#has been open with this goal and mindset for a while (especially to her team)

[letyhide]

I am NOT looking forward to that Sunkissed talk today.

Already heard him explain it to Pangi and was not impressed. His plan was to "give Zam a taste of (her) medicine by helping the enemy team" or something like that (he implied, like Zam had done with the Bacon wardens , and the Jumper hearts etc..). And it was a way to show her how its "bad" to play all sides... which.. urgh....

Zams whole thing is about Balance: He helped Bacon because, realistically Bacon was doing something for the server (by making it active again) and was gonna get banned by natural causes. So Zam decided she wanted to be a helping hand in making everything more fun, and make Bacon last just long enough for everyone to be satisfied in the arc. Bacon was alone in his effort, a clear underdog. When He found the materials chest, Bacon was only on 2. He needed the help or he could have easily gotten banned

(ik he said he would have probably gotten the materials himself, but like technically he could've died obtaining them, while afking a farm. Or something. Ending the arc randomly, casually. In an even less satisfying way, as Bacon put his banning as the "stop spawning wardens" condition)

Without Zams help, things would've played out differently. And its not like she wasn't out for Bacon's blood, she wanted to ban him almost more than anyone. She Just wanted to give more time for him to achieve his true goal of understanding Subz.

Again to Zam it's all about Balance and helping the server itself function, so when a low-hearts player has a cool idea, even tho they're your enemy, if they're in dire need: you help them, because nobody else will. It gives people a chance to log on the server, and do stuff, and be active enough to have those ideas and put them into fruition (and make the server intresting. A way to make things HAPPEN). It's such a noble and important cause for a content-oriented-server. That recently seems to be more pvp-oriented (or that's how the chunpire's ideals would seem to make it).

And I would like to say that there is NOTHING wrong with not understanding Zam's goals and her view on the server. Nobody is expected to, and realistically, it is more interesting for people to oppose her.

But what is odd, is having a player, seemingly piece together Zam was helping Bacon. Confront her about it, and sit there and pretend to have a complete understanding of it, and promise to always be by her side. Just to go ahead and do something behind her back, and then claim to be doing it for Zam's sake ????????? The only way you could see these situations as similar, is by viewing what Zam did with Bacon and Jumper, as "Betrayal" yourself, which would again prove that Derap did NOT understand Zam.

It's not a crime to betray, it's more annoying how Derap doesn’t see it as such, and thinks he's somehow in the right, and is gonna try and make Zam feel bad for it, by "apologising" for all the wrong things. But, again, he has already kinda revealed his true thoughts in part. "I didn't like that you gave Jumper hearts". which, again, makes Derap's way of thinking closer to Mapicc's than Zam. Then, why did he lie back then?

If he TRULY understood Zam, he could easily see how giving Bacon hearts and giving Chungpire are not that comparable. If the goal is Balance, helping a team which is already significantly stronger than yours, and has goals that are fundamentally opposite to them, is not really,,, the move, per say... Atlas was the underdog. The chumpire would have probably won every fight and confrontation even without the extra information.

It's almost like Derap pretended to understand her just to be by her side, while not listening or respecting her enough to ACTUALLY understand her motives. Which is something that has been happening her season between sunkissed. Derapchu pushing this relationship, repeating the same phrases of "I care about you most" "ill always be by your side" Sweet stuff, said in a vacuum. But when you listen to the way he talks to other people, you see that mask fall.

Will never forget him telling Zam over and over again how "nobody respected you for how much care you put into rebuilding spawn!". But when Bacon was the one rebuilding it, Derap would get in the call and ask the same damn questions Zam was always so tired of other people asking. "Why are you doing this Bacon? What's the point?" And even started saying stuff like "why even rebuild spawn the way it was before? Why not make new builds?". The same type of questions Zam has been asked time and time again. The same questions that someone who actually understands her Knows not to ask. Because in a way, that is exactly the kind of disrespect Zam was shown by other players. The behaviour Derap was condemning in front of Zam, but practicing on another Spawn-repairer.

And then he lied to Zam about Bacon choosing to not repair Zam's builds? and trying to claim he was completely alone in the warden efforts. Says it was a miscommunication error, but it was really convenient how it was used to push this idea of "it's just us two against the world" sentiment that he had been trying to convince Zam of all season huh....

((Then the Flame fights happened, and Derap called her "insane" and "crazy" for basically throwing herself at the enemy time and time again, and said that She was "stupid" for not asking for his help. yet on Evbo-day when Mane, Flame and Clown were chasing her. Derap made some sly comment of dismissal when asked if he wanted to help Zam at all. (something like responding "probably somewhere getting killed by flame idk" when asked where Zam was... or he said something about there being no point. i don't remember exaclty and i'm not bothered enough to go check, sorry). But then seemed so proud of her after. convienent))

And let's not forget the whole “forgetting to tell her he had been using exploited items (prot-4 armour) for months” ordeal. Something Zam has been deeply against for YEARS. saying "no more secrets" but being caught in another lie again and again, and saying "he forgot" to tell her that one small detail... but it happened like 3 times in a row. I already said it somewhere, but to me, that day is when Sunkissed should've ended as a teamup.

But back to the betrayal itself. From the way he put it, i got that, he didn’t agree with the way Zam thinks (despite telling her the whole season he did), and instead of communicating that, he was gonna go behind his back, to give the enemy team information, to “show her a lesson” on why playing all sides is bad. (again proving that He didn’t listen to or understand Zam at all, only pretended to).

It’s just so wild to me, because this is definitely targeted, he’s gonna say this was for “Zam’s greater good”, but you cannot tell me that this doesn’t come from bitterness. He didn’t like Zam giving hearts to Jumper at all. Then says “we need teammates Zam, sort things out with Mapicc”. But when the teammate who helps is ManePear, Derap isn’t happy (which.. Okay,, fair enough ig,, but how come Zam HAS to settle his differences with Mapicc, but he can’t with Mane?). When talking to Pangi Derap says “I would never work with Mapicc!” when that is exactly what he was trying to push Atlas into doing. Also, to add, he DID work with Mapicc When he GAVE HIM PANGI’S COORDS in secret, again when his goal was to teach “Pangi a lesson”, lying again.

And if we REALLY wanna compare this with the giving bacon hearts situation, there is ONE clear difference between those two situations. When Zam was confronted by Derap on whether or not she did it, Zam confessed everything. He was honest with Derapchu, explained his reasoning and everything, because he felt bad lying to him. But we know damn well Derapchu doesn’t feel bad lying to Zam, that’s all he’s been doing this season. When they were face to face, in that base, Zam asked again and again if Derapchu was betraying, and Derapchu goes “Are you crazy???? Are you insane? I would never work WITH MAPICC” now we know he was clearly latching onto a technicality, he wanted to work with Minute (who works with Mapicc, and told him everything), but he never misses a chance to make Zam feel lesser than for his paranoia, and talks down to her. Because he thinks he knows what’s best for her. During the Bacon confrontantion Derapchu insisted that he wasn't mad at Zam for the hearts themelves, but more of the fact that she didn't tell the team, which, when looking back, is pretty ironic. Because Zam in the end conefssed everything to him when confronted, Derap didn't.

Then when Zam tries to kill him anyway. Derapchu, after running away,  has THE NERVE to message her “i forgive you” before logging out. A slap to the face. (im genuinely going to rip my hair out thinking back to that).

Derap says to Zam. “I forgive you” beucase, at that point, Zam didn't have enough proof of the betrayal yet to be 100% sure (the killing attempt was a test after all), so he wanted her to doubt herself, and make her think she was somehow at fault (because someone who needs to be forgiven has to have done something wrong,, right?) By sending that message Derap was targeting the fondness Zam had for him at one point. And trying to manipulate his way back into the team. During all of this Derap is betraying, but doesn't think he is. Insane stuff.

Then Woogie comes in after shouting “what the fuck did you do” making Zam feel guilty for everything, as if she was the one at fault, which lead to her throwing herself into the void (the guilt tripping worked). And then, later, she gets the proof straight from Mapicc’s mouth, and Here comes Derap saying “I’m sorry I lied to you” in messages. Only sorry when caught.

Genuinly so frustrating, but intresting... Derap pretends to understand Zam to her face, to keep her by his side, but his actions are fueled by bitterness of his misunderstanding of her. he is the one who put himself in the situation of "always being by Zam's side" when he doesn't even make an effort to properly understand her, and only repeats sweet nothings to gain her affection and trust.

Last thing. At the end of the Pangi talk, Derap says that his goal is to "save everyone", to have everyone unbanned. and, again, nice goal. awesome, you unbanned a bunch of people. okay, but that "everyone" seems to be a little distorted. With the screenshot he posted on twitter, it seems he unbanned everyone EXCEPT Flame, Mane (and Evbo). Just like he didn't like Zam giving hearts to Jumper. hypocrite. It's more "Help everyone who hasn't been mean to me" which, isn't a bad goal, you can have that as a goal, but don't try to hide yourself behind a noble cause when you're as selfish as the rest of the server. nothing wrong with that again, you need to own up to it.

but this again prooves that he his and Zam's goal never truly aligned.

[mayybirds]

honestly the more I think about mia the more interesting and morally fucked up she becomes. like it's just never really brought up how she was a high enough rank in re's latest Evil Company, the connections, that she was directly involved in the handling of eveline and the fact that eveline was designed to imprint on her handlers implies mia was there from the start, at the very very least must have watched eveline's growth from a baby to a child. the fact that she's so removed from empathizing with eveline despite playing a mother role is messed up but fascinating since she doesn't seem like a cruel person. i just watched a walkthrough of when the bakers found eveline and zoe finds mia's note like mia was just going to write them a note saying "don't save the little girl, it's probably too late for you, peace out" and leave in the night? the whole eveline project was irresponsible, even without the knowledge that eveline was literally designed as a weapon, just thinking of the way the connections, including mia, endangered civilians on a cargo ship and then again with the bakers. like they didn't save mia but would mia have saved someone else in her shoes if she was on the other side of the glass? it makes me think mia has a "for the greater good" mindset, where she might see the science and her brain as more valuable in the long run than innocent masses. it's a mindset that differs drastically from ethan's in your fic, esp since he's been on the sharp end of that mindset! even in canon it seemed like they weren't really a good fit with mia continuing to keep secrets and them constantly fighting. SORRY this got so long i'm just so interested in the facets of the characters re never explored but hinted at. in a way, mia was the actual downfall for the baker family. and yet it's still pretty fucked up what happened to her and YET isn't that what she designed/groomed eveline to do?

aaaaaa anon I'm so sorry it took so long to answer this one bc I need my computer for the big asks but I love everything you're throwing down and agree with it all 100%.

