#eti reads stuff

[etirabys]

meandering post about reading Orson Scott Card again

I've been offline starting at 9pm every day (except once. I was drunk at karaoke and asked for anons at 8:30pm) for six weeks, with the result that in befuddled boredom two nights ago I picked up Orson Scott Card's Songmaster from the house bookshelf.

I read Ender's Game and three sequels when I was a teen thought the books were mid. Since those are OSC's best works I assumed he had nothing more interesting to offer me and didn't try more of him for fifteen years, but Songmaster was compelling enough that I immediately afterwards picked up The Memory of Earth, the first book of a pentalogy.

TMoE is extremely my jam: after humanity blows itself up on Earth, AIs monitor thriving human civilizations in the planets that survivors managed to escape to, and suppress any tech that enables large scale violence by exerting low key mind control via satellites. But forty million years pass, many of the satellites break down, and the AI needs help from humans to restore capabilities. Because as its control wanes, people are starting to e.g. conceive of airplanes or bombs again, and override the injunctions against entering military alliances more than two edges of connection away.

The AI is worshipped as a god all over the planet, but the fourteen year old protagonist that becomes one of the AI's agents tells the AI from the beginning that he'll break with it if its morality seems wrong to him. I like the fourteen year old – unlike Ender or Songmaster's protagonist (adult minds piloting ten year old bodies), he's a normal gifted kid who's unpopular 50% due to his ego and big mouth and 50% because he's socially inept and offends people even when he's trying to be nice.

Songmaster is also partly about a permanent solution to large-scale violence, albeit through one guy who establishes a monopoly on violence and sweeps in pax galactica. Both it and TMoE are preoccupied with the eradication of suffering from evil / human violence, which is closer to my resonant frequency than narratives about defeating particular people or ideologies. At the moment I can't think of any other book with such an insistent focus on the matter than T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It's hard to make a compelling story out of, and I don't think Songmaster really succeeds, but TMoE's premise is well suited to explore that. (I'm also enjoying the matriarchal culture where everyone is expected to have multiple serial-monogamous marriages.) After reading 70% of TMoE last night I wrote:

Usually when I read fiction there's a small part of me going, how can I use this as fodder for my own growth, how can I remix or improve or react against this, how do the author and I measure against each other? (If the quality and content are at an anti-sweet spot, the small part becomes quite large and I feel all teeth towards the author.) But on occasion I read something so close that the absence of that measuring-feeling is its own sensation – ego departs, or at least is split across two bodies. There's just amity and recognition

And it's pretty interesting to feel this way about Card for, well, the reasons.

(If you're familiar with Card drama none of the following will be new to you; I'm coming to it fresh so the rest of this post is me going "uh... wow")

I vaguely knew he was a homophobic Mormon who'd gotten into fights about gay stuff, but I couldn't tell from the Ender books I read. But in Songmaster his issues spring off the page in such a weird way. Every fifth Goodreads review of this book is "Card, u gay?" because, well,

(One review, possibly from a fellow Mormon, that went "Card, it's so sinful of you to be this gay in your novel". Why did he write this book that would predictably make everyone mad...)

it's full of gay male desire. The protagonist (Ansset) is approximately a castrato and characters notice him sexually a lot. The first and only time Ansset has sex it's with a Kinsey 4-5 male character he loves, who's married to a woman but has fallen in love with Ansset. It turns out the drugs Ansset took to prolong his singing career painfully and only-kinda-figuratively explode your balls when you have your first orgasm and you'll never feel sexual desire again. (You'd think his loving teachers would have warned him of that, but, whatever, they didn't.) The other guy is literally castrated in punishment for inadvertently torturing a highly valuable castrato. It's pretty bald: GAY SEX IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLY TEMPTING BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT.

(Sidenote: both Ansset and the guy's wife are very close and have a "there's enough love to go around" attitude about the gay sex initially, before they go "wait Josif is a SERIAL MONOGAMIST... he can only love one person at a time... the moment he had the gay sex his marriage was destroyed". It's funny in a mildly stupid way that Card would set up this parable of homosexuality destroying lives and a marriage but almost everyone involved is peacefully ready to sail into an open marriage. I guess it makes sense if you want to say very clearly that THE GAY PART IS THE BAD PART)

which is fascinating to me, because... why would you tell on yourself like that

(81k also told me secondhand of an essay? interview? where Card openly says "we have to stand against legalizing gay marriage because everyone will get gay married and society will collapse", so that's informing my read of Songmaster as well)

I am pretty dang open about my personal life online but if I had a lot of feelings I thought were disgusting and immoral I would not write a novel dripping with those feelings before pointedly castrating the leads for them. Especially if it wasn't relevant to the actually highbrow themes of (checks notes) winning over your adversaries with kindness and never relinquishing your monopoly on violence. I would be so so so so embarrassed to let this go to print, it's so psychologically transparent, what was he thinking

(Well, I assume he's a very different person with different social incentives. For all I know, people in his church went "hey Orson we read your book and it's clear that you're gay but signaling strongly that you won't give into the gay feelings, we're here for you, it was really brave of you to publish this".)

[alexissara]

Fire Emblem Engage: One Year Later An Anniversary Of Mid

Fire Emblem Engage is now a year old and as a massive Fire Emblem fan I want to talk about it. Engage is a game I don't like and I am nothing if not a hater so I want to talk about it more about a year out since I think being a hater that goes beyond a boring critique of hair or anime bad is more valuable.

First let's talk about where I place it in the overall series.

I am going to dive into things in a lot of detail down below. Obviously everything is subjective, blah, blah, your reading my opinions, I don't really care about being "objective" so take what you want out of this. The TLDR though is that Engage is a game that fails in every single way, there is not one thing that it is particular amazing at but it is not the worst at any particular thing either. It's a text book mid game but in some ways I like it less then things I think are worse because the squandering of some decent concepts.

Designs

Mika is an extremally talented artist with a wonderful sense of design but even she questioned why they were hiring her to do a Fire Emblem game. While I like some of the designs of the characters as general characters designs but their almost all bad character designs for story telling, for explaining a deeper sense of character, for fitting into a war setting, for fitting a diverse range of ages or bodies, etc. I don't mind Alear's hair, I think red and blue hair makes sense, that's the enemy phase and ally phase colors, it's not terrible but the outfit is a bit too white. The designs in general are simply great designs for a silly little person but not great for the wider depth of characters not creating characters you could see doing a war. If the tone was different I could see these working but it need to lean far more into comedy or cheese then it does. I really don't have a lot to say here but it kinda just had to be the first thing to address. I like them more than the average person but I still don't love them. Like Etie is supposed to like be buff and stuff but she is a twig. Saphir is supposed to be pretty old but she looks fairly young. Mika's style simply doesn't blend well with Fire Emblem despite me loving Mika's work prior to this.

Story

This is the most often critiqued part of the Fire Emblem Engage experience that even people who love it typically concede and for good reason. The story of this game is a fairly simple and basic story structure. Hero awakes and must do their fate, mother dies, protag cries, they go on a journey to collect the plot items, they collect plot items but OH NO THE ENEMY HAS PUT A WRENCH IN IT! Then they build themselves back up, collect the items and murder the big bad. Along the way you get some angsty zombie stuff but it's cheap emotions, kids complicated relationships to their parents, a theme which you'd think maybe is one of the grander themes but really isn't touched on with Sombron and Alear/Vayel despite Sombron being the main baddy.

Alear has a minor story arc, Alear is scared but then Alear isn't scared only Alear basically always stepped up so the gameplay and the story don't intgrate well here, if Alear even had one map of running away when she shoulda fought and that is why they lost emblem rings or something it would have more solidly locked in "oh Alears character flaw is that she runs away but now she knows to stay and fight" or it could have been a contrast and been like "it's a good thing that Alear knows when to run" and separate Alear from other lords in the series.

The games plot is deeply uncurious aiming for the most simple solutions down to the point where Vayel doesn't have an evil second personality [which I mean is ableist but they still make you think that] it's actually mind control evil second personality. It turns out Vayle and Alear is just goddy good Fell Dragons and all the other ones were totally naturally evil and okay to kill I guess. Vayel could have had an edge to her, there could have been redemption for the "evil" part of Vayel that would be a far more complicated set of emotions and more interesting then no one needs to forgive her because actually every bad thing she did to everyone was evil mind control and every good thing is the real her.

Then there is the DLCs plot which almost makes Engages main plot look good taking you to an everyone is dead AU where everyone is fucked up cuz their zombies I guess or they just are like this in this world but also it only is interested in exploring the lords and the "good" versions of the bad quad with an addition of two new characters. Theirs an obvious twist villain but they try and just red herring you to think it's the girl twin instead of the boy twin who is more clearly evil by showing Nel do some things that seem evil out of context. It's fairly boring, it doesn't engage what it wants to hard enough, it presents it in some fucking awful map designs and it's place in the plot being able to show up before you met the vast majority of the characters actual selves means it's possible you come in with both an army that isn't fun to do the maps with and without a good set of emblem rings but you also have no idea why it should be shocking to see a character like this. It mostly makes me wish that they had instead of making this all DLC worked some of the complicated relationships between characters into the actual plot of the game and had some more fell dragons that were a bit more complicated but redeemable potential party members.

Thematically and politically I am at a loss at what it wants to say, it doesn't even seem to want to say like war is bad or something basic like that. The only recurring theme is like parent dies and that's sad and that is like true for most people and their parents but it's not a particularly well done version of that theme. It's not really about the bounds of friendship and love because like idk there is so few scenes where people overcome things with the power of friendship of love. Like there is some tension between evil coded country and the others but like those are resolved by the future queen having a divine dragon kink and will be good because she worships the good god.

Characters

Fire Emblems cast is kind of like the cast of a Disegea game, which I typically enjoy only not over the top enough nor in a game with a tone consistently silly enough to justify the wild over the top energy of the characters. Characters all have bits and this is true of many fire emblem games but it is more rare for basically every single character to have a bit that is pretty definitive to them rather than a character trait. They are designed and written like a vtuber in a lot of ways, their meant to be cute, for you to find your fav and for you to hyper focus on that one. Only unlike a Vtuber you can't hop on and invested dozens of hours a week watching Yunaka shout Zappy as she murders someone in a video game and banters with chat.

There is a layer of depth to the characters that explain why a character is like this TM but these things typically come at the end of an A rank support which leaves you to assume "This girl sure does talk a lot about tea" if your not rushing to A with someone or if you RNG into one where ya she's mostly just talking about Tea. Again there are characters that are like this in other Fire Emblem games but few characters get the cool join situations, the cool moments in the story to really make you invest that deeply into them since the game is really focused on these lords and doesn't have a lot of interesting recruiting given every character is a lord or a servant of a lord. Not to mention that depth is usually not that deep like it's more like finding a foot bath in what you found thought was just someone spilling water rather then going into a hot tub of complex lore, character drama, and passion.

I did enjoy the characters for my time with them like a light hearted kids animated show where I go "aww these guys are fun" but like one of those I don't really think about the characters after. I enjoy when I see art of Yuanaka or the Racket of Solm fan art, I go "Oh I like those girls, their neat" but I never feel like "OMG Yes, let's fucking go!!!!!" like I do for many other characters in many other pieces of art.

