarier threat if you didn't make it every time you stumbled through my door"

He liked the rapport he had with you, being able to joke with you made him forget about the pain for a few minutes. Nearly six months had passed and yet, you talked like he had just seen you yesterday. 

“Haven’t lost your sense of humor I see” you muttered pulling his hand into the light “How did you manage not to sever something?” you asked, more to yourself than to him; focused on moving his fingers until he winced  “Sorry” you smiled apologetically “This isn’t going to be a fun night for you” 

He nodded, eyes closed, taking a slow breath as he leaned forward, his head dropping between his knees. 

“Still with me?” you asked, hand reaching instinctively to push the hair that had fallen forward back. 

He nodded slowly, swallowing hard “Don’t like blood” he said softly, but had been very aware of your fingers pushed through his hair. 

You couldn’t help chuckling to yourself with a shake of your head as he sat back up. “I think you got in the wrong line of work to be afraid of blood”

“I’m not afraid of blood,” he pouted and you wondered if he knew “I just don’t like it” 

“My mistake” you bit back another small laugh “You just look a little pale, do you want a bucket?” 

“Ha ha” he rolled his eyes “Couldn’t possibly be pale from all the blood loss” he quipped 

“Nah,” you agreed with a shake of your head “Especially with it gushing out of your hand like that…” 

All the colour drained from his face then, your hand immediately snapping across the coffee table, grabbing the empty popcorn bowl you had left there earlier in the evening, sliding it in Six’s lap just in time for him to empty the contents of his stomach. 

You opted to grab the trash can from the kitchen where Six threw the bowl out as you slid it next to him. 

“You did that on purpose” he glared 

“Maybe, wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve caught puke in my hands though”

He frowned “Ew..” 

“Just another Thursday” you smiled, a line you frequently traded back and forth  “But you’re probably going to get sick again, this is going to hurt”

You sat cross legged on the floor, pulling over a small end table with the reading light tilted so you could see what you were doing. 

He sat and watched you examine the damage to his palm absolutely enamored with the way you worked. 

“Hand first, then the worst part will be over, okay?” 

He didn’t answer, just simply took a deep swig from the bourbon bottle in his good hand. You looked up at him,  then set to your task, needle and thread in hand.

First poke through skin and he let out a hard breath through his nose, flinching slightly. You didn’t look up, just held his hand to the table more firmly trying to work as fast as you could manage. “I know it sucks, but you can’t move” 

He didn’t answer, just continued to take slow deep breaths through his nose, grunting in pain occasionally as the needle pierced bruised flesh. As you suspected, you got about a quarter of the way through before the pain became too much, even for Six, and you had to stop so he could be sick. The middle section of the wound was the worst, but all he could manage at that point were dry heaves and bile. 

“We’re almost done” you reassured him softly, he was sickly white and sweaty, but nodded with his eyes closed, trying to focus on anything but the hot stab of pain in his tendons.

It took longer than he would have liked and his pride was somewhere at the bottom of your kitchen trash can along with his dinner, but he knew you were good at your job, and he only felt like passing out once or twice but had managed to stay awake as you stitched the top of his hand.

His calloused palm was at least easier to handle once you had flipped his hand over, although he was sure, more difficult for you.

He watched intently while you worked, once you were done stitching, you held it open in yours, cleaning the closure and checking your work. 

You leaned forward over the small end table, his eyes glancing down the front of your scrub top, you were naked underneath, before diverting his attention elsewhere if only to avoid getting caught. 

“Hard part is done” you sat up, again cleaning the blood from your hands and stretching your back from your place on the floor. “The rest will be easy”

You shifted to sit on your feet, knelt in front of him, cleaning the biggest wound on his thigh before closing it with a strip. You couldn’t help chuckling to yourself as you stood up on your knees and he looked at you curiously 

“Whoever stabbed you didn’t do a very good job” 

This made him snort “I beg to differ” 

“Well they’re not very deep” you noted “You’ve had worse”

He nodded, he couldn’t disagree with you there. You pulled yourself to your feet and disappeared into the kitchen coming back with a chair, setting it in front of him “Sit” you pointed “Burlesque”

He scoffed with a laugh “Absolutely not”

You sighed with hands on your hips “If you want me to patch you up and fix the knife block that is your back, sit your ass down”

He got to his feet and did as you asked, straddling the chair resting against the back. “You’re grumpy when you’re tired”

“You should see me when I’m mad” You leaned to whisper in his ear making his body prickle with goosebumps. 

“I’ll pass,” he muttered, as you circled back around him; strips and alcohol in hand as his forehead rested on his arms; he was exhausted. 

You instinctively reached touching his shoulder gently, hoping to provide some form of comfort. 

“When was the last time you slept?” you asked softly, gently washing away the dried blood around the first gash on his shoulder 

He groaned, head still resting on his forearms “What day is it?” 

You bit your lip, but kept quiet; who were you to judge his sleeping habits when yours weren’t much better?  

“Friday morning” you answered and he flinched as you touched the alcohol dampened pad to the cut 

His eyes were closed, as he leaned against the back of the chair he straddled; alcohol biting at the first of many fresh cuts as he considered your answer, Friday morning.”Two days ago” he answered, voice amplified in the space between his chest and folded arms. 

You didn’t say anything, but your concern for him was becoming more palpable by the minute. He didn’t have to be looking at you to see your face.

He breathed deeply through his nose, it hurt less somehow than through his mouth; focusing his attention on your soft touches, everything stung or throbbed or pounded except for you, your touch was soft; he wondered if you had realized you had started humming. He didn’t recognize the tune, assuming it had been one at all, but it soothed him and he felt his muscles finally start to relax.

You watched his shoulders drop, finally releasing the tension across his back that had been there since he stumbled through the door a few hours ago. You wondered if he had drifted off to sleep as you closed the last cut on his lower back before kneeling next to the chair to do the ones along his ribcage.

You didn’t want to disturb him, but were surprised to see his eyes open, studying the floor before he glanced over where you knelt. You didn’t say anything, just offered a smile, adding another dirtied pad to the pile that had accumulated on the coffee table. 

You had turned back to your task at hand, but could still feel his eyes watching you; studying your movements as you closed up another cut. 

Feeling his eyes on you stirred the heat in your core; you ran your tongue between your lips, you had to focus, focus on what you were doing. You closed the last gash on that side of his ribcage and moved to the other side, careful to avoid eye contact; somehow you felt like he knew, like he could read your mind, see your thoughts like a little movie projected on your forehead, exposing you and your true feelings. 

Six was an attractive man, you would have to be blind not to see that, but this wasn’t supposed to be like that; you were supposed to keep it professional, do your job; at least that was the silent agreement you had made with yourself. He didn’t have girlfriends, didn’t do relationships, you reminded yourself; today he was here, tomorrow he could be dead. And a relationship with your work schedule? Please. 

Who said anything about a relationship? The little voice in the back of your mind whispered Maybe it’s just some casual sex 

You tried pushing the thought to the back of your mind and failed miserably. 

Just let him bend you over the arm of the couch and- 

“Hey, I think I have enough holes, don’t you?” 

His voice snapped you out of your head and you realized you had unintentionally buried your nails into his side leaving behind little crescent welts. 

“Sorry hon” you let out a slow breath collecting yourself and cleaning the next cut 

The new stinging sensation of your nails digging into his skin had snapped him out of his own fantasy; a fantasy that made his cock twitch between his legs as he straddled your kitchen chair, as you knelt a mere foot away. 

He turned his head away from you, stretching his arms out over the back of the chair in front of him, biting into his bicep, squeezing his eyes shut. 

Usually he could control himself, keep his intrusive thoughts about you at bay until you had finished fixing him up; usually. 

Tonight, it was like you were personally torturing him; like Lloyd Hansen had taught you himself. 

First you had changed in to scrubs, turning yourself into his personal nurse, stoking that fantasy that he usually lived out on his own where you were in his imagination, not where he could feel your fingertips in real time, couldn’t feel your steady breathing in and out against his skin as you focused on cleaning out the next stab wound.

Then he had stripped down to barely nothing, the logical part of his brain knew this made sense, the part of his brain driven by lust was screaming at him to just take you, here and now, on the coffee table, on the floor it really didn’t fucking matter. There’s no way you weren’t going to notice if you carried on much longer…boxers didn’t do much for concealment. 

“Hey,” he looked up, feeling your hand push through his unkempt hair “You okay?” 

You were standing now, he hadn’t even heard you get up but he nodded. “Are you done?” 

You scoffed with a laugh “Sweetie, somebody turned you into a human pin cushion and they did a really bad job about it. “I’m trying to keep you from turning into a walking infection” 

“And is it working?” his voice was hoarse with exhaustion and he could tell you were tired too, but you just offered him a smile, your beautiful smile 

“It will once you turn around so I can finish the front” 

His heart skipped a beat and he immediately shook his head “You’ve done enough, I can do the rest”

You cocked your head to the side with a raised eyebrow, one had on your hip “Can you?” you asked, feigning surprise 

“Yes,” he mocked sitting up a little straighter 

“Really?” you asked sarcastically, shifting on your bare feet. “Lift your arms above your head”

Any hint of humor had dropped from his features “What?” 

“Do it,” you coaxed “If you can lift your arms over your head for thirty seconds, I’ll let you finish yourself” 

“I’m not-” 

That had backfired spectacularly and he knew you knew it. “I don’t-” he started and you immediately interrupted. 

“I swear to god, Six” you rolled your eyes “If the next words out of your mouth aren’t ‘I’d be happy too’ I’m pulling all those strips off and I will let you bleed out on my living room floor”

“And undo all your handy work?” he muttered before pulling himself up and turning to sit in the chair properly. He would just have to deal with the consequences if you did notice. Maybe you wouldn’t say anything at all; you had tact; he could hope.

“Good boy” 

He couldn’t see you but he could hear the smile in your voice. You came around the back of the chair and knelt in front of him; his knees practically touching his legs were closed so tight. From his vantage point he didn’t even have to try to see down the v of your scrub top, streaks of dried blood, his dried blood down the front of your chest where you had either brushed against him or accidently wiped your dirty hands 

“What do I look like, a paper doll?” you asked, your eyes meeting his, before your hands pushed his knees apart so you could scoot closer. 

He closed his eyes, trying to will any semblance of his arousal away; he thanked the powers that be that he had only had a couple gashes on his chest.

He looked down, watching your hands move over his scarred flesh. 

“It’s creepy when you do that” you spoke quietly, sealing the first cut closed before you looked up 

He had been close enough for your noses to almost touch; your heart slammed in your chest under his blue eyed scrutiny; he was unreadable. Part of his training at some point you assumed, never crack, never show emotion. 

He cleared his throat breaking eye contact before he apologized 

“It’s fine, but last time I was watched that closely I was being graded” 

“And did you pass?” He asked fingers flexing against his thighs as he kept a flinch at bay; he thought by now he’d be used to the sting, but apparently not. 

“Eh,” you shrugged “I got by…stitched a guys fingers together once” 

He could see the smile playing on your lips as you looked up at him from under your lashes. 

“You’re lying” he laughed a little, but stopped almost as quickly, it hurt his ribs 

“Am I?” you smiled “You’ve never seen me in a hospital, I just told you I was a nurse, maybe I lied”

His eyes narrowed slightly and he tipped his head, amused. 

“Maybe I’m just some unhinged woman who has a care fetish” 

“How very Annie Wilkes of you” he mused 

“My sledgehammer is in the basement” you smirked “And Annie didn’t have a care fetish, she was just obsessed with the guy”

“You saying you're obsessed with me?” 

You shrugged “You’re a hot mysterious man who just keeps coming back to me, you make it so easy” 

You bit the inside of your cheek when you realized what you had said;out loud. The words just hung between you in the air before you cleared your throat and shook your head changing the subject. 

You mentally kicked yourself for letting something so stupid slip out.

“I’ll tell you one thing, you’ve got somebody looking out for you; this many stab wounds and not one of them anything life threatening.” you paused for a beat “Twenty six, by the way; I counted, in case you wanted to break a record when you come back”

You got up on your knees, pulling his face closer to examine the cut on his forehead above his eye. “Now I know that’s not a stab” 

“Fell out a window” he spoke, and the words sounded muffled in his own ears as your hands cupped his face for a moment longer before you busied them again.

He hadn’t missed the hard line you pressed your lips into as you put what was seemingly an endless supply of alcohol onto a new cotton pad. 

You watched his eyes flicker from your lap watching your wrist as you reached to dab the cut on his forehead.