I 100% subscribe to the belief Mia was either involved in Eveline's creation or brought onto the team almost immediately after she was born. Especially given we have this image from the RE7 opening--

Which is almost certainly Mia with a baby Eveline.

Mia has been involved in some truly fucked shit and while I don't begrudge Capcom their decision to keep her alive or a 'protagonist', I do wish her dark background was capitalized on more, and hope RE9 will make use of it at least. Rose is kind of the perfect, and last, person who can confront Mia about the person beneath the persona, and that no matter how much she loved Ethan or Rose, that didn't excuse the horrible things she participated in in the other parts of her life.

I do read Mia as having a 'for the greater good' mindset, where she thinks about human development and the future over immediate casualties--probably because it's the kindest reading I can give her. Otherwise, if it's assumed she was with the Connections for the money or just genuinely felt nothing at all about what she was doing, she becomes an even darker character.

I love contrasting that with Ethan, who canonically is so family and immediate-good oriented (look at Elena in RE8! He has no reason to help her and her life or death doesn't actually matter to his goals, but he's driven to help her and upset when she dies), and of course, I push that even further in my fic with Ethan's backstory. Ethan is all about protecting victims and the innocent, and the recognition that there is no such thing as "acceptable losses" or "collateral damage" when it comes to human lives. It's very different from Mia, who definitely sees some lives as worth more than others.

[itswildwinters]

Hello lovelies and welcome to my October 2020 fic recs. These are the fics that I read these last few months. The main pairing is Louis Tomlinson/Harry Styles.

This is also an appreciation post to all writers out there. Thank you for contributing so much to the fandom, for making all these incredible pieces of work for us all to read!

I’m wishing you all a happy Halloween in advance!

If you check out any of those incredible fics below, don’t forget to leave kudos and comments to show your appreciation!

Enjoy!

From What I’ve Tasted of Desire by @evilovesyou 

When Louis moves to the small Scottish town of Fortrose to spend some time with his father, he thinks he's come to terms with the fact that the next two years of his life will be rainy and dull. That changes when he meets the ever-elusive Harry Styles in his Biology class and he makes it his goal to find out the big secret surrounding him and his family. Louis unexpectedly finds himself in the eye of a storm of secrecy, age-old myths, friendship and romance.

Twilight AU / Vampires / Werewolves / Slow Burn / Highschool & College AU

eyes off you by @soldouthaz

“Just promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to keep us all safe while we’re in there,” Liam says.

Through the crack in the door, Louis can just barely make out the broad curve of Harry’s back, the slope of his curls as they tumble down all sleep-soft and lazy, and the sharp twist of his arm - all leading down to where he’s got his pointer and middle finger crossed over each other behind his back.

“I promise,” he tells Liam firmly, “I promise.”

--

or; a charlie’s angels inspired fic where louis is the brains, harry is the charm, liam is the muscle, and niall drives the getaway car - and zayn is there, too. sometimes.

Action / Pining / Assassins (kill bad people)

Walls by Travis_Crux 

Following his line of sight, he frowned and shook his head, "What's wrong?"

"Wasn't your timer on your ring finger?" Liam asked, at that the Alpha immediately swapped the tumbler and looked down at his finger which sported a string of tiny blue flowers on the underside of his ring finger.

The two of them looked at one another.

"You could've touched nearly fifty people by the time you grew delirious," Liam advocated, always the voice of reason. "Comrades, nurses, doctors."

Sighing, he turned away and continued drinking the water. Literally, the only fucking thing remaining in the middle of a fucking war.

Or

Harry has his soulmate timer stuck at zero from the beginning of time but suddenly the fates show mercy and a lovely forget-me-not takes the place of his timer. In between finding his soulmate in a war camp and solving the puzzle of the charismatic doctor who is treating him, all he can hope for is to live.

ABO / World War I / Soulmates / Angst / Hurt-Comfort

works like a charm by @falsegoodnight

Ever since Louis joined the team in fifth year, a few facts have become set in stone.

One: Louis is the best chaser in Hogwarts.

Two: Harry is the best beater in Hogwarts.

Three: They do not get along.

So it’s really unfair of Liam to think that forcing them to spend time together as Louis recovers from his injury will make them the best of friends. The last thing Louis would do is get along with that git.

Harry Potter Setting / Porn With Plot / Enemies to Lovers

(quiet like a fight) fingers laced together by @letthemkissyou

It’s a thin hope, frail and as thin as the silver strands of a spider web, desperate in the way Louis keeps clinging onto it even when he’s already expecting and preparing for the worst. Maybe one day, he’ll have a home, a place where he can feel safe and sound, tucked away safely from the world that has the tendency to treat him horribly and then even worse, that maybe there will be someone in his life who cares for him, even if in the smallest of ways, and does not just use him for whatever they tend to need at the moment.

Or, the one where Harry is gifted a hybrid and it's a whole new world for the both of them.

Hybrid Louis / Past Abuse / Fluff / Angst 

We’ll Cast Some Light (You’ll Be Alright) by fondleeds 

There’s tense silence, the whole room completely hushed. The other teams on surrounding tables look between each other. Then, Louis pushes himself away from the table noisily, chair scraping. His face is angered and crumpled, red at the ears. The door slams behind him as he rushes out. The surrounding teams look at Harry simultaneously.

“God, Simon is going to kill us if we don’t die on this mission first,” Niall moans into his hands.

-

There’s a standard procedure for this. Scan, track, kill. But with a solar eclipse and a Greater Demon with unfinished business looming, the path to keeping England safe from harm becomes complicated and shadowed by mystery and secrets. For Harry and his team, times have never been harder, especially when a few old friends turned foes show up. Harry is left with just over forty days to overcome the hurdle of tension between them and reconcile their past, and figure out just what Louis is hiding from him before it’s too late.

Demons / Enemies to Lovers / Violence / Angst / Fluff / Demon Hunters / Smut

Three Days in February by @mercurial-madhouse

“We have to get out of here, outside,” Harry whispered, turning his hand in Louis’s grip to hold on and pull them both to their feet. “And how do we fucking do that?” Louis hissed, carefully rising and pulling Harry to his feet before Harry could do it. His gaze darted to the front then back of the arena. “None of the doors are where they’re supposed to be.” “What?” Harry looked around again too, couldn’t see any doors, only knew that they must be there, somewhere. “How do you know?” Confusion slid over Louis's features. “Because we’ve been here before, Haz. It’s the O2.” The show. It must be the first night of their tour. They were too late; they were out of time.

Louis is cursed after a night out with the lads and the five have just three days to figure out what happened and how to break it before Harry and Louis both lose their sanity and maybe something more. Louis can hear everything Harry thinks and Harry isn’t sure he can keep his feelings for Louis a secret from his own mind.

Ridiculous amounts of banter and angst, a lot of Harry and Louis alone together, a healthy dose of OT5 friendship, and one very magical weekend.

Friends to Lovers / Fluff / Angst / Action / Adventure / Magical Realism / Hurt-Comfort / Slow Burn

Soaked In The Blood Of Angels by @crazyupsetter

The boy looks drugged, caught between a man who’s almost twice his size and a girl who looks like she wouldn’t even break a sweat snapping him in half despite her small stature, eyes closed and mouth open as he pants, arching up between them almost as if he’s trying to escape.

Normally, Harry would ignore it and continue on his search for someone to drink from, someone who wouldn’t mind his sharp teeth and rough hands. He’s seen plenty of boys like this one, ones who picked the wrong playmates, and if he stopped to rescue every single one of them he would have died from thirst a long time ago.

This one, though. There’s something about this one, the sheen of his bright blue eyes as he blinks slowly, looks around as though he doesn’t know where he is, the weakness of his hands as he tries to push the girl off of him and make his escape.

Explicit Sexual Content / Vampires / Incubus / Dubious Consent / Blood / Violence

The Compulsion to Find Love by Toomanytears

The most prestigious English third-level institution, Candling University, accepts omega students for the first time and Louis Tomlinson applies with bright eyes and brighter ambitions. There he encounters personal obstacles, traditional mindsets and a beautiful boy who inverts every prejudice Louis has ever known.

ABO / Omega Louis / Alpha Harry / Worldbuilding / Slow Burn / Fluff / Angst

Just a bit of work by missyoutoosweetscheeks

It was quite painfully pathetic, really. Twenty five, stable job, stable flat, stable mind (well, quite), a painfully non-existent love life with an even more painfully intact virginity.

Marcel didn't think his life was going to get better with his painfully aparent sociopathic tendencies to block anyone who showed interest in him.

Until, of course, he became Louis Tomlinson's next prey.

OR

In which Marcel is a virgin, and becomes his office's amorous co-worker's next big conquest.

Top Harry / Bottom Louis / Office Sex / Dubious Consent / Porn Without Plot 

Fuck U Betta by @jacaranda-bloom

There’s something about having Louis like this, exposed and desperate, that makes a primal urge bubble up from deep inside Harry’s chest. Desire mixed with something else, something unquantifiable. It’s the thing that makes them want this, need this. Nothing else will satisfy them or quench their thirst.

OR the one where Harry likes the thrill of the chase, Louis likes to be chased, and everyone gets what they need… in the end.

Porn Without Plot / Light BDSM / Top Harry / Bottom Louis

push you out, pull you back in by @behisoneandonly

Harry grips his head in his hands helplessly, yanking the base of his dark curls and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Fucking hell,” he whispers, knuckles turning white from how hard he’s gripping the strands of his hair.

“Hey, hey,” says the petite stranger in front of him, quickly standing up. “Stop, you’re hurting yourself.”

–

Or Harry hates feeling vulnerable. Louis is set on breaking through his tough facade.

College/University AU / medical student Harry / Fashion student Louis / Strangers to Lovers / Pining / fluff / slight angst / Hut-Comfort / Anger Management

might we be stardust stories by ryanreynolds

"It was easier being at war."

In which werewolves and vampires have been fighting each other for a century, and Harry and Louis' marriage is what's gonna bring peace to the realm. Hopefully.