Then in terms of the villains Sombron is paper then with a random new motive at the very end that is utterly uninteresting. The four hounds are fun enough characters since their allowed to be a little complicated but their also as an enemy on a map over staying their welcome for the amount of times you put swords into their bodies lealthy. The four hounds then feel under cut by the "good" versions of them that exist in the DLC which are basically what if they were boring, they are the good versions. Evil Vayel as mentioned earlier is boring because she's just mind control evil and not a real person. There is very few enemy of the map type enemies to think about and the ones that do exist are paper thin, your not going to get a stand off with a commander that you feel complicated feels about having to kill here.

Then we got to get into the endings, the lack of paired supports give everyone a static boring ending unless Alear wanted to give them a special friendship bracelet which totally doesn't mean romance HAHAHA alear doesn't want to date children or married men HAHAHA pay no attention to the man behind the mirror. It strips agency from the player, the translation no romos several romances with Alear that should be totally fine anyway, their just extremely poor at creating a sense of what you did to the world after you saved it because the world was perfect basically except Sombron was a dick. The characters don't feel like they grew in their little ending bits for the most part it's kidna like they went on to do what you'd expct them to do.

Then there is the emblem rings which are given fairly shallow interactions that range to them being pretty out of character to them saying a one line joke to them saying "remember that thing from my game." The shallow level of interaction with the rings is really unfortunate but also fortunate because it meant they didn't write a ton of these characters. They still feel like they should have beena bigger deal and been a bit more involved in the plot as well as having some deeper relationships with characters.

Also you get two fucking dragons on your team both of whom can't turn into dragons, there are these hot older women who are capable in battle but can't get recruited for the cause because I guess their not young and fuckable, there is so little interest in the world of this game outside of lords and their servants [which is a flaw in a lot of modern FE], why the literal child soldiers like Anna, there is a lot of frustrating character choices that could have been done better.

Presentation

I think the graphics are good, I think they look pretty, I like bright colors in my eyeballs and it works for me. I think graphically it's a clear step up from houses, the places look very beautiful. They make a fairly uninspired choice of diving the game into 5 themed regions with a kinda similar design principle across the maps Flower, Mountainy, Evily snow, Sand, really evil. This does take away from a kinda unquie feeling to each place you go but they don't look bad.

Music wise, the opening theme is dumb, I like it but it's corny and clearly gonna be divisive but it suits the game that it is for. As music in the game goes though it's fine, it's a fine soundtrack of fine songs that are fine. Only a few songs are really bangers though and a lot of the music doesn't stand out to me a year later I can basically just think the opening theme and the engaging an emblem remix. I am actively trying to recall another song as I write this and I end up just getting the Three Houses Monastery music in my head instead.

The animations I will simply give full marks too, the animations after many years after the GBA finally don't look bad. Crits look cool, the engage attacks look cool, there is some coolness to be had there where the more real and grounded animations since Gamecube were never my favorite. Great job engage, I hope the series keeps it up.

Gameplay

People talk about Fire Emblem Engage's gameplay being the best in the series but it really isn't and it's not like stunning SRPG design in general. Perhaps if your looking for a challenge the maddening experience is some sort of revolution but the average player of any video game will be playing on the "normal" mode which is by default the intended mode. The game features mechanics that one might think is for grinding but utterly fail at that, the loading screens between managing things make the act of building characters tedious and annoying, the mini game gameplay that optimize maps is awful, the way you can spend resources for cosmetics that you can't use in battle is awful, the lack of little touches to the smithing system like being able to alter or name your weapons is bad. These are all gameplay, these aren't the maps but there part of playing the game and while you can in future runs maybe ignore most of these things you will likely experience some of these and some things were stream lined with patches but these patches will go away and eventually getting supports between characters will go back to being fairly annoying.

Then we can talk about the beloved maps and engaging. The gameplay using the skill system is utterly flawed with the SP being so poorly distributed makes building characters utterly prone to accidently wasting SP and not being able to get a build on that character that will feel good for the rest of the run. This effects gameplay in maps as does the fact you only have two slots for said skills making for fairly small amounts of build possibilities for the wide swath of options you get especially if you get the DLC. The map design doesn't present the fun diverse set of objectives an SRPG is capable of with most maps being kill the boss or kill all the things. They do present different little map gimmicks and they do make some of the maps good but the maps fail in the biggest way that a map can in an SRPG which is to be narratively uninteresting.

I could make a whole article about the sin to the world that is Xenologue 5 which is a top contender for worst map in all of Fire Emblem. In general the Xenolouge maps really are a perfect exercise and exposing the magic of the pretty lights of Engage and going "Oh this game is awful".

It's boring to fight the same 4 dudes. Your so rarely put up against someone new and neat and the characters you are fighting don't grow much until their about to actually die. The repeating four hounds fights creates a dissonance where your people permanently die if they lose in battle but you can't get the kill on these people your doing 1000 flashy attacks on. If you can enjoy a map in isolation perhaps these maps are good, great even but it doesn't fix the issues.

The Bonus Content TM

I talked about the stuff in gameplay but I want to reiterate that the bonus parts of the game are in fact a part of the gameplay.

First off we got costumes which are utterly frustrating even outside of being locked to the hub world. The clothes are gender locked where boys where boy clothes and girls where girl clothes expect Rosado who is a special femboy and in no way a dirty tranny we make fem boys not dirty transgenders in Fire Emblem [this is sarcasm, I am trans] who gets to wear girl clothes. Never mind Jade wearing more masculine clothes in her casual outfits if she had to chose between a butler or a maid outfit clearly she'd pick to be a kawaii maid. The only kind of gender deviation being allowed in the random costumes even for Alear being the femboy fetishist at IS's pet project is pretty pathetic. Also pathetic is the gender lock applying to the amiibo lord costumes which in addition are also even more limited only being wearable by lord characters and only lords of the right gender even if Lucina clothes are mens wear their only for women and very special bloodline women. Then all of this taking resources simply damages the game further.

The mini games include a Rhythm game with no Rhythm as if Fire Emblem has no amazing songs to be playing a work out mini game to. We have a flight sim on rails shooter thing but no enemies or added depth. A fishing game that is a fishing mini game. These are boring to passable but they all give you benefits from doing them so if you wanted to truly optimize you'd need to do them between every map.

Then there is the "interactive" bonus elements talking to people at Somnel and post map, inviting people to dinner, sending people to do an activity together. I've avoided comparing this game to Three Houses until this point but I have to here, Three Houses and Engage started development at roughly the same time so Engage had many more years in development but each and every one of these things are far less in depth then in Houses. There is no voice acting for these sections, unlike houses where every map you have new voiced interactions with every character some of which are dynamically tied to choices you made you get mostly rotating lines with a few people interjecting a text box of almost nothing of value. There is no special bonus conversations for sending people to work together who might have something to say to each other. The meals and creepy bed time interactions are voiced but the interaction between characters is very limited and the lines are pretty repetitive only working with an RNG system of if the food is shit or not which is only annoying. The bedtime interactions of someone waking you up are totally RNG based meaning a character you hate might come wake you up and you have to here about the Alpaca hero and they change when you raise up supports with them meaning each special voiced interaction with sleeping requires you to go out of your way to do something of no value to hope you RNG into the character you like saying a few words less you accidently support them and miss a piece of dialogue. It feels cheap, it feels bargain basement, it feels undercooked.

The grinding here kinda feels like it wishes it was Scared Stones but the pay off for climbing the grind in this game isn't exclusive post game characters, exciting special weapons but some orbs for an optional upgrade system randomly given to you so maybe you can upgrade the weapon you want but maybe not. The bound rings gacha is not an indepth system that is fun to play with. It's just another place where things feel super under cooked despite the long development cycle on this game.

Final Thoughts

Talking about the game I actually feel a lot more negative on it then when I put together the little list at the top or when I wrote an Anniversary of mid, I kinda just feel like actually it's just bad but like it's probably mid and not bad and I am just impassioned writing all my complaints. This is a game that had a ton of potential but I feel squandered it at every opportunity.

I wish I liked Engage, I Wish I liked Fates, but if this is the direction that IS is taking their games when their the primary devs of Fire Emblem I am just not gonna buy IS developed Fire Emblem games because ultimately I got way more physic damage playing these games then I got joy. Fire Emblem is my favorite game series, the one I would say I am actually part of the fandom of and I want to love every new entry, to be hype, to fall in love, to gamble on my phone for little jpegs but I'm just not here with this.

I think Engage presented cool new ideas like the Break System which I think is great and should return but in general I fear this direction. I'd love to see something akin to Engage skills with some flashy over powered stuff. I like how these these interact with the core mechanics and I think their fun additions to the formula.

I just hope this one year anniversary set of thoughts is enough to free me of my Engage demons and I can just never think about it again and go onto playing fan games, rom hacks and replaying older games I enjoy along with new Indie SRPGs leaving this behind to simply exist for the people who love it.

If you enjoyed this look back at Fire Emblem Engage and you want to help me play more Fire Emblem or other SRPGs then Patreon and Ko-fi are a great way to support me so I can afford to talk about queer art and stuff.

[transgenderer]

towards a worldview of enduring torture

i remember reading this thing, i think by eti, where she mentioned that arguing against suicidal ideation sometimes felt like coming up with a worldview for enduring torture pointlessly, something along those lines.

so for me, "philosophy" i guess is mostly a tool for coming up with compelling reasons not to kill yourself. and i notice, when i spend a lot of time inhabiting a consequentialist worldview, that its easy to get in a headpsace where youre considering whether your life will be "worth it", in the sense that the pleasure is worth the suffering. and theres no natural zero between pleasure and suffering, so its easy to conclude that no, it will not be worth it. so then this is no good, you have to get out of this headset re: your life. and i think a much better mindset is "bearable". because LOTS of stuff is bearable that isnt worth it.

i think the problem with bearable though is that then you have to come up with a logic to base your decisions on. and if you cant make decisions that will be net-positive, it becomes hard to argue why you shouldnt just lay in bed all day, and then eventually things will get unbearable, so youre back to square one. i havent really come up with a solution to this, except that actually none of your decisions are based on some sort of rational cost benefit analysis, theres way too much uncertainty, basically just do whatever, following some common sense axioms about avoiding totally fucking your life. philosophy

[doodlesandbooks]

Do you have any head cannons for Alfred, Alear, Etie, and Veyle?

I absolutely do!!! Thank you so much for the ask Anon, this was so much fun!

I have quite a few, so I'm going to put them in a list:

Alfred:

Even though he wants to be strong and exercises a lot, he's actually not that strong, in fact, he's fairly delicate physically.

He has this sort of beautiful handsome prince air about him that is immediately shattered when he opens his mouth, it's hard to be a mysterious heart throb when the first thing out of your mouth is "what's your favourite muscle?"

