#from henceforth all characters shall be

[inksandpensblog]

We completely misinterpreted the hug scene

I was going to make this into a nice, well-composed essay, with each section talking about a different aspect of the episode's construction or execution, and about narrative theming and character arcs, and about why so many people thought this scene was enough to ruin the episode for them. I was going to do that, but then it took me eleven hours to try and narrow down what the actual problem with the scene was, when taken into context with the entire rest of the episode and episode 29; and then another three hours to realize what the actual intent of the scene had probably been and why nobody, including myself, seemed to have picked up on it (except for Lui and @k1ttyadventurer apparently-). So instead of the nice essay, you're getting a conceptual overview of my entire thought process, from beginning to end, as I tried to figure out the deeper reasons behind why everyone hated this scene so much, and then why we all had it wrong. You're welcome.

For the sake of internal consistency, I'm invoking author's bypass and using the names my server-mates and I have picked up for these characters. King shall henceforth be known as Mango, his child as Apricot, Purple's dadfigure as Cobalt, and Purple's momfigure as Orchid.

--

What started me on this path, was this thought: We didn't like Mango's reconciliation with Purple, but aside from pacing issues, Mango's arc (thematic, character, narrative, etc.) is pretty solid. So if the problem isn't with Mango's side, it must be with Purple's.

So, what was wrong about the way Purple's arc was written? Was it just that reconciliation scene in episode 30, or was it something from back in episode 29 that didn't show its full implications until now?

But, again, Purple's arc in episode 29 alone is pretty solid. So, the problem was just the reconciliation scene. And, again, for Mango's arc the scene works, it's only for Purple's that it doesn't.

So, what's wrong with it? Does this scene contradict episode 29 in some way? That's how a lot of us felt, at first, I think. Purple learned last episode that he didn't need acceptance from Cobalt, and he follows through on that in this episode, choosing to do what HE thinks is right and not what he thinks will earn him approval, and his reward is...symbolic acceptance from Cobalt? It didn't make sense, and sat wrongly with many of us.

--

But I still couldn't pin down why this didn't work, so I circled back. Maybe it was the relationship dynamics? Was that why many of us didn't like the idea of Mango being Apricot's father instead of their older brother, at first?

--

But then I noticed something amazing: if you watch the episode while viewing Apricot as Mango's sibling, and then watch it while viewing Apricot as Mango's child...nothing about Mango's arc actually changes, on a thematic level. It all still works, no matter which interpretation you go with.

Why, then, is the distinction given so much emphasis? Why is it important that we know that Apricot is canonically Mango's child, if it doesn't change anything about Mango's story either way?

Because what it DOES change, is the implied dynamic between Mango and Purple, and the number of inverse parallels in their stories.

--

I also think that at this juncture it's important to note that Mango seeing Apricot in Purple is something nobody seems to have had a problem with, even people who didn't like the episode. It's literally just Purple seeing Cobalt in Mango that people had issues with. Purple's side of the story, again, is the one that seems to be flawed in either its construction or its execution.

--

Now, while the status of who Apricot is, to Mango, doesn't influence Mango's story much, something about Apricot that does hold heavy sway over Mango's story is Mango seeing Apricot in Purple. And, since this seems to be paralleled by Purple seeing Cobalt in Mango,  we'd naturally expect this element to have an equally weighty effect on Purple's story. But what does Purple seeing Cobalt in Mango actually DO, for Purple's story?

--

@kikoqueenofrats and @luizastarry mentioned how after seeing Mango's backstory, seeing him be likened to Cobalt felt wrong. Specifically, that if Mango was meant to become a new parental figure for Purple, then having him become the new Cobalt, instead of, say, the new Orchid, felt really wrong, given how poorly Cobalt treated Purple (and, in my opinion, given how well Mango appears to have treated Apricot, whom he had recently likened to Purple earlier in the scene).

This is when Lui first brought up the idea that maybe the hug scene wasn't supposed to be a comparison after all, but was actually supposed to show how Mango and Cobalt were different. @iluvylalevu brought up pacing issues again, as a possible reason why the idea wasn't communicated clearly enough to the audience. Then they both discussed how some different body language from Purple in reaction to Cobalt's approach would've gotten this story point if it was indeed the intended point of the scene across to the audience a lot better; made the irreconcilable differences between Cobalt as Purple knew him and Mango as whoever he became over the course of this episode a lot clearer. 

I missed what Lui had already figured out, though, because my eyes caught on the body-language conversation, and it made me remember something: Cobalt, again and again, no matter what, forcing Purple to get up again when he fell.

--

So, I muted the video, and watched the hug scene again, and observed Purple's body language. He doesn't look like he's expecting he'll need to fight, but...in my opinion, it doesn't look like he's expecting a hug, either.

--

...maybe what he was seeing, during that moment in episode 30, hadn't been Cobalt turned around and returning to accept him, like he'd learned to stop yearning for in episode 29. (And really, would it be in-character for Purple to imagine his dad doing that? I think he knew his father better than that.) Maybe he’d seen Cobalt coming to admonish him, again. He had just defied Mango, after all, and then failed to stop him. And Green and the others weren’t here, to accept him regardless of his failure. And Orchid wasn’t here to catch him, all that was left were petals. And when it wasn’t Orchid standing over him to shelter him, it was always Cobalt, looming. But he knows it’ll be worse, if he stays on the ground. So he gets up.

And then the hug closes in, and Cobalt is gone, and it’s Mango.

--

The episode isn’t trying to compare Mango to Cobalt, like some questionable construction and execution choices for the scene led audiences the web over to believe. Instead, it’s contrasting them. Mango isn’t “the better Cobalt,” he isn’t “who Cobalt should’ve been.” He isn’t “the Cobalt Purple needs,” because episode 29 established that what Purple NEEDS is to get out from under the shadow of Cobalt’s expectations. Mango isn’t Cobalt. Mango is Mango. And Mango accepts Purple, not because of anything Purple did, and not even because he saw Apricot in Purple; the only time Mango saw Purple as Apricot was in the wall drawing, never when they were looking directly at each other, never the same way that Purple mistook Mango for Cobalt. Mango accepts Purple, because he’s Purple. Just like Green said his friends would.

Which is much less of a rancid vibe than what we’d all thought we were seeing, when all of us most of us first saw the episode.

--

I'd like to thank my server-mates for letting me figure this out, and for asking me to make sure it's shared.

[luminouslumity]

Here's the backstory of the Pilgrims in accordance to the novel. Because at this point, I might as well!

SŪN WÙKŌNG (孫悟空)

The monkey, the myth, the legend himself!

On the continent of East Pūrvavideha in the country of Àolái (傲來) atop Huāguǒshān (花果山)—Flower-Fruit Mountain—there lived monkey who hatched from stone, and being the only one in his troop to be brave (or impulsive) enough to rush through the local waterfall—what would become Shuǐlián Dòng (水帘洞), or Water-Curtain Cave—he's subsequently made the Hóuwáng (猴王), or Monkey King.

Years later, due to having an existential crises, he decides to go find the secret to immortality and eventually encounters an immortal named Pútí Zǔshī (菩提祖师), Patriarch Subodhi, whom Wùkōng would train under for ten years. Under his tutelage, the Monkey King received lessons on—among other things—human language and etiquette, calligraphy, philosophy, and magic. It was also Subodhi who gave Wùkōng his name, giving the following explanation:

"Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a pignolia-eating monkey (husun). This gives me the idea of taking a surname for you from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name Hu. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what’s left is a compound made up of the two characters, gu and yue. Gu means aged and yue means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of Sun. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what we have left is the compound of zi and xi. Zi means a boy and xi means a baby, and that name exactly accords with the fundamental Doctrine of the Baby Boy. So your surname will be Sun."

The Patriarch said, “Within my tradition are twelve characters that have been used to name the pupils according to their divisions. You are one who belongs to the tenth generation."

"Which twelve characters are they?" asked the Monkey King.

The Patriarch replied, "They are: wide (guang), great (da), wise (zhi), intelligence (hui), true (zhen), conforming (ru), nature (xing), sea (hai), sharp (ying), wake-to (wu), complete (yuan), and awakening (jue). Your rank falls precisely on the word 'wake-to' (wu). You will hence be given the religious name ‘Wake-to-the-Void’ (wukong). All right?"

"Splendid! Splendid!" said the Monkey King, laughing. "Henceforth I shall be called Sun Wukong."

Eventually, Subodhi sent Sūn Wùkōng away after the monkey displayed his new transformation powers to his fellow disciples, but not before making him promise to not tell anyone where he had learned his abilities from.

Later, after returning to Flower Fruit Mountain and stopping the demon from further terrorizing their home, Sūn Wùkōng then travels to the East Sea for a weapon. Of course he soon obtains his famous golden staff—Rúyì Jīn Gū Bàng (如意金箍棒)—from Áo Guāng (敖光), but as for the rest of the items, he gets the phoenix-feathered cap—Fèngchìzǐjinguān (鳳翅紫金冠)—from Áo Qīn (敖欽), Dragon of the South, the cloud-stepping shoes—Ǒusībùyúnlǚ (藕絲步雲履)—from Áo Shùn (敖順), Dragon of the North, and the golden chainmail—Suǒ Zi Huángjīn Jiǎ (鎖子黃金甲)—from Áo Rùn, Dragon of the West.

Later, Monkey manages to cheat death itself by scratching out his name as well as those belonging to several other monkeys from one of the ledgers of the dead.

Finally grabbing the attention of the Jade Emperor, Wùkōng gets tasked by Heaven to become their BìMǎWēn (弼馬溫), the overseer of the imperial dragon-horses, in order to keep him out of trouble. And to his credit, he does an excellent job at it; as a result of this position, horses in general end up fearing and respecting him.

But then when Sūn Wùkōng realizes just how low of a position he's actually in, he abandons his post, proclaims himself Qítiān Dàshèng (齐天大圣)—Great Sage Equal to Heaven—and soon enough, he's at war with the entirety of the Celestial Host and later ends up becoming even more immortal than he already was. Long story short, he's soon bested by Buddha and gets trapped under Five Phases Mountain, Wǔhángshān (五行山), for the next five hundred years.

After being freed, he's given the Jīngūquān (金箍圈) to wear on his head to ensure his good behavior.

TÁNG SĀNZÀNG (唐三藏)

Based on a real monk of the same name, Táng Xuánzàng (唐玄奘)—courtesy name Sēng (唐僧)—also called Táng Sānzàng or Tripiṭaka, was born to a man named Chén Guāngruǐ (陳光蕊) and a chief minister's daughter named Yīn Wēnjiāo (殷溫嬌), and even before going on the pilgrimage, this man has never known peace for very long. And neither have his parents.