Werewolves / Vampires / Arranged Marriage / Slow Burn / Falling in Love / Pining / Fantasy

Like Candy In My Veins by littlelouishiccups

“Um…” Harry said slowly after a moment. “Okay. That’s… this is… Let me get this straight.” He lifted up a hand and swallowed. “You told your family that you have a boyfriend… and my name was the first one you thought of?” “Harry Potter was on TV, alright? It wasn’t that much of a stretch.” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe he was explaining himself to Harry fucking Styles. He couldn’t believe he was stooping this low. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even thought about bringing you into this.”

Harry snorted. “What? Did you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?”

(Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.)

ABO / Fake-Pretend Relationship

until this blood runs cold by @soldouthaz

In a town as small as Louis’, everybody knows everybody and gossip spreads faster than the wildfires that rage on just outside their backdoors in the sweltering heat of summer. When something happens here everyone knows about it within seconds. Neighbors call neighbors and notes are left on doorsteps, old telephone lines ringing until there isn’t a single person who is left in the unknown.

So it’s definitely hot gossip when a vampire moves in across the street from him, the very same one who’s just become Louis’ boss.

Vampire Harry / Frottage / Blood Drinking

call you mine by @falsegoodnight

“I have a request.”

That’s what Louis Tomlinson says to Harry when he opens the front door a bit too aggressively. The latter feels justified after a round of annoyingly incessant knocking that was much too loud in the drowsy sludge of early Saturday morning.

“Zayn’s asleep,” is Harry’s tired, hoarse reply, irritation prickling at his skin. Less than a minute ago he was in bed, feeling perfectly content sprawled out on the mattress with the chilled air from the fan cool against his bare skin. And now he’s leaning up against the wooden door frame in nothing but his briefs because Zayn’s best mate decided that showing up unannounced at seven in the fucking morning was a brilliant idea.

“I’m not here for him,” says Louis curtly.

-

Or, Louis’ curious about how it feels to be bitten. Harry’s going to need more than just one bite.

Plot What Porn / Vampire Harry / Bottom Louis

your biggest fan by @soldouthaz​

Just like everyone else, Louis has a few habits that he can’t seem to break. Guilty pleasures, rather. His nails are perpetually short because he can’t quit biting them, the bottom of his shoes scuffed from tapping his foot constantly. Sometimes his leg gets a cramp from bouncing it so often underneath his desk. That isn't too bad, he reckons, just some average teenage coping mechanisms.

And also, occasionally, minor instances of theft.

Top Harry / Bottom Louis / Porn What Plot / Nerd Louis / Jock Harry

give me love by @falsegoodnight​ & @soldouthaz​

Despite being an omega, Louis’ always had a blatant dislike of alphas.

-

Or, Louis doesn't feel like a good omega, Harry doesn't remember how to be an alpha, and they figure it out together.

ABO / Alpha Harry / Omega Louis / Bottom Louis / Past Relationship Trauma / Slow Burn / Angst / Fluff

The Stars Look Very Different Today by @kingsofeverything​

For Harry Styles, child genius turned glorified spaceship mechanic, rescuing lost or broken down ships is a fairly common occurrence.

There’s nothing common about his latest mission, the ship, or that ship’s captain.

The last thing he expects to find in a distant galaxy is the one thing he’s been missing on Earth.

Space / Time-Travel / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Enemies to Lovers

The cat is out of the bag by 28sunflowers

Harry somehow gets himself stuck as a black cat on Halloween and needs help from Louis to change back into his human form.

The problem is: Louis doesn’t even know witches exist, much less that Harry is one. And there’s also the fact he thinks Harry is ghosting him after they had sex for the first time.

So the situations isn’t ideal. But it’s okay. Harry will figure something out.

Light angst / Witch Harry / Potions Accident / Fluff and Humour 

[mrhrmrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr]

Hiii could I please get bnha & haikyuu matchup? Preferably with males pls. My pronouns are she/her. I am 5’4, an ambivert and a Latina. My enneagram is type 4. I have pale skin, mid-length brown wavy hair with bangs, and hazel eyes. I am described as someone who comes off as cold or aloof when I’m around people I don’t know. After getting to know me, I am the complete opposite. I’m just a bit shy at first lol. My friends have told me that I give good advice but like to joke about my stubbornness. I like to make people laugh and try to make the best of any situation. However I have a hard time expressing my emotions. I’m also described as easy going and fun to be around. I also love animals especially dogs.

I am a hip hop dancer and love to perform. Dance to me is very freeing and I'm usually dancing anywhere anytime haha. I choreograph a lot as well. I also enjoy reading could vary from manga to non-fiction. I love music especially hip hop, rap, & reggaeton. I also love to write music/poetry. At one point I was composing 2-3 songs a day but lately I've lost my creative streak. I never show anybody though since I’m really shy about it. I'd love to one day tho! I can be playful and love to tease my friends. I also really like to eat and travel. I am a bit of a homebody but I enjoy hiking because of the exercise. I really enjoy having deep conversations. I can’t stand people who bully others and people who are fake. I like to be honest and helpful in any way I can. My style is usually anything comfy/casual and I don’t really like wearing skirts or dresses. I speak English and Spanish (learning Japanese & Portuguese). I would love to learn ASL and Hawaiian one day as well. I enjoy watching crime investigations, probably one of my favorite things to watch.

I don’t really any fears, just not being able to accomplish my goals/dreams. I tend to daydream a lot and I’m also a big procrastinator 😭. I'm usually in my head a lot which tires me a bit. Alone time for me is definitely important. I would say my love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch. I’m usually really cold towards the person I like lol. Only because I test the waters to see if I should spend time and energy on them. I tend to be a bit jealous/possessive, not in an unhealthy way though. Just wouldn’t match with someone who is very flirty with other people lol. What I look for in a partner is someone that is selfless, mature and has depth to them. Also if they are really accepting because I’ve never had that growing up. I'm a bit touch starved lol. Thank you so much 💖💗💕

tl;dr Hinata Shoyo thinks your really cool and supports your goals/you in general fully. Tamaki Amajiki thought you were scary at first, but once you warmed up to each other he ally admires you, and thinks your cute.

Hope this is alright, still new to the whole matchup thing:

Haikyū!!:

I give you…One Shoyo Hinata

He may not always be the most mature person, even in the Haikyū timeskip, but he makes up for it in other ways.

You would probably meet after his first year, probably sometime between end of his second-timeskip around 2018.

Really depends on where you are, I won’t go to into detail seeing as some people might not want spoilers, I will put any spoilers down below the cut at the end of this.

If it’s during high school still, you might be a new manager for Karasuno, or even the manager of another team they are having a practice match with.

Just some things…:

> would love that you can speak multiple languages, he thinks it’s so cool that you can communicate to all kinds of people, and he’d probably ask you to teach him a little bit as well

> he probably wouldn’t care if you were ever distant/cold, he understands that it takes time for people to warm up to each other, (Kageyama, Kenma even, good examples there)

> if you told him/he saw/you showed him your dancing, he would probably be open jawed thinking stuff like “that- is so freaking cool!!!” yeah- mental exclamation marks.

> if you showed him how to do a couple moves? amazing, he’s gonna brag and go show his teammates tomorrow at practice what he learned how to do

> sometimes he can be a bit energy draining, but if you tell him you need alone time? he understands completely and will give you your time (might be a bit impatient in waiting for you to send him a message saying hi but he respects that all fully.)

> this dude would be so freaking supportive of you- I will go more on this below the cut for manga spoilers- but he’d just think your one of the coolest people ever

> if you do warm up to him, and decide “this is alright” he’d smile so big and just- hug you so tightly because he’s so happy you feel comfortable around him

> being the kind of person he is, he totally understands you wanting to pursue your dreams. he’d support you, your hobbies, all of it.

> if you told him about your song writing + that you’ve been a bit out of it in your writing he would beg you to let him read or hear some of your work (if you said no he’d understand but he’d still in his mind hope someday maybe you would), he’d ask if you wanted him to try and give you some inspiration, his first answer being “Volleyball!”

> he’s so freaking cuddly once he knows if your comfy with that, he’d hug you, hold you hand, all of that

> start of your relationship he’d definitely be blushy and a bit shy (girls though amiright?)

> he’d watch crime shows with you for sure, he might not share the same love for them, but he loves to cuddle up with you to watch them, he might play with your hair, he just likes to be near you to be honest

> he just thinks your freaking cool and really pretty

BNHA:

Ah hmmm…I give you one Tamaki Amajiki?

Its quite the flip around from Hinata but hear me out….

You are probably also a hero-in-training. You might training to be a more rescue based hero, knowing multiple languages you’d be good at containing a scary situation/containing the crowd. Good at calming people down to evacuate or get to safety..

When you meet to be honest he thought you were scary, shivering in his shoes,

as he gets to know you though, whether it’s from observing you or because Mirio or Nejire have tagged you along with them so he had no choice really-

he finds your not all that scary! The other too can be exhausting so you might drift off towards him for a chiller vibe…

Just some things:

> you’d probably bond over food a bit, and both having the want to stick up for others, (or a dislike for meanies).

> it would take a while for you Both to warm up to each other much/fully, but when you do its quite great

> A slower relationship for sure I think, even once your both more comfortable with each other, not a whole lot of affection at first though

> if you first initiated any affection (verbal or physical), he’d probably be a blushing mess, don’t worry though, he finds it easier to show not tell, so once you’ve talked about it to each other and he’s gotten reassurance from his friends, he’d probably be much more affectionate

> probably lots of comforting, cuddles, not a lot of public affection- he’d rather keep it behind closed doors. when your alone he loves to hold you hand or just pat your head, mostly small things but baby steps matter

> if you tell/show him your dancing he might be intimidate, he’d think it’s cool but he’d definitely have a little bit of a mindset about you like he does with Mirio, he loves and supports your dancing fully though

> same with your writing- if you showed him he would probably think “oh well now i have to add to my list of reasons my s/o is amazing.”

> food dates + movies/tv shows probably, he’d watch crime shows with you, he thinks they are interesting, he mostly loves the look on your face when your doing/watching something you love

> definitely lots of comforting him when he’s anxious

> he likes it when you speak in languages he doesn’t speak, he also likes to try and mentally guess what he thinks your saying

> you both need your alone time, so he gets that and respects your space, he hopes you’ll do the same

> he really understands your want to fulfill your dreams and goals, and he really admires you and thinks your really cute.

this was a little rushed and I probably could have found better characters-

hope this is alright if you want a re-match I can do that for sure <3

timeskip!hinata/manga spoilers below the cut

if you meet after high school:

> you both can speak similar language! (assuming that in this made up universe you have already learned how to speak the rest on your list..)