He eats pretty much plain chicken an boiled veg because he's worried that eating anything too adventurous will set off an attack

He's besties with Yunaka, and even though they didn't have supports in the game, I like to think that he actively seeks out Alcryst because he likes to make people feel happier

He struggles with his body image, and feels uncomfortable in the pool when there are guys with his ideal body type there, particularly Seadal and Diamant

He loves dogs.

Alear:

Alear is autistic and ADHD (Me projecting? More likely than you think)

She has a lot of issues with self disgust due to her heritage and trauma, but she is working on it, particularly with the help of Veyle who struggles with a lot of the same stuff.

Due to her having nightmares (Tiki bond convo) she likes to sleep with Sommie, and post S-support struggles to sleep without her pact ring person (cough Alfred cough). An emblem will do, but she prefers something physically there to hug.

She loves watching birds, and would love lofi if it existed in the FE universe (maybe it does?)

She plays piano, but only by ear, she found trying to learn reading music restrictive.

She doesn't have much of a sense of pain, which is why so many supports have a 'let me fix you up, since you don't take care of yourself' bit, because, not only is she a bit reckless, but also can't really tell when she's hurt.

Her eyes do the cat eye shining thing and some of her teeth are sharp.

Her hair, due to the magic dragon thing, always pools or billows in just the right way with just the right lighting, Hortensia is envious. I like to draw her a little more chubby than she is in game because body diversity in fire emblem exists if I say it exists

Etie:

She's not super tall, but is wide and buff - body diversity in fire emblem exists if I say it exists!

Her hair is quite thin, so she puts a lot of effort into styling it

She says her favourite food is her protein shakes, but really, her favourite food is Boucheron's home baked jam donut.

She loves the smell of honeysuckle and citronella candles relax her, when she went camping with Temerra and Fogado, she had no trouble sleeping because of how comforting she found the smell.

She gets really bad cramps, so once a month she always needs at least one day in bed with a hot water bottle and the Ibuprofen equivalent, I don't know why this is a head canon of mine, I just know that it's true.

She has freckles! She deserves freckles!

Veyle:

I love Veyle.

She trims her own bangs, which is why they're choppy.

She wears the broken bits of the dragon stone as a sort of good luck charm.

She goes nonverbal when seriously stressed, and tends to use a younger voice when coming out of it. She has some age regressive behaviours on bad anxiety days.

She loves to have her hair brushed, and likes Alear doing it best of all.

She doesn't like physical contact unless its with someone she trusts and who has explained what sort of physical contact it will be, hug, hair ruffle etc.

She's really not very good at setting boundaries after her time with Sombron, which means sometimes with people who are a bit more outgoing or heavy-handed, like Temerra or Etie, she feels overwhelmed and struggles to express her needs. She often likes to have someone to help her express herself in that sort of situation.

She uses her hair as a self soothing method.

[yanderefairyangel]

On the topic of localization differences, that's honestly one of the most frustrating things cause there's a legit discussion and criticism to be had about how localization sometimes changes character motivations and story elements to be much more different from the original source material, like the aforementioned Treehouse changing Eddie's dialogue to be more anti-heroic. But it gets shut down by people who think any criticism towards localization is the second coming of Gamergate, due to bad faith actors posting reactionary videos and posts about how "woke translators" are ruining Japanese media.

Oh yeah, I agree on that

And while I can't speak on whether or not they did change some of Eddie's dialogue because I know little about how she is in the japanese version of 3H (except that Teaspoon's translation shared that in chapter 2 she said "Take as much [students] as you can with you" by something with replacement or smth ?) I know that whenever someone try to speak about the change they did to Fates they usually get mocked for trying to defend the game that lets you marry Sakura and Elise because "had localization not added some lines to removed the implications it would have been terrible, never mind that they still let you marry them anyway !!" And like I said people complain about the face petting mini game being removed when again they let the lines they say when you complete said mini game...

So yeah, stuff like that, and I am expecting it to be the same with Engage because I keep hearing people complain about the English dub which makes me scared cause like it's been a while since I played Engage with English dub but I recall it was fine ? Anyway yeah, because of the bad faith actors that keep insisting that "localization saved us from marrying Anna" when again, you do not marry her in the jpn version or "marrying Veyle" which again, you do not marry in the jpn version, you are gonna have people say it "saved Engage and it's character" when it. did. not. Treehouse rewrote entirely some character's personality such as Etie, missed out about some character's behaviour being caused by their past such as Louis, removed some lines in the MAIN STORY, added some wordlbuidling element that aren't necesarrily what the writers wanted such as them precising the bandits Céline excuted were from Firene when in the jpn version she never says where they are from etc. And like I said, while there can be changes approved of by IS and in the case of 3H, IS and KT themselves, that are KINDA hard to imagine they were ok with cause like, why would they be ok with the localization rewriting some story part they had month to come up with ? OR change a character's personality ? Or, even more useless, change Fogado's dislike for swimming in a disliking for fishing (why even change that ?!)

Anyhow, like I always say and as frustrating as it can be : localization is just a translation among others. It's the official translation so we can't descredit it in anyway but that doesn't make side translation invalidate. The only way that make a translation bad is : 1) when the meaning is so completely different that it feels like you are reading a completely different text from the original 2)when it lacks of fluidity in the target language. Translation and localization are hard, but that doesn't excuse some of the suff Treehouse did in the past and that they do now. While there are stuff that you cannot come at them after, there are stuff that you SHOULD come at them after.

[iturbide]

I know next to nothing about engage at the moment, but I would most definitely like to read your thoughts on your favourite or least favourite characters so far! Or anything you like/dislike about the make, really!

Also- I have no idea about anything about the Brodian family besides They’re Royalty but I would 100% die for Alcryst.

I'll be honest, Engage has really surprised me with just how much fun it is!!

(Spoilers below the cut!)

I actually love a lot of different characters. Alcryst is my boy, he keeps outleveling everyone but the healers because I have to take him everywhere. Also, please know that you will not die for Alcryst: Alcryst will die for you (he is 100% willing to throw himself into danger to protect other people because of a frankly massive inferiority complex that makes him believe he's worth less than the people around him; I honestly do not know where this comes from, given that his brother and father love and support him so much, but his brother being perfect in his eyes may contribute in part).

Also, Fogado. I was so afraid I was going to hate Fogado because the pre-release stuff gave the impression of a flirt along the lines of Virion or Inigo, one of my most beloathed character traits. Fogado is honestly more along the lines of Claude in how laid-back and easygoing he seems (while secretly getting shit done), and I love him so much.

(Also, both Alcryst and Fogado are the younger brothers and have an archer class specialty, so between them and Takumi and Claude depending on how canon you consider Three Hopes to be, I apparently have a Thing for the younger brother archers in Fire Emblem games.)

I also love Boucheron. Boucheron my beloved. Buff and kindhearted and everyone is obsessed with his muscles. It's hilarious. But he takes it in stride with incredible grace and also he's just so nice? His supports are all great and also I love setting him up with Lucina's ring because they synergize so well (her special move calls in all allies within two spaces to join in a chain attack, and his personal ability raises his strength when allies jump in to assist like that).

AND YUNAKA. I was so sure that Yunaka was going to backstab us but I was completely wrong and I honestly ended up so attached to her. She's so fun and honestly so silly, which is hilarious since she's literally an assassin or, well, former assassin. "Hiya, Papaya" is now ingrained in my lexicon, thank you Yunaka.

Oh and Zelkov and Kagetsu. They are both utterly delightful in completely different ways: Zelkov is very cool to the point of coming off as intimidating but he has no tolerance for boredom: he teaches himself new things and tries his hand at all manner of crafts and hobbies to keep himself engaged. Also, he has the most interesting inflections in his speech I have no idea what it's drawing from but I love his speech pattern. And Kagetsu is the exact opposite: he's bright and cheery and charming and friendly and so excited about so many things he's so endearing. Also, I don't think that the common langage of Elyos is his first one because he says "I could quiz you" instead of "I could kiss you" and I just. I love him. I love him so much.

I'm also really fond of Alcryst's older brother Diamant, Fogado's older sister Timerra, Rosado the adorable wyvern rider, Merrin the wolf knight who's obsessed with rare critters, Lapis the sword knight who loves a craft project, Jade the meditative knight who secretly writes novels in her free time, Etie the archer with her weighted teacups for getting buff during teatime, Saphira the axe-wielding badass old lady, Framme and Clanne the twin presidents of the Divine Dragon fanclub...honestly it's a shorter list of characters I don't like.

Funny enough, I'm not a big fan of Vander. He might be fine if not for how he comes down hard on Framme for forgetting things, and Framme gives off intense ADHD vibes. I got in a lot of trouble as a kid for forgetting things people told me, so it does not endear me to him when Vander chastises a girl with attention problems rather than trying to coach her and figure out a system that works for her.

I'm also not big on either Hortensia and Goldmary. Both of them are manipulative in different ways but it's extremely uncomfortable; Hortensia gives me Severa vibes with how she tries to leverage her cute looks and get people to fawn and fuss over her, while Goldmary is...almost like a lady Inigo, in a way? She's extremely flirty and kind of full of herself from what I've seen and I just haven't been endeared to her as of yet. I still have a lot of supports to unlock though so all of these might change!

I actually really like a lot of the mechanics in the game! Engaging is such a fun system and I love shuffling the rings around to different characters to see how they work together: giving Marth to an Archer with high speed will absolutely obliterate flying enemies (or just about anything else, honestly) with the extra shot of half damage for every attack they make. Right now I'm abusing Corrin's inheritable Quality Time skill for trying to build up supports because it increases the Support level of all nearby allies after a move (and heals a few points of damage too). Also, having weapon proficiency linked to the Engage rings means you have so much freedom with reclassing: right now I've gone to Advanced class just based on the original base class, but I plan on changing things around once I hit the max level just to see what happens! I think Yunaka would benefit from some time as a Wolf Rider for the Hobble class skill, but Thieves and Dancers are special classes that don't have a level cap at 20 so I'm still trying to find the max level for her. Also, I haven't seen a single normal Base Class that has a unique class skill: only Advanced Classes do, but once you've used a Master Seal once every other Advanced Class change just takes a Second Seal; combined with that freedom afforded by the weapon proficiency system, it's super easy to experiment.

Also I kind of love the skirmishes. Skirmishes level with you: at this point my skirmishes are asking for Advanced Class Level 11 and 12 while the main story is something like Advanced Level 4 or 5. I actually got forced into doing the story at one point because it needed Advanced Classes and I just didn't have enough Master Seals. On top of that, after battle you have an opportunity to run around, adopt animals, pick up items, and talk to your allies! It's really interesting to explore these maps in 3D that you'd just viewed from above or in brief flashes during combat sequences -- some of them are really beautiful, too, like the Solm Palace!

Overall the story isn't bad, either! It's been fun to play through, the cast is delightful, I'm honestly shocked and delighted that for once it's not the desert nation that's the site of the villains, and the dark-skinned characters are absolute gems with some remarkably keen strategizing in play when it comes to keeping their nation and its people safe. Full respect for Solm, I love it dearly (though I will confess that the number of lily white Solmese characters still grates on me: aside from the royal family, every recruitable Solmese character including the dancer is white, despite one of them making it pretty clear from her supports that she was desert born and raised).