For starters, in his first life, he was known as Jinchan Zi (金蝉子)—Golden Cicada—the second disciple of Buddha, but was so inattentive towards the lessons that he eventually entered a cycle of reincarnation as punishment; by the time he's born to the Chens, he'd already been through ten previous lives.

And then it gets worse.

Having been made governor of Jiāngzhōu (江州) shortly after the wedding, Chén Guāngruǐ and Yīn Wēnjiāo began to travel to their new home, only for Guāngruǐ to be killed by the boatmen who were supposed to take them there because one of them—Liú Hóng (劉洪)—wanted Wēnjiāo for himself. Fortunately, Guāngruǐ body is found by a yaksha loyal to the local Dragon King of Hóngjiāngkǒu (洪江口), whom Guāngruǐ had previously rescued while said Dragon King had been in the guise of a fish; repaying kindness with kindness, Guāngruǐ's soul was allowed to stay with the king until the time came for it to reunite with his body, which was given a preservative pearl so it wouldn't decay.

Meanwhile, after giving birth to a son, Wēnjiāo sends her baby down the river to save him from being killed by Liú Hóng, having been promised by the celestials that she'd be reunited with her family one day. This son is then found by Monk Fǎmíng (法明) of Jīnshān Temple (金山寺) and given the nickname Jiāng Liú (江流), River Float, as well as the religious name Xuánzàng, and after eighteen years of being oblivious to his true identity, he finally reunites with his mother and grandparents, gets Liú Hóng arrested, and then reunites with his father afterwards.

Anastasia AU, anyone?

Anyway, he's later selected to go on a journey to India, called Tiānzhú (天竺), to retrieve a set of Buddhist scriptures, becomes sworn brothers with Emperor Tàizōng (唐太宗) himself before leaving, and then eventually meets a certain mystic monkey who's been trapped under a mountain for five hundred years.

ÁO LIÈ (敖烈)

Known as the Third Jade Dragon Prince and the White Dragon Horse, the son of Áo Rùn is never actually given a name in the original novel, but Liè is the most common in adaptations, and that's when he's given a name at all. But no matter what, his story remains more or less the same throughout—due to inadvertently setting his father's pearls and palace on fire, Áo Rùn reported him to the Jade Emperor, who sentenced him to be executed, but not before having Ao Liè lashed three hundred times first.

But of course, Liè was ultimately saved by Guānyīn a few days before he was set to be executed and was then tasked by her to carry Táng Sānzàng to the West before having his horns and scales taken off, only to regain them at the end of the journey. Being the second of the group Táng Sānzàng would meet, the encounter happens due to Liè eating the monk's original horse and a fight with Sun Wukong ensues until the matter gets resolved with Guānyīn's help.

Technically, he's never counted as an official disciple in the original book and neither Zhū Bājiè and Sha Wujing even realize Liè isn't a regular horse until two months after joining the group.

Other than that, Liè doesn't really do much as far as the original book is concerned, save for two instances. One is sometime after Sun Wukong had been banished the first time and everyone else in the group had been indisposed in some way by Huáng Páo Guài (黃袍怪), Yellow Robe Demon.

Everyone, that is, except for Áo Liè!

In order to save Sānzàng from this latest threat, he disguises himself as a palace maiden, tries to stab the demon while performing a sword dance and... loses. To the point of getting his leg injured.

It's okay, he did his best.

So Zhū Bājiè soon finds him hiding out, and after the pig demon attempts to quit the journey altogether, Áo Liè proceeds to give him one hell of a call out while also showing just how much faith he has in Sūn Wùkōng.

Once again, to quote the Anthony Yu translation (side note for those unfamiliar with Yu, Bājiè's name is given a literal translation, hence Eight Rules):

Idiot mounted the clouds quickly and went back to the city; in a little while, he reached the post-house. The moon was bright and people had become quiet at this time, but he searched the corridors in vain to find any trace of his master. All he saw was the white horse lying there: his whole body was soaked and on one of his hind legs was the mark of a bruise about the size of a pan. "This is doubly unfortunate!" said Eight Rules, greatly startled. "This loser hasn’t traveled. Why is he sweating like that, and with a bruise on his leg? It must be that some evil men have robbed our master, wounding the horse in the process."

The white horse recognized that it was Eight Rules; assuming human speech suddenly, he called out: "Elder Brother!" Idiot was so shaken that he fell on the ground. Pulling himself up, he was about to dash outside when the white horse caught hold of the monk’s robe by his teeth, saying again, "Elder Brother, don’t be afraid of me."

Idiot was so shaken that he fell on the ground. Pulling himself up, he was about to dash outside when the white horse caught hold of the monk’s robe by his teeth, saying again, "Elder Brother, don’t be afraid of me."

"Brother,' said Eight Rules, still shaking, "why are you talking today? When you talk like that, it has to mean that some great misfortune is about to befall us."

The little dragon said, "Did you know that Master had landed in a terrible ordeal?"

"No, I didn’t," said Eight Rules.

The little dragon said, "Of course, you didn't! You and Sha Monk were flaunting your abilities before the king, thinking that you could capture the demon and be rewarded for your merit. You didn't expect that the demon was so powerful and you were the ones no doubt who were beaten. At least one of you could have returned to give us the news, but there was not one word from either of you. That monster-spirit had changed himself into a handsome scholar and broken into the court to present himself to the king as an imperial relative. Our master was changed by him into a ferocious striped tiger, who was then taken captive by the officials and locked up in an iron cage in one of the palace chambers. When I heard how Master suffered, my heart felt as if it had been stabbed by a sword. But you were gone for nearly two days, and I was afraid that any further delay might mean that Master would be killed. So I had no choice but to change back into my dragon body to go and try to rescue him. When I reached the court, I couldn't find Master, but I met the monster in the Silver Peace Palace. I changed into the form of a palace maid, trying to deceive him. He asked me to do a sword dance, during which I tried to slash him. He escaped my blow and defeated me instead with a candelabrum. I tried desperately to hit him when I threw the sword at him, but he caught it instead and gave me a blow on my hind leg with that candelabrum. I dived into the imperial moat and saved my life; the bruise on my leg was caused by the candelabrum."

When Eight Rules heard these words, he said, "Is that all true?"

"You think I'm deceiving you?" said the little dragon.

Eight Rules asked, "What are we going to do? What are we going to do? Can you move at all?"

"If I can," said the little dragon, "what then?"

"If you can move at all," said Eight Rules, "move into the ocean then. Old Hog will pole the luggage back to the Old Gao Village to pick up my wife again."

When the little dragon heard this, he clamped his mouth onto Eight Rules's shirt and refused to let go. As tears fell from his eyes, he said, "Elder Brother, you mustn't become indolent."

"Why not?" said Eight Rules. "Brother Sha has already been caught by him, and I can't beat him. If we don't scatter now, what are we waiting for?"

The little dragon thought for some time before he spoke again, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Elder Brother, don't mention the word scatter. If you want to save Master, you have to go and ask a person to come here."

"Who is that?" asked Eight Rules.

The little dragon said, "You'd better hurry and mount the clouds to go to the Flower-Fruit Mountain, so that you can invite our Big Brother, Pilgrim Sun, to come back. Most certainly he has dharma power great enough to subdue this fiend and rescue Master, avenging at the same time the shame of our defeat."

"Brother," said Eight Rules, "let me go ask someone else. That monkey and I are not on the best of terms, you know. When he killed that Lady White Bone back there on the White Tiger Ridge, he was mad at me already for wheedling Master into reciting the Tight-Fillet Spell. I was just being frivolous, and I didn’t think that the old priest would really recite it and even banish him. I don't know how he hates me now, and I'm certain also that he won’t come back. Suppose we have a little argument then: that funeral staff of his is pretty heavy, you know. If he doesn't know any better at that moment and gives me a few strokes, you think I'll be able to live?"

The little dragon said, “He won't hit you, because he is a kind and just Monkey King. When you see him, don't say that Master is in peril; just tell him that Master is thinking of him and deceive him into coming. When he gets here and sees what's happening, he will not get mad. He will want most certainly to have it out with the monster-spirit instead. Then the demon will surely be caught and Master will be saved."

"All right, all right!" said Eight Rules. "You are so dedicated. If I don't go, it'll mean that I’m not dedicated. I'll go, and if indeed Pilgrim consents to come, I'll return with him. But if he is unwilling, then don't expect me, because I won't be coming back either."

"Go! Go!" said the little dragon. “He will certainly come."

Clearly the dragon is the true unsung hero of this story.

As for the second instance, long story short, Sūn Wùkōng wanted to make what he ended up calling the Elixer of Black Gold for an ailing king and needed Liè's help—in his horse form—for one of the ingredients.

ZHŪ BĀJIÈ (豬八戒)

Originally holding the Heavenly title of Tiānpéng Yuánshuài (天篷元帅)—Marshall of the Heavenly Reeds—Zhū Wùnéng (猪悟能)—also known as Zhū Gāngliè (猪刚鬛) and Zhū Bājiè, and often given called Idiot, dāizi (呆子), was punished via reincarnation because he'd attempted to seduce the moon goddess Cháng'é (嫦娥), a massive no-no! In certain retellings, such as the 1996 version, this is expanded to him going through many lifetimes of tragic romances. Regardless, his soul eventually passes through the womb of a sow by accident, thus becoming the pig demon we know him as today.

The second of Táng Sānzàng's disciples, Zhū Wùnéng joins the pilgrimage after he kidnaps and marries a young woman from a wealthy family in Gāolǎozhuāng (高老莊) named Gāo Cuìlán (高翠蘭). Disguising himself as Cuìlán, Sūn Wùkōng eventually defeats Wùnéng in battle and he becomes a disciple afterwards, earning the name Bājiè (referring to the first eight of the ten Buddhist commandments) in the process.

Glutenous and selfish, Zhū Bājiè is often at odds with Sūn Wùkōng and also tries to find reasons to quit the pilgrimage on more than one occasion. His weapon is known as jiǔchǐdīngpá (九齒釘耙), the Nine-Toothed Rake.

SHĀ WÙJÌNG (沙悟淨)

And last but not least, Shā Wùjìng! Once Juǎnlián Dàjiàng (捲簾大將), or Curtain-Raising General, in Heaven, Wùjìng was banished after he carelessly broke a crystal cup during the Festival of Immortal Peaches, and as such, was not only banished to the Mortal Realm as punishment, but was also sent flying swords to stab him every week. Growing desperate, he soon starts to eat any traveler who passes by his territory. Taking mercy upon him, Guānyīn tasks him with also accompanying the Táng Monk on his mission.