> imagine that cuddly hinata- but better. it’s the timeskip beef all the characters got like—

> if you met/were together when he was doing beach training, he would definitely try and teach you a bit of beach volleyball/indoors as well.

>when he goes back to japan and joins msby? you probably moved over there with him, if not you can probably make a long distance relationship work just fine

> he would brag to his new teammates so freaking much about you too, especially about your dance skills and how many languages you speak

> he’s just really proud of you tbh

> he understands your want to succeed/ achieve your dreams/goals, I mean he moved to freaking Brazil to help him achieve his, so i think he definitely relates

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers. 

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist.  The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence. 

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives. 

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology. 

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework. 

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives? 

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists. 

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year. 

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years. 

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network,  lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt. 

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.  

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”. 

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts. 

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back! 

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books. 

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t. 

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat. 

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful. 

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier. 

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

[mementofloreo-archived]

@sorrowmarked || smoochie prompts || hehehehehe[this is cut bc it is SUPER FUCKING long. This is literally the longest thing I've written for you I think]

His team has had a couple of practice matches against the soccer club from Ken's school since they both entered high school, in part thanks to Daisuke's friendship with him. Even without any influence from dark gears or things like that Ken has managed to remain an excellent player with a wide reputation.

Daisuke is unknown, of course. There was no soccer club at his middle school, after all, so he wasn't able to play competitively. He stayed on top of fitness training, even adopting some of the rigorous conditioning routine his sister had used for prep after being scouted by a pro team. Still, with no reputation to boost him he had to earn his place on the main lineup when he entered high school.

...Which he's done, really. He's far exceeded anyone's expectations, especially his own. His drive, his vigor, and his honest love for playing have earned him a lot of strong friendships, and apparently also skyrocketed the morale and motivation of his teammates on more than one occasion. They went from a club thought of as 'not bad, but nothing special' to semifinalists at the prefectural tournament all within the course of his first year. They'd lost to Ken's school, in fact, by a single point shave in the last two minutes of the match.

At his school, first years who join the club via application and not recommendation don't play starting positions in tournament matches(common practice, really). Daisuke still managed to distinguish himself, though. When he was played as a starter in practice matches against Ken's school he was usually placed in a midfield winger position. It gave him some flexibility for movement while relying on the one thing the coach and captain already knew he had, which was stamina.

When their first tournament rolled around, he was put in as a substitute for their attacking midfielder. The position was considered the playmaker, as far as team structure. They were responsible for helping to direct the flow of the team's offensive play, connecting the defensive positions to the forward ones and managing the support for the striker, who was the primary goal scorer(and the position he had played in elementary). For Daisuke, it felt like a test, an opportunity and a show of faith all in one, and so he'd pushed himself past his limits to live up to those expectations.

His fierce, quick, and precise play style coupled with his apparently 'freakish' stamina and adaptability in the position have since earned him a place as its starter as well as the team's vice captain in his second year.

When he was ten or twelve, he'd have been gunning for the striker position. It was flashy and considered the really 'cool' position in most formations.

Now, though, he's stopped caring about looking cool. He wants to play his best, he wants to have fun- and he wants the rest of the team to have those things as well. Realizing that his play sense and his technical skill are best suited to that position when those goals are in mind, he's both content with and proud of his current place.

Ken is a striker. And in their practice matches this season his team has, as usual, come out on top(even if it's usually close).

In the prefectural finals this year, Daisuke's team drags Ken's into a lengthy and brutal double overtime- in the pouring rain, no less. Everyone is exhausted, sore, soaked and filthy. Losing momentum, losing cohesion, desperate for a goal just so things will be over.

...Daisuke, though, ignores it. His burning legs, the sharp pain of his overworked lungs, the chafing of his drenched uniform, the slick ground beneath him and the way the water impedes the ball's movement. He puts himself in a mindset as if he were playing a one on one scrimmage against his sister. She's a professional player on a high ranking team in the highest tier women's league of Japan's professional circuit and has even earned a place on its national team.

If Daisuke's stamina is freakish, then Jun's entire spectrum of skill is on the same level as a natural disaster. The ferocity and lack of hesitation she shows on the field would terrify any normal high schooler, boy or girl, and even a lot of capable players from the men's league.

Which means that even a casual match against her demands ignoring his body's pleas for a break and pushing past its screaming to keep playing at his top form no matter how exhausted he is.

That's the extent he exerts himself to in that double overtime. He's in a state where he barely even registers physical sensation because he's so focused. He barely even registers the directional tips he shouts to the other mid and forward positions, and he doesn't register at all the captain calling for everyone to follow Daisuke's lead.

There's a single thought in his head: keep moving. If he stops or even slows down for just a split second, he knows he'll keep losing steam and he won't get it back. He has to barrel forward no matter what until the game is over. He doesn't pay attention to the faces or numbers of the opposing team. He focuses on keeping the ball in play, keeping his body in motion and staying at least aware of where his teammates are, though he doesn't differentiate between them very well.

When he scoops the ball right out of Ken's grasp, turns sharp, rockets past him, he doesn't know that it's Ken. He doesn't try to close the full distance to the goal either. The moment he sees a small gap in the defense he shoots. For the left corner and with every ounce of strength he has left.

The ball hit's the keeper's open palms- and blasts right through them like they're made of paper, making a loud snap sound and spinning against the net. Daisuke watches it sail in, speechless, and slowly he sinks to his hands and knees, well past being completely spent.

His awareness comes back to him gradually in the several seconds both the players and spectators are left in shock to process the split second reversal and upset of a team that made it to the nationals last year. Even the referees take a few second to declare the clean goal. But once they do, everything erupts around him.

He hears it, registers the shouting and the celebration, the exhausted and frustrated but still impressed acceptance of the other team. And he lets himself laugh breathlessly in relief, still completely unaware that he left Ken dizzily in the dust a few moments ago. Right at that second, he's mostly glad he still pre-medicates with his inhaler before any kind of exercise and keeps it on hand as a rescue. He's going to need it.

His teammates, bless them, have the presence of mind not to jump on him the way they would normally. The captain and Ken make sure he's not injured and help him to his feet, and once he confirms he can walk with some support they help him to the sidelines. The teams shake hands, exchange congratulations. Both for a hard earned victory and a well played match despite a loss. The coaches and officials are able to get the attention of the crowd enough to let the players have some breathing room for a few minutes.

Ken informs Daisuke of exactly what he did in those last few seconds while he digs for his inhaler and then takes a long drink from his water bottle. Daisuke is a little shellshocked by it all now that he's properly registering it, but he's happy all the same. He's helped carry his team to nationals, a first time accomplishment for them.

Moreover, he had the time of his life with this match, even as exhausting as it was. The frail little kid he used to be would never believe he could accomplish something like this.

He makes a note to himself to call Jun with the news- this isn't the kind of thing he should relay via text. She'd just drop everything and call him to yell about it anyway.

There isn't a formal locker room building at this field, but there's covered areas around the benches and a lot of the seating. Daisuke and a lot of his teammates take some time to rinse the mud and sweat off of exposed skin, towel off, change into dry shoes from their cleats, put their warmups on to keep from catching cold.

Everything is so hectic that when he finally shoulders his bag and shambles off the grounds a half hour later he's completely forgotten that Hikari was planning to try and be at the match.

So when he sees her he's not really shocked, but he does sort of stare at her for a few seconds, brainless.

She's been his girlfriend for less than three months. Having her so openly focused on him is still a new experience. In general he's really not used to being anybody's first priority. He still pinches himself sometimes to make sure he's not dreaming when Hikari ducks under one of his arms to curl against his side on the train or in front of the television.

Still, he manages a weary smile, and greets her. "I'm glad you managed to make it out," he says, and his voice is hoarse, "I know you weren't sure you'd be able to see the whole game, or even be here at all."

He lifts his neck towel and wipes some lingering rainwater off of his face.

...She's a little flushed, he notes. Wearing a decent raincoat and carrying an umbrella. She's just a bit damp, where he's still pretty drenched. (the moisture and humidity add just a touch of wisp to her hair though, lift it just a little from its usual straight line. It's cute.)

A half suppressed laugh trickles out of her as she looks up at him. Daisuke's not very tall- he's right around average height- but he's strong, filling out a lot as he nears the end of his growth period, so Hikari looks almost tiny next to him now. (She certainly feels delicate when he hugs her)

Her eyes are shimmering. It's easy to see she's feeling pretty emotional right now, and she still hasn't said anything. Daisuke rifles a hand through his hair awkwardly.

"...Uh...Hikari-chan?" He asks, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she blurts, beaming, "Sorry. You were just- you were incredible out there. I think you left everyone there starstruck."

"O-oh," he feels himself flush, "Y'think? Those last few minutes I was running on autopilot, so I wasn't really-"

The rest of whatever rambling he was launching into freezes and catches in his throat. If real life came with record scratches or freeze frames, this would be one of those moments.

She's usually the one to kiss him first. He's a little shy, still, not completely confident taking the initiative with affection yet.

But this is- she's never jerked him down by the collar before. Certainly not so suddenly and so sharply that he's actually unbalanced and brought in.

It's a hell of a kiss, to be frank. Firm, held out for so long, her hands moving to his shoulders, pulling herself in as close as she can until he has the presence of mind to lift her at the waist and kiss back.

He's outright dizzy when she finally lets him break away for air, and Hikari is flushed and beaming.

"Uh," he fumbles, "Oh, uh. Okay."

She peppers his face with short, sweet little pecks until he's laughing, and then she hugs him tight.

"I know how hard you worked to get here," She murmurs, "I'm so proud of you. Congratulations, Daisuke."

He tenses just a little in response. Hearing this kind of praise from anyone is always a bit of a tearjerker for him, but from Hikari it's a million times more significant.

"Yeah," He breathes, setting her down and holding his hand out for the umbrella. "...Let's get to the station, though. I want to get somewhere I can change into dry clothes. And then maybe pass out for a couple of hours. I'm beat."

[megashadowdragon]

ironwoods tragic fall from grace

comments on youtube

When a hero becomes the villain, all hell breaks loose. Especially when the fallen hero is general of the Atlesian army.

The only thing that I noticed was that Ironwood has constantly grown a Beard as time passes. He's slowly decending towards from Hero to Villain as a "Fallen Hero" Catagory. James Ironwood WAS a good man, utterly dedicated to protecting his people. It was with the best of intentions that he charged down the path he’s taken... but you know what they say about good intentions.