He jumped pulling back with a sharp hiss through his teeth “Ow” 

You dropped your shoulders with a sigh, shifting yourself closer, touching the cut again. Again, he hissed with pain “Ow” 

You rolled your eyes “Oh ow, you big baby,” You took his face in your hands, pulling him closer blowing gently. “I’ve never met someone who can manage two dozen stab wounds and not a scrape” 

You leaned back slightly, still holding his face “Better?” 

He didn’t answer, you noticed he wasn’t looking into your eyes this time, he was watching your lips. You ran your tongue between them before you bit down on your bottom lip, pulling it against your teeth. 

The impressive hard on tenting his boxers caught your attention and you pressed your lips together. 

God he wanted nothing more than to kiss you right now; he wasn’t tired anymore, or at least he hadn’t felt tired at the current moment. 

“Court…” you whispered and the name sounded foreign to his ears, but it was enough for him to look up, your cheeks were flushed; the same burn of desire he felt in the pit of his stomach was reflected in your eyes and something inside him snapped then. 

He stood from the chair, pulling you to your feet in one swift movement and with two large strides, you were pinned against the wall, your scrub top being pulled over your head and unceremoniously tossed to the floor before his lips moved against yours, hungry and unrelenting. 

Your brain finally able to process that you weren’t on your knees in front of him anymore, you returned his kiss with your own frantic need, quite certain you would wake up at any second like any other time.

His hands made quick work of the scrub pants you had still been wearing followed soon after by his own boxers. 

You wrapped your arms around his neck, his tongue pushing past your lips, exploring every inch of your mouth. A strong hand on your thigh, lifting your leg to wrap around his waist as he ground his hips against yours; his hard cock unmistakable. 

He broke your kiss, both of you panting heavily as you leaned your head back against the wall, his mouth sucking harshly on your neck as he dropped his head into your shoulder.

Your chest heaved as your head swam trying to get your bearings. You curled your fingers against his broad shoulder blades and he growled, actually growled against your neck, making you shiver; a shaky moan tumbling from your lips.

This wasn’t a dream, not this time, this was real. 

“Jesus Christ,” you panted, swallowing hard  

He pulled back to look at you, lips red and swollen, panting just as hard. “What?” 

“You…I-” you stammered trying to form the words “We’re gonna-” you panted with a laugh “We’re gonna fuck aren’t we?” Not being able to think of a less crude way of putting it in the moment. 

He laughed as much his injuries would allow, pushing his hair back out of his face “Well, not if you don’t want-” 

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence” you breathed, cutting him off with a bruising kiss; taking all your strength to push yourself and him off the wall. 

He guided your other leg around his waist as he stumbled backwards, adjusting to the weight, narrowly missing the coffee table as he landed hard on the couch, his heel digging into the wood floor as the couch tipped backwards, on two legs before crashing back down on all four. 

You pulled back, breathing hard toward the ceiling as he left harsh bites down the length of your neck. 

“Up-” you panted, hips grinding against his “Upstairs” 

You wrapped yourself around him tightly, burying your face in his neck as his hands slid up your bare back, before wrapping around your middle as he heaved himself back up to his feet. He rounded the corner, groaning as your teeth sank into the tender flesh of his collarbone. 

He clamored halfway up the small flight before he stopped, sinking to his knees, mouth and hands devouring every inch of you he could touch; you spread your legs to accommodate his massive frame before he thrust hard, burying himself inside you to the hilt. You arched off the staircase, your moan of pleasure echoing off the walls around you.

He thrust harder, moaning into your shoulder as he braced himself on the step, giving himself leverage as you tangled one hand is his hair, the other wrapping around his waist, your fingers careful to avoid cuts, as his back muscles flexed with the effort; Your feet had no chance of finding purchase on the staircase; your entire body jerking with the power behind each one of his thrusts. You gasped letting his body swallow you whole; desperate, needy, pathetic moans tumbling from your own lips. His grunts of effort and moans only edging you on. 

“Oh god…” your whole body shuddered as you felt your orgasm creep closer “Don’t…stop” you paused trying to catch your breath “Court p-please d-don’t” 

“Again,” his voice was hoarse, his breath hot against your ear “Say it, again” he panted and you melted into the stairs 

“C-Court” your voice broke with effort as you couldn’t keep your orgasm at bay any longer. You clung to him as if your life had depended on it.

He kissed you needy, desperate and passionate; spilling inside you with a deep moan that got lost in your kiss. No one had ever called him by his name, not anymore, but you; you were special; and now, you were his. 

You collapsed on the stairs, lungs burning with the effort it was taking just simply to breathe; shaky and shallow. Six leaned over you, catching this breath, sticky with sweat. Forehead resting against yours, arms quivering holding up his own weight. He leaned forward, kissing you gently, a stark contrast to moments ago.

He leaned back, blue eyes searching your face before he spoke “This can’t-we can’t-” 

“Shh” you whispered, leaning up to kiss his forehead as you pushed his matted hair back before your hand came to rest on his shoulder “Don’t worry about it”

“But-” He sat up, allowing you room to do the same.

You shook your head pressing your fingers to his lips “Let’s just go to bed” you whispered as he pulled you to your feet. 

You turned on the narrow staircase, threading your fingers through his as you pulled him behind you to your bedroom; your queen size bed had never looked so small; you could see the sun starting to peek through the drawn curtains as you climbed under the covers and he slid in behind you. His chest warm against your bare back as his arms wrapped around you. 

He let out a heavy sigh; this wasn’t supposed to have happened; not like this, not ever. He squeezed you gently, breathing in your scent. His eyes heavy as he started to drift off, finally able to sleep. Nothing was ever going to happen to you, he would make damn sure of that; he would keep you safe, and kill anyone who even thought to try to jeopardize that. 

[onesunofagun]

The implications on Ganondorf and his background in TotK suggest some very interesting things to me.

First of all, like. I love him. He specifically did not disappoint me. His JP audio fucks so hard. I love his design. He's glorious.

And Hyrule as an imperialistic divine hegemony is not a new concept in the slightest, obviously, the Ganondorf corner of the fandom have known and discoursed about the potential story ramifications of those themes since OoT, but Fujibayashi really went ham on it in his run. (And look. Zelda is made in Japan. Framing a divine imperial authority as a good thing narratively is pretty par for the course JP nationalism, to be really blunt. It is what it is. Grain of salt.)

But I do appreciate that it revisited some OoT plot beats even if it... really drove that point home again in retrospect

I guess new fans are in for a treat unpacking that;;;

Anyway in the BG of that, I'm interested in the particular minutia of what was happening with this Ganondorf specifically to flavour his particular brand of 'fuck you'

And a few important points that give broader context to things are these and I'll put under a cut bc spoilers obviously--

Rauru's repeated 'invitations' to join Hyrule and benefit from their protection (presumably some advanced technological access or strong magical allies as part of that promise, which I believe is probably anti-monster focused within world context) which Ganondorf as a King has very much ignored (and good for him tbh).

Clearly, he has an interest in keeping Gerudo independent.

Ganondorf is acknowledged as a Hero to his people. Not only does this heavily resonate with the very particular themes of his actual character design and both its Buddhist reference and Samurai trope homages, but like-- we're actively shown an explanation for WHY he may be considered such.

Being who he is, he's already magically inclined with a kinship to monsters. We are unapologetically shown him in command of a Molduga Army. Trained Moldugas, under his command-- and not under specifically his mystical command, either, but musically conditioned. Trained to follow sound based command cues, which makes plentiful sense given Moldugas are sound sensitive and Ganondorf usually has musical inclinations. Plus it's Zelda franchise, magic command music is also very much a thing but--

Moldugas are, at least medicinally, very important resources. On a larger scale, they're also a very present threat to desert dwellers and travellers, and from the looks of it in much larger numbers, back then.

Given the context of everything, Ganondorf was a badass even before 'he took a magic relic and fucked up the Hyrulean Royal Family' as he tends to do. Sporting as ever, he fights Link one on one as just a Gerudo, also showing once again that he does in fact have some personal code of honour when it comes to fighting worthy opponents. But it gives us a yardstick of how capable he probably was even before he nabbed the tear.

Capable enough of tangling with most big uglies in the desert, such as Moldugas, which he has at least trained and at most maybe even raised.

Exemplified Power as he ever is, I'd like to point out that in this case, he's demonstrating a flipside of what Power looks like-- benevolence, protection, guardianship. Once again, we have the pieces that indeed he is capable of that and showing that to his own people. He also flexes the Molduga Army as a show of Gerudo and its own power.

To anyone other than Rauru, who is an incredibly powerful Sage already, a Molduga Army would have absolutely won the day, I think. The reaction of the other Gerudo is pretty telling.

Ganondorf's faction were deeply shaken by the display of Rauru's power. And as a guy that's been knocking on your King's door and saying 'you should come and bend knee to me' when Gan already has the worst problem in the sands sorted out?

Very understandable.

From their perspective -- what do they need protection from, exactly, if not Hyrule itself? Their monster problem is a non-issue. From the viewpoint of Gerudo loyal to Ganondorf, everything about this looks like a pressured threat.

Which comes back around, of course, to what Ganondorf plainly lays out to Rauru when he gains the tear-- this is because Rauru tried to control him. And yes, that's Ganondorf and his pride and his nature in full tilt too. He will not be pulled beneath anyone or anything.

But that's the point about that hubris on Rauru's part, he felt superior and he underestimated both Gerudo and Ganondorf-- as a warrior and a leader, and as somebody who was likely managing things very well on his own.

But I mentioned factions. This is something that should be made clear.

Pointed ears are, canonically, associated with faithfulness to Hylia and/or the worship of Hyrulean spirits. This gets debated all the time, but that's the fact of it. We have been shown again and again that humans from outside of Hyrule have round ears (as long ears are associated with hearing the voices of the gods; ie being open to them). Exposure to Hyrulean aligned divine elements can lend pointedness to previously totally round ears. We see this happen.

It has been doubled down upon that the ancient Gerudo (such as in oot and FSA, with FSA having the introduction of the floral association in Gerudo design and OoT heavily centering mirrors in their spiritual practices) worship different deities, whether derivatives of Din or Hylia or completely different myth. The Goddess of the Sands has been confirmed as a deity that Hyrule itself views as evil and false.

I generally interpret this to mean that part of the reason boils down to this-- Hyrule's main concern is that pointed ears are living lives closer to the gods, and therefore more insulated against corruption and demonic influences. Rather fittingly, their patron's foremost spiritual antagonist tends to find his reincarnation in unprotected, non-Hyrulean tribes who are 'open' to demons.

Now that may be another layer to what Rauru means when he says protection, also. Worshipping the 'right gods' affords certain protections (and certainly supports the security of Hyrule itself).

In SkSW, by the way, there's a really cool point of questioning early human society too-- the fire temple depicts demons and monsters and snakes quite a bit, and these were built in a time when I suspect the humans were mostly a large proto-people.

Sidenote: I think Hylia's faithful went to Skyloft and generally shook out to be the Hylians we know later, where some stayed on Earth to serve Hylia's plan and became Sheikah, many more people were transformed into demons in a reverse-Batreaux situation, and some humans just scattered far and wide to avoid conflict.

Anyway that temple depicts Bokoblins making hand signs and long story short, the overall motif and meaning of that temple shows demons offering to teach things, approaching humans with a different kind of enlightenment. Whoever built that temple was very much in a state of open spiritual and mystical curiosity.

Now the takeaway there is, ultimately, the ancient Gerudo very much seem to be descended from such a sect of people. They have their own gods, and they're not part of Hyrule proper, and they have round ears because of it.

Botw departed from that very clearly, but in doing so, also erased and replaced almost all traces of the ancient Gerudo deities with new Hylian analogues.

The Seven/Eight Heroines count as Hylianised deities, and I believe the reason for this-- first suspected in botw but I feel it's weightier after totk-- is that they represent tear holders / Hylia aligned Sages in the seven group (edit: and apparently a Hero in the Eighth) such as those in the decline timeline. They are functionally the reason that the Gerudo of modern day possess long ears-- even where they are selective in what they worship, they are still worshipping Hylia aligned aspects of Divine Hyrule.

And in case this wasn't absolutely irrefutable to me beforehand, the ancient Gerudo Sage from Rauru's time is both loyal to him, and possesses pointed ears under her camel mask.

I would also point out the Hylians of Rauru's time seem to have longer ears in general, probably owing to having a Zonai King, ostensibly a Hylia aligned Deity himself.

Ganondorf's ears are rounded, of course. He clearly doesn't believe in Hyrulean worship even in lip service, and it's little wonder why.