Eventually, the other pilgrims encounter Wùjìng, Wùkōng fights him for a bit, and then after that gets resolved, our heroes, having finally assembled, are all ready to carry on with their journey to the West. He also carries a staff.

You all know the rest: they traveled for the fourteen years in total (as opposed to the eighteen years it took the real Táng Xuánzàng), got the scriptures, Sānzàng completely forgot his promise to a turtle to ask Buddha about how much longer it would take for him to regain human form and so the Pilgrims were forced to swim to shore after being thrown overboard (no one ever say that older books can't be hilarious), and then they were all granted titles upon returning home: Táng Sānzàng and Sūn Wùkōng are made Zhāntán Gōngdé Fuó (旃檀功德佛) and Dòu Zhànshèng Fó (鬥戰勝佛), or Buddha of Candana Merit and Buddha Victorious in Strife, respectively, Zhū Bājiè is named Jìngtán Shǐzhě (淨壇使者), or Cleanser of the Altars, Shā Wùjìng becomes Jīnshēn Luóhàn (金身羅漢), or Golden-Bodied Arhat, and Ao Liè gets promoted to Bābùtiān Lóngmǎ (八部天龍馬), or Dragon Horse of the Eight Heavenly Sections.

[air-of-the-waterfall]

I shall henceforth and forevermore ramble about the Thunderhead.

Chapter 30 of Scythe is our first proper introduction. Until that point it's just a vague background concept, rather mysterious but undoubtedly pivotal. In chapter 28, we get this:

"Citra Terranova, said a voice both powerful yet gentle. Citra Terranova, can you hear me?

Who's that? Is someone there?

Curious, said the voice. Very curious..."

I love the vagueness and anticipation that Neal Shusterman leaves to simmer for a while. In book one we're getting familiar with the Scythedom's side of things, then as the series progresses we pan out into the entire world with the Thunderhead and the experience is just dazzling. That's the only way I can describe reading it. It literally feels like meeting God.

The Thunderhead's first proper appearance is its conversation with deadish Citra, and we learn all about its personality in one brief chapter. Here's where it becomes a living, complex character. Its voice is so distinct and we're hooked right from the start. It's actually kind of pompous in announcing its presence and making her play "guess who," which I'm thinking it does because that's what she'd expect from it. Authoritative, wise, even mystical.

As the conversation goes on, it's blunt and clever with the exposition, the loopholes, its opinions. It treats Citra like they're on an even playing field and it respects her. It subtly scolds her for pushing that girl in front of a truck, displaying its omniscience and gentle judgement.

The beach ball thing is so funny and adds lightness to an otherwise intense scene. The Thunderhead has quirks and humour, if only hinted at here. "Early programming plagues me like a vestigial tail." I'm going to make a separate post on that.

It expresses its grievances with the state of its existence, albeit watering that down significantly. It doesn't want her to know just how uncertain and frightening things really are, because the whole point of this conversation is that it wants her to have hope. Citra compares it to her mother, which it sidesteps. We all know that parents aren't always correct, and the Thunderhead knows that too. It will not confront the terrifying possibility of being anything but correct. "I know no other way to be."

"The curb is the launching point for many a deed." I love that line because it sets up everything that's soon to happen with Greyson, whom it definitely kicks to the curb in book two. This line hints at how it makes the best of every unfortunate situation. Clouds with silver linings, and such.

"I'm sure you could arrange it." THIS is hilarious. There's the snark. There's the sass. It insults her and then it just ditches her, all the while it's been bringing her back from the dead. Literally performing a miracle. It's like the equivalent of a doctor chewing gum and talking on the phone mid-surgery, completely unfazed. I feel like Citra's not the type to be begging it not to leave, but I sure would be.

The fact that Citra later refers to this experience as "a moment of great awe" reminds us that scythes are human. Fallible. Perhaps even inferior.

It's also funny to see the difference in how the Thunderhead treats Rowan later when he's in the same situation. You can tell that it favours him less than Citra. It doesn't dislike him, because it loves and understands everybody, but it's quicker to get to the point, less gentle, identifying itself right off the bat and adapting itself to Rowan's personality. Rowan knows it will forgive his rudeness.

Also, you know, we learn that the Thunderhead can, you know, reach into people's brains. I'm sure that little talent won't become vitally important later.

Overall this scene is fantastic and the Thunderhead owns my soul goodnight.

[silvr-skreen]

I wanna hear about the reboot's season 1 finale, I'm actually quite interested

(MFN)

*big smile of insanity* ok!!! So this one is a 2-parter! Sorry for misspellings I am on my phone it’s 5am and I just woke up and I don’t have my glasses on.

Look out. HUGE POST INCOMING!!!

It talks about bigotry and is really kind of dark at points. Like the first half starts kind of funny but slowly loses the jokes, and part 2 only contains 2 jokes at all.

So some stuff that builds up before this includes “Ray has been getting less work” and “on of the human kid characters has a mechanic dad.”

The implication is that he’s been poaching Ray’s customers. Why is a not-so-nice person in the neighborhood? Well the reboot posits that the puppets are moving back in, and realized people aren’t so friendly so they’re trying to bring friendliness back!

So over the course of the first season it’s all pretty lighthearted and silly, with a few consistent moments where you can see the father being short with Ray. You can also slowly see as he manages to cause most of the puppets and other human actors to follow suit.

Now apparently Ray overcharges, talks funny, doesn’t know what he’s talking ABOUT. At first it wasn’t that bad, he still got work, but by the end of the season it’s obvious he hasn’t got any.

So he wasn’t able to keep the deed to his shop.

The human kid character who shall henceforth be known as Marcy has been getting apprenticeships from him (basically he’s been training and teaching her since he’s got nothing else to do and he enjoys it) and she’s distraught. That’s her friend and he’s leaving? It’s not fair!

She goes home to dinner with her dad and he mentions some land investment he made, and it comes out. He took Ray’s customers, made everyone more judgmental and harsh to him, and lo and behold, it’s out of bigotry.

The specific form of bigotry for this one is the kind shown against th Irish, as Ray is Scottish/Irish. The “he talks funny” is derogatory towards his accent and Ray knows it. He knew the whole time.

So she realizes what her dad did and why and she’s horrified and she tries to call it out but he yells at her for not seeing the bigger picture and she’s so distressed she runs out of their house and she ends up crying on the steps outside one of the neighborhood buildings. (The one with the mailbox you know the one.)

Part one ends.

Part twos got a darker tone and a bit more edge to it in an impactful way, so one of the main things in part two is we’re only ever shown the left side of Marcy’s face until way later on.

Another big thing that I didn’t mention is, her dad is a good speaker, he can convince you of a lot, so he’d previously (like in an episode earlier in the season) gotten the puppets to write down negative thoughts so “nobody needs to hear them.”

The message of that one had been about how it’s not good to bottle up your feelings.

However lo and behold he’d taken those papers and gone and dumped them in Ray’s workshop for him to find. Of course, after he removed any information that would help Ray realize it’s not about him.

So Pearl comes over and spots Marcy crying at the start of part 2, asks what’s wrong and Marcy tells her that her friend is getting kicked out because he doesn’t have enough money to keep working and everyone here hates him.

Pearl is sad, and Marcy even offers her one of those sheets of paper to prove it because “look at what they’re saying about him!” Turns out the one she gives Pearl is the one Pearl wrote, and Pearl is confused.

“How did he get this? I was told it was going in a safe, because nobody needs to see it.”

“Well there were like… ten of these!”

At which point Pearl realizes something is afoot, and asks for more info like “well who is it?”

Big reveal, Ray’s Fix is kind of over now. He’s gotta go, he can’t stay because he’s got no house or job or anything - well legally he could but he doesn’t want to.

So Pearl squawks out a distress signal and all the puppets come running to see what’s up, confused.

Marcy gives a much more concise explanation with a lot of tears and crying, the group takes off, hoping maybe he’s at the shop and they can talk to him, but he’s not.

It’s her dad, some contractors, and the mayor. They’re discussing the remodel or possibly taking it all down and starting over. That’s when they try to confront him and the dad feigns ignorance, there was no bigotry, Ray just wasn’t as talented.

A train whistle sounds and they realize there’s a train station nearby and so yet again the group rushes over and Ray is there.

And while in the old show apologies and forgiveness were easily earned/shown this one doesn’t have that. Sure they make up but there the undertone of some upset hurt feelings even after. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So Ricky tries to extend the branch first, only for Ray to get very angry with him because he wasn’t immune to the “being tricked into believing bigoted talking points and acting on them” thing.

At one point Ricky tries to minimize it by saying that maybe Ray does talk a *little* funny. And ray is. He doesn’t like it.

“Funny to you! Because to you its an accent, you can put it on and take it off whenever it suits your tastes. This is my life! I can’t change who I am and I don’t want to! I just… I want people to like him.” <- almost 100% direct quote

Marcy tugs on his sleeve and he looks down at her, still mad (not at her specifically), but then horrified into silence.

We see her entire face for the first time and the right side of her face has a split lip and bloody nose. The implication being her father hit her.

There’s silence for multiple long minutes as they stare at each other. I can imagine the framing in the back of my mind. It’s the right side of her face and the left side of his, just the two of them front and center, only the soft ambient wind sounds.

She apologizes for not stopping him and Ray crouches down and gently brushes her hair away and tells her he forgives her. “Marcy. You’re nine, you’re not supposed to save the world yet. It’s okay.”

Obviously signaling how while children are the future they need to have their childhood to become the people they can be, and how children aren’t as capable of holding responsibility for something like this as an adult may be due to reasons like family, not being old enough to understand, etc.

The puppets do all apologize again, with real apologies that don’t minimize the situation or imply Ray is overreacting, and he forgives them but says he’s “gonna keep an eye out.” For any bad behavior.

The train goes by and Ray doesn’t get on it, but Ricky mentions a rule he learned never got changed when they left the neighborhood the first time, “If 2/3 of residents believes a building to have been of exemplary service the deed can be reassigned to the owner at the time of service, regardless of current condition, location, or status of life.”

Basically the short is. If they can get 2/3 people to agree Ray’s Fix was a good place, they can get it back. So they’ve got to get a petition. I mean the mayor is already on site. They can do it!

Which they do. It takes a while since they also have to inform a few people “yeah it was bigotry that chased him out the other guy is not so nice.”

Marcy gets the most because who’s going to say no to a nine year old who’s hurt?