I didn’t think his semblance was much of a factor into his decisions before Vol 7 but now as he’s become more unhinged every chapter, it’s becoming even more strikingly obvious that he’s become a slave to it. The fact that his semblance increases his resolve to go through with bargaining with Watts, willing to blow up Mantle just to save Atlas.

He's like the antithesis of Leonardo Lionheart

You know, this is a really good counter for all those people saying Ironwood is suffering character assassination. He's not. He's giving in to fear and letting his worst aspects take command.

I’m personally asking again why would the writers talk about something like Ironwood’s semblance outside the show when for the most part the majority of people only watches the show, that’s like how the Russo brothers (the writers and directors of Avengers Infinity War and Endgame) choose to answer the hows and why on Twitter when the majority of people are only watching the movies I personally love those movies but it also would’ve been nice to see those things get explained or talked about in the movies just like how it would be nice to at least mention Ironwood’s semblance in the show

Honestly, I love what they're doing with Ironwood. His slow, inexorable descent into extremism is a wonderful exploration of how an idealistic person who believes themself to be the hero can tumble into villainy without trusting others to keep them grounded. It's the very real problem of the philosophy of "The ends justify these particular means;" if you can justify one morally gray decision to achieve a good goal, it gets easier to justify the next, darker gray decision. Without someone outside to call you on your bullshit, you're eventually justifying genocide because it will be for the "greater good."

Ironwood is literally the Darth Vader of RWBY. He starts of as a respectable character, commanding his own army for the good of all. But he gives in to all of his fears, looses a limb or 2, and slowly turns misguidedly evil, willing to kill ANYONE who stands in his way.

I've said before that Team Rwby is a foil to the Headmasters. Ruby keeping secrets like Oz, Leo/Blake, the faunus who ran away when things got hard, and Ironwood's parallel is Yang.

Not just obvious stuff, like both having metal arms. But both of their semblances are double edged sword. Yang get stronger taking damage, but if she leans on it too much, an enemy that takes one hit just destroys her since she can't fight back. Volume 4 has her training with Taiyang to correct this flaw in her thinking, leading to her overcoming Adam in her rematch in V6.

Ironwood's semblance can be incredibly powerful. Just off the top of my head, he basically no sells the Apathy, which is an incredibly dangerous Grimm in a group with other, stronger Grimm. But it has downsides, and we're seeing it. The correct way to use it is after you've made a choice, to focus on the task at hand. But making large choices while under the semblance is not smart. He's too focused on one action to see others that have opened. Atlas has to be raised, because that's what he's already decided to do. The idea that they've made contact with the world and reinforcements might be coming never entered his mind. Similarly, he's so focused on forcing Penny to heel that he's not seeing he has a chance to have her come willingly by aiding in Mantle's rescue.

He's so focused on winning this one battle (Having Penny raise the city to escape Salem immediately) that's he's making choices to doom the larger war (defending the kingdom's people, defeating Salem, reuniting the world).

He clearly knows that it isn't smart to rely on it this way, since he's shown the ability to take criticism and adjust his thinking in Volume 7 (Nora would've been Slate'd if he couldn't). But the combination of Yang/Blake going behind his back to tell Robyn, Ruby/Oscar not telling him the truth, Qrow seemingly killing Clover, and, right when he thought that he'd saved everyone, the idea that every single thing he's done might've been exactly what Salem wanted has fairly understandably shaken his faith in the others around him. He can't rely on them to rein him in, he has to do that... which is exactly the problem with his semblance. If the only person who can stop you is yourself, and you're convinced you're always right, you've doomed yourself.

I'm assuming that he could probably be talked down by Glynda or potentially Oz or Qrow (fat chance of that one) if they can break his aura, but as it stands, unless someone beats him down, he's not going to be able to stop himself.

With Ironwood I am reminded of a very profound quote from CS Lewis, that I feel summarizes him very well: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."Show less

Dude Ironwood didn't have a problem with trusting people and didn't have a mentality of not being able to trust people. He trusted to much and trusted people who both betrayed his trust (Yang/Blake) and didn't reciprocate the trust he gave them (Ruby and the rest of the main cast). Honestly, he would have been perfectly right to have immediately put the relic of knowledge into the vault at the start of v7 and then send the students on their way and have nothing more to do with them.

Ironwood saw Atlas and his fleet as a way to inspire hope. It's ironic that his plan was one of lifting them up so high that nobody would ever be able to see them anymore.

My only criticism with Ironwood is that I really really wish his semblance was brought up in the show. Are they ever going to bring it up? I absolutely LOVE how he has been written and watching his tragic descent into becoming a villain but having his semblance mentioned in show would be great. Is someone going to have to break his aura or something before he or someone else mentions it?

In a way he is. His semblance is a double edge sword, as someone in Ironwood's position is all about making calls. Ironwood was able to climb through the ranks because his semblance allowed him to follow through with his actions to save people (I also still wonder what happend to halve of his body as he already had a metal leg and arm in volume 2, we can asume the paladin project, but some confirmation would be wonderfull). Now he's following through on his words agains Salem, that Ironwood isn't going to let Salem take the relic of creation. Ironwood essentially only has this thought he is focused on and is disregarding everything else. Right now Salem is piecing herself together again and Penny is going to the vault, if Ironwood semblance of Mettle wasn't interfering he would be able to see the bigger picture of let Penny open the vault, take out the staff of cration and chuck whatever goop Salem is right now with the bit of land she is piecing herself on right now and throw that into the vault and close it for good by blocking off the entrance with concrete. Voila. Ironwood doesn't notice at this point his actions as he even thought councilman Slate, who was asking Ironwood to explain his action got put down by Ironwood himself. Same for Marrow later on, but Winter was able to step in. Ironwood needs to be saved from this mindset and I think the team up of Qrow and Robyn (also who ever was on the elevator, I think it was Winter and Marrow as Winter was taking him away to be put in jail) could save Ironwood to the point of breaking his aura that way the influence of Mettle will loosen.

Gonna be honest, I dislike the whole concept of his semblance and it being what's driving him to this is just dumb to me. I loved him as a character and this entire volume feels like every bit that made him an interesting character has been ripped away. It's likely just me, but prior to Oscar using the built-up magic to beat Salem it felt like they had painted themselves into a corner. Either Ironwood was proven right that some sacrifices had to be made for the good of the people, or Salem was going to be beaten and even if she can come back, she no longer feels like a huge threat to me. I loved Ironwood in volume seven and many of team RWBY's choices have infuriated me for how contrived and stupid they manage to be while also contradicting themselves so easily. To be frank, I feel like his semblance was just an excuse for this utterly stupid character assassination they're trying to justify.Show less

I kind of feel like the writers 'forced' Ironwood to become a villain. Some of his decisions just don't make sense.

[risingsouls]

@timeguarded​ said: [🍌 For each of the mains! o/]

Fruity HCs || Open!

🍌  :    is my muse inclined to help others,  or will they only do it when it benefits them,  if at all?  what makes them this way?  has it ever gotten them into trouble,  or inconvenienced them?

GOHAN

[100000% is inclined to help others, and it likely stems from several different aspects of his life. How he was raised is part of it: ChiChi taught him manners and to be respectful and it’s not difficult to see how Goku’s gentle soul rubbed off on him. People had also had to help him, many times in the form of saving his life. Thus, he feels he should pay that forward in whatever ways he can, even with total strangers. Probably the largest bit of his mindset and the accompanying hero complex (and I’ve talked about how it’s actually more prevalent in him than it is Goku before, but I won’t go too far into that here) is that he feels that someone with his power shouldn’t waste it. As much as a part of him longs for a normal, quiet life as a scholar, he knows it just wasn’t fully meant to be. While he may not be on the level of training and improving himself as his father or Vegeta, he still does maintain his training as well as he can while he studies and attends school. He wants to put that strength of his to use in protecting people, hence the undertaking the Saiyaman persona. With it, he can go out of his way to protect those in need with his unearthly power.

It has inconvenienced him before, but not in ways that frustrates him or stresses him out. In his mind, an inconvenience is a small price to pay for helping others. This can be problematic in that it makes it easy for him to forget to protect and care for himself, but he doesn’t really dwell much on that.]

VEGETA

[Basically the opposite of Gohan with a near hell no. Vegeta is selfish and self-serving. He lived a kill or be killed life for a good portion of his life, and, though he had Nappa, he was basically taking care of himself when it came to physical harm. In many cases, he believes that those that cannot take care of/handle themselves don’t deserve his help. Let some bleeding heart do it or they can suffer. However, if he finds that helping another would benefit him, he will begrudgingly do so. It is not usually out of the kindness of his cold, dark heart. In the slim chance that he comes to care for someone--and I mean really care--he might be more inclined to be more helpful, depending on what aid needs to be administered.

It has absolutely bit him in the ass, too. Perhaps not in as big of ways as it could (which is another conversation when it comes to how everyone handles Vegeta), but, as they say, karma is a bitch.]

BARDOCK

[Bardock is probably halfway between Gohan and Vegeta on this. While he won’t just go out of his way to help others, he will if he deems it necessary, especially if he has a close relationship with them. This has changed some since his past since his goals and mindset has changed due to finding out the truth about Frieza’s treachery, the slaying of his team, and coming to terms with the fact that what he did while working for the tyrant made him just as bad. In the canon I am making for him, he is going out of his way to help those who have suffered under Frieza’s rule and helping to liberate planets from the remaining grasp the Cold empire has. So it is sort of 50/50 with it being for his benefit or not: to some extent, it is without any real benefit to him, but, at the same time, he does get some satisfaction in dismantling the remnants of Frieza’s empire.

As far as it being an inconvenience, I don’t think he views it as such. He finds it annoying when he offers help and, because he’s a Saiyan and their kind were a big help in causing the destruction and expansion of the empire he now hopes to hurt. But he tries to be understanding of their viewpoint.]

NABOORU

[On this matter, Nabooru is about on equal footing with Bardock, if not a half-step higher. She is willing to help people and it likely stems from her struggles growing up. She has been without food and water, faced persecution, watched her people die from both of those things, and has dealt with plenty of her own personal miseries. She has a strong “don’t stoop to their level” and “I don’t want to see people suffer as I have” mentality that likely drives this. She is not against helping people in need for next to no benefit to herself, but she isn’t exactly inclined to go out of her way to do it. Unless they’re a Gerudo. Then she would give up everything (and has) to help.