But following another beat of OoT, that ancient sage is a very obvious Nabooru type character. And, in much the same way, that suggests that even when Ganondorf was King of the Gerudo only, there may have already been factions splitting up amongst their people based on spiritual practices.

I don't think it's beyond the pale to speculate there may have been a mixture of Gerudo at the time who had both pointed ears and round, signalling the confusion from and conflict between their spiritual leaders.

It seems likely that a schism probably existed, regardless of ears, but that schism-- and the sage who may well have been leading it-- may have been caused by people who decided respond to those calls from Rauru and join Hyrule without their King.

Which gives a lot more context to why Ganondorf would be in the mood to send a giant Molduga shaped "back off" Rauru's way, also.

I take particular note that Ganondorf's destruction intentions are faced towards Hyrule and her allies, and specifically those who oppose him in that goal. And while I concur that his whole Red Inheritance party ran hard and may well have had a decent hand in frightening the bejeezus out of the Gerudo who were previously faithful to him-- maybe even inadvertently sent some running for camp Hyrule-- it seems he considers modern day Gerudo, fully converted to pro-Hyrulean status, to be traitors.

We have no idea what happened to the Gerudo who followed him, so that's really up in the air as to how messy that may have gotten.

Even the woman who plays to summon the Molduga has pointed ears though, so I tend to lean that his camp got converted to Heroine worship (or at least those with pointed ears mostly did if the mixed ear situation was happening).

But heck, it would not be the first time some Gerudo got ran outta dodge after a King went belly up.

Food for thought.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news and of course everyone should be able to and encouraged to have their fun, but, contrary to the claims of a lot of fandom creator demographic speculators, I can assure you that of the actually readable-and-enjoyable-to-strangers-on-par-with-published-fiction fanfic, a vanishingly small percentage of that will be written by kids 16 and under.

Like, even the most talented teenage writer will generally not be able to put out content that matches the external quality of adult written fic, even if they think that they can. This results in the most popular, big name fanfiction projects that percolate up being almost universally written by adults.

Not trying to rip on anyone, or shame any teens, or even say you shouldn't bother reading writing written by teens (which will often be good and interesting for what it is!). But I feel like the memory of being a teen in fandom and assuming everyone else is your age is causing even adults, when looking back in retrospect, to vastly overstate the capacity of 15 year olds to write engaging adult-level novels. This applies even when said novel is about cartoon characters.

[zedif-y]

zedaph is dead. he died back in season six, when zedeath possessed him, and he never quite came back right. hes a walking corpse, not exactly a zombie but very much undead. hes just a corpse that doesnt rot. his internal organs dont work, he doesnt breathe, he has no heartbeat and doesnt give off body heat.

not even he knows why hes not permadead. by all logic, he should be.

- headc-anon

(side note, are you enjoying the horror? is it too much? should my next one be pure crack instead)

(DEFINITELY enjoying the horror, feel free to send whatever genre of hcs you want! hope youre enjoying these little one shots :])

Turns out, being possessed by Death has its side effects.

It's surprisingly easy to adjust to the whole being undead thing, hell, it's not like he even really thought about breathing back when he was alive. It's easy enough to forget, really. Even the Hermits accepted the information pretty fast.

In retrospect, the Hermitcraft Server is already pretty weird.

It's not the craziest thing to ever happen. Cub and Scar eventually make deals with the Vex, Tango goes from fire to ice, Mumbo is doing Mumbo things, and Zedaph is undead. Par for the course, if you ask him.

Most might think that his obsession with death came from the fact that he is a walking corpse. (A pretty good-looking one, considering the whole corpse aspect- but that's just him.) And they would be mistaken.

He's always had quite the fascination with death. But now that his organs and other squishy bits don't exactly work... It's not like he has to worry about pain anymore.

All this to say, while he's always had an interest in death, (is that odd? a lot of things about him are odd.) actually being dead only enhanced that. Which is what lead to consensual death loops and becoming Tango's Decked Out Testing Dummy.

It's quite fun!

More people should try being undead, Zedaph thinks. Cleo was right, being alive goes out of fashion quick.

(Speaking of Cleo, they were the first one to notice his change.

"Does it scare you?" They asked, sunlight glinting off of the exposed bones in their cheek. "The fact that you should be dead."

Zedaph shrugged. Maybe it should, but...

"Not really," He replied, "I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Not really a big fan of what I should be, to be honest. Where's the fun in that?"

Cleo hummed, a smile on their lips. "D'you think there's a reason you're still here and not six feet under?"

Zedaph laughs.

"I like to think I'm just too stubborn to stay dead.")

[theblobmaster]

chanlix in retrospective

so i've been watching old skz content for the first time and i have thoughts specifically about how chanlix is shown. this isn't necessarily about shipping, but it's also a big part of how kpop groups are promoted by their companies so it also kinda is.

first up the survival show:

1. - jype really just handed chris felix and said here he's your responsibility now. we find out in the second episode that felix moved into the same dorm as chris as soon as he landed in korea. him having been living in the dorm with chris, jisung and jeongin for 8 months when the other guys move in.

and i do think that was pretty intentional, chan has said that he knew felix was coming to the company beforehand, so jype probably sat him down and was like we have another aussie boy joining, help him settle into the company and communicate with others.

which no wonder they ended up close if that was the case.

2. - they barely interact throughout the entire show. the only time we really see them together are very short 2 second clips from their selcams where they're joking. when they're out and about they constantly seem to be in close vicinity of each other, yet we never really see them speak? it's weird.

3. - then we have episode 8 with felix's elimination. where we still don't really see them interact in the first half. we do get chan saying that he's worried about how felix will do, but not much else. then he gets eliminated and we're shown chan being devastated over it. it's a completely different reaction to when minho was eliminated.

side note - the footage taken during and after minho's elimination is some of the most invasive i've seen in a long time. it made me deeply uncomfortable to watch. idk if they got backlash from it but i was so happy to see that they turned it down for felix's elimination.

back to felix and chan: the entire band is crushed, but chan is visibly more upset than the last time. it might be because he has now lost two members of the group he put together and the collective loss makes it harder for him to hold it together but the line,

"always find me, yeah? i'm not gonna leave you behind"

is not something you say to someone you're not deeply attached to. and up until now we've had no indication they're close at all? it's so left field from how they're portrayed the rest of the time. and of course we have chan breaking down in the solo interview shot, blaming himself. and that's on par and he also did that when minho got eliminated. tho not as visibly emotionally distraught.

in the montage of felix with the members we get 1 (one) clip with chan and they're not even interacting, chan is just looking fondly at felix while he plays around. we see more clips of felix with minho who at that point is not in the band.

there were multiple clips of chan and minho during his montage. (also with minho surprisingly clingy and affectionate towards chan) chan and felix cannot have interacted that little for them to have no footage of them at all.

4. - when felix and minho gets their second chance and the other find out, we only see chan interact with minho (not a lot) and welcome him back. the closest we get to him acknowledge is him staring at the whole group celebrating.

In the studio when felix and minho join the other seven members to record, felix beelines to sit beside chan and he does so throughout the session. even after he went in to record and got back. yeah we never even see them look at each other much less talking.

5. - and then there was the final, which was broadcasted live...

yeah, chan gives felix comforting touches on multiple occasions throughout the ments and when they're just standing. more importantly is, it does not look awkward or forced, it looks like something he's used to. felix doesn't react as if it's something new either, it also clearly settles him more.

when it's announced they're gonna debut as nine members, felix once more beelines to chan and crashes into him so hard they stumble away from the group and spends quite a good few moments standing so far apart from the group hug the members are doing. it's almost as if they were told they'll debut as a duo and the others as a group. it's a tight hug, it's a hug between people who know and love each other a lot.

they at some point join the others and then when jyp is on his way down to congratulate them on his own decision, you see felix and chan in another tight hug just the two of them. felix breaks it off when he sees jyp approach them.

and again in the end when the camera zooms out and captures the entire stage, the two are in another tight hug just the two of them. and i mean they're clinging to each other.

i think after the last one you see them in a group hug with one other member, when chan is clutching the other two close.

end note for this show - i haven't watched any of the extra clips they uploaded seperate from the official show yet, so i don't know if they interact more there, but i would've been so goddamn confused if i was a viewer back when it first aired with none of the knowledge i have of their relationship now.

at no point do the show indicate these two members are close and yet we get an extreme declaration from chan after felix is eliminated and when they get to debut together they're clinging to each other? with how they edited felix and his relationships, you would've thought he would be clinging to changbin.

they really went in hard on the changlix on this show, and i'm not trying to discredit how close those two are, but it was a really obviously a choice made by the showrunners to focus on their relationship.

i've been in the kpop fandom for a long time and it's not unusual for a company to push a specific 'ship', scarily aware of how much shipping goes on and how much money they can earn from it. it happens less so with newer groups than back when i started getting into kpop, but it still happens. and funnily enough normally chan and felix would've been the perfect fit. two boys far from home, but they can find solace in each other, and oh they're also from the same city, maybe they've crossed paths without knowing before ect ect. people tend to eat that shit up and companies are aware of that.

so why is it, that from the get go we're almost never shown that? why did the jype take that decision? it's really fucking confusing.

i'm probably gonna do more of these when i go through their other shows. because my brain has decided these two are the hyperfixation for now.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Private - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Young Silco has different conceptions of privacy...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

NSFW

The smoggy sky was sliced by the red-rimmed fingernail of moon.

Its glow filtered through the windowslats, catching the dust motes that floated in the bedroom. The air held a sultry thickness to it, filled with the sounds of ragged breathing.

Silco and Nandi stirred together beneath a shroud of the mosquito netting. He was braced over her, his torso pressing heavily on her breasts and belly. The muscle fibers twitched down his lanky arms; Nandi's right hand kneaded at the curve of his spine like a bird's skittering feet. Her left hand rested where they were joined, feeling him enter her, a deliciously subtle rocking, a tiny bit deeper each time.

"Sil," she gasped.

Silco fanned his fingers through her outspread hair. His own eyes were locked on her face. There was single candle on the nightstand—they never killed the lights completely. They liked to see each other, so they could sign and she could read his lips. He liked how she looked in these moments: as close and as far-off as shapes glimpsed underwater. Her pupils dilated beneath heavy lids, her skin dusked by a glowing heat. Her moans came like music: louder, softer, a song only he could hear.

The pleasure built between them the same way: swelling and receding, a river-current that wandered off before finding its way home. Nothing like how it would be when he was older: a violent slice, the wreckage of sensation like a knife driven to the bone. With Nandi, everything unfolded at exquisite half-speed. At a word or a glance, she could rule him into stillness.

In retrospect, Silco knows who was in charge in their bedroom. It wasn't him.

He touched their foreheads together, as if to feel for a fever. His lips mouthed, Okay?

She nodded.

Slower?

She shook her head.

He nuzzled her neck. The grain of his stubble rasped along the skin above her choker. She let off a shuddery sigh.

Tickles, she signed.

Silco was half-tempted to tickle her for real. But that always made her shy. Maybe because she couldn't hear her own laughter?

What she fancied as offkey was to him strangely lovely.

On the floor above, footsteps juddered.  Crude shouts and thumps of discord. The walls rocked with it, a ship pitching in a storm. Below, drunken singing rose and fell, a melody as irredeemably coarse as a rusty saw. The building was like a bat's cote: six or seven people crammed into each room. Some were families; others were relatives or friends or just two strangers sharing space. Some were born here; some would die here. But the commotion was never-ending. Sometimes, a gunshot or two was par for the course. 

Silco had grown up inured to strangers' soundtracks in his life. Old Gus voiding his bowls into the chamberpot above, or Young Jenny's screams during delivery below, were par for the course living in the Undercity.

There were no secrets in close quarters: you knew everyone's business, and they knew yours.  Most nights, the din was almost soothing, a background static that helped drown out his own thoughts.

But tonight, there were no thoughts. No room for any. Just a pure, simple rhythm, in an unbroken loop of sensation.

[shoko-komi]

This special edition of The Komi Report is split into 2 posts. This is Part 1. Click here for Part 2

Hullo!  Welcome to the mildly anticipated 2023 Annual Edition of The Komi report!  What awaits you below the read more mark is the ultimate retrospective on this year in Komi Can't Communicate.  What makes it ultimate?  As far as I'm aware, it's the only one of its kind.  So I win by default. 

I've spent the past week re-reading and ruminating upon the 50 chapters of Komi that came out in 2023, and I've done my very best to boil it all down into the ultimate mega-report!!! It's a long one, so only open it when you're ready for a read!