Ultimately they present the petition to the mayor and he’s about to grant the deed back and return the shop to Ray, but the dad throws a fit about how “you’re giving this place back to someone like him?!”

Then the phones ring… and keep ringing a lot.

Ultimately as it turns out some of his work was shitty and rushed. He was undercharging people to make it seem like Ray was overcharging them, then when he got rid of Ray he could raise prices all he wanted and there’d be no other repairman to go to.

However his work ethic included “they’re not paying industry standard so I’ll just cut a few corners who’ll know?”

As it turns out? Everyone. As now there’s a couple of issues with lights flickering or turning off, showers spraying like hoses etc.

Guys arrested for a couple of safety violations due to the low quality of work. Ray gets his shop back but it’s been kinda trashed and so he’s gotta put it back the way it was but it’s HIS AGAIN!

End.

It’s. A lot.

Season 2 ep 1 begins with him putting stuff back in its place.

Also funny enough I’ve been typing this for an hour on my phone and I’m so tired man. Ray.

Can you tell he’s my favorite? I hope I’m his favorite.

[rathologic]

I think I've seen you mention that the original, poorly translated version of patho classic had some lines that where better for being stranger or something like that. Can you give an example or two? Genuinely curious because I don't think I've seen anyone play the original english translation before and only know about it from word of mouth.

there's a Ton... in general I find that 2005 has stronger assertions and more interesting imagery, while Classic HD renders character speech more uniquely at the cost of making the concepts discussed a bit generic and ambiguous. here's four comparisons from scraping my screenshots folder:

from the Grave-digger npc: illustrates the character voice part

2005: The keeper's been feeding worms for five years now. Got grass all over him. The sun makes him happy now. I have yet more sorrow to suffer here.

2015: The caretaker's been pushing up the daisies for, lemmethink, five years now. Turned to grass already, all excited to bask in the sun. Me, I'll have to endure them hardships for a long time still.

katerina's explanation of the pain mechanic: conversely, this is a good show of the stronger language in 2005: "tearing away", "can even" versus "may even help"

2005: It isn't worth tearing away from the living to give to the dead, however, you can tear something away from yourself and will be rendered for that. Whoever helps a dying man leave this world will save it a lot of suffering. Such things are valued especially here. Such care can even atone for murder.

2015: It's not a good idea to try to take away from the living for the sake of the dead—but perhaps you should share a part of yourself with them. It will pay back in spades. He who helps the dying pass on painlessly is sparing the world unnecessary suffering. We respect that here. Being considerate may even help you atone for murder.

the Bachelor's letter: I love the sense of hopelessness in the original... he's already lost and accepted that he's lost and there's only a small chance to salvage anything...

2005: Tomorrow the militarians will be here. They arrive to burn down and destroy. No way to stay aside - it depends on us, whether it would be possible to save here at least something. I have made my choice.

I rise under the banners of dream which has lost the battle with the history. Henceforth all my forces will be devoted to the rescue of the doomed and their affairs - which are also sentenced to death by the logic of evolution. I speak about so-called "Utopians". Four Kains, brothers-architects, my good Eve and, as I hope, Younger Vlad.

If these people survive, probably, I shall manage to rescue one of the most surprising monuments of this world. I do not hope that you will help me - but just do not interfere! Woe are you if even one of my "Utopians" is lost by your fault. I shall fight up to the end for my doomed banner.

2015: The military will be here tomorrow. They come to raze and demolish. Due to this, we can't avoid making the important choice, for it depends on us whether anything here may be saved. My choice has already been made.

I am going to champion the dream that is doomed to lose its battle with history. From now on, I will use whatever agency I have left to save the condemned creators and their creation, whose sentence was spelled out by evolution itself. I am speaking of the so-styled "Utopians." The four Kains, the architect twins, my good Eva, and, hopefully, Vlad the Younger.

If these people survive, I may be able to preserve one of the most fascinating miracles of this world. I don't have much hope for your assistance, but I urge you not to obstruct me! Beware my wrath if any one of my utopians dies! I am going to fight fiercely for my doomed sovereign.

capella to the haruspex: just more fun imagery in the first one!

2005: But you need your victory. Or don't you? Or don't you feel this cage of obligations, this trap that inevitability caught you in? [...] Let us be honourable and kind.

2015: But you need to win. Or don't you? Don't you feel obligated, clenched, trapped by fate? [...] Let us be noble and generous.

the parts where 2005 is Really Bad are also great, such as the little boy npc talking about "the scientist who blasted the world", capella asking "are you bamming me?", and the 11 times that people exclaim "Wao!".

also, I stream playthroughs of the 2005 translation fairly often (including right now: bachelor route at 1pm EST on saturdays), so my twitch channel may have clips illustrating the effect it all has when read out loud :-)

[jailforwriter]

The Oracle (and why prophesy in storytelling doesn't have to suck)

You know what most people hate to see in their Fantasy stories? Prophesy. You know what's really fun to pick apart and analyze and makes for some delicious dramatic irony when handled properly? Prophesy.

How come? Well, for one, The Chosen One trope is a little overused. Readers tire of it quite quickly nowadays. Does that mean that it's bad and you should avoid it at all costs? Haha no. We're not Sith. We don't deal in absolutes. What it does mean is that you'll have to get really clever to justify that choice, narratively speaking, and that even then, some readers might still dislike it on principle. The inevitability of prophesy can often deter from our enjoyment of it, and we run the risk of it falling flat if it's not engaging enough.

Which is why I'm advocating for Prophesy Lite™️ (aka The Oracle character archetype) and its untold engagement potential! This business is no longer about ancient scripture handed down from generation to generation coming to wreck your protagonist's shit (boring). All the wrecking shall henceforth be done by one annoying creep only (fun).

By assigning The Oracle this role, we get to pump them full of all sorts of interesting human quirks, such as being a manipulator who purposefully miscommunicates messages, or being a bad public speaker who accidentally miscommunicates messages. Think the three witches in Macbeth. Either way, we're in for a great deal of misinterpretation and ethical conundrums, neither of which would've been half as fun from an ancient stone slab, now would they?

So what does The Oracle do, exactly?

Tergiversate. Like, everything, all the time. They're there to lead everyone down the wrong path via the three most annoying "s" words: semantics, sophistries, and symbolism (derogatory). They may or may not get high on fumes while doing so, Pythia-style, but there are a handful of things on the job description that they must comply with to qualify for the position:

Know stuff: mystical stuff, not just any stuff. The kind of stuff your character couldn't just find in the library. We're talking divine wisdom and esoteric truths of enlightenment here.

Foretelling: okay, so they know stuff. Now, we need them to make that everyone else's problem. For that, they need to prophesize.

Insight: this is the main reason why we didn't just use a cool ancient rhyme. It's because our dear Oracle can offer their own biased advice – riddled with deceit – and make everything worse.

Enigmatic: they gotta be at least a little weird, okay? They're one with the universe from 9 to 5, there's no way they can just integrate into society whenever they want because we need them to. Bonus points if they talk weirdly, too, so no one quite understands what they mean at any given moment, leading to even more hilarity.

Pals with God (optional): ideally, yes. In practice? Well, just imagine all the fun stuff you could have them do if they're only pretending to be a phone for the Sky People.

Why did this merit a whole human person?

Are you still not convinced that this human being couldn't just have been an email? Fine, let's look at other ways in which they could earn their keep:

Ethical spouting machine: remember how we established that they can introduce their own biased interpretations into their prophecies? Well, they also happen to have a mouth, and can therefore cause great emotional turmoil in your protagonist if they decide to pick their moral compass apart with it.

Manipulable: you thought your protagonist was the only one who could be manipulated? Ha ha. No. Your Big Bad is pulling at the Oracle's strings and they don't even know it! Or do they? Idk man, it's your story. Sounds real interesting though. I'd read that.

Potential allyship: unlike a slab of carved stone, this Oracle may establish cute lil' bonds with your other characters, making whatever you choose to do with them have emotional stakes, and we should always raise the emotional stakes where we can.

People grow: and your Oracle is a people, so we can certainly have them grow better. Or worse. Negative growth is also growth. They're a cool villain waiting to happen, is all I'm gonna say.

Subverting expectations since circa 4000 B.C.: I know Pop Culture has made us hate the term "subverting expectations", but contrary to what Hollywood seems to think, it can be done properly. One such way is via the Oracle, who, if we write them that way, can be less ominous and more babygirl. They maybe even down to help our protagonist avoid what should've been an unavoidable fate.

There you go! You can have your proverbial cake and eat it, too, so long as you make that cake (prophesy) very intricate and its baker (prophet) a little wacky. Thanks for reading!

Happy writing!

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 12- Part 4

Alright sir, no need to be so dramatic about it, let’s just get this done-

So yeah, Noibat shall henceforth be known as Decibel! Another sound-theme named!

Something else funny about that name, “Decibel.” You know how, in just about every Pokémon game- from the mainline games to even a lot of the spinoff games- the main characters have canon names? There’s the most famous example of Red in the original Gen I games, but there are other examples- Brendan and May in Gen III, Calem and Serena in Gen VI, Rei and Akari in Legends: Arceus, etc. 

Pokémon fan games don’t tend to be different, as far as I’ve seen- like, Pokémon Insurgence’s main characters’ canon names are Wyatt and Nichole, for example. And Reborn is no exception! Indeed, all six avatars have canon first names, last names, and genders- like, the one with the long blonde hair? That’s canonically a lady named Alice Winthrop. And the avatar I chose is, canonically, a nonbinary person named Decibel No-Last-Name!

…Not kidding, by the way, they’re the only protagonist without a canon last name, for…some reason. But either way, I knew there was something special about that avatar! Maybe that was what compelled me to choose them over the others- even if the name and gender identity I use for Xera is, you know, different. 

…Still haven’t come up with a proper surname for Xera yet. Maybe I’ll be hit with inspiration as I go through this play session. 

Anyways, character trivia aside, we’ve still got some level-grinding to do, so- back to Grand Hall we go!

Several minutes later-

Okay this is absolute bull- the ONLY guy at the Grand Hall battle corner today is some Psychic with, like, a Mawile and a Natu that were above Lv. 20, and he didn’t even give that much money upon beating him. So like- sucks to be us, I guess, serves me right for wanting to utilize the battle corner.

Luckily, we have plenty of Exp. Candies leftover, so we can just use those to get everyone to the levels I was looking for-

And there we go! I’m certain there will be Trainers to fight in the Gym itself, so that can be some extra grinding, and then we’ll go from there.

Now, with that out of the way…back to the OTS we go!