Like Bardock, she doesn’t see any of it as an inconvenience. If she thought it would be too much (unless it was for another Gerudo), she would only help to the point that would soften the burden, help them on their way. When it comes to her people, it could be considered an inconvenience in the way that she felt she had to go so far as to commit treason, throw away everything she worked for, and as a result be essentially sentenced to what should have been death to protect them (the details on that in the next bit of the self-indulgent fic thing ;3 or probably in her bio, too). To her, though, she was doing what her duty to her people required her to.] 

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

What are your thoughts about how Dean's being treated in the narrative this season? I was excited starting out but so far, I've just been disappointed by how he just seems superfluous to the plot. And I don't understand why the writers seem to be taking shots at him in almost every episode. The Achilles' heel thing, putting responsibility for the rift on his shoulders (while Cas' part is handwaved away), Garth's snub in naming his children, his undisputed claim that Sam is better than him (1)

at everything, Fortuna’s insult…it’s just a lot. Maybe it wouldn’t be so jarring if Dean wasn’t the only character being consistently treated like that. To be fair, it hasn’t been all bad. I’ve liked some of his character development (although I find his new tendency to not voice his dissenting opinion a little worrisome, given his natural intuition) and there have been some awesome scenes like standing up to Chuck. But I just don’t know…(2)

Thank you for this ask! I think it’s an interesting thing to explore. I have been feeling a little iffy about some things this season, too, so I want to use this opportunity to sort through my own thoughts. It’s gonna get long so I’ll put a read more…

Let’s start from the easy part. 15x11: I don’t think that Fortuna was genuine when she made that comment about Dean, and we’re not supposed to take the beach read comment as a reliable perspective. All she does is a sort of test to read them; she lets both Dean and Sam win a match against her at first, as a sort of test but also as a trick to make her opponent confident and make him play again. Except that Dean’s second match is against a very talented player, and he wins not because he’s lucky, but because he’s genuinely skilled. He proves that his skills at pool - a shorthand for his skills in general, which they had been doubting of, wondering whether it was all Chuck - are real. 

Could skills beat luck? Probably not when luck is the goddess of luck herself, but I wonder whether Fortuna picked Sam as her opponent when stakes got high instead of Dean because she wanted to play against the less skilled of the two. I think that she’s playing them on and also off the pool table, and Dean realizes this when she goes “this one could be interesting”, you can tell from his reaction that he’s like “hey that’s a trick to play with the less skilled one of us” but Sam takes the bait. She also pretends to fall for Sam’s trick of distracting her by making her talk, just to reveal she can win whenever she wants to when the stakes are final. From what we’ve seen of her, I think we can infer that her modus operandi is to make people confident, so they’ll play again, higher the stakes, and then lose, not necessarily against her, just against someone, and lose their luck - she plays first with Dean when she doesn’t know who he is, and I assume it’s a common trick - let the newcomer win to stroke his confidence. (In gambling, the idea is to give players smalls wins to make them gamble more, and lose more.)

So, the narrative doesn’t give us any reason to believe that Dean isn’t right when he says that he is better than Sam at pool, and the point of the “beach read” comment is that he is not a beach read. Fortuna is supposed to be an unreliable narrator at that point, because she’s testing them. In fact, at the end, she rewards them on the ground of being “heroes”, which invalidates her previous statement, be it genuine or not.

Also consider that “sexy but skimmable” i.e. a pretty idiot, is the sort of taunt that Dean has received often in his life. If Fortuna is truly skilled at reading people, then she picks exactly something that has a history for Dean, and also something that has a history for Sam, i.e. that he’s more “interesting” (smart, skilled, whatever) than his brother. Coincidence?

That he’s pretty but otherwise worthless is something Dean has internalized by being told, not necessarily in words, over and over in his life. That reminded me of John’s old hunter friend who was like “didn’t you grow up pretty” and “if your father could see you now”. It took Dean a long time (and with plenty of fallbacks) to realize he’s more than a pretty face who follows orders. On the other hand, that he’s a more interesting “read” to Dean’s “beach read” is something Sam’s always had in his mind (he was the one who questioned the orders while Dean acted as John’s faithful little dog…) and it took him a long time, and some big blows to his own ego, to get out of that mindset.

So I don’t think it’s random that Fortuna goes for, you know, down with Dean and up with Sam, so to speak.

Dean’s statement that Sam is better than him at everything except pool - I read that as a very parental thing. It’s a very parent thing: telling your child that they’re proud of them for surpassing you. It should be the goal of a parent, you know, that your child is a better person than you - and a parent being like, you’ve become more skilled than me at my skills (except this one non-fundamental thing I can still kick your ass at :p) and I am proud of you, is a common trope.

So I read that as a small but very strong Dean-as-Sam’s-parent moment. Recently Sam also mentioned out loud that Dean raised him, so the writing team has not dropped this very important piece of characterization.

15x10. I think that the point is that Garth is Dean’s friend first and foremost. He doesn’t name his kids after his friends plural, he names his kids after the most important people for his friend singular. That’s how I read it at least. It’s weird because Dean hears one twin is named after Sam and assumes the two siblings are named after the two siblings, and the dissonance between his expectation and reality is what makes the humor. Also… Garth and Dean are a “who knows maybe in another life” kind of duo, you know…? They have a chemistry. Garth is Dean’s type, once you go past the appearances, and judging from Garth’s choice in wife, Dean’s pretty much his type too. You don’t name a child after that kind of person in your life.

Also, from a extra-diegetic perspective, Dean’s mirror is Gertie (from the name Gertrude meaning “strong spear/spear of strength”), the girl, because he’s always aligned with the feminine.

15x09. Now, this is the episode I’ve struggled the most with. Not sure if the problem is the episode itself, or the fact that the episode came after a season of the fandom acting a certain way towards Dean and Cas and their conflict, and that colored the episode a certain tint for me.

I’m kind of suspending judgement as I wait to see how the rest of the season goes and how Dean and Cas’ relationship develops, but my fear is that the narrative never really allows Dean to have emotions, so to speak, nor addresses Cas’ side of the issue(s). 15x09 itself is telling of a certain problem - Dean is experiencing certain emotions and going through a certain thing with Cas, but bam something happens that makes him terrified that he’s lost Cas again, and that forces him to scrap what he was going through. I’m not sure I’m explaining myself well here but bear with me.

He doesn’t get to sort through his emotions, he just goes in emergency mode again and the emergency just gives a yank to his emotions. I suppose the intent was “situation makes Dean realize he doesn’t want to lose Cas/he was wrong at making Cas the emotional scapegoat of his anger” but I don’t think it really worked. Dean was grieving and experiencing one of the most severe traumatic things in his life (actually, multiple at the same time). There’s no “right” or “wrong” in his emotions. I’m not saying that grief/trauma gives you a free card to be mean to others but… I mean, it does?? I think we’ve sort of created a culture of yelling “that’s abusive!!” at what are normal human experiences and expect that a person should act “properly” at all times. There’s a refrain of “x experience explains the behavior of y but doesn’t justify it!” which, sure, is valid with certain kinds of behavior, but there’s a whole jumble of normal human experiences in between “good” behavior and unjustifiable behavior.

Maybe I’m just culturally Catholic to the core, but all this pressure on Dean to beg for forgiveness for being harsh to Cas feels… iffy to me.

I guess I see forgiveness a bit differently, too, because I don’t think forgiveness - and especially when and how quickly you get there - is a choice. If Dean wasn’t emotionally ready to forgive Cas and open up emotionally to him again, then making him feel guilty for not being quick enough to get there is not exactly my idea of a healthy process.

Then there’s the “you didn’t stop me”, which, I get the whole thing behind it - Cas’ deepest fear is that Dean doesn’t care if he leaves, Dean’s deepest fear is that Cas is better off if he leaves, so, draaaama~~. But Dean has a history of people leaving him and feeling he can’t (isn’t worth) ask them to stay instead. Sure, it’s good drama. But I’m not sure that the narrative is allowing the space for understanding that Dean needs the emotional security of feeling like he’s worth to ask to stay just like Cas needs the emotional security of feeling like he has a place where he belongs and isn’t just a guest.

Again, I think it would be unfair to draw judgement of a narrative that is ongoing, and I hope that my fears are unfounded and the narrative will address what I wish it addresses! Of course with a little less than half a season still to go, emotional conflicts and character development can’t be wrapped up yet.

Another point you bring up is Dean’s reluctance to express his dissenting opinion. I do not think we have a pattern yet - his acceptance of Sam’s decision not to trap Chuck was intended, I guess, as a moment of growth in the sense that he acknowledged that Sam is a grown adult capable of drawing his judgement and make informed decisions, so he trusts Sam’s judgement and doesn’t drill him with questions. We still have to see how they all react to Jack’s revelation about Billie’s plan, so I would say to wait and see about that. Dean’s face at the end is not a “well this is excellent news” face, nor is Sam’s (who is framed after Jack talks about getting stronger, which is something Sam has a history with). Considering this season brought Lilith back, I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about Sam’s demon blood arc... I do wonder if Dean will avoid getting too confrontational with Cas, though. We’ll see.

Now, you say that he seems “superfluous to the plot”. I would normally say, well of course he’s superfluous to the plot, he’s the protagonist, he’s the one that reacts to the plot that happens around him. But I understand this is not the kind of answer you’re looking for. Honestly, I might be wrong, but I think that the first roughly-half of the season is the Male Part. The second part of the season should be the Female Part. In the first part, Chuck is rampant, Billie’s plan is dormant, Amara is minding her business and not being relevant to the plot, the plot is Sam-heavy, Rowena dies and reverts to playing a game of power, Mary is dead, Eileen is a piece played by Chuck. Now, with Billie’s plan being put in motion (although I don’t believe that’s the endgame or a Good Thing™ in unquestioning terms, but it’s still Death entering the game), I think a new phase should start. Dean confronting Chuck was already a start, and also how they got some support from a female deity that expressed negative opinions about Chuck -- I think that we’ve entered the second part of the season, and things are going to change. I’m looking forward to see what will be Amara’s role in all of this... especially considering that’s inextricably related to Dean’s role.

Feel free to ask for any clarification or addition or argument!!