CONTENTS

1. A Letter from the Editor 

2. 2023 in Review 

3. The Emoi Awards:  (My) Top 5 Chapters of the Year, Most Emoi Moment, Funniest Joke, and Reader’s Choice 

A Letter From the Editor

Dear Reader, 

It's been a long time since I tried to engage in fandom.  People with whom I'm not already acquainted vex, confuse, and frighten me.  So rather than seek out community, I'm inclined to keep to myself and my close inner circle of friends.  You might say that Alice can't... Alice can't com... communi........ 

But I love Komi Can't Communicate so very much.  Getting my little dose of emoi every Wednesday is the best part of my week. So, to extend the fun and keep myself from bursting; I started making reaction posts, called them The Komi Report because I like to play pretend, and here we are now! 

The Komi Report is consistent only so far as it's always unfocused. I get so wrapped up thinking about the things I want to say that I forget to say most of them. I'm scattered, I'm overly harsh, and I'm awkward. However, I amuse myself tremendously. So it's alright in the end. 

I like to imagine this is some big, serious publication with a large readership.  That's far south of true.  But there are a small handful of people who interact with the Report on a regular basis. By my personal standards, that puts me on par with the editor of the New York Times. 

So my hearty thanks to anyone reading this special edition of The Komi Report. I have endeavored, in my silly little way, to stir up a few silly little emotions in your heart. If I succeed at that, then I’m satisfied indeed. 

I wish you happy holidays, and a very happy new year.  

2023 in Review

Alice, 

The Komi Reporter

In my mind I break Komi Can't Communicate down into three major sections based on Komi's three years of high school.  Her first year is the Bronze Age, second is the Golden Age, and third (which is still, of course, ongoing) is the Silver Age.  By this naming scheme I don't mean to imply that one year is better than the other.  Only that each of them represents a distinct period of Komi's narrative and for Tomohito Oda as an artist. Talk to me about that sometime; I'll talk your ear off. 

Here I've attempted to break 2023 down into its major constituents as well.  It's messy, considering the meandering nature of serial fiction like this, but I think I've done a decent job.  How exciting for me. 

‘Kawai’ encompasses both her story arc and chapters wherein she features predominantly.  ‘Kissy Kissy’ and ‘Rumiko’ explain themselves.  ‘Emoi surprise attack’ lumps together Ogiya, Emoyama, Fuki, Yadano, and Michita's story beats because I think they're identical in tone and intent.  And ‘Komi and Hiki Reunite’ gets its own colour because I love Hiki Komorebi.  And I can do whatever I want. 

RIP the younger siblings.  Shosuke, Hitomi, Ai, and Sanjuro-Rokuro appeared only very briefly this year. Fingers crossed they get some good moments in 2024. 

To reflect on 2023 as a whole, I will discuss my general thoughts on each of these segments individually; bar Hiki and the assorted miscellany, for that would require talking too much about individual chapters and would derail everything and plunge us into a lake of fire. 

Kawai

Reddit is a hostile and alien environment to me, but I like to peruse r/komi_san every now and then to see what people are saying.  The Kawai-heavy months were particularly fun, because Ms Rami dominated conversation and polarized the entire subreddit into petty arguments, the likes of which I still chuckle about.  There were Kawai haters, Kawai lovers, Kawai haters who compared her to Yamai, Yamai lovers who tried to turn those comparisons into a positive.  It was chaos. 

(Link)

Me?  I'm a Kawai stan for life.  I'll say it at every opportunity; I love when Komi shows off her passionate side – stubborn as a mule, jealous, competitive, and a little domineering.  The study camp arc brought those parts of her right out.  So, although I didn't find Kawai all that interesting as a character at first, I was enjoying myself. 

An old flame of Tadano's - mentioned for the first time in a passing joke long, long ago - appears unexpectedly.  She's like an evil dimension Komi – down to the way her shining silver hair contrasts with Komi's dark black-purple.  There's no actual risk of her stealing Tadano away, but she undermines Komi's confidence and challenges her openly.  A challenge that's impossible to resist. 

They spar back and forth.  Kawai has the advantage in athleticism and intellect.  But when they come to the final portion of the quiz game, Kawai's self-centered attitude is her downfall yadda yadda etc. etc. 

 Then.... then.... they have that talk on the beach... 

...where she reveals her batshit insane long-term plan to watch over Tadano from afar; become the perfect bride-to-be in secret; then appear when the moment is right, drive away all competition, and sweep him off his feet???  Ice-cold kuudere/yandere bitch queen. Be still, my beating heart 💞.   

But she has the self-awareness to see things clearly – As she talks to Komi she begins to realize how her attitude has steered her wrong.  She sees how Komi and Tadano have something real; how she's been fooling herself all along.  Kawai admits that she was behaving poorly and concedes defeat.  Growth!!! 

I'm going to backflip across the room.  I felt like I had achieved nirvana the first time I read this.

I see in Kawai a girl who's been isolated for so long – stuck in an absurd romantic fantasy as a coping mechanism – that she has no concept of how to engage with people casually.  She was a lonely child, her parents died tragically, and then she was raised by people who didn't know what to do with her. She seeks meaningful connections but has an extreme, intense personality and abides by an overly literal definition of what makes a ‘family’.  Thus, her behavior is overbearing and, at times, inappropriate.  But she means well. 

Also, she's the best new character since Rumiko and she should never change ever.  

One of her lackey's has a big, gay crush on her... 

...and I hope Kawai notices her some day. 

I saw many people who were frustrated with how heavily Kawai featured in the first half of 2023. I for one think we need more of her.  Much, much more of her.  I choose not to address her... interesting relationship with her relatives.  One must turn a blind eye now and then. 

Kissy Kissy

Every romance story faces a serious problem when the lovebirds finally hook up.  How do you retain romantic tension once they're formally together?  Many stories don't.  This is perfectly fine if the story ends at the confession of love, but if the story continues then there needs to be a deeper foundation to the relationship than will-they-won't-they tension (or you can contrive a reason to split them up again).

Komi Can't Communicate has not suffered from loss of romantic tension!!! Wahoo!!!!!

I was stoked back when it became obvious Oda was going to bring Komitano together so soon before the end of the series.  I had no doubt the romance would remain compelling - Komi and Tadano are just plain old nice to see together; whatever they might be doing. 

So to find out they'll be dating for an entire third of the series???  Yes please.  In the english translated tankobon, the love triangle ended in March with the release of volume 23.  So we got Komitano officially dating in print; then a few months later, in the weekly chapters, they kissed for the first time.  What a year!!! 

Tadano is boundlessly patient and thoughtful, and he understands Komi's needs with intuition that crosses the border into mind-reading.  He became her first friend motivated only by an earnest desire to help, and never demonstrated jealousy as she became increasingly independent from him.  He's a pleasant fellow; faithful, gentle, and kind. 

Komi is.... well, she's Shoko Komi 

The build up to it is so sweet.  A festival date with just the two of them~  She's wearing the dress he chose; he's wearing a shirt with buttons on it (a step up for these shonen romance boys). 

Then it goes terribly... and you'd expect these two stress machines to be panicking.  But no, they've grown so much and bonded so deeply.  They laugh it off in the rain and retreat somewhere dry for a smooch or two... 🥰 kyaaaaaa ✿!!!  Emoi!!!  And they're both crazy flustered about kissing... but Komi gets assertive... she's kinda like that asldnalsjdnja 

The romance is alive. And between these moments, I just like seeing them together; no matter what's going on. 

Rumiko

Way back when Rumiko was introduced, she was like a revelation.  Her strong, unique personality and chemistry with the rest of the cast made her an instant series staple.  Introducing a new character for a long and complex love triangle plotline was a tricky proposition, and Oda managed it with a stroke of genius.  Such a stroke of genius that everything before Rumiko's intro feels, in retrospect, like it's missing something.  Which is not to say that pre-Rumiko KCC is bad, or that Rumiko should have entered sooner.  No. Everything about the way she was handled is perfect... 

...up to a certain point.  On a tangential note: if you think Rumitano should have been the outcome of the love triangle (hello!  you know who you are :3) I can't honestly say I disagree.  I don't agree.  But I also don't disagree. 

(Ch. 285)

(I like Rumitano and Komitano equally.  And RumiKomi) But all of this is just lead-up to the matter at hand. 

What's pertinent to this 2023 review is the way Rumiko has been handled post love triangle.  During moments of passion I've blamed it on Wakai monopolizing her time, but that's unfair.  Wakai is just fine.  His will-they-won't-they plot with Rumiko is just fine.  I do enjoy it at times.  What gets on my nerves is how reduced Rumiko feels.  At some point Oda decided she's ‘girl who makes unsightly facial expressions’ and that's so much of what we get of her when we get to see her.  Her personality has been somewhat squashed. 

Couple that with how the focus of her plot with Wakai is primarily on him.  She feels like a side character now, when in the past she was effectively a third protagonist.  It was inevitable that she step down from her peak of prominence as her role as rival-in-love came to an end, but... idk.  She's Komi's best friend (Tadano doesn't count).  She’s the Rumiko Manbagi. 

There are moments where Rumiko's personality still shines.  During her date with Tadano in particular (which was a breath of fresh air).  I also enjoyed her summer festival date with Wakai (Accidentally calling a girl ‘mum’ on the first date?  I'd die).  Those moments are lovely. But feel diluted...

^^ In this moment I felt like her relationship with Wakai might become really interesting akoakjsndnasd 

I said up above that I think KCC is in its Silver Age. Well, there's a major reason why.  The magic isn't lost, but it's faded ever so slightly without the golden lustre of our favourite gyaru's hair...... 

But who knows what'll happen next?  Oda surprises me constantly, and I think that's one of the things I love so much about this series.  Right when he starts to lose me, Oda reels me back in. A comeback for Rumiko could be right around the corner. 

Emoi Surprise Attack

This is the loosest of my categories.  What can I say?  I'm a loose girl.  No... uh... pretend I didn't say that.  It's true, but this isn't the time or place. 

These stories are related insofar as the last few months of 2023 have been a grab-bag of minor characters receiving surprising and heartfelt little stories.  Ogiya, Emoyama, Fuki, and Yadano were joke characters who never seemed destined for serious attention, but every one of them came out swinging and hit a home run... wiht our hearts............... they sent our hearts into the stands.........

Michita is new, and I hope we see her again soon. 

Anything more I have to say about these chapters would require talking about them individually, which is beyond the scope of this section.  So let's do a lightning round: 

Ogiya – PHENOMINAL 

Emoyama  – PHENOMINAL 

Also, Hello Moromi-san.  Is there a woman in your life? Can we be Mrs. And Mrs. Emoyama? 

Fuki – PHENOMINAL 

Yadano – PHENOMINAL 

Michita – PHENOMINAL 

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!! (cry of Emoi) 

There you have it. 

----------------------------------

So ends the overview!!  If you're bothered I didn't talk about something in particular, don't worry; the Emoi Awards get more specific.  There's sooooo much that I left out in the pursuit of brevity. 

I want to make a special note of the reveal in Ch. 407 – Interview.  Komi plans to study International Communication in university.  I was anticipating the reveal of her course of study, and I wasn't disappointed.  It could not have been anything else. 

My overall feeling about the series at the moment?  Great!!!!  I complain bitterly at times (I'm a whiny, weeny windbag) and I'm at my harshest when I'm forming first impressions.  But going over 2023 and remembering all the good times brought into perspective how much fun it's been.  It also really put into perspective how much Komi has grown as a person.  She’s so confident now compared to where she started from... 

So... yeah! 

And now the contentious business begins... 

The Emoi Awards

Paam pa du paam!!!!! (that's fanfare) 

Now it's time to get granular.  This is the cream of the crop.  The best of the blessed.  The chapters and moments that had all of us laughing, giggling, chuckling, guffawing, weeping, sobbing, and crying. 

My opinions about Komi Can't Communicate are perfect and definitive, so if you disagree with me about any of this... argue vehemently with me.  I'm not joking.  Don't be mean to me or I'll cry, but do please tell me your opinions! The more you talk to me about Komi, the more powerful I become.  Mweh heh heh heh heh heh 

Here are the categories: 

(My) Top Five Chapters of the Year

(My) Top 5 Chapters of the Year

Most Emoi Moment

Funniest Joke

Reader’s Choice

I did NOT expect this to be so hard.  I had to firmly limit myself to only five choices... and I was tearing my hair out.  This mANGA IS SO GOOD ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! 

Listed in order of publication (love has no hierarchy.  Except in kink).