That said, it definitely has some of the same flaws that I've seen in Fire Emblem games before it, which continues to be the most uncomfortable aspect to interact with. The villainous nation worships the evil dragon, the only good members of that nation are the ones who don't worship the evil dragon but instead worship the Divine Dragon, the warrior nation is justified in constantly encroaching on the evil nation's territory because they worship the evil dragon, the evil dragon in this case is quite literally devouring the inhabitants of the nation that worships it...there are several aspects that feel like they were lifted from Awakening, but this actually takes it a step further than Awakening ever did and has made Sombron directly and tangibly responsible for the death of a nation. In Awakening we know that Validar orchestrated events at the Dragon's Table in the doomed timeline, so it's not just Grima's influence that caused that disaster; I also don't think it's unreasonable to say that Validar's mind control over both Robin and the people of Plegia at large was only attributable to Grima's influence, since I've always been under the impression that Robin killed Chrom in the doomed timeline because of Validar's manipulation, not Grima's (that cackling at the end of the opening movie sounds like Validar to me, not Robin). My impression in Awakening was always that that Validar sacrificed Plegia to raise Grima, even in the doomed timeline; in Engage, Sombron sacrifices his own people because he's evil, I guess. It's just a bad look and does not lend itself well to crafting a nuanced villain.

I'm admittedly not done yet so hey, that may turn around, too, but my hopes aren't exactly high there.

Also Veyle is precious, I love her, I want to give her hugs and I want Mauvier to live even though I'm pretty sure he's not long for this world (preemptive RIP Mauvier).

Also, if you've made it this far, this is where I'll put the actual big spoilers:

I did not really feel anything when Lumera died. We knew her for a chapter at most, and while her affection for her child is heartwarming despite Alear's amnesia, her death didn't really have any punch because we barely knew her and it was telegraphed in the most obvious way ("we'll talk later and I'll tell you all these things" yeah right I've heard that from a Fire Emblem game before you're not making it out of Chapter 3 lady). Meanwhile, I was completely gutted by the death of Morion, King of Brodia and Diamant and Alcryst's dad. We didn't know him long, really, but we got to see him in action, got to see how he interacted with his kids, how much he loved his family, and how committed he was to the safety of his land and people. And when he was corrupted...you could bring his sons to the fight. And have them face their father. And the dialogues for the brothers when they faced their father just destroyed me. Diamant, worrying he's not ready for kingship, asking his father if he was a good son though Morion no longer answer; and Alcryst, insisting that he has to strike down his father because he knows the task would break the older brother he so loves, and telling Morion that he loves his father and always will. I was a wreck after that, they really pulled out all the stops with those conversations and I am still in pieces honestly.

[blank-but-fat-doodles]

Hello!

I draw characters... but fat! I won’t be super active, most likely, but I’ll post whenever I have a drawing to show! Requests are open.

Inspired by a post from @worth-beyond-a-number-scale, but not affiliated with them beyond taking their idea.

I’m not a fat f/etis/hist, and I do not consent to fe/tish interaction (censored to hopefully avoid getting in their tags.)

If you like my stuff, check out my Ko-Fi! 

Thanks for reading!

[butterflywonz]

I miss you

And john is hot😔

I screamed so loud when they asked him to help me out of the rock pool... He was already keeping my fking crutch istg I wanted to cry in the water...

Nathan look like 🥢, I'm fr so mad at Rebecca for doing that bro... LIKE HIS EAR PHONES WEEE OUT AND EVERYTHING, but I could here him humming behind me which was cute, I mean I kinda have to be friends with Rebecca, cuz I'm nice 🙂 ( and she has a fucking Voodoo doll and I'm not risking shit) sooo yeah... Tortoise looks like he spells special in a specific way..(spechal) I have to stay at school till 5:30 Tommorow 😱 cuz MOS kpop society and also wp, so I might kms soon 😙...

So yeahhhh, also ,lamo is our thing, so is cumpy, so is 1bedroomapartmentguy, so is 🫡👀(Justin), so is " this one Mwah Mwah" so is Bessie chasing us, so is deep throating popsicles (Wtf was wrong with us…??) So is speaking made up languages at night *click click*, so is making fun of me stander 🏍️⚰️, so is thinking we're going to get raped by Justin Truscott, so is Mr kolesky saying penis infront of us, so is the fact that we've never kissed before ( we haven't?) So is the shirtless pics we got from Zachary (she's beautiful but she not my type), so is Abraham as a hole (wait no not like 🕳️, so whole?) So is his nipple tbh, so is going home late afterschool, so is that crazy looking girly telling you not to take pics of her man even though we were taking pics of Kakas, so is me accidentally walking into the unisex bathroom and getting the biggest shock of my life seeing Joshua (gr 11) and thinking I was in the wrong bathroom... And then having a conversation with bradlen... So is when we went on that ride at play land, so is when we thought they were playing FEVER at a children's birthday, so is when we got into the car ready to go home from said children's birthday party actual attractive people arrive, so is us randomly saying cum, so is that guy face timing us to jerk off, so is Chris's cock (I'm sorry) so is monkey as a app, so is Eric from Portugal ( more like Thabo from Nigeria) so is us being racist towards each other(and Fatima) so is the fact that zaarah gives off lesbian vibes, so is the fact that Willow makes me wanna actually rip out my intestines and shove them down her throat to make her stfu, so brownwon..., so is randomly doing antifragile in the middle of BayWest, so is shit talking nirvana cuz we just don't like her, so is randomly "AHHHHHHHH" when we see someone moderately attractive, so is pretending my knee is choking, so is the dislocation of my knee, so are these 2 year old bad boys, so are those yellow and blue woosan birds, so is pause games, so is convincing jaylin soobin died, so is me crying because.. "what If heeseung kills himself" , so is Daniel making me cry 3 times..., so is making jokes about making Jason more handicap, so is reading ff's together, so is the fact that this is so fucking long..., so is us shit talking your mother... With your father, so is lukho flashing us, so is us learning a dance and forgetting it, so is us disliking some idols... Just because, so is you making me come home crying in grade 5, so is us being not even being friends..., so is the fact that I would do anything for you... And also so is the fact that we PLANNED YOU RUN AWAY!?!?!?!?! love you babes, I miss you too.... Theres loads more but like....

ALSO ASBLF I UNDERSTAND IF YOU DIDN'T READ ALL OF THIS...

Im anonymous so like... I could be Anyone ...

So like leaked intak 😻 pics?!?!

PLEASE TELL ME NOWW RAAAAHHHHH okay bye ml

OH MY WORD WIFEY I MISS YOU SO SO SO MUCHHHH!!!

im so sick RN so I can't come to but pls tell the kpop club ppl that I wna join but I'm DYING WOOHOO

dude Nathan is hot

ALSO I'M NOT ALLOWED TO USE THIS PHONE ANYMORE THIS IS ME BEING SHNEECCEE AT MIDNIGHT

I love you sosoosososososososososo much and I appreciate the long ask (I read it all btw) I ALSO DON'T LIKE WILLOW<3

Wtf is ety coz Ik what what wp is and stuff but ETY? WHAT'S YOUR ETY WHATS YOUR ETY.

apparently the kpop club does BEAT stuff during the year too🐢

Ha yeah tortoise us hot:)

Love you babes I miss you<3

Btw "MY KNEE IS CHOKING, SOMEONE WITH BRACES, CURLY HAIR AND LOTS OF BADGES PLEASE HELP!!!!"

[whumpinaheartbeat]

A Small Joy (Febuwhump 2023 Day 22)

This fic contains brief vomiting and severe chronic illness, please read with discretion.

The funny thing about sharing a floating island with dozens of other people is that you can’t scream without attracting attention. 

If Alfred had just been back home, surrounded by acres of flower gardens, maybe he could have stumbled away from the castle and given off a loud scream to the uncaring world and feel a little better. It wouldn’t fix everything, of course it wouldn’t, but it would help.

As it was, he was curled up in his bed trembling, clenching his teeth so that he wouldn’t give off a sound. No one could know that he was having an attack. Not Céline, not his retainers, and definitely not the Divine Dragon. He couldn’t let anyone see that he was just a weak Prince unfit to fight, who could collapse any day. 

No. He would not scream. He will simply stay here until the attack passed and then he would go to his training and train harder to make sure this never happened again and nobody would have to know just how pathetic he was.

The door opened and Alfred froze. 

His room was shared with Clanne, Alfred having been one of the first of the army to move to the Somniel, but Clanne should be off doing steward stuff right now. It was the only reason why he had been able to slunk back into bed as he felt the tightness in his chest worsen in the morning air.

“Huh,” Clanne said. “Usually he’s awake by now.”

Alfred couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t risk giving off a whine let alone a scream, Clanne couldn’t know just how messed up he was. Alfred just had to stay silent, stay still, until Clanne left. 

“I wonder if he’s sick.” 

His blood ran cold. Clanne couldn’t know. If Clanne knew all this time about Alfred’s chronic illness then all this time the boy had probably been looking at him in pity, waiting for him to drop. A spasm rocked through Alfred’s chest and he jolted, tears rolling down his face.

“Prince Alfred?”

Footsteps came closer to Alfred’s bed but he forced himself to remain still, glad that the blanket had already been covering his head. Clanne hovered next to him for a long moment, no doubt disgusted by how pathetic he was. The boy moved back and Alfred’s head spun, his lungs starved of oxygen.

The door clicked closed and Alfred let off the smallest of whines, tears falling ever harder. The pain was worse now, hot lava pulsing through his veins as his chest tightened and his stomach flipped. He had thought that he had gotten used to this feeling, spending most of his childhood in his sick bed, but after such a long time since a significant attack it was like he was five years old again, clutching onto his mother as pain rocked through him.

Medicine didn’t work, not enough to be worth taking any at least, so Queen Éve would just hold him until the pain subsided, humming Firene songs that in the haze of pain he would barely recognise. Céline thinks she knows how bad it had gotten but she was only a child back then and Alfred had tried so damn hard not to let her see. 

She had seen some of it, a fact that Alfred loathed himself for, but there had only been so much he could do to hide it. The attacks would often happen suddenly; one moment he would be playing in the garden with Céline and the next he would be on his knees, screaming as he clawed at his chest. Sometimes he had at least some warning that he was ill, just enough time to come up with some excuse as to why Boucheron and Etie could go to the dining hall without him so that his retainers would not have to see him collapse from the sheer pain.

They didn’t often follow his instructions, always close by to him no matter what he told them to do, and Alfred had lost count of the amount of times Boucheron would have to carry him to bed, clutching onto Buocheron’s shirt if only to keep himself from throwing up.

Even after Alfred would recover, his retainers and sister would constantly be glancing at him, waiting for him to collapse again, and Alfred hated every moment of it. They shouldn’t have to worry about him, they should be able to trust that he was fine and most of all they shouldn’t have to waste their time tending to him.

The pain spiked and Alfred trembled, unable to hold back a moan.