Ooooooh, it makes me so unreasonably happy to see the in-game characters calling my character by the proper name now! Even if it’s Fern! Look at that, it’s all coming together, it’s beautiful!

Oh, also- hi Fern. Yeah, I should’ve expected him to appear sooner or later, this is his sister’s Gym, honestly I’d be more shocked if he didn’t show up.

Oh dear- is he salty that he didn’t get to participate in that mission?

Because Xera actually showed up…? Where were you when all of that was going down, if you were so eager to participate?

Oh no- Fern, honey, Xera’s gonna kill you of you keep talking like that, poor guy doesn’t even know what a sore subject that is for her right now-

…On second thought, I feel like if he did know, he’d still be like “she’d still be here if I was there instead.” In fact- no, he’d double down on that if he got a visceral reaction from Xera, he definitely strikes me as the kind of person to be like “oh, struck a nerve, didn’t I? >:)”

I mean, if it’s a battle you want, I’m down- I aced your salty face once already, I can do it again! I’m smarter now than that first time!

Gate…? Wait, he’s physically blocking her out? Geez, he’s going all out for this, he really is salty about not being at the Park!

No no, you explained very clearly why you’re doing this-

You know, it’s almost like Fern’s trying to upstage Cain in terms of how dramatic he can be- and that’s not a good thing.

Previous

Next

[blackbirdffxiv]

Top 5 Songs!

FINAL FANTASY XIV TOP 5 ASKS!

Oooohhhhhhhh god this is the hardest one for me..... Okay, from the bottom to the top!

5. "Scream" - Pandaemonium Raids (P6 + P7)

Listen I'm a goth mfer that has a pletora variety of music tastes outside of metal/rock/etc, but this shit hit me so hard especially the lyrics. Not to mention I think it actually fits Ellie's story rather well and her themes.

4. "Your Answer" - Mothercrystal Theme

I came into XIV rather late in the game, having started a bit after Shadowbringers came out, so Endwalker was my first official XIV expansion release. The entire time I thought the big baddie at the end of the epac would be Zodiark, and then it left me thinking "Wait, if it's not him. Then who is it?" Never have I imagined we'd be fighting crytal mommy herself.

And it was awesome.

3. "Mourning" - Tower of Paradigms Breach

I'm going to be straight with y'all, as this is the straightest I'll ever get: I've never played the Nier games (pls don't yell at me, I know, I'm the worst gamer ever). But my god of all the nier raids this one has to be my favorite as far as music goes. I can't explain it. It just hits my ear in a way that is just *chef kiss*

2. "To The Edge" - Seat of Sacrifice Theme

I'm not someone who typically gets attached to the gamedevs of the games I play, nor am I used to them having such a personal touch on the games they work on. I can't explain why I like this so much, but I think it was the fact that Soken (according to what I heard, if the timing is correct) wrote and composed this while fighting cancer in the hospital gave this song far more emotion than I thought it originally had.

This song definitely also hit different after Endwalker, especially after Venat's line "No more men shall have wings to bear him to paradise. Henceforth, he shall walk. 1. "Close in the Distance" - Ultima Thule Theme

I am going to be straight with y'all again (I apologize), but I am also not typically someone who gets emotional over video games. I came from a lot of communities where you don't really connect or feel for the characters you come across, and if you do, it is VERY short-lived. When I tell you, WHEN I TELL YOU, how much I fucking SOBBED hearing Close in the Distance in full at "that part" of Ultima Thule, it is impossible to describe how I felt.

[purpleturtle9000]

*opens the door like it killed my brother*

Hi I am requestion everything I can on reality check please it has been chewing through my mental walls for days I can’t hold out much longer oh god they’ve breached the walls ily byeeeee

Your intros are amazing. Also this is officially a load-bearing post because this is the first official in-depth development of the Little Leos! Henceforth known as the blueberries.

So in the order in which the blueberries are found, an absolute text wall about which I'll be happy to answer more questions. Part one, anyway, because... apparently tumblr has a character limit. That I hit. Huh. Part two is in the reblogs, I'll edit a link in here.

Leo, 14, gets to keep his name! Because he's the first one found, Leonardo has not yet realised that "we can't have 15 people with the same name". And honestly it seems like the kid has lost enough considering zombies were using him as a chew toy and he has to get his arm amputated. This is also the lil' guy whose twin is still alive! Zombies in this universe were engineered to seek out mystic energy, so Lil' Don made what's basically a signal jammer. It's used sparingly in emergencies, but being cornered by a horde certainly counted. So when Tello started searching universes, it seemed like Leo was the only one left alive in that universe. (Which also means that to Leo, Don literally comes back from the dead to avenge him via sheer intelligence and rage.)

Pilot Hamato Leonardo, 22, usually goes by his last name. His universe is basically a Pacific Rim AU where the entirety of the surface world was destroyed and the yokai built huge mechs in an attempt to save what was left once the creatures started burrowing to get to the Hidden City. He's also the youngest of his family, who actively prevented him being accepted as a pilot cadet despite how much he wanted it. He didn't realise they were protecting him and resented them for what he saw as infantilizing behaviour. And then a huge strike from the creatures wiped out most of the Hidden City Mech Corps (HCMC) and the higher-ups scrambled to activate all possible personnel. This did not go well for all the unprepared newbies suddenly flung into combat and Pilot Hamato has, shall we say, scars and trauma. He's still not sure that being rescued was the best thing for him but he suddenly sees all the other little blues as Certified Baby and equally suddenly realises that he's now in his older brothers' position of being a protector. There's more emotional trauma involved.

Baby Blue is named such because he's seven years old and absolutely Certified Baby. He also refuses to tell anyone his name so they had to come up with something and Leonardo is ... not adept at naming things. He was separated from his family and was also quite sure that they would be coming to find him. Which is why he trusted Leonardo and Tello when he first saw them. Until Tello explained that their tech brought them here because there's none of Baby Blue's family left to find him. That puts him in emotional shutdown for long enough that Leonardo gets absolutely panicky. Eventually he comes out of his shell a little, both literally and figuratively, but they all know he's never the same as he was when they first found him and he was looking forward to seeing his dad again.

Sixteen-year-old Sunflower keeps a nickname their family already had for them, because of their unfailing optimism. Even after losing everything and everyone they knew, they've still got hope! But what they need is someone to tell them it's okay to cry tbh, because like. There's a point where not letting yourself express anything negative means an absolute brickload of emotional shutdown. They're not admitting that but Leonardo has seen enough coping mechanisms that he knows mental walls when he sees them. Despite their need for emotional regulation (which they think they have because they aren't constantly having mental breakdowns over the trauma of the apocalypse) they are doing better than you might expect! Once they have a few of those mental breakdowns anyway. Leonardo gets used to crying teenagers quicker than he thought but Tello never fails to bail out the window at the first sign of tears.

Alpha, at nineteen, is what you might call an absolute fucking problem. In a world where Lou Jitsu died at the lab, Draxum raised the turtles as weapons of war and turned them against each other to see who was the strongest. Alpha, uh. May've killed all three of them and then got sent out to Winter Soldier people. Somehow he's not as much of a threat as you'd think from reading that. He's actually genuinely scared of most of the other blueberries! Because they are extremely fragile and he is extremely good at killing. (At least until Cobalt comes along. More on that later.) He works out most of his emotions on punching bags and sparring with Tello, because they never complain about him biting and Leonardo's generally busy parenting. It would probably be better for everyone if he tried to be well-adjusted instead of a nightmare, but instead he thinks it's better for the blues to have an attack dog to protect them even when Tello can't be there.

Unicorn is twelve years old and named herself after her favourite animal. Shredder arrived early, in this universe, and the turtles weren't nearly prepared enough to fight him. Splinter, Raph, and Donnie all died trying to protect the youngest siblings, and somehow Unicorn and Orange managed to get away. But then they got separated while running away from Shredder and she hasn't seen her favourite brother since. She hoped that the new turtles showing up would help her look... but then they told her that he was dead. This new information was not welcome and she refused to believe it for a long time. Tello considered finding evidence that Orange had died, but Leonardo put a stop to that with holy shit Tello we can't show her the body of her little brother and fortunately that helped Tello realise it was in fact a bad plan. Instead Leonardo, Tello, and Unicorn stayed at her lair for a week until she finally accepted that Orange would've been back by then if he was still alive.

As of yesterday, twenty-six-year-old Commander Hamato is the last living member of the resistance. He is not handling that well. At least in this world, he wasn't responsible for any of it. Not that he's very good at accepting that, but Leonardo is helping him get there. In the meantime, he wants to get distance between himself and the Hamato name (and all the dead loved ones he shares it with). He and Leonardo workshop some ideas and end up calling him Vanilla. Because he wants a plain vanilla life (Tello is hollering about this defamation of their favourite flavour) and might as well literally have it in his name! He's standoffish toward the others but he's had ten years of experience running a rebellion so he's a great help with orchestrating day care for the blueberries.

[mosthomoeroticenemies]

HELLO ITS TIME FOR THE SURPRISE LOSERS CHAOS BRACKET OF CALAMITY TO ENTERTAIN YALL DURING THE SEMIFINALS AND FINALS

So basically idek how to explain how this is gonna work well because its chaos and calamity just like my brain BUT I'll try SO for round one of the losers bracket I have 150 characters, all the losers from the first round PLUS late submissions PLUS the dubious and non-skeletons who didn't get into the main bracket. That is SEVENTY FIVE polls of two which will be ENTIRELY RANDOMLY GENERATED AND WILL BE POSTED THROUGHOUT THE NEXT LIKE 2 DAYS TEN POLLS EVERY FIVE HOURS SO I APOLOGIZE TO ANYONE WHO HAS NOTIFICATIONS ON I RECOMMEND NOT DOING THAT UNLESS YOU'RE REALLY EXCITED FOR THIS

After that round, there will be those 75 winners PLUS the 32 losers from round two which is 107 characters which is ODD so I will be taking out the character with the most votes from L1 and plopping them in the corner for a round (this pattern will continue I'm sorry) which leaves me with 106 characters and FIFTY THREE POLLS which will again be COMPLETELY RANDOMIZED ONCE AGAIN leaving me with 54 characters (pulling that one out of the corner from before)

Round three shall be those 54 characters PLUS the 16 losers from main round three which will be 70 characters slash 35 polls (once again, completely randomized) leaving us with 35 characters. Once again, the highest voted will be plopped in the corner so we have an even 34 characters

Round four will be Those 34 plus the 8 losers from main round four will give us 42 characters and 21 polls, leaving us with 22 characters at the end (adding back the corner babe)

Round five will be those 22 characters plus the 4 losers from main round five so 26 characters and 13 polls, once again leaving us with a Corner Blorbo

Edit: Round five will have two surprise characters added in, so 14 polls

Round six will then have 16 characters (adding in the two from the semifinals), leaving us a perfect bracket amount henceforth!