1. Chapter 392 - Kawai is...

Kawai spends the entire study camp being a fierce enemy to Komi, then stays up late and has an emotional heart-to-heart on the beach with her, then runs 20kms all the way home... and by noon the next day she's in Komi's house to propose marriage.  And she's already been to Tadano's to do the same.  Bisexual, polyamorous, and a serious go-getter.  When Kawai wants something, she spares no expense.

My regards to the future prime minister of Japan.  It's a shame Rumiko didn't think of this first.

But seriously, though; I laughed out loud the whole way through this chapter.  I was delighted to no end.  If I ever doubted Tomohito Oda's ability to surprise me, that doubt was erased forever.  Kawai was a good character, in one fell swoop she became legendary.

I love you, Kawai. 

2. Chapter 406 - My Name is Kuro

Maybe I'm biased about Rei Natsukido. Maybe I'm biased because this was the first chapter on which I made a Komi Report. Either way, I'm biased and okay with that. Having Rei and Mira around for a visit all the way from America was so much fun, and we got the return of Komi Can't Communicate's #1 best character – Princess Elizabeth Alexandrine Georgine Jeanne Catherine Christiane. 

I love that Mira acts all cool and distant but can't stop herself from becoming invested. I love how passionate and imaginative Rei is about the game. I love how Komi is just along for the ride and she's having a blast. I love that Komi is playing a boy character. 

(Ch 169 – Playing With Dolls)

And I love their funky plush toys. 

I love you, Rei and Mira. 

3. Chapter 410 - Cicada-rrounded

Hiki Komorebi is yet another S Tier character.  Unrelated to that; her height is so funny to me.  She looks crazy tall next to the other characters - she even has a complex about it - and then you find out she's only 180cm.  Japanese people are short.   

Anyway, 

Cicada-rrounded has this complete twist in the middle where it goes from a heartwarming reunion to a battle for survival against icky bugs.  Komi and Hiki meeting again was built up for so long, and it's a beautiful moment,

and then it gets de-railed immediately in the best and funniest way possible. 

I would go so far as to say this is a perfect chapter of Komi Can't Communicate.  It's equal parts sentiment and comedy, and kills it on both fronts.  If I had to pick a #1 favourite from these 5?  I might maybe possibly be inclined to consider this one. 

I love you, Hiki. Also Akira

4. Chapter 411/412 - A Two Person Summer Festival Stroll/The Second Time

I already gushed about these two in the overview section.  What more is there to say?  Except that it's a little annoying how Tadano remains so timid about romance stuff; but it gives us so many opportunities for assertive Komi to come out, so that's alright. 

Komi is kinda like that... aosjkdoaksdokansdnajiosd.  Get it, girl. 

(Ch. 427 - Cool)

I love you, Komi and Tadano 

(This special edition of The Komi Report continues in Part 2)

[cyberdragoninfinity]

ok it’s time for dana to hoot and holler about zexal

finished ygo zexal for the first time last week and i absolutely adored it and am STILL thinking so much about it (as i will be probably for. a While now if my relationships with the other ygo spinoffs ive seen are any indication).....time again for me to do my little personal rambly yugioh series retrospective post as the brainworms truly start to set in. kattobingu feel the flow high five the sky build the overlay network let’s goooo!!!

more under the cut. a lot more lol. spoilers for a decade old anime, naturally

GOD. YEAH. THIS ONE MIGHT BE MY FAVORITE YUGIOH SERIES IVE SEEN YET. HOLY SHIT. 2021 Dana was really out here thinking Zexal looked kind of annoying (based on mild DL characters/plot osmosis) and not terribly interesting and I want to go back in time and shake her shoulders and say NO. NO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. ZEXAL FUCKING ROCKS. every yugioh has some degree of Danabait to it (probably because. watching Duel Monsters as a child was the catalyst to what Danabait even is lol) but JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH Zexal is like being hit by one nuclear bomb of shit genetically engineered in a lab to make me insane after another.

THE ART STYLE. OF ZEXAL, FOR ONE. makes me absolutely rabid animal bonkers--I LOVE seeing the way the ygo art style has been honed and developed and evolved over time. YGO influenced my art style more than I can articulate, and then zexal comes in swinging with the ygo art style at its Most Zany. The EXPRESSIONS in this show!!!!!!!!! Fucking rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A MASSIVE CHUNK OF THE CAST DOESNT HAVE MOUTHS HALF THE TIME AND YET STILL ARE SOME OF THE MOST EXPRESSIVE YGO GUYS EVER!!!! Constantly making expressions I LOVE to draw!!!! and oh my god the COLOR DIRECTION OF YUGIOH ZEXAL?!?!? genuinely absolutely phenomenal and one of my all time favorites i’ve seen in any cartoon, western or anime. you mean to tell me we got a lighting and color budget now??? we get yugioh scenes looking like this??!??

THE BEST. THE BEST. THE BEST. OBSESSED WITH IT. ABSORBING ZEXAL’S COLOR AND EXPRESSION PROWESS. STEALING ITS POWER.

ANYWAY as usual with my ygo watching i was primarily watching the dub (absolutely thrilled to have a Completed Yugioh Dub to watch for the first time since DM, MAN.) but I did end up watching...over half of Zexal II’s sub; stuff just gets so absolutely insane with the Barian Emperors that I desperately wanted every possible inch of their lore so I ended up watching both (sometimes back and forth at the same type like an unhinged wild animal) for the full picture. I like Zexal’s dub a lot!! its comedic timing is ON POINT, EXTREMELY FUNNY DUB. and really like..all of the main dub VAs are so, SO good (as they usually are.) There are a lot of bizarre things they cut though, a lot of childhood flashbacks and little character moments and the like. It’s a shame! I can only imagine a lot of them were cut to leave more room for ad time which. Sucks a bit 🥴A lot of duels do whip a lot harder in the sub too, especially in the back half..... still though, enjoyed my time with the dub. there’s a remarkable amount of stuff i am SHOCKED they actually did keep in?!??! The car crash that killed Shark’s parents is just straight up presented as is with like one or two small cuts. A LITTLE GIRL’S DEAD BODY IS SHOWN?? ON SCREEN??? ZEXAL DUB!! KIDS LOVE IT SO!!! MY GOD!!!

ok enough on that. some breakdowns/specific points like I usually do with these roundups:

Stuff I Didn’t Like: always get this one outta the way first. There really wasnt a whole lot I straight up disliked with this one!! It’s extremely solid all around. It does, of course, have some...Choices, being made, like. Girag’s lips. and. Girag’s backstory. Love the guy but oh my god why did they do that to him 😭Yugioh Racially Questionable moments ride again!!! At this point it’s just par for the course, definitely not the first time a ygo has. Done stuff like that. Ah well. Worth mentioning though.

What’s really a shame is that Zexal has some of the COOLEST, MOST FUN GIRL CHARACTERS, and time and time again they just dont do anything with them!!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S SO FRUSTRATING. i LOVE rio but the poor girl is fridged for literally 2/3s of the series!! She’s in the hospital like five times!!!! Rio and Anna and Tori and Dextra and Kari are all like, some of my favorite ygo gals YET but they have maybe 5 duels between them. Konami let your girls DUEL CHALLENGE. PLEASE.

hm what else. I guess also the final showdown with the series “Big Bad” was. uh. kind of let down lmao. But to be fair I was positively spoiled last series with the Z-one duel lol. Can’t win ‘em all. As cool as the concept of “the protag and rival team up to duel the Big Bad” is, and as cool as Don Thousands Entire toxic manipulative dynamic with the Barian Emperors is for like the Entire Rest of Zexal II is, they just....don’t. Do much with him for that last Donny T duel?? Would have loved more backstory elaboration or just like. Anything. It was over so soon and I was like “...that was it??” HDFHGSDFG thankfully the last two duels of zexal whip like hell so we bounce back!!

i also kind of wish don thousand kept his sick as hell demon armor form but c’est la vie i suppose. sad! well there’s other guys.

Favorite Season: I actually have no idea how Zexal is split up into seasons, so I guess Fav Arc would be a better term? Anyway I loved the World Duel Carnival Arc, I’m one of like 5 people who actually enjoy tournament arcs but i think theyre FUN and this one is a blast. There’s Arclight Family Agonies coming from every direction and there’s the INSANE DUEL ROLLER COASTER and Vetrix is bouncing around being a little freak, it’s GREAT

anyway and then Zexal II came in and grabbed me by the head and threw me into the drywall

LIKE. MY GOD. ZEXAL HAS THE FUCKING EMOTIONAL PACING OF MORAL OREL. YOU HIT Z2 AND SHIT STARTS GETTING REAL AND GOING HARD AS HELL AND IM OUT HERE GETTING MY BRAIN SCRAMBLED. I love like. All of the arcs of zexal II it’s hard to pick a favorite but I DO really like just that first third or so where the Barians are just starting to show up and the horrors haven’t quite begun and everything’s so silly and Ray Shadows is Very There. gives me gx season 1 vibes a little bit. it’s a delight.

Favorite Characters: oh right I should. talk about that. pained smile.

i joke about this a lot but usually every ygo series has like. A Character That’s My Actual Favorite, and A Character That Makes Me Absolutely Insane (syrus vs. zane, leo vs. aporia, etc.) but, uh. this time I GUESS THAT’S JUST. THE SAME CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SORRY. TO BE BASIC. BUT WHY DID THEY DO THAT TO ME. WHY DID THEY PUT A CHARACTER IN ZEXAL WHO ALREADY LOOKS LIKE MY ART STYLE. ALREADY LOOKS LIKE I DREW HIM. AND THEN MAKE HIM FUCKED UP AND SILLY AND A SAD LITTLE JACKASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ABSOLUTELY NEFARIOUS!!!!!!!!! 2021 dana had no CLUE they were hiding this fucker in the back of one of the ygo spinoffs. never could have predicted it. vector’s genuinely one of the best ygo characters of all time to me. what if a yugioh character had the most absolutely bonkers expressions youve ever seen and he was constantly doing little bits and acting like a little funnyman and then the devil fucking Kills Him. he’s perfect. the madness has only just begun to infect me i fear.

ANYWAY other than The Carrot in Question, I fucking love like...all of Zexal’s cast; I think this is the first time for any ygo where a series just didnt really have any characters I straight up Did Not Like. it’s such a solid, colorful cast that just checks so many boxes for my fav kinds of characters. I didn’t think I was gonna like Yuma but I ended up LOVING HIM!!!! I LOVE SEEING A YGO PROTAG THATS LIKE..ACTUALLY BAD AT THE GAME, THAT GROWS BETTER AND STRONGER OVER TIME BUT STAYS SO SILLY. I love what Zexal does to “traditional” yugioh character archetypes--Shark and Kite are both such cool rival characters and the shit they do with Shark especially?!?! NEVER COULD HAVE IMAGINED THEM DOING THAT. WITH A YUGIOH RIVAL. KAIBA COULD NEVER.

Narrowing down a top five fav Zexal guys is so hard, they really came in swinging with Catostrophic Families AND insane alien guys, but after pondering I think I’d have to say rn it’s Vector, Shark, Nistro (my fuckin  MAN!!!!!!!), Trey, and Alito. Immediate runnerup also being Tori. I fucking love Tori, new favorite main ygo girl. She bore witness to All That Shit and never folded. SHe’s Yuma’s FRIEND his CONFIDANT his EMOTIONAL SUPPORT!!!!! Absolute boss. Yuma would be dead in a ditch somewhere by episode 20 without her around.

Favorite Duel: BEEN GOING BACK AND FORTH ON THIS A LOT but I think my favorite duel was and still is the Trey vs. Yuma duel in zexal I, it’s just fantastic. The COLORS AND LIGHTING!!!!! The stakes!!! The SICK DUEL ARMOR!! Trey literally threatens a world-ending murder-suicide because he wants his family to be proud of him and well i’ll just explode into bits all up and down the road about it. Goes hard as hell. Trey and Yuma’s dynamic is one of my favs in Zexal but that’s it’s own post.

I also love all of Alito’s duels (especially the tag duel with Nistro, which is one of the most atrociously danabait duels ever (slash pos) and his last duel against yuma, which ALSO has some of the fucking coolest shots and lighting of any yugioh duel to me) and the last duel between Shark and Yuma. Shit rocks.