It should have passed by now, he should have been better by now. Yet the pain was only growing and Alfred gave off a silent scream, tears falling ever harder as his entire being hurt. Maybe this was the end after all. Maybe he was never to help the Divine Dragon save the world from Sombron, maybe he was never to inherit the crown to Firene. Maybe all he ever was was this unending pain.

Alfred heard a distant sound but he ignored it, too absorbed in his own misery to really register it. That is at least until something touched his shoulder and Alfred really did scream. 

Hands grabbed at him now, clawing at his skin, holding him down as Alfred let off another ungodly sound, the fires in his veins tearing him apart. 

“Alfred, it’s okay, you’re okay… Clanne! Find Jean, now! Alfred, just breathe…”

He knew that voice but if anything it only made him thrash harder. The Divine Dragon couldn’t see him like this, nobody could see him like this. Alear would loath him, would pity him, would never look at him the same way again. Alfred should stop screaming, he should stop bringing so much attention to himself but the pain wasn’t just pain anymore, it was pure agony.

Alfred tried to apologise to Alear, to tell him that he should just go, but no words passed his lips and his body only shook harder as Alear held him tightly. Nausea rose up and all of a sudden Alfred was on the edge of the bed throwing up, Alear keeping him from tipping over fully.

“It’s okay.” Alear mumbled, rubbing circles into his back.

“No.” Alfred moaned. “Go away…”

“I’m not leaving you.” Alear snapped back. Then, more softly. “You mean too much. Just try to breathe, okay? Help is coming.”

The idea of more people seeing him like this just made everything feel worse. He was the Crown Prince of Fierene, he shouldn’t be writhing in his bed for the whole world to see. No, he had to get over this stupid illness before anyone else could come. He did not need help, he needed to be better.

But there was no cure for this, if there was they would have found it already. The pain was just going to keep coming back until he wasted away and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. The only thing that had been able to lessen the severity and the frequency of these episodes was the physical training he had been consumed by for years yet even that did not prevent his illness for raising its ugly head. 

He had been a fool to believe he could be worth something to the army.

“Alfred?” Alear’s voice wavered.

The world was fading away now, Alear’s hands feeling strangely distant despite still being on him. Alfred had been stupid to think he could ever amount to anything more than a fragile Prince who couldn’t manage a little bit of pain. Worst of all, he had been stupid to think that Alear liked him for him and not out of some form of pity for the sick guy yet here Alear was, having to keep him from falling into his own vomit. 

The darkness was looming ever closer now and he knew he should force it back but Alfred was tired, too tired to fight against it, too tired to twist around and see Alear’s multicoloured eyes regarding him with disgust, too tired to recognise the three figures that were running towards him, too tired for any of it.

Maybe it was time to let go. He had been fighting all his life against the pain and yet it always came back so maybe he should just give up. The others would be better off without him. Céline could inherit like she always knew she would and Alear would be able to find someone better to act as his right hand. Alfred had done nothing but hold them back for months, so focused on training that did not do anything to make his body stronger.

It was time to let go.

Let go. 

It was easy. Just let go. Stop caring, stop fighting, let go.

Let go.

Alfred couldn’t. He could feel Alear right next to him, he could hear Céline’s voice begging him to hold on, begging him to be okay, he could hear the young Jean give the others instructions, could distantly feel a wet cloth wipe the sweat from his brow. He could feel all of it yet most of all he could feel that it wasn’t over yet. 

It couldn’t be over yet.

He was Alfred, Crown Prince of Fierene, proud son of Queen Éve and loving brother of Princess Céline and he was not done. He was Alfred, soldier of the cause against Sombron, friend and ally to the Divine Dragon and he was not done. He was Alfred, the holder of the Bracelet of the Three Houses and companion to Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude and by their strength he was not done.

He was Alfred and

He.

Was.

Not.

Done.

Alfred forced his aching muscles to move, forced himself to sit up even as pain ripped through him, forced himself to meet the Divine Dragon’s eyes and when he spoke he forced his voice to be steady.

“I’m not done.” 

“Alfred, you’re so pale, are you o-“

Darkness.

———————————————————————————————————————————

Alear hadn’t dared to leave Alfred’s bedside in the three days since he fell ill. Sombron could have taken over the whole world for all Alear cared and it would not give him enough cause to step away from his friend for even a moment. 

He knew that he could trust the others to watch over Alfred, Vander had watched over him for decades after all, but he simply could not bring himself to move. Not while Alfred was still shaking, his fever rising ever higher. Céline said that fever was normal in Alfred’s attacks but that did not make Alear worry any less, especially when she admitted that he wasn’t usually sick for so long.

Worst of all of it was the fact that Alear had never known that Alfred was sick at all. What kind of ally was he, what kind of friend was he, if he had never once considered that Alfred could be chronically ill. He had always seemed so strong. Sure, he didn’t have muscles like Boucheron but nobody trained as hard as Alfred and certainly no one had a heart of gold like Alfred. He put his entire soul into every single thing he ever did and he had done all of it while his body had been failing. 

Céline had told Alear what she knew of Alfred’s illness, tears rolling down her face. Her Mother and Brother had tried to save her from the worst of it but she knew full well that there was no cure for Alfred. No medicine, no magic, could save him.

Not even the Divine Dragon could save him. 

Alear had wanted to scream then. What use was almighty lineage if he couldn’t even save Alfred from his own failing health? Alear did not scream though nor did he cry. He listened carefully to Céline, he held her as she sobbed, and he asked Clanne to take her to her shared room with Framme so that she might get some rest. 

Céline needed care and attention as much as Alfred did but Alear could not give her that care, not when Alfred was still trembling even in his unconsciousness. 

The days had passed agonisingly slowly. Some of the others visited, those companions who hailed from Firene especially. Etie liked to stand guard outside of the room and Boucheron kept close by just in case there was something he could do to help. Jean tried a few different medicinal herbs despite Céline’s insistence that nothing would work and Alear stayed by Alfred’s side through all of it, thanking Jean for trying his best. 

Alear knew that Vander was worried about him, as a Steward to the Divine Dragon it was his duty to prioritise Alear over all others, but Alear assured him that if Alfred could spend endless hours praying by Alear’s bedside for all those years, Alear could spend a few days by Alfred’s side. 

The other royals visited too but never for too long as if they knew that Alfred had enough people tending to him. Alcryst had come in apologising, having accidentally snapped all the stems of the flowers he had picked for Alfred before he had managed to get to the room, while Diamant had hovered in the doorway unsure on wether or not Alfred would want to see him while he was ill.

Ivy had only visited once while Hortensia liked to barge in unannounced, talking loudly to Alfred as if he could hear her before she would eventually leave just as suddenly, the room strangely empty without her. 

Others still visited also. There was not a single resident of the Somniel that did not want to give their well wishes to the Prince of Firene. He had helped them all so much, wether it be through personalised training regimes or simply someone to talk to, Alfred had become so well liked by the entire army that it was never just Alear watching over him.

Alfred wasn’t just a respected member of the army; he was loved by every single one of them.

“And that,” Alear mumbled, holding Alfred’s hand ever tighter. “Is why you have to come back to us. To me.”

Alear didn’t want to be friends. He wanted to be so much more than that. Even companions didn’t seem a strong enough word, nor did ally. Alear wanted to spend the rest of his life by Alfred’s side and while he wasn’t quite sure how long his own life would be as a Divine Dragon, the mere thought of spending any time without Alfred by his side made Alear’s very soul hurt.

“Please, Alfred, wake up.”

“Di… Divine One?”

“Alfred!”

Alfred blinked slowly, his eyes almost glazed over but his hand twitched in Alear’s hand and Alear took that to be a good sign. He should call out for the others but the pure joy of seeing Alfred awake at all kept him too distracted to think properly.

“I was so worried,” Alear said quickly. “You were talking but then you weren’t and Céline told me what was happening but she was worried and I was worried and everyone was-“

“Divine One…” Alfred mumbled. “I’m sorry…”

“No, no, don’t apologise. Please Alfred, just try to relax. You’ve been through a lot. Do you want some water?”

Alfred blinked slowly again and Alear wondered if he had even heard the question. Then Alfred shifted, the hand not in Alear’s own reaching up to his throat. Alfred swallowed roughly before nodding. 

“Just a moment.” Alear said. 

Almost stumbling over himself in the rush to get the water, Alear felt his heart soar. Alfred was awake, really awake. He was even speaking and he was aware of what was happening and everything was going to be okay after all.

Grabbing the pitcher, Alear froze. Alfred was awake. He was alive. It had taken three damn days but he was awake now and Alear didn’t know if words could truly express what he was feeling. 

Alear twisted back towards Alfred, the water pitcher forgotten.

“I think I’m in love with you.” Alear blurted.

Alfred blinked. The hand on his throat slowly raised to his forehead and Alfred frowned.

“I think I’m hallucinating.” He mumbled.

“Um, yeah, you are. I mean, it’s not like I would ever declare my love for you, that would be completely ridiculous. You’re a Prince and I’m the Divine Dragon and the world could literally end any day now and I’m going to stop talking and we’re going to forget this ever happened.”

At last bringing over the water for Alfred, Alear urged his heart to stop racing. He had been so stupid, so so stupid. Alfred could never love him back, they were friends. Just friends. 

“The Divine Dragon loves me…” Alfred continued, his voice weak. “Yeah… I’ve totally lost it. Well, it’s a small joy even if it’s just a dream. Even if he’ll never know how much I love him too.”

As Alear stood there staring, his body completely stiff, Alfred’s eyes closed once more.

Alear rushed towards him, terrified that Alfred was dead, but as he came closer he saw that Alfred was breathing evenly, his body fully relaxing for the first time in days. Setting aside the water pitcher, Alear put his hand on Alfred’s forehead like Jean had taught him.

Alfred was still too hot. The fever had dropped considerably which meant that Alfred was at last getting better but it was unlikely that he had ever really been aware of what was happening and even more unlikely that he would remember Alear making a fool of himself just now. Alear didn’t know wether he was disappointed or relieved.

Alear didn’t know if Alfred had said those words because he was feverish or because he really meant them but Alear yearned to hold his hand once more all the same.

Alfred had said that he had loved him too. No, it must have been the fever, there was no way in the universe that Alear could ever deserve someone as perfect and amazing as Alfred. All the same Alear would cherish those words forever just as he would cherish Alfred forever, no matter what happened.

A small joy it was to be by Alfred’s side, a joy that Alear was ever grateful for.

[face2000]

• ki

2i2 - Notepad oe Eti►t Format View Help -Lately I like my students for people best of all, but probably it's only coz I only talk about class and school stuff with them. [1] Probably it's only coz I can excuse their childishness as a product of theiryouth rather than their character. I can think: "You, at least, may grow out of this." When Ms. M- - I heard this through the grapevine of the students - called me childish, immature, I took it as a compliment. For surely there is a kind of childishness that is noble, and a kind of childishness that is contemptible. Time is a game played beautifully by children, who are evil.