And the winner of the loser bracket shall go against the winner of the main bracket!

I hope this makes sense I barely have the plan together I promise it will make even less sense as it goes :3

OH ALSO BEFORE I FORGET FOR MY SANITYS SAKE THERE WON'T BE PICTURES ON THE POLLS UNTIL LIKE THE LAST FEW ROUNDS and reiterating that every single round will be randomly decided theres not actually a bracket I lied I'm sorry

POLLS WILL BE STARTING 12 HOURS AFTER THIS POST GOES UP, ON 3/18 AT NOON

[triscribeaucollection]

Drumroll Please

I have recently come to the decision to share more of my fan fiction on Tumblr, hence this shiny new sideblog to collect all assorted snippets, first chapters, new ideas, so on and so forth. First order of business will be laying out all the fandoms I post for over on my AO3, and putting together a Masterlist with links to each “what if” series. My other blogs here include @triscribe for Shenanigans, @birdsandbatsofgotham for all the DC art/writings I stumble across, and @storiesfromthescribe where I only talk about my original projects.

Featured tags here will henceforth include:

-pjo (new as of 2024, I finally watched the new series and guys. GUYS. I love it so much. And I love even more that it’s inspired me to write more in a week than the past two months) The Trade AU

-star wars (originals, prequels, sometimes sequels, plus a wide swath of cartoon show characters and occasionally a reference to the live action ones too) Main Series: What-If AUs and Vod’e An and Visions

-marvel (I am first and foremost a Spidey fan, so he’s usually the one getting tossed into shenanigans with a healthy dose of GotG on the side) Avengers Nonsense Starring Spider-Man and Guardians Shenanigans

-dc (listen. LISTEN. I haven’t touched any comic to have come out in the last decade, but I would never have become a fandom person if not for the Bats, so I will make new AUs based off of their familial nonsense until the day I die) Canon? What Canon? Batfam Stories  and YJ AU Assortment

-hogwarts (for all things Harry Potter, because She Who Shall Not Be Named created a great sandbox that I still love to grab and run with, usually down a road called Total Disregard of the Author) Main Series: Alternate Living Arrangements

-transformers (I’ve got knowledge from half a dozen different continuities and I am not afraid to assemble my favorite pieces into a whole new amalgamation of adventure) (catch-all series to be determined) Cliff and the Kid

-alta (I can remember blowing off a friend’s slumber party to watch The Boy in The Iceberg when it premiered, okay? My fan fic ideas for this show are not a recent development, but actually writing the dang things down and posting them is new and comes in fits and spurts) Avatar AUs

-bnha (My Hero Academia was a bit of an accidental fandom, honestly, but for a year or so it was just about the only thing I wrote for, and there’s a heap of fic on my AO3 account to reflect that) Wild Cards and Something Strange Hit Me and my Doubles AU

-misc (the catch-all, the extraneous, the fandoms I really only dabble with, hence adding an extra tag to keep them all bunched together for quicker identification) Featuring: Back Again (Merlin) and Smallest, Smartest, Youngest (Voltron) and Got to Be Joking (Ranger’s Apprentice)

-originals (which won’t appear here all that often, but since I *do* have a few pieces of my own worldbuilding creations available to read...) Scribe Sampler and The Understudy Project

Alrighty, last couple of links to other websites: Tri on Instagram, where I occasionally post my art of various fandom and canon characters Ko-fi, where one could commission a speedier update to one of my fan fiction stories they particularly love or purchase a signed copy of my self-published novel And as of March 2023, I’ve also got a brand new Patreon account, where the first pieces of big WIPs go up, and you can read the first chapter of my book Wolfen’s Rage for free.

Now then. Who’s ready to read?

[lothiriel84]

Think Only Upon the Present

Margaret looked very pale and agitated, a fine tremor running through her entire frame; before Mrs Shaw could do so much as utter a single word, he was at her side, guiding her to sit down with such tender solicitude that earned him a tremulous smile from his intended. 

A North and South ficlet. John/Margaret. Sequel to Some Strange Presumptuous Way.

Mr Thornton endured Mrs Shaw’s hour-long denunciation of his ungentlemanly conduct and his shocking want of morals with remarkable composure; he had come prepared to face the harshest of censures, and was determined to make no attempt to justify himself, standing before his accuser with his head bowed in silent acknowledgment of the gravity of his sin. However, when the affronted matron began casting aspersions on Margaret’s character alongside his, he felt compelled to speak up against the unfairness of said accusations.  

“I won’t have Miss Hale held responsible for my own actions, madam,” he stated in the same decisive manner that had won him the respect of his fellow mill masters. “It was unconscionable of me to impose upon your niece at such a time as that, and I deeply regret my unpardonable lapse of control in the face of her vulnerability. You may rest assured I fully intend to right my wrong, and to henceforth show Miss Hale all the care and respect she is owed.” 

“Let me be very frank, Mr Thornton,” came Mrs Shaw’s icy reply. “If there was a way to save Margaret from the impending scandal without condemning her to everything a future with such a man as yourself entails, I certainly would not give my consent to this marriage. As it is, I would be a fool to deny her the only chance at salvaging however little of her reputation we can still hope to preserve; but if were ever to hear a word of my poor girl being treated with anything less than the consideration she deserves, I will not hesitate to come and take her back to London, where she shall always have a home waiting for her, if she wishes.” 

Calling upon every last reserve of patience he possessed, Mr Thornton just about managed to rein back his temper; as despicable as his conduct had been, it had come from a place of deep love and affection rather than the sort of malicious intents Mrs Shaw seemed determined to ascribe to him. “I am well aware I was never a gentleman in your eyes, even less so now; but I hope you will at least do me the justice to allow the bare minimum of human decency to persevere among my many faults.” 

Of the strength of his abiding love for Margaret, he hesitated to speak openly in front of her aunt; and yet, when Mrs Shaw finally instructed a servant to fetch Miss Hale, so that she might get confirmation of her niece’s wishes from her own lips, he could not bring himself to leave the room. Margaret looked very pale and agitated, a fine tremor running through her entire frame; before Mrs Shaw could do so much as utter a single word, he was at her side, guiding her to sit down with such tender solicitude that earned him a tremulous smile from his intended.  

No sooner had Miss Hale confirmed her willingness for this marriage to take place with as much haste as could be managed that she burst into overwrought tears, begging her aunt’s forgiveness for tarnishing the good name of the family as well as the memory of her beloved mother and father. It could not be expected of Mr Thornton to allow this state of affairs to continue, and he did not think twice before braving the brunt of Mrs Shaw’s disapproval by kneeling beside her niece and once more offering his shoulder for Margaret to cry upon.  

“For heaven’s sake, child, you ought not to distress yourself so in your condition,” Mrs Shaw exclaimed at length, and for the first time he could detect the very real concern behind her words. “You shall marry tomorrow, or the day after that, if a special licence cannot be obtained sooner. Now I will take you upstairs myself if I need to, for I cannot have you risking your health in such an unconscionable manner as this.” 

Relinquishing his precious charge to the capable hands of Mrs Shaw and Miss Dixon, Mr Thornton took his leave from Harley Street and went about making the necessary arrangements for the wedding. He did not care it would perforce have to be a hasty one, with very little in the way of pomp and ceremony; all he longed for was to be allowed to call Margaret his own, and to bring her home to Milton at last, where she belonged.  

---

Despite Margaret’s insistence, neither her aunt nor Mr Thornton had been of a mind to allow her wish to walk to the church on the day of her wedding. It was for the best, as she was soon to learn; for the exertions of the past few days, combined with the strain of several weeks’ worth of anxiety and the heat of a very fine summer day in London had her feeling very faint and weak throughout the ceremony.  

Captain Lennox had offered to stand up with Mr Thornton, while Mr Lennox had abruptly departed for Scotland as soon as he had been informed that this marriage was to take place. Edith, on her part, had been inconsolable that she was forbidden from attending due to the lateness of her confinement, and had gone so far as to call her cousin selfish for making it so that she could not postpone the ceremony to a more convenient date, thus earning a half-hearted scolding from her mother for her unkind words; in her emotional state, Margaret had fled to her room where she had proceeded to cry all over Dixon’s shoulder for a good half hour, while the old servant attempted to calm her by recounting tales of Mrs Hale’s confinements – how much quicker to tears and bout of tempers alike her mistress was wont to be when with child.  

As exhausted as she felt in body and mind, Margaret could not stand the thought of spending another night in Harley Street, and had therefore insisted that they journeyed to Milton immediately after the ceremony; out of concern for her health as well as that of the babe, Mr Thornton had attempted to dissuade her from such notion, but even his well-meant remonstrations had only sought to distress her further, and in the end he had bowed to her request, though very reluctantly.  

What Margaret had failed to consider was the probability that a long train ride might not agree with her condition; by the time they reached Milton, she was in such a bad way she had to rely entirely on her husband to hand her down from the train carriage, then into a hired cab that would take them to her new home. When they reached Marlborough Street, John paid no heed to her protestations that she was well enough to walk; instead, he picked her up as one would a child and carried her inside, would not rest until she was safely ensconced in his bedchamber, with Doctor Donaldson sent for despite the lateness of the hour. 

Amidst her dizziness and bone-deep tiredness, Margaret was vaguely aware of Mrs Thornton’s displeasure at the unfolding events, and the servants’ whispers that would invariably lead to more tittle-tattle come the morrow; nothing felt real to her, save for the warm anchor of John’s hand around her own, which he did not relinquish even when Doctor Donaldson came in to examine her. In his quiet, professional manner, he asked few questions of her, did not appear to dwell overmuch on the circumstances of her condition in relation to their hasty marriage; he merely recommended bed rest for a few days, and did his best to put Mr Thornton’s mind at ease as to the unlikeliness of any permanent harm to come to either his wife or the child she was carrying.  

Margaret was asleep before Doctor Donaldson had finished taking his leave; her husband’s hand never once leaving hers throughout, nor for the entirety of the night to follow.  

---

“It has all been done properly, John,” Mrs Thornton informed him, disapproval apparent in her tone. “It is the second-best bedchamber, and she shall be much more comfortable in there, especially in her condition.” 