[xxoxofemme]

My thoughts on 15.16

Hello lovelies! Welcome to my extremely biased review of Supernatural 15.16! Will probably be out of order to the episode because I'm an inconsistent bitch. So, let's start with the basis of the episode. Young Winchesters, flashback. This didn't feel like my boys, their dynamic was incredibly off. Dean called Sam names, tried to ditch him, and ignored him. We have been shown Dean in the past at this age before, and we know very well this is not how he treated his little brother. Now, yes, Sam is still greatly important to Dean, but at that age? Sam was his pride and joy, his everything, his Sammy was everything to him. And Dean would never, never treat him like that. I also wanted to point out it felt strange for Dean to connect so easily to Caitlyn and Travis. Sam I feel would want to help, but it felt odd for Dean to jump into opening up like that. With Robin in the previous flashback episode, (when he was nearly the same age as he is here!) It took weeks for him to open up, and even then he was still closed up. True, Robin wasn't in danger, but he still gave in to telling Cait and Travis extremely quickly. I think Dean, especially at that age, would not have jumped into that action without Johns explicit say-so. Another thing, is that this timeline is incorrect. In 'Just My Imagination' (11.09 I believe) we see Sam jumping excitedly to go hunt with Dean. True, Sam had been talking to Scully (is that his name? Me not fact checking names Im sorry) about possibly going to college, but at the end of the episode we see him saying "This, this is my life! I'm finally going hunting with Dean!" Sam was nine in that episode. And in this most recent flashback episode, we see him at ten years old. Now I'm aware of how much change can happen in one year, but over the course of 15 seasons I've seen how often Sam changes, how his goals and opinions evolve. He doesn't change an opinion that firm in less than a year. And yet, in 15.16 we have him holding onto hope of college and researching where he could go. We have previously been told Dean (and subsequently John) had no idea about Sams driving desire for higher education, only that he was a bright student who enjoyed learning. It hadn't occurred to them that Sam would truly ditch, even as much as he complained. It was part of why Sam was so cast out (as we are shown throughout season one) when he said he was leaving. To them, it was incredibly out of the blue. This goes against Dean finding out about Sams college research in the latest episode. This would mean Dean knew what Sam wanted, that Dean said "maybe" to Sams wish. Which we have had reinforced many times over that this didn't happen. See all of the early seasons. I understand that we have fifteen seasons and over three hundred episodes, but it frustrates me that there is such a glaring plot hole. Sams sudden 'abandonment' of the family business was such an important plot line in the early seasons and they truly went against much of it. Onto my next topic! Towards the end of the episode, Dean tells Caitlyn he is always afraid. Aside from the heartbreaking aspect, this is huge character development. Dean uses his macho, never afraid, badass male attitude as a shield, and we saw it crumble for a moment. Dean is tired of lying. He is tired of pretending everything is okay. And he might not have been able to open up to his brother just yet, but he let his facade crack for a moment and for once, admitted his fear. An important point is that Dean is likely to never seen Caitlyn again, never speak to her again. Not that Caitlyn doesn't matter to him, but in his line of work, it just isn't likely. He lives from one apocalypse to the next, and he still has the mindset that everyone he loves gets killed. So his confession, while greatly meaningful, doesn't mean he is getting to the point of succeeding at opening up to his loved ones. Still, though, I was very proud of him. Next next next. Onto Dean seeing his brothers dead body. (See, out of order I warned you of my sporadic nature)

This is one angle I see it as: And so, here is young Sam. Reminding him what it's like to lose a child who depends on you so deeply. Reminding him of how much his heart aches when he goes against what's true to him. And the trauma of seeing his brother, still his light after all this time, broken, mutilated, dead on a floor. Especially ten year old Sam? His love, his everything, still waiting for the torture he knows lies ahead? Perhaps this implies that Sam, still young at heart, still hopeful of the ways of the world, is still destined to meet and end like that. A pile of bodies, from a monster they could never understand. Except, many years later, it isn't a one off. It's God. That is so, so symbolic at a time like this. But, from another point of view, I offer this: This may not even about Sam. This could be about Jack. Dean has just been told Jack is going to die, and Jack is like his kid at this point. And Dean is terrified of losing another kid. But Dean still can't, he won't let himself feel that way about Jack. So his subconscious puts forth Sam, because Sam has truly always been his kid. His brother, yes, but Sam was basically his child. This is a way his subconscious and the storyline is reinforcing: A) Sam is like Deans child as well as his brother. and B) Dean feels that Jack is his kid but can't let himself admit it. No matter who the writers meant for us to interpret the moment as referencing, we still end up with the same message.  It's about the vulnerability of caring for someone with such a tragic ending. It's about trusting yourself enough to allow bad things to happen, knowing you will fix it in the end. It's about the horrors of life and how you fight them. It's about family. *checks notes* Onward we go! Now about my very favourite part of the episode: Sammy cracking. We haven't seen Sam that angry, that out of control, yelling, wrecked, at this brother, in a very long time. While I understand Deans point of view, while everyone has right to everything they're doing, I was, I am, shocked and impressed of Sams reaction. That was raw, true emotion. He was furious, at a loss, and Jared played it beautifully. The tension in that scene was incredible and J2 knocked it the hell out of the park. As for Dean, we have seen Dean like this before, many times over. Making the wrong choice for the right reasons. He has a mindset of doing the hard thing for the right people. And right now the stakes are higher than ever. He is screaming at himself just as much as Sam, that they don't have a choice. He doesn't have a choice. Losing Jack, it has to be worth it, they have to save the world. A lesson that they never seem to learn is that they can't save the world without each other. Their motivations and emotions, morals, and breaking points, are all interlaced in unexplainable ways. Pull one thread, take one of them out of the equation, and it's all going to go to hell. Now I didn't say this was healthy, but co-dependency is all that they know. It's all that they are, and they rely on it (each other) to function. Dean has to realize he needs Jack, Jack is a part of them, and finally as a team they can fix it. Dean currently can't accept this. He is holding onto his anger like a birthright, like a saviour, because anger is the only thing he feels he can rely on. So he is taking his self conflict out on Sam. He always takes it out on those he loves. Dean is no stranger to self conflict, self hatred. And he takes it out on Sam, or he smashes the shit out of Baby, he ignores and pushes Cas away. This is how Dean copes, and Sam knows it. Sam usually takes it. Braces for the punches and stands his ground. But now, now Sam is cracking. Sam is breaking, and he can't hold on anymore, he can't shove it down and bite his tongue and take it. He explodes, he shows, he tells Dean he can't believe this. It's so powerful from both ends.

The dynamic right now, with four episodes left, is a bomb-field. Dean was lying to Sam about Jack dying, Cas is lying to the brothers about the Empty deal

still angry with Jack and Cas about what happened with Mary, Dean is lying to Amara and Billie, Cas is lying to Billie and telling Jack to not spill the beans about his deal. No one is on good terms, and those who are, their relationships are about to blow up. The team can't handle that right now, they ALL need to come clean, and be on the same page. They don't have time for tears, for punches, for screams. They need each other in this final run. They are all each other have.

Aaaaaand that was my thoughts and meta about 15.16. I love y'all, feel free to leave your thoughts or ask my opinion on something else. Have sweet dreams, a good day, a pleasant beginning, and a happy ending.

See you, sweethearts.

[darkpoisonouslove]

If someone can explain to me why I waited all day to start writing only when I needed to go to bed and am still awake three hours later, that would be great. I did manage to bring my plans for today to fruition, though, which leaves us with these:

Griffin has started her evening ritual when Faragonda shows up to offer a hand in more than one way.

29 - preparations

A little gust of magic caressed her senses. The energy was calm and flowed easily through the air, reaching her and making the knots her nerves had been tied into come undone just like her brush was doing with her hair, although it was way more pleasant that the pull on her purple strands.

“Need some help with that?” Faragonda asked, stepping closer. She’d barely arrived and she was already offering her assistance, making all troubles seem far and inconsequential.

Griffin didn’t fight the smile pulling at her lips. “Well, I don’t need it, but it would be very much appreciated,” she said, her fingers opening to allow Faragonda to pull the hairbrush out of her hand when she’d barely finished her sentence. It just made the smile widen, especially when she caught Faragonda’s look in the mirror.

“It will be my pleasure,” Faragonda said as she tangled her free hand into the purple locks and gently combed the hairbrush through them, making Griffin close her eyes to enjoy the moment fully. “You seem content,” Faragonda noted with discernible smugness in her voice.

“Why wouldn't I be?” Griffin asked, letting herself just enjoy the moment and passing up the opportunity for some playful banter. All she needed currently was the gentleness with which Faragonda was brushing her hair.

“You mean that as long as I’m here all the troubles stay away?” Faragonda asked, but the smile that could still be heard in her voice was somewhat more insecure now. As if she had doubts about the effect she had on Griffin. Or it was simply that her own troubles couldn’t melt away just because she was in the arms of someone who loved her. Either way, it was concerning to a point that Griffin couldn't allow.

“You mean that my presence doesn’t make you forget your problems?” she teased as she opened her eyes to look for a reaction, hoping to lighten the mood and tell Faragonda everything she needed to hear. They’d never needed to speak to communicate but she was prepared for a heartfelt conversation if that was what was necessary to disperse the clouds over Faragonda’s mind.

The smile that appeared on Faragonda’s face was enough to let her know she’d succeeded. “I would never dare to insinuate that,” she teased back, making Griffin roll her eyes playfully at the feigned fear of her.

She reached behind and caught Faragonda’s hand, waiting for her to untangle it from her hair so that she could lace their feelings together. “Good,” she said, making sure to hold Faragonda’s gaze in the mirror, “because I need your whole focus while you’re helping me with my evening routine.” She placed a kiss on the back of Faragonda’s hand to show her gratitude in advance.

Faragonda sighed dramatically, looking to the sky as if it could open and suck her up to save her from Griffin’s special brand of sweet torture. “Magic rituals require less preparations than your bedtime does,” she whined while she kept brushing the purple locks which defeated the purpose of her complaining.

“Shut up,” Griffin pulled her hand out of Faragonda’s, trying to play offended but the laughter bubbled in her, making the task impossible. “I’m doing all of this to be beautiful for you,” she said, immediately regretting the words when her voice got smaller, the insecurities the existence of which she was doing her best to deny jumping on her despite the playful tone of the conversation, threatening to ruin everything with her own fragility that she hated so much.

“You’re always beautiful to me,” Faragonda said, having sensed where her mind had gone to, but that only made Griffin look away since she didn’t want to face her own weakness in the mirror. She had enough of that every morning. “Griffin, look at me,” Faragonda urged softly, both of her hands on Griffin's shoulders now, even if she was still holding the hairbrush, and compelled her to comply with the request. “Always,” Faragonda said, her gaze so intense that it was impossible for any doubts not to crumble under it.