[1] Lately my theory is that only unserious things are actually serious: sports, school events. A school concert

There is a perverse beauty to driving long distances on the highway every day. It's such a bizarre, contrived arena. I'm friends with the sign that tells me how many minutes to the 60, how many minutes to the 24. I'm friends with information. The sign says a lot more than the other cars, which are my enemies. The cars have turn signals and brake lights; the sign has words. Words are what I make sense of my world with! coz I'm a person, and I went to school as a little kid like St. Augustine, and learned all my letters and stuff that might be, incidentally, in the margins, made use of.

I knew enough letters to read about how letters were false shadows of reality - the phoneme being what is real - so I became a hater on letters ever since, but still I loved letters. Sometimes letters become so beautiful it's unreal: and so it is as it always happens, that we learn to love certain appearances - if only because we have no choice but to apprehend appearances at all times, through every sense we possess, and, being intelligent creatures, cannot help but learn to prefer some over the other, on account of a somehow real difference in beauty. There is always difference; we know that. We are constructed to make distinctions, to recognize differences. The trouble comes when we have to recognize similarities. Because difference is useless without similarity. Difference is useless without similarity - and here, identity, token and type. Type identity

Ugliness is the absence of beauty.

In 13, Col 35

1 'MT, Window, ((RI F)

p Type here to search

[etirabys]

some years ago I bought Mortimer J Adler's "How to Read a Book" because I was bad at reading books. I read a bit, dropped off, and persisted for years in thinking that I would be better at reading if only I could summon the will to finish the book. Well I finally came back to it and it wasn't very helpful. Thank god. The tracery of neuronal connections that were devoted to feeling bad about it can be repurposed for a new fetish or something. Anyway, it seems important to record what I did get from it, because I am a bad reader and it's good to crystallize the tasks or principles that can move me forward.

the fast first pass

Adler distinguishes between "analytical reading" and "inspectional reading". Analytical reading is complete reading, thorough reading. Inspectional reading is to skim systematically, with the aim of determining what a book or passage is about and how it is structured. Reading the table of contents carefully is part of this, as is skipping to the chapters that seem most load-bearing and looking at the summary statements at the beginning or end to see what the core arguments are. Adler convinced me to always do this with nonfiction – it is good not to be surprised by the structure of something you've decided to commit hours of your life to.

[Readers who did not even read the table of contents] are thus faced with the task of achieving a superficial knowledge of the book at the same time that they are trying to understand it. That compounds the difficulty.

He's also a fan of fast first passes of a difficult book. Don't stop to ponder shit. Don't look up words. It's okay to be superficial. Race through it, and it will prepare you to read it well the second time.

The tremendous pleasure that can come from reading Shakespeare, for instance, was spoiled for generations of high school students who were forced to go through Julius Caesar, As You Like It, or Hamlet, scene by scene, looking up all the strange words in a glossary and studying all the scholarly footnotes. As a result, they never really read a Shakespearean play. By the time they reached the end, they had forgotten the beginning and lost sight of the whole. Instead of being forced to take this pedantic approach, they should have been encouraged to read the play at one sitting and discuss what they got out of that first quick reading. Only then would they have been ready to study the play carefully and closely because then they would have understood enough of it to learn more.

reading speed

The correct reading speed differs per passage even in the same book, and my problem is that I usually know what it is but go faster than it. It's a terrible habit that impedes my understanding and my enjoyment. Adler suggests using your finger across a line of type and following it with your eye. (Actually, he suggests this for the purpose of learning how to read faster – by moving your finger slightly faster than your comfortable reading speed, you will be forced to keep up. But it seems that it should work equally well for slowing down.)

ask yourself questions

To read actively in an analytical reading pass, you should ask yourself questions. (When I hired @eka-mark as tutor a few years ago and talked about how difficult I found it to learn from textbooks, they gave me the same advice – have a question in mind that you're trying to answer as you read – it'll focus your mind.) I frankly don't like Adler's questions*, so for myself I'll say: whatever questions naturally bubble up for me on the first pass, I will try to answer on the second. *what is the book about as a whole, what is being said and how, is the book true, how does it matter to you as a reader)

with fiction specifically

"Read it quickly and with total immersion, if possible in one sitting, so that the unity of the plot does not escape you."

my addition

I believe this but seem to be bad at acting on it:

I can read about 500-2000 books in the years I have remaining of life. Read Kindle samples first and give up aggressively. (If I read more than 30% of the books I sample, I'm probably doing something wrong.) Make the first pass, and don't bother doing the second if the first showed the book to be unexceptional. The complement of reading well is to choose good books to read.

[vitruvianmanbara]

i have so much to do in the next month but i’m so excited to do it all! 

[scurpmun]

My Monster Hunter Story

I guess you could call it my beginnings or my journey but either way.

I started with 4U back in July of 2015. Yeah. 5 years ago. Still shocks me. I had gotten into it because two of my fav YouTubers at the time did a video together playing and I wanted to try it out. Needless to say I feel in love with it almost instantly. I started with the switch axe cause i thought it looked cool... i mean come on. It's a giant axe. I worked my way through the story. Eventually learned of the sword mode on switch axe... still never used it. And got to Gore Magala.

He was my first wall that had me stuck for awhile. He was to fast for me and I felt like I wasn't doing good damage. I said I'd never play it again... but then I found out his weakness. Thunder... I then made the leap and became a SnS main. And in one attempt took him down. I was so happy! I was then doing online hunts every once and awhile and right before High Rank I player said I need a full set of something. So I made my choice. Gore was my first full set armor. I learned his patterns, his tells, everything. I had him down to a science and continued through the online and the story.

Eventually changing armor and weapons to the dah ren ex set along with ex poise SnS and went through the rest of the story and the online before G Rank. I remember getting to Shagaru Magala. My hands shaking, heart pounding, breathing just a bit quicker then normal. I was nervous... but pumped and excited. Our stare down in the cutscene. Then walking somewhat following each other. He became my rival. And it felt like it had respect for me having made it this far. And the fight. I had the volume as loud as I could letting the music fill my resolve, my passion, and my desire to come out on top. 35 minutes in that hunt. Trading blow for blow. Conquering the frenzy over and over, running so low on healing items, and I had won. I was so happy. Finally I thought I was done... but no. There was the Ultimate side of the story. Seregios, Rusted Kushala, etc. Very fond memories but also... there was still the online. With my new found confidence i started back going through the online. Taking down Dalamadur, Ukanlos, and entering G1. This continued until I hit G2. But as some of you may know. 4U was filled with hackers making hunts and shit... and I was in a hunt. Got shit I shouldn't have so people didn't want to hunt with me anymore so in G2 I stayed.

Then Gen came out. I was so excited for a new experience and I had some friends I had tried to get into monster hunter. We had agreed we'd all get the game together and play... well it came out... and I was alone. They wanted to hack quests so they refused to buy it. So my time playing it was short... then I made some friends who played Gen and I asked if they would play with me and help me do the online... worse mistake of my life... the leader dictated my gear... my weapons, my playstyle... I grew to hate the series... i grew to hate myself as a hunter cause i "wasn't playing support as a SnS main/ wasn't a good sns main"

Then world was announced. We agreed we'd play it together and in was in world my love for it started to come back just slightly... my armor and weapons were still being dictated but then... Vaal Hazak appeared. I saw it's armor and I finally broke from his control and went after it. I then fell in love with Pukei Pukei weapons cause of the feathers so I went after pukei things... then there was a long break... then Gen Ult came... I was again the only one playing but that was fixed when my friend Alex aka Night Lily started playing with me. And it was with playing it with her that the sadness and hatred I had for gen was turned it into a love. I could enjoy myself again! I was starting to feel happy hunting the monsters of Gen and when we finally got to the Gen Ult content I was super excited! I'm now happily a G4 hunter and somewhere in the late 100s in HR.

Iceborne came out and I had a fun experience so far. Not much to say cause it's still going. But it's through this bullshittery that Scurpway exists.

But from a 17 year old newbie (still calling BS on that) to the 22 year old 3ds veteran I am today... I've changed a lot and accomplished more then I ever thought I could in MH.

I even have a friend willing to play 4u with me to finally become G4 and play Tri Ult with me too...

My true friends... the ones I play GU, World, and 4U with... they brought my love back for monster hunter... and I love them so much.

@pal1947 @eti-mun @parkzarts @the-shy-artisan @lily-the-night-flower and @liyuanne and another who doesn't have a tumblr are the ones I talk with almost on the daily about this stuff. And I want to tell you guys. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for making me love this series again and more then ever before. You guys mean more to me then you know. Thanks

And thank you. For sitting here and reading this extremely long post. To all the hunters out there... Happy Hunting, Stay Safe, and never... EVER... let someone tell you how to play the game you love.

[elegant-etienne]

3. [I] trusted [you]

Send me a number to receive a micro story!

Thank you for the ask, @maybeimawhale​!

(This song is what always comes to mind when I see the word ‘Trusted.’ And I think a lot about how I used to relate to this song, in the wake of a really bad break-up, but now that I’m older, I have to wonder if the narrator of the song is being at all reasonable. I also find it helpful, when revisiting subjects I’ve written before, to twist around the perspective a bit, and give myself permission, without naming the character in this piece, to treat Etienne’s ex-husband as a NPC, and admit to myself a lot of my own character’s faults from the outside.)

BEHIND THE CUT: Descriptions of a toxic marriage, substance abuse and addiction, suicidal ideation and an attempt, allusions to past abuse and PTSD, and very inaccurate TBH but this is more or less how I remember it going down descriptors of someone having a “split personality,” and some light misgendering of Etienne (they ID’ed as male when they met their ex-husband, and at the time of their wedding).

Also I am sorry for any errors, I can’t go back and fix them after the initial post or it’ll break the formatting on the post.

insp. Ben Folds - Trusted

It's funny I know But I'm disappointed in you I thought you could read my mind

Your husband - your spouse Etienne is doing better after the time away. Actually, the time when they was sleeping in the recovery wing - three sennights - is among the best you two have had. A few hours of visitation, and they're affectionate and loving and missing you. Even a rare smile, and they show you where the stitches came out. A bell or two isn't enough time to get worked into a fervor about things and restart the same fights you've been having for moons.

When they return, Etienne has warmth in their cheeks again. They're gaining weight again. They don't smile, but they've always been quiet about that sort of thing. They've missed you. They've missed you so much. They look more like they did on your wedding day, that reserved, understated glow. They look like the Etienne you married.

(In those moments when you thought you could still be one person successfully. In those moments when they thought they'd killed the other you. In those moments when they stood at you at the altar, teary-eyed but happy, so happy.)

"Welcome home, Etie," you say with your brightest grin.

"I'll be better this time. I promise. I'll never do that again."

You laugh and embrace. You're both so relieved.

But I came home early And saw that a drawer'd been opened Looks like you've been reading my diary instead

After a long shift in Medica, all you want to do is come home and take a bath. Etienne seems to have other ideas, however. They're seated at the desk. They're glaring at you. They hold up your notebook - the one with all the reports.

"So this is what you've been doing at night while I'm gone? Forbidden research and magic? I thought we talked about this! It's too dangerous, after the last time. What if it goes too far?"