Zexal is also pretty unique to me in that it’s the first time i can really concretely say ive had favorite EPISODES as opposed to just favorite duels. There are so many episodes left and right that just make my fucking head explode. The BASEBALL DUEL FRIENDSHIP GAMES EPISODE. The EPISODE WHERE YUMA AND SHARK ARE IN THE HOSPITAL. The “VECTOR GETS STRAPPED INTO THE ALIEN GOD THRONE AND MR. HEARTLAND IS BEING INSANE AND THE ARCLIGHTS ARE IN A SUBMARINE AND ERAZOR IS GOING TO FUCKING KILL YUMA’S FRIENDS” episode. THE. UM. THE EPISODE WHERE THIS HAPPENS

^BROKE MY WHOLE DAMN BRAIN IN HALF. I AM STILL RECOVERING FROM THE DAMAGE zexal II comes in swinging with episodes that just knock your tits clean off and you LOVE to see it!!!!

Miscellaneous Other Zexal Gushing: IT’S JUST FUCKING GOOD!!!! THERE’S SO MUCH TO LOVE!!!!! I love the cast, I love Yuma and Astral’s dynamic and just how much love is there. I LOVE yuma’s friend group, they are SUCH perfect dweeby little middle schooler weird kids. I love the ways Zexal parallels Duel Monsters (and imo takes a lot of elements from DM and does them even better), I love Yuma’s grandma and Kari, ABSOLUTE REAL ONES!!! I fucking love Orbital 7. I love the Number cards and how theyre just completely thematically not related to each other at ALL (sometimes it’s a bug! sometimes it’s a guy! sometimes it’s an entire floating civilization!!!) I love the ABSOLUTELY BONKERS RELIGIOUS MOTIFS AND SYMBOLISM FLYING AROUND IN ANY AND ALL DIRECTIONS. THEY DID THAT FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! ASTRAL CHRIST ALLEGORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I just...adore how fundamentally Zexal is about kindness and hope and love, and also about how it’s so important to not lose yourself or your sense of fun as you grow up!! That theme absolutely EVISCERATED ME when gx came out swinging with it in its last season, and it’s GETTIN ME AGAIN HERE!!! IT’S ABOUT HAVING FUN!! IT’S ABOUT THE BONDS WE MAKE WITH OTHERS!!! IT’S ABOUT HOW CEASELESS KINDNESS CAN BE AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE THAT MAKES EVEN THE IMMOVEABLE MOVEABLE. yuma has SO much joy and love and forgiveness in his body and it makes me WAIL.

Duel Monsters really ends on this note of “goodbye” with Atem leaving, and it works well for that story’s themes of grief. Meanwhile I think it’s very special that while Zexal also ends on a goodbye with Astral leaving, it feels so much more like a “see you later.”  That hanging note of “we’ll meet again.” It’s so sweet. The themes of past and future at play really just make you root for these kids and hope they grow up into the best versions of themselves.

Also it’s so fucking funny that like All of the Cast That Died and Went to Hell Came Back Except Mr. Heartland Who Definitely Died For Real. gay WRONGS.

God. what else. I’m sure I’ll think of 8352389 more things I love about Zexal immediately after I post this. It’s just that good. So thrilled I gave it a go. I love you Xyz Monsters I love you Dyson Sphere I love you Vector’s dub and sub voices I love you Duel Monster Based Off of the Titantic I love you Dr. Faker’s absolutely insane character design I love you Barian World I love you Arclight family I love you Zexal II Dub Opening Song That’s Sung By Bruno 5D’s VA I love you YUMA AND FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!! ZEXAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cant wait to port all these kids to the college AU. it’s already happening. I love them so much

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Schiaparelli’s ‘Inferno’: A journey to Hell and back

I’ve always wondered if today’s self-absorbed creative directors and edgy designers at the leading luxury fashion houses based in Paris are familiar with George Santayana’s cutting observation that, “Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.” On the evidence of this year’s Paris Fashion Week I think not.

For the Spring 2023 collection at Paris Fashion Week, Schiaparelli creative director Daniel Roseberry revealed in pre-show notes that he was specifically drawn to Dante Alighieri’s magisterial Divine Comedy. He was especially inspired by Inferno, the 14th-century Italian poet’s renderings of Hell. Present as spectators and models were some of the internet’s favourite muses, such as Kylie Jenner wearing taxi-dermied outfits with hyperrealistic faux animal heads affixed to a fitted gown.

The singer Doja Cat was also there, appearing bald and covered in red gemstones at the steps of the Petit Palais like a demonic red figure. In other pieces, gold-painted torsos and metallic sculptural heads paid tribute to the house’s founder, Elsa Schiaparelli, and her ties to Surrealist artists like Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, and Meret Oppenheim during the 1930s. She was the subject of a recent retrospective at the the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris last year in 2022, and her collaborations with those artists demonstrated a propensity to shock audiences with strange garments that at times merged human bodies with animal features.

Throughout the haute couture show, Roseberry brought to life versions of Dante’s epic poem’s three allegorical animals: the lion, the leopard, and the she-wolf. Accordingly he dressed three super models, Shalom Harlow as the leopard, Naomi Campbell as the she-wolf, and Irina Shayk as the lion. All three haute couture dresses were sculpted and embroidered by hand, “celebrating the beauty of nature and guarding the woman who wears it” said the proud creative director.

When I read that particular remark I almost choked on my tea. I was sitting in a nearby Parisian café with my younger sister, who was visiting me in France, and one of our French-Nordic cousins who actually works in the luxury brand corporate world as a senior exec in LVMH. Through our cousin we had managed to see one or two of the fashion shows last week. It’s not really my cup of tea, but I gave in to indulge my visiting sister and my cousin who loves her job. 

Many people outside of haute couture world of Paris Fashion Week, focused on the spectacle of cruelty of seeing three stuffed animal heads on the bosoms of three super models strutting on a fashion show runway. Most of the criticism was misplaced as it showed little understanding what a haute couture show is all about. It allows the talented designer to let his/her hair down and show off their most off the wall ideas, and above it’s meant to be playful.

That said, I, however, was focused on what Daniel Roseberry actually said of his collection. I thought it was a misquote but no, as it turned out later, it’s what the designer said.

I resisted the urge to feel ‘offended’ and to look around for a pitch fork to join the unruly easily offended mob to denounce the designer. To me it wasn’t about the Surrealist heritage of Schiaparelli that the creative director drew inspiration from for one part of his show - that’s what one might expect from that fashion house. Nor was it the animal depiction on dress gowns that was pretty par for course for any haute couture fashion show - which I personally found garish and in bad taste - but which drew the public outcry against the perception of animal cruelty.

No, it was the crime of cultural vandalism against Dante himself.

I have no idea if Roseberry has actually read the Dante’s Divine Comedy or not but from his remarks that his hideous creations were “celebrating the beauty of nature and guarding the woman who wears it” he clearly hadn’t or was high as a kite on drugs and high energy drinks.

So I’m going to discuss Dante’s three wild beasts as Dante wrote them.

In the opening Canto of the Divine Comedy, Dante encounters three ferocious animals: the leopard, the lion and the she-wolf.

In the first canto of the Inferno, Dante, having gone astray in a dark wood, reaches the base of a sunlit hill (later described by Virgil as “the mountain of delight, the origin and cause of every joy”) and begins to climb - only to find the way blocked by three beasts. First, a leopard appears.

And almost where the hillside starts to rise - look there! - a leopard, very quick and lithe, a leopard covered with a spotted hide. He did not disappear from sight, but stayed; indeed, he so impeded my ascent that I had often to turn back again.

It is a spring morning, and “the hour and the gentle season” give Dante “good cause for hopefulness” upon seeing the leopard - but then he sees a lion.

but hope was hardly able to prevent the fear I felt when I beheld a lion. His head held high and ravenous with hunger - even the air around him seemed to shudder - this lion seemed to make his way against me.

When the third beast appears, Dante gives up hope entirely.

And then a she-wolf showed herself; she seemed to carry every craving in her leanness; she had already brought despair to many. The very sight of her so weighted me with fearfulness that I abandoned hope of ever climbing up that mountain slope. . . . I retreated down to lower ground.

When you read Dante - in Italian or in translation - nothing you read ever so simple and nothing should be taken at face value. Indeed in the Divine Comedy almost nothing is said without good reason. Take the verse preceding the appearance of the three beasts.

When I had rested my body there a while I then started again up the barren slope the more powerful foot always behind the other

Dante refers to the manner of his climb. He makes the climb with ‘the more powerful foot always behind the other’. One foot (the more powerful) is always behind (lower than) the other. This is a difficult line to interpret. It could of course simply be a description of how someone climbs a hill. You plant one foot in the ground and then push up allowing the other foot to 'land' and secure your position.

If Dante is talking about a stronger (firmer) foot and (presumably then) a weaker foot and talks about the one being lower than the other, there is probably a deeper meaning behind it. In Dante's thought world it was sometimes said that in the 'pilgrimage' towards heaven, we walk on two 'feet' (or legs); the Will and the Intellect. Because the Will, the stronger of the two, is always desiring what it shouldn't, our journey forward towards God is therefore hampered. We limp our way to heaven! So Dante could be saying that his Will lags behind his Intellect as he strives to find the light of God, making his journey up those slopes that much harder. The (weaker) Intellect is having to drag the (stronger) Will upwards towards the divine light.

An alternative explanation is inspired by a comment from St Augustine to the effect that 'love is the foot of the soul', in other words the driving force of the soul's  quest for God. So, Dante could be suggesting that his stronger foot (love) pushes his body up the hill towards God. Personally I prefer this more optimistic image of his ascent; after all, he begins his climb in hope and anticipation.

And so we have to ask ourselves as we come to the three beasts, is there a deeper meaning to these animals beyond their physical power and scariness. Yes, there is.

When Dante engages with myths throughout his Inferno, he’s also leaning into this tradition of animals as allegories. He’s striving to teach a lesson, as mythical creatures punish sinful souls for eternity. Invoking creatures from antiquity, Dante’s Inferno moulds pagan hell into a Christian design. These mythical creatures are behemoth reminders for potential sinners about the consequences of their actions.

Even from the opening canto of Dante’s Inferno, we find our titular character lost in a dark and winding wood. As the woods darken, he feels his consciousness enter a strange state - a feeling that he likens to death (Inferno 1.7). As this shroud covers him, Dante encounters the first mythical creatures in the Divine Comedy. Leopards and lions were not native to Italy. Travellers relayed tales of these beasts to illuminators and scribes, and information about them would be published in bestiaries. Leopards were often incorporated into coats of arms when there were descendants of adultery in a lineage. The leopard Dante encounters is “very quick and lithe” (Inferno, 1.32). Perhaps the leopard is meant to symbolise a sin associated with impatience or hubris. Lions were often symbols of Christ, akin to Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia but in this case the lion was “ravenous with hunger” (Inferno 1.46), which may have been a reminder to the reader about the dangers of gluttony.

The importance of animals goes beyond face value. Animals appearing in stories always contain allegories. The beasts symbolised the major categories of sin: incontinence, violence and fraud. Or as they are more commonly called - lust, pride and avarice. In her commentary, Dorothy L. Sayers explains that these categories of sin were associated with the three stages of life - lust with youth, pride (self-conceit) with the middle years and avarice with old age. Of course, they can attack a person at any time of his life.

Symbolism can help us enormously when reading Dante but it is also important I think to try to read the text itself and take clues from the way Dante uses the symbols. The Leopard is mesmerising, clever, quick and very pleased with itself, displaying its gaudy spots for all the world to see. The Lion terrifies even the air around it with its appearance (and presumably its roar) but the most noticeable thing about it from Dante the pilgrim's point of view is how proud it is as it hold its head up high. The third beast, the she-wolf, is one that has brought grief to many people. Her leanness speaks of an insatiable appetite; no matter how much (or how many people!) she eats she never thrives, never grows fat, she is never satisfied.

If Dante's world each of the beasts represented different vices or sins - the leopard as a symbol of lust, the lion a symbol of violent pride and the she-wolf as a symbol of avarice and fraud - then these  could also either represent Dante's own besetting sins which prevent him from reaching heaven, or perhaps the three levels of hell which are divided according to the kind of sin committed. In the first circle Dante the pilgrim will find those guilty of avarice and incontinence (not the bowel kind), in the second circle sinners guilty of violence and in the third, those responsible for crimes of treachery and fraud.

It’s easy to see then these animals as symbols of divine judgement on Dante. Dante is not ready to find the divine light. He is still under judgement. His sins have not been dealt with and as we shall learn, only by descending to hell and rising through the mountain of purgatory will he be able to find that light as a 'saved' soul.

All three wild beasts are mentioned in the bible and used as symbols of the kind of fate that will befall the people of God as divine judgment.

In Hosea 13:4-8 God says that he will be like a lion and a leopard (and an angry mother bear!) towards his ungrateful, apostate people.