Mr Thornton pinched the bridge of his nose in a desperate attempt to keep his composure in the face of his mother’s most recent attempts to undermine his authority pertaining the household matters. “My wife has expressed her wish to share my bedchamber. I see no problem in that, Mother.” 

“It is not proper for a man in your position, son. We have room enough for each of you to have separate bedchambers, and the servants are already talking.” 

He gave a short, sharp bark of laughter at that. “I think we have given the servants enough to talk about regardless our sleeping arrangements. You need not concern yourself, Mother – should Margaret wish to remove to a different bedchamber, I am sure she will let you know immediately.” 

The stony silence that followed was just as tinged with disapprobation as her previous words were. Still, he waited for he to speak her mind, as he was sure she would.  

“How could you, John?” she demanded after a lengthy pause. “I did not raise you to be the kind of man to behave so dishonourably towards any woman, let alone one who was ever so determined not to have you.” 

“Mother! You cannot be suggesting – I own that I conducted myself as no gentleman would, but you must know I would never – not in the manner you are thinking of.” 

“I was speaking of the prideful manner in which she spurned your first offer,” his mother replied haughtily. “And how I presume she refused you a second time – for I pray to God you did the honourable thing and offered for her, afterwards.” 

John sighed, the distant echo of his past misery weighing on his chest for just a moment. “I did. It is no matter – she’s my wife now, that is all I ever asked for.” 

“We'll see if you still feel the same way once the scandal has lost you the mill,” Mrs Thornton prophesised gloomily, turning her gaze out of the window. “Were that she had never come to Milton – we would be carrying on as we always did, you and I, without all the upheaval she has caused in our lives.” 

That proved to be the last straw for Mr Thornton’s already strained patience. “Mother, I will not have you speak about my wife in such a manner. If you cannot find it in yourself to be gracious to her for my sake, then you shall remove to Fanny’s home – this is my final word.” 

“No.” 

They both turned around to find Margaret standing there – her cheeks as pale as the lace trimmings of her gown, yet her eyes were glowing with renewed purpose.  

“I will not have you drive your mother away from her home for my sake,” she stated very firmly, despite the lingering weakness in her voice. John was at her side at once, and insisted she took his place in the armchair, arranging the pillows for her comfort.  

“You ought to be resting, lass,” the elder Mrs Thornton pointed out, not unkindly. “There will be time to discuss these matters once you’re feeling better. And do not think I will stand for you to risk the wellbeing of my grandchild over such trivial a matter as a disagreement between myself and my son.” 

Mr Thornton acknowledged his mother’s implicit concession with an imperceptible bow of his head, and rang the bell for the tea to be brought imminently.  

---

By the time Mr Bell came to visit his goddaughter, Margaret was much recovered, and had taken up such portion of the household duties that had been deemed appropriate in her condition. The timing of his arrival could have been better, as she had had to sit through one of Fanny's interminable calls already; the new Mrs Watson had looked torn between the disapproval she felt she ought to express at the evident proof of her new sister-in-law's unmaidenly conduct, and her positive envy for Margaret’s condition while she herself could not boast any such luck on that front just yet.  

However, Margaret Thornton was even less one to put off an unpleasant duty than Margaret Hale had been; she was only thankful that her husband was occupied with the mill at this time of the day, and she could face whatever reprimand her godfather had come to deliver on her own.  

“Are you quite well, my dear?” Mr Bell enquired after the initial pleasantries had been exchanged, his pointed gaze resting on her increasing figure slightly longer than would have been deemed appropriate. “I am sorry, exceedingly sorry that you did not feel you could confide in me – I promised your father I would look after you, and I have failed spectacularly to do so at the very first opportunity.” 

“Oh, Mr Bell, you need not trouble yourself on my account. My sin was mine alone, and it is a small comfort that my poor Papa was spared the disappointment of knowing his daughter for the undutiful creature she has proved herself to be.” 

“Do not speak so of yourself, my poor child. Clearly you have been misguided, and by one whom you considered a friend no less. Margaret, if you are unhappy – if you feel like you have been forced into this marriage, then I shall make arrangements immediately, take you wherever you wish to go.” 

Margaret stood up in her agitation, and began pacing as if her very life depended on it. “Oh, but you have it all wrong! Mr Thornton and I – in short, I could not bear to be parted from him, and the same is true for him, I know it. What we did, it was very wrong – but I cannot, I will not regret it, because that is what brought us here, together.” Again, she took her place beside him, raised her clear gaze to meet his own. “Despise me now, if you like. I shall not repent before anyone but God himself, and He has been so good as to show me his mercy where I least deserved it.” 

Mr Bell waved his hand as if to dispel the absurdity of such a notion. “Despise you? I may be an old fool, but never as big a one as that, I hope. I have come here to make certain you were well looked after, and as you assure me you are, there is nothing left for me to do but to obtain your signature on certain legal documents I have been carrying around for this exact purpose.” 

“If you wish it,” Margaret replied somewhat cautiously. “I understand very little of legal matters, you see, and I cannot – rely upon Mr Lennox, as I used to.” 

“Oh, it is nothing to trouble yourself over, my dear. I merely intend for a portion of my assets to be transferred to you at once, relieving you of the anxiety of having to wait for my demise, however – imminent that might be. Come, come, there’s no need to distress yourself so, my child – I am only happy to be of service, that is all.” 

That night Margaret wept in her husband’s arms in anticipation of this new grief that was soon to come; she cried also in relief that the mill would be safe, and John need never know the indignity of failing in the business he had worked so hard to create and maintain. And when he had finished drying her tears with the soft press of his lips, she begged him for the very same kind of comfort he had once offered her on a gloomy April night so many lifetimes ago; and so he did, then held her close to him when she fell asleep immediately after, a contented smile on her face. 

[i-did-not-mean-to]

🌟Before🌟

So...here's my first try of writing for Silm-characters...Special thanks to @legolasbadass for the encouragement and @lathalea for the general enabling. I wouldn't be here sweating my ass off if it wasn't for you two. Love you ❤️‍🔥

Words: 785

Characters: Fingon x Maedhros (but soft)

Warning: They're half-cousins and this can be read as romantic...please don't come for me!

Also, if you've read the book this might be a bit...sad (?)

Shall I miss it? The only place I’ve ever known…

Fingon was deep in thought as the home of the Teleri, blessed shore, seemed sketched as by an uncertain hand in the distance, wondering if they were condemned to be a people ever wandering.

Long and arduous had been the way to the realm of the Valar that their fathers had braved only to leave again so soon – in a cloud of incandescent words – to return whence they had come.

“Are you worried?” Maedhros appeared next to him, his voice soft and his face alight with a gleam Fingon knew he’d behold nevermore; henceforth, that sacred glow would be a cherished memory embedded in the living beauty of his family and the jealously guarded gems of Curufinwë.

Was he? Fingon knew not for certain and whatever cloud may have passed over his soul, it could not withstand the blinding light of his kinsman’s eyes, twinkling with a fire more moderate than his father’s, yet warmer for its lack of brazen, burning violence.

“Why did you follow us if your heart is torn?” Maedhros asked gently, his tone devoid of judgment; a part of him yearned to know Fingon safe even if it meant that he would have to walk this road without him. He knew that light – no matter how hallowed and pure – must inevitably cast a shadow and he would see Fingon – kind, brave, and faithful to a fault – spared of its threats and dangers.

“I would not be parted from you,” Fingon replied vaguely, letting his eyes travel over the straight back of his beloved father – paragon of loyalty – and his cherished siblings, strange and furtive as they might be, “I am bound by my own oaths of allegiance, written in blood, as you well know.”

A hand slipped into his – warm, reassuring, steady – and Fingon’s doubts abated further yet.

“I am glad that you’re here,” Maedhros admitted, “you might be the only thing preventing me from being ground to dust between the millstones that are my father and my brothers.”

There was laughter in his voice as well as a dark sense of foreboding; first-borns of brothers as much as rivals, they both harboured the secret wish and the terrible knowledge that it fell to them to overcome their fathers’ flaws without failing to uphold their legacy nonetheless if this venture was to know any success.

“I shall ever be,” Fingon replied, and – in this moment – he knew that he spoke profound truth that spanned far into the future and would be tested mercilessly, “wherever fate shall lead you, I’ll never be far behind, until the day I am returned to the care of the Valar.” “Do not speak of your demise,” Maedhros interrupted him sharply, “for I shall hasten to your side and prevent the unspeakable.”

Fingon chuckled wryly at that, clutching Maedhros’ hand a little tighter; those fingers intertwined with his own had been his roots and he’d be unable to ever turn away from them.

Whether they were stretched out in invitation or clenched in pain, these digits would point out the path of his destiny and Fingon would step upon it fearlessly if he knew that it would lead him back to the one he loved best of all the people who shared his blood.

He could perceive fragments of his face in Turgon and echoes of his inflection in Aredhel, but he was convinced that it was Maedhros who – in that valiant heart of his – carried part of his own soul.

“Do not be afeared,” that very same creature of flame and light murmured, “as long as we promise to find each other, there can be no peril too daunting!”

Another oath that would tighten the bonds of his doom, Fingon thought, but he did not hesitate to agree to those fair words.

“I shall ever find you, son of Fëanor, I shall never desert you,” he swore, brushing a strand of wayward dark hair out of his handsome face, “until the bitter end and beyond.”

Maedhros was not the best singer, but he’d follow his voice and the fire of his hair – hearth and pyre – to the literal ends of the world; there would be no mountain too high, no battle too hopeless, and no fate too bleak to keep him, for so he had pledged his heart and mind.

“Look there,” Maedhros exclaimed, “we’re almost there; I can smell Alqualondë already. Great things await us!”

And despite the cold shiver of prescience that ran down Fingon’s spine like a thousand blades yet to be braved, he hastened his step in pursuit of the eternal hope that they might find happiness and prosperity at their journey’s end.

I...I don't even know what I wanted to achieve with this other than to overcome writer's block.

I've not finished the book and I know virtually nothing about either one of them as I'm not yet immersed in the fandom and fanon...

If you have pointers, you're very welcome to help me <3

So, here's my humble offering.

Please be kind to a struggling wretch; I did not mean any harm and would be devastated to be torn apart over this. Thank you <3

[toradhart]

Blog info!

Hello friends and followers!

A hearty welcome to everyone who’s new, and a few words to everyone, period: 
I have never stopped posting to this account, however you might have noticed that… I haven’t been the most consistent with tagging. Henceforth, since some people have been fleeing back from twitter to tumblr, I figured it would be nice for everyone if I finally started doing that.