"There was no one else who could do it. It had to be me." You've never raised your voice to Etienne. Not once. Sometimes, you've cried while you're fighting. Etienne has shouted before. Twice. It frightened you.

(They wanted to kill the other half of you.)

"What if something had happened to you while I was in care? I wouldn't have known where you were. And what if there had been an emergency at the FC? Folk need you. I need you. And you promised..." Etienne bows their head, sucking in sharp breaths to try and stop the crying.

"You have no business going through my notes. There could have been patient information in there!"

"...You were acting strangely. You were hurt. You weren't telling me things. You broke your promise." The tears have been withdrawn, all that's left is dead, blank sullenness from Etienne.

"I had no other choice."

"Did you even try to stop and think of one?"

"There wasn't time. Percy and--"

"Percy?!" There it is, the raised voice, a burst of life, a flame in their eyes. "I knew it. I knew he and you--"

"It was work--"

"--Have something going on, you told me it was nothing, you told me you weren't seeing him when I wasn't around-- While I was in the bloody hospital from trying to kill myself because I can't stand this, and you wouldn't leave me alone, you wouldn't just give me the space, and now the moment you have you're running around--" Etienne always gets like this. A million words a moment. Each a pointed attack, an accusation. When Etienne gets this way, you can't do anything right.

"--It's only work--!"

"Maybe I shouldn't have come back. Maybe Rosa was right, it's too soon, we're not ready." Etienne straights their posture, scrubbing at their eyes with the heels of their hands. "I drew you a bath. I'm going to bed."

How does it feel to realize You're all alone behind your eyes?

The bath is strewn with rose petals, the candles burned down hours ago. It's dark and cool in the bedroom off the heat of the bath. Your spouse is bunched up in one corner of the bed. "I love you, you know," you speak to the dark. To Etienne's back.

"I love you too," Etienne says, but doesn't turn around. “...Be honest. Did you fuck him?”

“No, it’s not like that. He found this... it was like a cursed circus, full of twisted creatures, he needed cleansing spells, he was able to show me ways to amplify my power...”

(He knows about the other you.)

"It's alright if you did," Etienne says, malms away in the same bed. Did they even hear your explanation? "If you want to, just tell me. We can figure out an arrangement, a lot of married couples do, just don't lie to me. Don't lie."

"It's not like that."

It seems to me if you can't trust You can't be trusted

You wait to hear the soft wheeze of Etienne's snores, but you drift off before they do. Somehow. In the middle of the night, it's a repeat of others. This hasn't changed with the time in care ward, apparently. Etienne sits up and starts screaming, won't be held, won't be comforted. 3AM in the morning and your spouse is in the corner, knees to chest, rocking. They start rooting around, too, when you pretend to sleep. They won't find anything. You poured all the liquor out sennights ago -- even the things in the back of the icebox and at the top of the bookshelf.

Caught in a dream Picking up astral signals Some of them psychic, you better watch what you think

You come home to Etienne sitting in front of their vanity. You see the shimmer of a deactivated glamour prism. There are tears in their eyes, but you don't know why. They slip the plate into a drawer somewhere, and you do not ask more about it.

"I got more of the sedative. To help you with sleeping. So you don't have to drink." It's never difficult to cadge a little bit of medicine on the side for loved ones when it's needed - such are the benefits of being one of the heads of Medica. No one has to ask any questions. Etienne doesn't have to get upset or embarrassed at exposing their problems to anyone they don't trust. Rosa doesn't have to put her foot down and force Etienne to stay in the care ward, away from you. It's win-win.

Something flits across Etienne's face - suspicion, mayhap, and they say-- "I'm going to try and handle it. I'm. I don't know if it's a good idea for you to keep giving me that stuff."

"The sedative's non-habit-forming. It's better than alcohol, at least."

"I still shouldn't turn to something every time I'm distressed. It scares me. Depending on that."

"Then at least talk to me about what's bothering you."

Etienne looks at you through the mirror, not turning around. "It's not anything distinct. It's. Hands. Being pulled down into darkness. Being pinned down. Being unable to escape. Sometimes it's so real I feel it, getting slammed into a wall or onto the icy ground... and no matter how I struggle, I can't get free. So I start screaming."

"Etie..."

"Well, whatever. Everyone's got their shite." You hate this. How they mutter and retreat into themselves. They fold up into themselves and they don't come back.

(Your nightmares are of fire, of the Calamity. Lost in the woods, mother and father are gone, you can't find your brother's hand--)

Etienne shuffles resentfully into the silence. "Are you willing to tell me what you did on that mission?"

"Are you promising not to get angry when I tell you the  details?"

Etienne lifts their chin. "I'll decide that when you tell me."

(You tell them. You don't tell them all of it. You don't tell them he's back.)

Happens to be that everybody else's dreams are Freudian clues You better watch what you dream

A few suns later, Etienne makes breakfast for you. That pink ruffly apron, but there's no singing this morning: just the sizzling pan. "Do you remember anything at all about last night?" they ask, plating up the little fish with fresh, fluffy rice. They loved that Doman cooking book you got them.

"Um..."

Etienne pours you scalding hot green tea. "I went looking for you. I gave that friend of yours quite a scare. I think maybe he thought I'd burn him alive." Etienne snorts. "I just made his tea boil a bit. When he told me the truth of what you two have been up to."

"Why would you--"

"Then I found you in the Quicksand. Chatting up someone else. Are you cheating on us both, darling?"

Your head's spinning as you try to braid the threads of last night back together. "That wasn't me--"

"No, it wasn't. I brought him back here. He was as awful to me as ever." Etienne accuses with swordlike jabs. "If he's back," they say, "Why did we do any of it? The ritual? I almost lost you then! Why did you make me do any of that if he was just going to come back?"

(Your head hurts.)

"You shouldn't have gone through my things," you hiss out. "There are things that you are better off not knowing!"

"Oh, like the fact you and that boy have a magical connection? Unlike anything either of you has ever experienced? And how you - the other you - is the most brilliant mind he's ever known? It's just like I said. Remember that? You said nothing was happening, but he's totally in love with you."

"It isn't like that."

"Tell that to him, then."

(Etienne never listens.)

"Even if there's something going on - it - it isn't with me and him, it's--"

"The other one. I know. The other one who threatened to kill me."

"He was just testing you."

"And that makes it better?"

"He's lashing out because you tried to destroy him."

"He started it. You said the ritual would fix you," Etienne rasps out a whisper. "I can't believe this. I can't believe we did all that and... I'm dragging someone wearing the body of my husband out of a seedy tavern. I looked like such a fool. I thought we fixed this."

"Maybe," you feel your voice dropping to a growl, "I never needed to be fixed."

You want to see the other side What's going on behind the eyes

(Last winter, you came out of a fog to Etienne staring at you, withdrawn into a calmly blank expression, their posture stiff.

"Why," they ask you, "Did you just threaten to murder me?"

You said, groggily, "What?"

And you explained it all. The splitting.

"How am I supposed to feel safe around you when there's - there's something inside you that wants to kill me?" Etienne asks, too steadily. "He knows everything about me that I've told you. He knows what I'm afraid of. This is a problem." They say, and they speak your name urgently.

"I'm sorry if I scared you, if - if he did."

"Oh, I wasn't scared," Etienne says, quietly and intensely. "I'm used to being around men who'd just as soon slit my throat as fuck me. Or one and then the other, with no particular preference of the order. I just didn't realize you were one of them.")

Still it seems if you can't trust You can't be trusted

Here is one of the fights you've had more than once: your friend thought of a way to get rid of the other personality. Put him into another body.

"So we'd just take the body of someone who - what? Even if you found a willing subject, that would be killing someone." Etienne pulls their knees up to their chest, the water rippling. You're sitting at the edge of the bath. They seem to want to melt into the steam wafting off the surface. It makes them dewy. You're not sure if they're crying or not.

"No," you tell them, "We could put him into another body where the spirit had already returned to the Lifestream."

"That's necromancy. I won't do necromancy."

"We may have no other option."

"If you mess with corpses, you really won't have control over what ends up in there. You could be inviting something very, very bad in. You know that, don't you? What you're talking about is defiling the dead. It's a sin. It's a defiance of Nald'Thal's balance. It's a perversion of everything I believe. You know that. You shouldn't do it. Don't ask me to do it!"

"What if we have no other choice?"

Etienne stands up in the water, then, thinking to get out. They shout, "I can't do it! Don't ask me!" Their voice echoes and buzzes in the small space of the bath. The water ripples as they sink back down into it. They let the water bury them like a comfort blanket. "I'm - I'm sorry. Please just go away," they say in a tiny voice. "Let me think."

"I'll be outside."

Didn't you know we're as close as we can be?

In the end, what else could you do? Etienne didn't trust you to handle the situation. Etienne wouldn't participate in the most obviously effective ritual. Etienne was angry at you when the first attempt didn't work as planned. Etienne was an unstable, suicidal, dangerously alcoholic. It hadn't taken much time at all after the hospitalization for them to fall back on old ways.

They couldn't be trusted.

On the day you left to do it, you kissed their forehead, tucked the blankets all around them, and put strong wards on the doors after emptying another round of hidden bottles.

The sun's coming up She's pulled all the blankets over Curled in a ball Like she's hiding from me and That's when I know

Their voice comes over the linkpearl. There's a danger to it. "Why are there wards on the door, what are these?"

"It's the only way to keep you from drinking when I can't be there," you explain calmly.

Etienne sucks in a breath, and you brace for yelling. "You can't just lock me in here," they whisper. "I'm a person. I'm an adult. You have to let me out."

"I have somewhere to be for a few suns. You've food in there. You'll be alright. Sober up."

"Can't you call someone to come check on me? Rosa, or someone? Please, I can't - don't leave me here alone."

"I'm sorry, it was my only option. This can't wait."

She's gonna be pissed when she wakes up For terrible things I did to her in her dreams

The apartment is in poor shape when you return. It seems at several points Etienne attempted to magic the doorway and scorched the rug - or the levin sparked and started a fire - and they also attempted sheer brute force. One of the charming little kitchen chairs is splintered. But the Etienne you find is more like the Etienne you married. Ducking their head shyly, saying, "I'm really sorry... I'm sorry I relapsed, I'm weak."

"I'm sorry I had to do that," you say. The two of you hug desperately.

(You're sorry you had to do all of it.)

You want to see the other side What's going on behind the eyes

(You're sorry the first ritual failed. The softness and patience Etienne showed you then, when you were recovering, when you didn't remember them - they were just as sweet as they'd been when you first got married. When you first started dating. Before everything got so bad.)

Still it seems if you can't trust You can't be trusted

The night Etienne tried to kill themselves, you had a fight. It was about all those nights you went out, not telling them where you were going. "I can't keep doing this," Etienne said to you, staring up at the statue of Nald'thal in the Ossuary. "I can't." They speak your name with such quiet urgency. "I need time to think."

"Please," you beg, your eyes stinging. "Don't leave me." You grab their arm. They try to jerk away from the touch.

Their voice echoes loud in the Ossuary. "Don't bloody touch me when I’m upset! Please!"