In Jeremiah 5.1-6, Jeremiah fails to find one godly (just) person in the city of Jerusalem. Failing to do so God promises that judgement will come like this:

Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them,     a wolf from the desert will ravage them, a leopard will lie in wait near their towns     to tear to pieces any who venture out, for their rebellion is great    and their backslidings many. (NIV)

If indeed the wild beasts represent the judgement of God in the Old Testament through Hosea and Jeremiah, in the New Testament they take another form entirely. And this may well have played a part in Dante’s thought. It is entirely possible that Dante is thinking of the Apostle Paul's reference to 'fighting wild beasts in Ephesus' (1 Corinthians 15.32).  Of course Paul didn't mean he actually wrestled lions and wild beasts. He meant that dealing with those who opposed him there was just like being a gladiator in the arena fighting lions and bears. And the people who opposed him were the institutions of Ephesus, the city authorities, the trade guilds, the business leaders.

Dante the pilgrim, following in the footsteps of the Apostle struggles with his own 'wild beasts'. the wild beasts who had plotted against him, and exiled him from his native city in 1302. Dante the pilgrim walks in the footsteps of Paul. He also walks in the footsteps of Christ who was alone in the wilderness with the wild beasts for 40 days and 40 nights. Although the the original intention of the gospel writers may have been to conjure up the impression of a restored Eden, for Dante those accounts would have conjured up the idea of conflict and danger.

Like Paul and like Christ, Dante the pilgrim has to struggle with ferocious animals in his journey towards God, just as Dante the writer has had to in his journey.

Who or what then are these forces, these wild animals who prevented Dante from finding the true path? Interestingly these animals were all prized in one way or another in Dante's native Florence.

There is evidence that a leopard and a number of lions were kept and publicly displayed in cages in Florence in Dante's day near what is today the Loggia del Bigallo, as a sign of Florence's power and prestige.

The lion was also part of Florence's coat of arms. Scholars have noted that Dante was familiar with the writings of Richard of St Victor who had associated the leopard with the sins of deceit and fraud. The lion was associated in medieval bestiaries with the sin of avarice (because of its apparently insatiable hunger) as well as with pride. These are 'civic sins' as much as personal vices.

Was it Florence's avarice and pride that was in the front of Dante the writer's mind when he described the leopard's gaudy spots and the lion with its head held high? Is it perhaps the city that had turned against Dante and thrown him out to live a life of exile that prevents the progress of the pilgrim towards paradise?

The she-wolf is the most daunting beast of all. She proceeds terrifyingly, step by step stalking forward, threatening and relentless. Dante comments:

The very sight of her so weighted me with fearfulness that I abandoned hope of ever climbing up that mountain slope. . . . I retreated down to lower ground.

Surprisingly perhaps it is the she-wolf, not the leopard or the lion that finally causes the pilgrim to despair. Wolves were considered to be symbols of fraud and deceit as well as sexual immorality and prostitution.

In his hugely influential work The City of God, St Augustine had commented that in his time prostitutes were known as she-wolves and a brothel was known as a 'wolf den'. He suggested that this verbal link gave rise to the famous origin myth of Rome, according to which the two twins Romulus and Remus, the offspring of the god Mars and the their mother (whom he had raped) Rhea, were abandoned to die but were saved and suckled by a she-wolf. Augustine suggests that instead, they were found and fed by an unknown prostitute i.e. by a 'she-wolf'. From this play on words came the legend that it was a literal she wold who found and fed them.  In the City of God (Book 18 chapter 21) Augustine writes as follows:

“Procas ruled before Aemulius. Now Aemulius had made his brother Numitor's  daughter, named Rhea, a Vestal Virgin; she was also called Ilia, and was the mother of Romulus. The Romans wish to say that she conceived twins by Mars; for, in this way, they honoured, or excused, her unchastity. They offer as proof of this the legend that, after their exposure, the infants were suckled by a she-wolf. For they hold that this species of animal belongs to Mars; and so, therefore, the she-wolf is believed to have offered her teats to the little children because she recognised in them the sons of Mars, her master.

There is, however, no lack of people who say that, when the exposed infants lay wailing, they were first taken in by some unknown whore, and that hers were the first breasts they sucked - for ‘she wolves’ (lupae) was the name given to whores, which is why houses of ill repute are even now called ‘wolfouses’ (ilupanaria). Afterwards, it is said, they came into the care of a shepherd called Faustulus, and were nurtured by his wife Acca. And yet if, in order to convict the man who was king, and who had cruelly commanded that these infants be cast into the water, God willed to help the children through whom such a great city was to be founded, and to have them rescued from the water by His divine intervention and suckled by a wild animal: is there anything very wonderful in this? “

- Translated by W. Dyson (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

So, according to Augustine, it wouldn't be surprising if God had supplied a real she-wolf to find and feed the abandoned babies, because God is merciful and just, but in fact the stories he has heard suggest a different explanation. Namely that it was a human 'she-wolf', a whore, who had found them.  

It is also interesting that Augustine links the god Mars with the story. The wolf, he says, is one of Mars' own creatures' i.e. a beast with a special affinity to Mars. Is it relevant that the city of Florence had adopted Mars as its own patron 'star'? It may also be relevant that the name of the Guelf faction, some of whom had ordered Dante's expulsion from Florence, was linked to the German word for wolf (Welf).  Dante's enemies in Florence were 'wolves'. It seems the clue lay in the name.

But it may not have been only Florence Dante wanted to suggest to readers' minds. In addition it seems that by the time Dante wrote the Divine Comedy the Papal Curia had adopted as its own symbol the famous statue of Romulus and Remus suckling from the mother she-wolf on the Capitoline Hill. The she-wolf was of course the defining myth of Rome’s founding. Several ancient sources refer to statues depicting the wolf suckling the twins. Livy reports in his Roman history that a statue was erected at the foot of the Palatine Hill in 295 BC. Pliny the Elder mentions the presence in the Roman Forum of a statue of a she-wolf that was "a miracle proclaimed in bronze nearby, as though she had crossed the Comitium while Attus Navius was taking the omens". Cicero also mentions a statue of the she-wolf as one of a number of sacred objects on the Capitoline that had been inauspiciously struck by lightning in 65 BC: "it was a gilt statue on the Capitol of baby being given suck from the udders of a wolf." Cicero also mentions the wolf in De Divinatione 1.20 and 2.47.

The Capitoline Wolf was widely assumed to be the very sculpture described by Cicero, due to the presence of damage to the sculpture's paw, which was believed to correspond to the lightning strike of 65 BC. The 18th-century German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann attributed the statue to an Etruscan maker in the fifth century BC, based on how the wolf's fur was depicted. It was first attributed to the Veiian artist Vulca, who decorated the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and then reattributed to an unknown Etruscan artist of around 480 - 470 BC.

So for centuries The Capitoline Wolf was almost universally recognised as an Etruscan statue from the early part of the 5th century BC. It was only in 2006 that an Italian art historian and restorer, Anna Maria Carruba, published a detailed critique against the accepted view. She argued that the bronze had been cast with a method unknown in classical times, and that marks left by the artist on its surface were more typical of the Middle Ages. Barely a year later in 2007, Rome’s top archaeologist and heritage advisor,  Prof. Adriano La Regina, reported that over 20 tests using radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating don at the University of Salerno suggested that the wolf portion of the statue may have been cast between 1021 and 1153. Overnight one ancient Rome’s oldest artefacts became one of city’s youngest.

Given the pride and place of this famous statue, The Capitoline Wolf, given by the Church of Dante’s time, it adds an extra dimension to any reading Dante’s words about the she-wolf. For the wolf, the creature of Mars, the symbol of Rome and now of the church was a big thing in 13th century Italy. It is this beast that scares Dante the most, that strips away his hope and forces him to turn around.  It is this beast he says which has been ‘the despair of many’. It is not a surprise then to find that throughout the Inferno he likens various damned souls to wolves.

Again the bible may have played a part in his thinking Jesus warned his disciples to watch out for the false prophets, the wolves who come dressed in sheep's clothing. Ithink it’s too much of a stretch to say it was a direct attack on the church or the papacy of Boniface VIII but it does lend credence to the possibilities of personal corruption for those in the church who flirted with earthly temptations and sins - the very sins that destroyed souls and blocked humanity’s upward path to heavenly salvation.

For Dante there was no distinction between the inner and the outer person or between the individual and social.  The individual did not live a life apart from his or her wider life in the state and in the church. Sin was something that affected everything and everyone. These beasts may well represent sin or vices with which Dante the writer was only too familiar in his own experience but to me it seems highly likely that they represent above all the forces he saw around him which, in his mínd, prevented people finding the beauty and love of God. The Apostle fought his wild beasts in Ephesus. Dante fought his in Florence.

The mythical figures featured in Dante’s Inferno lean on a long tradition of animals as allegory. As Dante journeys through the realms of the afterlife, these beings can lend a helping hand on the long and winding road through hell, purgatory, and heaven.  While the creatures of the Inferno intend to scare sinners straight, they themselves also suffer as the embodiment of their respective sins.

While hell is where sinners languish, it remains a complex and captivating place. Dante filled his entire Divine Comedy with bizarre creatures from across literature, and they serve a similar purpose to any beast in a story: to distill morals or a lesson. Their presence makes the story memorable, even for modern readers like us today.

Dante’s Inferno brings readers on a journey through hell, replete with allegories from across time like sitting through a hellscape of a Schiaparelli haute couture fashion show during Paris Fashion Week. As time wears on, Inferno’s wild beasts offer captivating perspectives on our very modern sins of lust for affirmation, pride in our self-centredness, and an avarice for material comfort.

But I don’t wish to end on a downer because Dante is not a pessimistic poet. Most readers never proceed beyond the macabre thrills of Dante’s ‘Inferno’, with its grotesquely inventive torments. Those who do ascend from the “Inferno” find some of Dante’s most lyrical verse in his ‘Purgatorio’. But it is the least-read of the three books, ‘Paradiso’, that makes sense of the other two. It shows, Dante was not just a poet of crisis, but also a poet of hope:

The ‘Divine Comedy’ is that rarest thing, an epic poem with a hopeful ending. It is about getting a second chance - and ultimately finding joy, a Christian understanding of joy in the light of God’s saving grace.

[terraliensvent]

"We personally enjoy the different stylization" 💀 response in staff answer

That’s where you kinda fail when it comes to consistency. I’m all up for redesigning items to give them fresh looks, but some of these look and feel like they’re from another species.

To put in comparison as anyone else before my ask, you can’t just put Tamagotchi level of design items with Genshin Impact level of designs. It just looks way out of place. Unless, unless there is specific events or shops, then that would make sense.

This also applies not to items, but visuals within the species. Try to train your staff to follow a specific rhythm when it comes to design. Let it be thick borders, minimum shading, sparkles, etc.

It’s a super pet peeve of mine whenever I join CS, I tend to look at the visuals and items and well, for some of the redesigns of some items in Terraliens they look out of place or lacking some sort of personality.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/858474989530120242/1280931120745025592/image0.jpg?ex=66d9df91&is=66d88e11&hm=c3cb3c6f9c2350fa396165a3214de379bdc1c27901d635a29f49f42933eb2ca6&

post related

"On the topic of art, it’s a lot of work to redraw everything. Personally, we enjoy the different stylization. We do require all of the art to be drawn in the same dimensions (1000x1000), but due to some backend issues the images are displaying at different sizes. A fix is actively being worked on."

HEY I KNOW HOW TO FIX IT! MAYBE DONT MAKE YOUR IMAGES 1000x1000 WHEN LK RECOMMENDS 100x100

like even 200x200 or hell even 500x500 but 1000x1000 is such an unnecessarily large file for something that is meant to be shown at various sizes (including incredibly small sizes) and has to be recognizable from afar

also the "stylization" is shit. to members, it shows a lack of consistency when none of your items even look like theyre a part of the same world. it looks sloppy and thrown together, which in retrospect i guess would be par for the course for terras anyways.

you cant take an item from elden ring and throw it into a mario game, it makes the world feel less "real" and removes players from the experience. thats the same effect you get when you have all these species items with vastly different styles, it's jarring.

this response from staff just comes off as the "WELL ITS MY STYLEE" argument when someone is told their art lacks fundamentals.

also the added image is cute, new header maybe?

[tiredspacedragon]

BIONICLE Retrospective

2002: The Bohrok Swarms

Part 1: The Bohrok Awake :REMASTERED:

Heyyy~

Hiiii~

Once more with feeling, okay?