I will not retag all my previous posts, I don’t have that kind of time. However, henceforth I shall use the following system for all your following and blacklisting needs:

-My own art will be tagged as “Fran’s art tag”, with two subcategories which will also be tagged: “Fran’s OC tag” and “fanart” (pretty much what I’m doing on Pillowfort). For the past few years I’ve pretty much only drawn OCs from the same series (a comic that I’m still working on), but should the need arise I’ll start introducing separate tags for separate series. -I will tag the name of the series/show/game/whatever I am making fanart of and ships if applicable but not every single character, nor every single variety of their shipname. -If you ever need me to tag triggers or anything else, please feel free to send me a DM and I’ll see what I can do! -This account is strictly for art, which means I will only post my own art and occasionally announcements like this one. I’ll tag that as “Fran talks”. This also means you can browse through all the art I’ve ever posted here simply by going through the entire blog instead of any of the tags. -However, since tumblr ever allows you to like+follow with the first blog you’ve ever created, I will still comment and follow you from my personal account, @toradh. That’s also where I will reblog all you guys’ great art and tag it as “other fine people’s art” (and again, shows/ships/whatever if applicable). -I still technically have my ToZ/JRPG account through which I met so many of you (@applegelstore) but I doubt I’ll use it again except for reblogs. -Last but not least, I don’t have energy to keep up with more than one social media, so please don’t think I hate you if I miss following you back or don’t see your posts. I don’t, I’m just still trying to navigate twitter and also actually draw sometimes. However, I hope having a system will make tumblr easier for you.

Thanks for reading!

[waitingforwinterwinds]

A Clash of Kings - 30 ARYA VII (pages 413-425)

Arya adapts to life at Harrenhal, and learns she owes the Red God a debt. She makes the first payment of three.

-

There was always talk of Beric Dandarrion. A fat archer once said the Bloody Mummers had slain him, but the others only laughed. "Lorch killed the man at Rushing Falls, and the Mountain's slain him twice. Got me a silver stag says he don't stay dead this time neither."

For the foreseeable future, I will henceforth be picturing Beric as a man in purple with a black eye mask and striped underwear.

... now I want to rewatch the 1996 Billy Zane movie.

Beneath the standard of a black goat with bloody horns-

ngl my first thought was "The Bloody Mummers are Satanists?" (They certainly sound demonic of character)

After the hanged men had stopped kicking, Vargo Hoat and Ser Harys embraced and kissed and swore to love each other always as Lord Tywin looked on.

I'm choosing to imagine that they frenched, (I didn't actually choose it, it's just how I imagined the scene as I read it,) and that Tywin is a voyeur, and also that he is the worst relationship councilor in the history of ever.

(I think I might be a little mean today. We could cover it over and call it sassy or snarky or whatever men call it when ladies are mean but they like it, but we all know it's just mean.)

When she thought of seeing Robb's face again Arya had to bite her lip. And I want to see Jon too, and Bran and Rickon, and mother. Even Sansa... I'll kiss her and beg her pardons like a proper lady, she'll like that.

Awwww. I want to wrap her up safe, rescue her from this shit hole and take her home to be with her family.

I'm actually a little surprised that Arya hasn't had even a tiny meltdown now that she has some medium of safety, that's usually when the mental protection and disassociations begin breaking down, because mental resources start freeing up, but even though Arya has a steady food supply, hygiene and sleeping in easy reach, doesn't mean she's actually safe and she obviously knows that, she's still in as much danger as she was before, the danger just looks different now.

Oh no! Lord Cerwyn! That's Cley's dad! And Arya's down another ally that she never really had. LET ME HUG HER!!!

He'd bought a ton of silver to forge into magic swords that would slay the Stark wargs.

Well that's just the wrong show. Good to know conspiracy theorists will thrive in any world.

Arya's being really smart, keeping her ears open for gossip while she keeps her head down, alas, rumours make tabloids not news.

He laid a finger on her lips. "Three lives you shall have of me. No more, no less. Three and we are done. So a girl must ponder." He kissed her hair softly. "But not too long."

Uhhhh... bad touch? I... I feel very confused, on whether that was supposed to be familial comfort type or just creepy type? You didn't need to kiss her hair, what the hell man? (I might just be keyed to read that as creepy because GRRM does love writing shit like that which is creepy...)

...

...

... I need to be fucking sick, and I need so many of these men to be very fucking dead. Well, one out of many, I'll have to settle for it. For now.

"- Some are saying it was Harren's ghost, flung him down." He snorted to show what he thought of such notions. It wasn't Harren, Arya wanted to say, it was me. She had killed him with a whisper, and she would kill two more before she was through. I'm the ghost in Harrenhal, she thought. And that night, there was one less name to hate.

What I do like about this chapter is that it feels like Arya is getting her second wind, regaining her footing and sense of power. Not big power, but the power to do something, literally any thing, after so long being able to do nothing. And she's calling back her father's and Robb's words, being responsible for the lives taken, "If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look him in the face and hear his last words," but she also knows she doesn't have that kind of power and ability.

There's a blurred line here between justice and vengeance but Arya still holds the responsibility around killing another human (outside of desperate battle).

Chiswyck's last words probably would have been trash anyway.

oh gosh, draft autosave just rescued me again ^_^'

[rw47vr-key]

Still in love with your lies - part 2/4

◗ 　A/N: Hi dearies!💕 .As I said,I have no idea what I'm writing, forgive me. This is totally in Narrator's POV compared to the 1st part. I still hope you'll may like this. ❤ Take care and much love! 💝💫 ◗ 　Warning : angst, violence, swearing ◗ little note: if you haven't checked out yet, see these links before reading 🔗 brief character profile (still, I've included the profile photos below to understand the story) 🔗part1

Character profile:

2 days later

Location : FBI headquarters, Germany

When MC signed up for the mission, she was instructed to 'arrest, investigate and not supposed to kill the hacker'. But the encrypted email that MC received was unexpected.

From Agent E3(Evelyn) ,

This is to inform team leader M7(mc) that the mission '01040-jake' will be further proceeded by Section 3 team, as initially planned. We appreciate on behalf of our whole FBI committee for the hardwork of you and your team. Henceforth,you need not investigate nor participate regarding Criminal:Jake's case. The next primary mission put forth for your team is continuing the 'Jennifer-3 guilty' case by aiding the police, incognito. The 2nd task is top notch secret, that will be discussed in person.I have passed on the message as per Agent Vampire's command. Delete this at once after reading.

Agent MC was at her limit.She couldn't tolerate all that she had done until now weren't part of the plan. Because the real plan was hidden and will be executed without her involvement.

The first thing she did was yell at her subordinate after she had entered her team's discussion room. "You knew all of it, right? ", she shrieked.

"Woah! Woah! Are you already back to work? MC! You should have taken more rest! ", Agent Frederick exclaimed.

"So, you did know,huh? Great. I appreciate your loyalty towards me. What's next? Kill the hacker? Is it today.or.tomorrow? What makes you all think that he is so dangerous? or.. Have you closed his chapter, already?. Why the extreme silence? Finding reasons to apologize? What the…Answer me you fuxxing snake!", her anger raised fast as a lightning, for each question.

"Why are you blaming me, MC ? I did what the head and R3(Reynold) told.You better calm down.No one is killing anyone.", Frederick said nonchalantly.

"F7(Frederick) ! I heard you, so damn well! ", she scowled. " You said you'll make Jake pay for whatever he did. "

"Agent M7,calm down for a minute,please.Let's sit down and talk. I'll make sure to call our other 2 members too", Agent Natalie aka N7 tried to stop the commotion between them before it gets too late.

"Yeah, I said. But I didn't mean it", Frerdrick shrugged.

MC snatched the bottle of water he was about to drink and flinged it afar. " Really? Good to know. Oh,I also heard you calling me 'my girl'. "

"I meant that, MC.No..wait..Let me..Why..why don't we listen to N7(Natalie) ? . Let's sit and talk, shall we? ", he said trembling.

" I don't have time lurking around like you, Frederick. Put a full stop to your idiocity is all that I request from you." She took his hand and patted it gently. "Just how many times should I say 'NO' to you? Would you like another practical demonstration of it?", she snickered.

"Umm…Agent M7, sorry to interrupt but , since you're here , why don't you train our intern? ", Natalie reported. " That was the mission assigned for you by Agent Reynold, in case if you were discharged from hospital today".

She pulled her hand away from his. "An intern, at this time of the year? ", she inquired. " Ah, so the guy waiting outside is him. Okay N7(Natalie) . I also have to meet Reynold after that."

"Sure,Agent M7.Go ahead", Natalie said handing over the intern's bio to MC.

MC walked out and assisted the newbie with his first task. She then made her way to meet Agent Reynold aka R3,leader of Section 3.

" Whew. She's furious as ever", Frederick sulked.

"You should be thankful that I saved you. Urgh, what you've done is pissing off me too, Frederick.", Natalie let out a huge breath. " And , don't forget to clear up the mess", she pointed at the wet floor and then at an empty paper. "Write a letter of apology, if you wish not to make anything more worse. "

_At Section 3 leader's office_

"Hey! How are you doing? ", Agent Reynold smiled and welcomed on seeing MC.

" You could have atleast told me", she frowned.

There was a brief silence.

"MC, that hacker killed his own mother", he said rubbing the back of his neck. " He is very well capable of turning the tables against us. "

"So,I am not that capable of handling him. Is that what you are all trying to say?",she asked as calm as she could.

"No! Eugene wanted you to handle another crucial case after this deadline!.More importantly, we didn't expect you to get hospitalized. So he immediately gave it to us without confronting you", he said.

He raised from his seat and stood in front of her,mumbling a 'sorry'. He then took a folded paper from his pocket and showed it to her.

It was an encrypted message. She scrutinized it and took a step back. "You got the head's approval for me?"

"Yep! , you can continue Jake's case.I know how much you were looking forward to accomplish this task from day 1.He's in the investigation room 306.Now go ,agent Key", he chuckled.

" This won't suffice.Treat me a dinner too,brother ", she smiled back and hugged him sideways.

" Haha. I will. Goodbye Y/N", he uttered her real name softly and saw her disappearing from his sight as the door closed.

'Fine, let's commence our mission', she thought to herself but she was surprised to see the intern running towards her.

"I finished writing the report, agent M7! ", Oliver panted.

" Well done, Agent O7(Oliver)! . I'm sorry that I left you half way . Wait in my office. I'll be back in an hour. "

He saluted flashing a smile, and ran back with the same speed.

.・゜-: ✧ :-To be continued-: ✧ :-゜・．

Edit: part 3 here