You hold onto their arm harder. Their arm is so thin. They're slipping away from you. "Please don't leave, please don't be angry. Please...!"

"I'm not -- I'm not -- I just..."

You're sobbing.

"I'm sorry, darling," Etienne says, gently touching your face, your hair, "Let's go home."

You have a long conversation-argument at the apartment. You explain why the work is essential. They beg you to promise not to do things that put you in danger. You tell them you'll do your best. You don't like doing things that upset them, after all.

"I don't know what's wrong with me,” Etienne murmurs. “I feel hounded, I can't sleep. You're always so busy. Since the ritual and... since that... incident with Henri..."

"Are you guilty? Because of what happened?"

"I honestly just want to be alone," Etienne says. They are sitting at the desk about a yalm from you, but they're malms away. "So much has happened the last few moons. I need to figure it out."

"Do you mean traveling? I can't right now, with work -- and I don't know if it's a good idea for you to be on your own. I don't think you're alright on your own right now."

"True," Etienne says, lowering their head. They shuffle around in the desk, and your feel your face heat. Another bottle? Etienne whispers something, "You won't let me go," mayhap, and then. The letter opener.

Thank the Twelve you're a healer. Thank the Twelve you had the sedative. They beg you for it that night, after you stop the bleeding. They can’t sleep and they’re half mad, crying and ranting. And you take them to your co-worker Rosa in the morning. She takes Etienne away from you. Says they need to rest and recover under direct supervision. Etienne doesn't even want to see you at first, or perhaps it's that Rosa won't let you near them. She's the one who stipulated only short visits while Etienne recovers. She only lets you back after Etienne sleeps for two suns straight.

Didn't you know we're as close as we can be?

You remember the day you fell in love with Etienne. You both were sitting at the Quicksand. You had tea, they had orange juice, and another man sat down between you two at the table and made himself welcome. He asked you why you stuttered.

"While on the subject of questions, why are you so bloody rude?" Etienne asked. They said to you, "You don't have to answer that." And you smiled, feeling sunshine radiating out of every pore.

"I'm not the sort of man for relationships," Etienne said, later, as you walked down the streets of Ul'dah, over to the steps of the Ossuary. You offered to escort them to work, as though they needed it. "I've been through a lot. I don't even know if I can love anyone - it all seems like kind of a fool's errand, honestly. Men are... I've just met so many, many awful men."

You took their hand, and they look at you, surprised. "I can be patient," you promised them, "I can wait. I think you're worth it. I think you're worth trying for. I've never met anyone like you."

"Well, thank you, I suppose," Etienne says, their lips twisting as they hold back skeptical laughter. "Let’s promise one another, though - let’s be honest with one another about how this going. If someone else catches your fancy, or I do something you don't like, please just tell me. You wouldn't believe how many times I got hauled out of a nobleman's bed by a surprised wife. As if it's my fault their marriage is falling apart! I don't want anything like that, alright? No silly secrets!”

"Promise."

“Not that I imagine we'll get married. I'm really not the type." Etienne laughs at the sky. “What am I doing?!”

Hello.

[trollcafe]

ooo, for the OC asks that reveal more than you think... 12 for your favorite bab? ~perniciousAbnormality

12.Do they like romance in the books they read (or in the book they’re in)?

Ro^^ance in novels and stuff ^^akes ^^e unco^^fortable. I can be a ro^^antic soul when I want to be but so^^eti^^es that stuff just puts ^^e on edge. I^^ affectionate but not about to drop everything for a flush, you know?

[trutherblog]

The Reptilian Elite

Reptilian humanoids or simply reptilians (also called reptoids,[1] lizard people,[2] reptiloids, saurians, Draconians)[3][4][5] are purported humanoids with the characteristics of reptiles that play a prominent role in fantasy, science fiction, ufology, and conspiracy theories.[6][7] The idea of reptilians was popularised by David Icke, a conspiracy theorist who claims shape-shifting reptilian aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies. Icke has stated on multiple occasions that many world leaders are, or are possessed by, so-called reptilians.

No other alien species strikes as much fear in the human psyche as the Reptilian. These beings, snake-like in appearance and malevolent by nature, are the stuff of nightmares. Is it possible that Reptilian humanoids are the source of the devils and demonic entities who have tormented humanity since early history? Many alien researchers and contacteespostulate that these lizard creatures may have been the mythological characters spoken of in numerous ancient religious texts and folk beliefs

There are also claims that the snake from Genesis was in fact a Reptilian being, who convinced Eve to break her oath to God by tasting the forbidden fruit of knowledge.

Install

THE CONSPIRACY WIKI

Reptilian shapeshifting

The Reptilian shapeshifting conspiracy alleges that celebrities, usually government officials, briefly reveal reptilian characteristics. David Icke is a long time promoter of this conspiracy. Shapeshifters are believed to be reptilian or genetically modified clone replacements. Alleged sightings are worldwide.

The substance of the “reptilian shapeshifting” theory is that reptilians—and perhaps other extraterrestrial entities (“ETIs”)—are living on earth with humans in “human body suits”. The purpose of the body suit is to conceal the true identity of the extraterrestrial entity, and to make their appearances more palatable to human beings. Allegedly, reptilians are highly interested in interacting with the earth’s human populace...for mating, “hunting”, and more.

The exact nature of the body suits is unknown and hotly contested within the conspiracy community. A number of theories have arisen, influenced by major conspiracy analysts such as David Icke.

The body suits may be “physical” – as in, actual or simulated human biological components. In this theory, reptilians are physically harvesting human beings, as well as Adrenochrome, to maintain their disguises.

The body suits may be “etheric” or “interdimensional”– projected psychic or extra-planar energy. The vast majority of humans would not recognize a psychic projection as such without special training.

The body suits may be an act of visual trickery by ETIs, as stated in “The Lacerta Interviews”. In this version of the theory, Lacerta the reptilian alleged that the human psyche cannot comprehend the true form of ETI energy, allowing reptilians to simply “bypass” detection.

The body suits may be generated by super-advanced technology from the Secret space program.

England 2016

In June 2016, social media briefly lit up with thousands of tweets from people who claimed they had witnessed the Queen of England shapeshift into a reptilian. This happened while BBC2 presented coverage of the trooping of the colour parade. An example of some of the tweets read as follows – one twitter user wrote, “I just saw the Queen shapeshift into a reptilian. My hand to god I am not making this up!” Another wrote, “BBC2 r u playing funny pranks or DID THE QUEEN JUST SHAPESHIFT??” A third twitter user wrote, “Err….Queens hands just went green and scaly when she waved, did anyone else see that? Reptilian?”

What made this apparent “sighting” of the queen and the commentary on social media that followed even more interesting was that tweets were apparently being automatically “deleted” only seconds after they appeared. Some people managed to take screen shots of some of them however and they found their way on to various internet sites soon after.[1]

Los Angeles 2016

In March 2016, a man claimed to have seen a judge in a full Los Angeles court room “momentarily change shape into a reptilian – then changed back into human form!” The unnamed Los Angeles resident was in court for various traffic violations. He made his claim to MUFON, and further stated that although there was at least fifteen other people in the room, no-one appeared to notice the change. He also claims that the judge he witnessed “change” is no longer contactable despite his best efforts to do so.[1]

United States

George Bush senior – often reputed to be a reptilian shapeshifter – is also regarded as a “high ranking illuminati”. Like Queen Elizabeth, he is often the subject of people claiming they have witnessed his eyes take on a reptilian look or that they have video evidence of his involuntarily shapeshifting to his original reptilian form.[1]

THE CONSPIRACY WIKI

Reptilian shapeshifting

The Reptilian shapeshifting conspiracy alleges that celebrities, usually government officials, briefly reveal reptilian characteristics. David Icke is a long time promoter of this conspiracy. Shapeshifters are believed to be reptilian or genetically modified clone replacements. Alleged sightings are worldwide.

The substance of the “reptilian shapeshifting” theory is that reptilians—and perhaps other extraterrestrial entities (“ETIs”)—are living on earth with humans in “human body suits”. The purpose of the body suit is to conceal the true identity of the extraterrestrial entity, and to make their appearances more palatable to human beings. Allegedly, reptilians are highly interested in interacting with the earth’s human populace...for mating, “hunting”, and more.

The exact nature of the body suits is unknown and hotly contested within the conspiracy community. A number of theories have arisen, influenced by major conspiracy analysts such as David Icke.

The body suits may be “physical” – as in, actual or simulated human biological components. In this theory, reptilians are physically harvesting human beings, as well as Adrenochrome, to maintain their disguises.

The body suits may be “etheric” or “interdimensional”– projected psychic or extra-planar energy. The vast majority of humans would not recognize a psychic projection as such without special training.

The body suits may be an act of visual trickery by ETIs, as stated in “The Lacerta Interviews”. In this version of the theory, Lacerta the reptilian alleged that the human psyche cannot comprehend the true form of ETI energy, allowing reptilians to simply “bypass” detection.

The body suits may be generated by super-advanced technology from the Secret space program.

England 2016

In June 2016, social media briefly lit up with thousands of tweets from people who claimed they had witnessed the Queen of England shapeshift into a reptilian. This happened while BBC2 presented coverage of the trooping of the colour parade. An example of some of the tweets read as follows – one twitter user wrote, “I just saw the Queen shapeshift into a reptilian. My hand to god I am not making this up!” Another wrote, “BBC2 r u playing funny pranks or DID THE QUEEN JUST SHAPESHIFT??” A third twitter user wrote, “Err….Queens hands just went green and scaly when she waved, did anyone else see that? Reptilian?”

What made this apparent “sighting” of the queen and the commentary on social media that followed even more interesting was that tweets were apparently being automatically “deleted” only seconds after they appeared. Some people managed to take screen shots of some of them however and they found their way on to various internet sites soon after.[1]

Los Angeles 2016

In March 2016, a man claimed to have seen a judge in a full Los Angeles court room “momentarily change shape into a reptilian – then changed back into human form!” The unnamed Los Angeles resident was in court for various traffic violations. He made his claim to MUFON, and further stated that although there was at least fifteen other people in the room, no-one appeared to notice the change. He also claims that the judge he witnessed “change” is no longer contactable despite his best efforts to do so.[1]

United States

George Bush senior – often reputed to be a reptilian shapeshifter – is also regarded as a “high ranking illuminati”. Like Queen Elizabeth, he is often the subject of people claiming they have witnessed his eyes take on a reptilian look or that they have video evidence of his involuntarily shapeshifting to his original reptilian form.[1]

Alleged sightings

Justin Bieber was sighted shape-shifting in Sydney, Australia and caused public panic. [2]

Lady Gaga has been caught shape-shifting on camera in an interview. [3]

Hillary Clinton has exhibited several strange and reptilian-like shapeshifting behaviors including spitting goo into a glass[5], randomly convulsing in a coffee shop [6], and over-exaggerating expressions

Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem) was caught on camera behaving strangely on ESPN, with his eyes completely unfocused. As soon as the commentator addressed him, he suddenly acted "normally". [4]

@Trutherblog