You guys are sweet, y'know that? Anyway, I have elected to begin back at the beginning of 2002 to make this a proper fresh start. The original versions are still out there for anyone who wants to find them, but I'll basically be saying the same things here, barring some tweaks to align with any opinions of mine that have changed since then and any other thoughts I add.

But, re-intros out of the way, lets get back into this!

The first time I talked about The Bohrok Awake, I made a point of how the comic format results in the pacing of the story feeling somewhat rushed. Events happen quickly, and there's barely time to breathe between scenes, and that's when scene breaks happen at all. Most of this issue is one continuous sequence, from the Toa reemerging at Kini-Nui, to their encounter with the Bohrok at Ta-Koro, to Vakama's exposition dump. All directly one after the other. It is a little much, just a little.

But, that's all I'm going to say on the matter of pacing this time. I've complained before, and I'd rather be positive this time. It's 810NICLE Day, I'm feeling chipper.

So what does this comic do right? Well, quite a bit. Shocker, right?

Get it?

Shocker?

*ahem* So, what I wanted to bring up was the portrayal of the Toa here, their characterization specifically, because it's pretty good. That might seem odd in such an action-focused issue, and medium in general, but these are action-oriented characters, so I say it fits. Which is good, because like 2001 before it, 2002 is decidedly light on Toa-centric material, so it's fortunate that the comics, the one medium where the Toa have always been the stars of the show, does a good job depicting them.

On an individual level, we get to see both examples of character growth and lack thereof. Tahu has begun to show genuine compassion and concern for his villagers, rushing to Kapura's side at Kini-Nui and then to Ta-Koro to defend his people, continuing to show that secure OG Tahu command of the team as he does so. Lewa, meanwhile, continues to be reckless even after his experiences in the prior story arc, and it continues to cost him. His headstrong attack on the Kohrak gets him iced and pinned down in the time it takes to blink, and of course this time it's not just a character moment, but foreshadowing as well...

I will commend Lewa on his inventive use of the Hau's shielding power here though. Using the shield to break and push the ice off of himself is rather ingenious.

Perhaps more importantly though, this issue continues where Triumph of the Toa left off, showing the Toa as a formidable united front. Given that unity will go on to be a recurring issue, it's nice to at least see the Toa working so well together here. Tahu rushing to Lewa's aid, Onua watching Pohatu's back, Lewa and Gali combining their powers. Teamwork, communication, it's good stuff.

But of course, this is 2002! This year isn't about the Toa! This is the year of the Bohrok swarms! So does this issue serve as a good introduction to the central, well, not quite characters, but entities of the arc? Yes, I rather think so. Vakama of course gives us our rundown of all the different swarms and their abilities, but we also get to see some of the Bohrok in action, displaying their core features: their cold, robotic efficiency, and their trademark disregard for living beings. Though the Bohrok's mission remains a mystery, it's clear their objective is the destruction of the landscape specifically, not the people of the island. We don't know much about the Bohrok at this point, but that is A) par for the course with Bionicle, and B) all that the characters themselves know at this point, so even if it isn't much to go on, it is keeping pace with the plot, and it's an excellent introduction into this new force.

And that's exactly what The Bohrok Awake is supposed to be: an introduction. The Toa appear immediately, established as the heroes of the story, they show their powers and teamwork, and meet their new enemies, with a little extra info from helpful local mentor-expositor Turaga Vakama. It's by-the-book, entertaining, and gets readers up to speed on everything they need to know.

It also includes Pohatu's first "what's a" question, so I think that qualifies it as an instant classic.

Speaking of introductions, re-introductions specifically, I hope this was a good one! Feels good to get back into this now that I'm in the right headspace for it. Expect more soon. For now, I'll leave you all with this image, still haunting 21 years later.

Next up: To Trap a Tahnok :REMASTERED:

[broodsys]

thinking about regret tonight. not my regret(s), just the concept of regret in general, the pressure to avoid things one will regret, etc

this is rly rambly lmao i'm just having thoughts

i feel like there's just smth very inherently distorted about "don't do things you'll regret!" or to aim for a life without regrets - because you will do stuff you regret! you just will!

some of it will be by accident, with the best of intentions, and only obvious in retrospect. some of it will be stuff you're doing to survive in the moment, the results of which you'll feel later in life and may regret, but was necessary at the time. some of it is just plain and simple you knew it was bad, you didn't Need to do it, but you did it anyway!

that last category is the only one you can really stop before it starts. and people want to put more in that category than actually goes there - "oh, i should have known better" okay but did you? did you know better?

and there are so many factors. were you scared to say no? did you think not doing the thing would result in social ostracization? did you know how to set healthy boundaries at the time? were you dissociating? like none of these questions are meant to remove the individual's agency, but reflecting on an event 10 years past where you were in highschool or smth during it, you were such a fundamentally different person at that time. are you remembering that person accurately, or putting your present self in their shoes?

ik a lot of the time it's stuff like "don't get a tattoo you'll regret" or "don't start smoking, you'll regret it!" and in either case, that might be true! but it just... doesn't feel like a very effective way for society to frame these things, at least not to me. regret is par for the course. besides, concepts of future regret are not always that effective at navigating present situations. telling someone in their 30's to stop drinking so heavily or they'll regret it is like... okay, they probably already know that. but why are they drinking so heavily? what's the underlying cause? are they self-medicating? for what?

or for a less intense example... say that same 30 year old wanted to get a tattoo. whatever might be regrettable about it down the line, the person they are today wants that tattoo, and will probably want it for at least a good amount of time after. maybe eventually they'll come to regret it, but what use it is trying to anticipate their entire future self, holding their present self back from exercising their own autonomy? what's the point of encouraging people to base their decision-making on a hypothetical future self?

i'm not saying everyone should throw caution to the wind and live impulsively in the moment, but a 30 y/o shouldn't be pressured to not make decisions bc their 60 y/o self might regret those decisions and it's a weird way to frame things

have you given this sufficient thought? are you making an informed decision? are you aware of the risks? <- these are more useful questions to ask oneself vs. "will i regret this?"

also: did you know better then? did you have all the info? if not, were you aware that you did not have it? were you scared to say no? were you trying to survive? <- good questions to ask oneself when you are experiencing regret from a past decision

idk. i just want ppl - myself included - to be nicer to our past selves, and less concerned about our future selves. obviously pay attention to both, and to the present self, but yeah, the emphasis being on the future self and on criticizing the past self just gets to me

[arcstral]

—  Fire Emblem: Engage, The Emblem Marth Retrospective.  —

Marth in FE: Engage plays a fascinating supporting role.

He has a dynamic presence on the boxart though he’s not a character native to this installment; enlarged and immediately able to be seen on the left where the eyes tend to be first attracted. His title 'Emblem of Beginnings' implicates his role as the first emblem to be summoned on Elyos. He serves as the spokesman for the emblem family in a lot of cases, and provides worldly exposition for the ancient artifacts and plot detail uprisings.

If you acknowledge his role as a witness to every phase of Alear's life from beginning to end- the parts we see in game to the invisible sections we don't see a thousand years before- he suddenly becomes larger than life. The figure that has been with Alear longer than even Lumera. Someone who has seen everything there is to see about our protagonist, to an extent where if an omniscient narrator was ever needed to narrate the events of the game, the only qualified individual by necessity would have to be the ‘Emblem Marth’.

With that that said, I was initially willing to go into Engage thinking of its Marth as an offhand spinoff version. No different from the inconsequential single-beat portrayals of Smash or even Warriors. But this idea is wrong. Engage surprised me by putting a very human, very special Marth into my hands. An echo of the original Hero-King, Emblem Marth recognizes that he is only an emblem from the very first beat of his first appearance, and yet he's unaware of how faithful of a homage he is to the individual he's extracted from.

How much he takes the foundation and honors it elsewhere.

The Emblem Marth as set apart from simply Marth is a purely loyal existence from humble beginnings to bitter end. A millennial being who answers Alear’s call for aid at every cost and asks for nothing in return but to be remembered. His duty to protect this world is equal to his desire to be at Alear’s side. It's that enduring spirit of nobility, loyalty, and devotion to his friends, even forgiveness, that places him on par with his original.

It’s the adversities that best place these traits on show.

Chapter 10 happens and brings the sky crashing down. Suffering on that course, as the last and latest emblem ring to be reclaimed from enemy hands- utterly miserable to be torn apart from Alear and company as Veyle aptly put it- still he serves to provide nothing but love and forgiveness for Alear on their long awaited reunion. The fact that chapter 10's devastation happened at all despite the counsel he’s spared. His even greater forgiveness of Veyle is extended in the aftermath, a compassionate empathy toward her circumstances that reflects the kind he shows for others in his time- his enemies. Hardin and Katarina. Camus and Michalis.

When Veyle returns the ring of the Hero-King to Alear in Chapter 22, she observes that “it was lying by your side, as if it wanted to be with you”, and to me this statement was the most touching. Marth no matter the circumstance will never, ever leave Alear behind if he can help it. But that situation, and that tragic day, arrives. And his reception to the cold fact is graceful.

Accepting his death without complaint, he quells Alear's fears with the reiterated admission of duty, no longer to Altea or to Archanea, but to Elyos. The Emblems exist to protect this world and in that call to existence is a reason worth dying for. His cessation means nothing, Marth nobly says. 'I am of no consequence' he remarks to Velyle tangentially in his paralogue when she laments at the idea of fighting him, with words that resemble humility but in actuality prioritizes the things that he sees as truly important--others.

Duty is the overpowering virtue of Marth’s character. Whereas the original Hero-King cites himself a prince before a son or a brother, this one would call himself an Emblem above all else. That sense of duty to a world not his own even manifests in many different ways. From that unique perspective of both an emblem and a king comes his wisdom, the utmost belief that a world placed in Alear’s hands will know peace and prosperity, that it would be a beautiful place.

This interaction speaks of the telling final thoughts that the Emblem Marth possesses in the last chapter of his life; a dutiful onus to realize a successor to the emblems’ legacy, someone to watch over the lands they have protected for eons. To pick up the torch in their stead. This desire is coupled with his love and peace of mind. He is proud of Alear’s growth, has seen it himself over the course of a thousand years and then some. Of all Marth’s fond observations for the Divine One, such words might be the highest level of his praise.

Such words reflect the caliber of a noble and positive existence who is aware of his bitter end and smells only the flowers. An everbright future with or without the emblems.

When the Pact Ring paralogue finally rolls around, we begin with Marth’s explication about the origins of the ring which even Vander does not know. Detailing Lumera’s mysterious history as its previous owner, and the familiarity of the local surroundings to him, it ends with his sound advice that Alear think carefully on which ally to give it. He is more than aware of the special meaning of this ring and how it will strengthen the bonds between two people.

That knowledge conjoined with his long history as Alear’s partner and a Lythos emblem posits an important side to the conversation:

He is consistently a voice of wisdom yet this example is special; it is in the late Queen Lumera’s place that Marth acts, informing her child about the ring most conducive to their happiness, second only in importance to the emblems and the birthday ring staving off Alear’s corruption. Marth, as always, is watching over the Divine One, nudging them toward their own betterment. Once a long-standing guardian to Alear’s slumber, he watches over them in the innocent and unassuming manner of this guidance as well.

Ultimately, by the game’s ending I thought very deeply about what endeared me so much to this Marth. Why I mourned so much at his loss as a 'phony' version of the original and I think I can finally put it into words. It’s about how much he exemplifies the loyal Hachiko paradigm but ten times magnified. Waiting and watching at the side of his sleeping 'owner' for a thousand years, never failing to sally to Alear's side, and even when corrupted by the fell dragon incantation- even when unable to verbalize or express any component of free will- he's able to muster the scantest smile for Alear in their darkest hour.

Marth is the emblematic mascot who goes through a dozen different redesigns and cameos in the most offshoot games- the most of any existing FE protagonist in both aspects, all differing in appearance from one another in various degrees. In terms of those many portrayals that define Marth, FE17 is nevertheless set apart in this regard by its depth. Showing more than anything that a Marth of a vastly different premise and belonging to an alienated universe is still, well, Marth.

Someone who is dutiful to extremes and deeply appreciative of his bonds, unfailingly kind. Someone who has 'always been kind' as Alear puts it.

Marth's words that Sombron's Emblem will never come back to him again is mirrored for himself. He, too, will never return, and what’s left in the wake of this knowledge is a unique iteration worth mourning. Engage teaches me nothing new about Marth but it does tell me one thing. The hero known as 'Marth' is as much a character as well as the allegoric ideal that puts greater duty and lordly goodness on the table.

Marth is Marth says Engage and that will always be an immutable worldly comfort.