Griffin felt her whole face soften as her heart relaxed. “Sweet talker,” she murmured as she couldn't quite find it in herself to give the charade her everything when Faragonda had genuinely touched her. But accepting reassurance meant admitting the insecurities had gotten the best of her and she wasn’t ready to admit that defeat.

“Well, I don’t need to talk to convince you of how beautiful you are,” Faragonda said, knowing her well enough to not get offended even when Griffin was slightly offended by her own behavior on her behalf.

She raised her eyebrows and let her lips form a silent ‘oh?’ that was that much more comedic for it before turning around in her chair to face Faragonda. “I might give you a chance to prove that claim to me if you ask nicely,” she said, pulling the hairbrush from Faragonda’s hand in an invitation to make a move and employing her magic to drop it off on her vanity.

Faragonda didn’t need more. She leaned down and captured Griffin's lips in an intense kiss while she tangled her hands in the purple locks, pulling on them slightly as she did so and making Griffin moan in her mouth as sign number one that she believed her. And if she knew Faragonda, she wouldn't stop before she’d gotten at least, like, a hundred of those and made her forget everything from her insecurities to her unfinished evening ritual.

Griffin has already sacrificed her tomorrows with Valtor in order to allow him to take away her tomorrows with Faragonda too.

22 - tomorrow

The steps approaching her were quiet enough not to disturb the natural peaceful state of the library–or at least not to disturb it more than her own sobs that she’d tried to suppress but some had gotten away from her–and that gave away who they belonged to. She’d thought that she’d be alone in the library in that late hour but Faragonda always knew when something was wrong with her so when she hadn’t found her in her room, she’d also known where to look for her.  

Sure enough she felt her friend’s gentle touch on her shoulder before Faragonda sat down on the floor next to her slumped form. And as much as she’d wanted to be left alone she could never make herself shrug off Faragonda’s hand because nothing was stronger than their friendship. Not even guilt or self-loathing.  

Griffin looked up at Faragonda and even though her vision was blurred from the tears and her glasses were all covered in water drops, she could still see Faragonda’s eyes darken as she sensed the direction of her thoughts.  

“You’re crying because of him,” she didn’t try to stall or be roundabout and the way she spat out the pronoun made Griffin afraid to think of how she would've said his name. It reminded her too much of the hatred her own heart held and it was a pain that she never wanted to let Faragonda go through. “This is all on him. He’s a monster,” Faragonda said, her grip on Griffin's shoulder tightening slightly as if in an attempt to get the words through to her. And it was far from hurtful–she doubted Faragonda could ever harm her no matter how far either one of them would let herself go–but it was still alarming with the potential for destruction it carried. Potential that couldn't be in Faragonda’s hands.

“He is,” Griffin said through heaving breaths, the images flashing through her mind more than enough evidence of that, painting a perfect picture of his crimes and everything he was capable of. And her heart hurt, burned by her own feelings. “He is the monster that I love,” she said, cutting her gaze from Faragonda’s because she couldn't take the chance of seeing some more hatred in her friend’s eyes. Even when she knew Faragonda would never hate her no matter what she’d done. “Because I’m a monster too.”

“That’s not-”

“Yes, it is,” Griffin interrupted her because everything Faragonda would say was biased. And they had a real problem when she was the objective one. “Valtor kills whoever gets in his way to accomplish his goal,” her hand closed in a fist,clutching tightly at the fabric of her dress to keep herself out of the past when she’d seen no problem with that. Not because she was disgusted by the memories but because she was afraid she’d forget why she should be. “I have killed people who were in my way to accomplish my goal,” and she’d seen no problem with it right up to the very end, right until she’d realized how far that mindset could take you. Genocide had been her cutoff point this time, but if she fell into that madness again, she couldn't be certain that she’d be able to stop herself once more. “We’re one and the same. It’s why we made such a great team.” It was why she still missed the intoxicating feeling of their partnership. Of everything that had come with it from the good morning kisses to the heartless killing, it had all been a part of the heaven they’d built for themselves while chasing their common goals.

“You’re not like him,” Faragonda said as she grabbed at her shoulders as if to shake her out of those thoughts and she held on to her even if she didn’t quite want to leave them. Just like she hadn’t wanted to leave him. She hadn’t wanted to leave her everything behind. And she sometimes still wanted to go back, held back only by the fact that he’d never take her and that would break her heart worse than being away from him burned. “You left him because you’re better.” She was burning in agony because she wasn’t. She’d never been.

“That difference is just a product of circumstances,” she said, her voice steady now and the tears drying because she’d never been more sure of anything in her life. He’d been raised not to feel, not to care and not to value life. She hadn’t, and yet, she’d been right there with him, at his side the entire time. And in a sense that made her worse than him. Because he didn’t know any better, but she did. She did and she’d still crossed the line and her own boundaries. And she couldn't blame him for that, or her love for him. She could only blame her own heart that had been full of too much pain and hatred and she’d allowed it to go numb while simultaneously drawing from the negative feelings to feed her magic and make herself a threat to the innocent.

“You love him still?” Faragonda asked, and there was no judgment in her voice or her eyes just like Griffin had known there wouldn't be. And she couldn't tell if it was relief that filled her or guilt. Because she didn’t deserve that treatment but she wanted it too much to refuse it with her selfishness. She’d let herself become the worst possible version of what she could be and Faragonda still regarded her as a friend. Because she was still her friend, even when she was at her worst.

She did. She did love him and it hurt but it was better that way. It was better to hurt from love than from hate. She’d learned that now and it was a valuable lesson that managed to give some meaning to her life and the cycle of agony it had become.  

Faragonda’s hands fell away from her shoulders, making her heart skip a beat from the uncertainty that washed over it. “I swore to myself that I’d kill him,” Faragonda said, making Griffin flinch with how slow and serious the words were, definitely well thought out and not just a show of impulsivity, “but I can’t take him away from you.” Faragonda looked down, as if ashamed from herself, and for the first time in their friendship Griffin wasn’t quite certain she knew what stood behind the action. For Faragonda was certainly not joking about her decision, so perhaps she was ashamed of the possibility of her actions hurting Griffin.  

“He took himself from me,” Griffin was quick to say to reassure her, to reassure them both.

Valtor wouldn't be any more lost to her if he were dead than he was now. But she knew she still wouldn't be able to accept it. Her heart would still fill with resentment for Faragonda if she killed him, for it would be like having a part of it torn away and she’d need something to fill the bleeding, gaping hole left in the place of her love. And she couldn't afford that. She couldn't afford more hate.  

“However, I’m asking you not to do it.” She hesitated for a moment before reaching to take Faragonda’s hand in hers. The gesture drew too much of her attention to the fact that her hands were stained with blood but that was the least of her concerns right now. “Not because of me but because of you.” A lie wasn’t such a big deal after all the other crimes she’d already committed. The truth that would break Faragonda’s heart was more concerning but the only way to be selfless now was to be selfish. Or at least that was what she liked to believe. “It’s so hard to begin every day knowing that you’re the reason someone has no tomorrows,” she said, not sure whether looking at Faragonda or not would be better, but she couldn't look anyway so that solved the problem even if it was the solution that only served her, “knowing that you’re the reason there’s a corpse with no soul out there.”

Faragonda squeezed her hand, not allowing her to sink into the memories of all the terrified faces that had come to terrify her in her dreams. It was not quite in her ability to tell whether it was done in support or in search of such and she allowed herself to interpret it as both, giving herself permission to be selfless and selfish with the presumption that that was what Faragonda was doing. Even though she couldn't remember a single time when the fairy had been selfish and hadn’t had her best interest in mind, but she chose to ignore the knowledge that she was just projecting to assuage her own conscience when she had to be a good friend.  

“Valtor may be a monster but he has enough of a soul for it to weigh on your conscience.” Breaking his heart still weighed on hers, and she’d only killed him figuratively. Though, knowing him, that was probably worse. But it was all her good intentions ever led to, and she had no choice but to live with it, because her bad intentions always led to worse. It was the one word that described her perfectly. She was a witch, but she wasn’t evil. She was worse. “Don’t do that to yourself,” she said as she locked eyes with Faragonda. Don’t make me lose you, the voice screamed in her head, but she held it back in one last attempt to put someone before herself for a change. She’d already lost Valtor, and she’d lost herself. She couldn't lose Faragonda too. It would be too much. There would be no tomorrow for her if that ever happened.

It seemed to work as Faragonda drew her into a hug, even if only due to the fact that Faragonda’s best interest coincided with hers this time. It still allowed Griffin to breathe deeply, though, as she wrapped her arms around Faragonda, trying to keep her safe as much as she was holding on for her life. For the sun would keep coming up every morning as long as Faragonda was there with her.

[themattress]

Rewatch: My Bride is a Mermaid Ep 23 - 24

Two episodes that are absolutely hilarious...and then sucker-punch you HARD with Feels.

Episode 23: The Man Without a Past

The episode opens up with a Masa Today, which launches us right into the main conflict: Masa is revealed to have no memories of his past beyond when he began working for the Seto Gang 10 years ago. At the same time, Akeno reveals that she is searching for her older brother, who disappeared 10 years ago while on government business to the Seto Inland Sea, and she wants to kill him for bringing shame upon the Shiranui family...and on a more personal level, for abandoning her. Yeah, anyone can see where this is going: Masa is Akeno’s brother who got amnesia after being struck in the head by a drunk Gozaburo. Desperate to save Masa’s life, Nagasumi and Gozaburo team up to stop him from recovering his memories, but their crazy attempts only end up causing that very thing to happen.

There is a lot that is funny in this episode: Gozaburo and Nagasumi actually needing to work together for a common goal, Sun constantly addressing Akeno as “Aki” which she never did before and never will again as though she just randomly decided she’d give Akeno a pet name for that day and that day only, Akeno briefly losing her memory and reverting back to her 4 year old state of mind, and the ultimate pay-off to Nagasumi’s homoerotic feelings for Masa with him pretending to be outright in love with him in order to keep his memories suppressed...a choice that he is seriously, hysterically regretting by the end of the episode.

But when Masa actually recovers his memories, the episode takes a shocking turn into true emotional sincerity. Masa has a mental encounter with his past self and expresses shame and disappointment in his whole existence being nothing but a lie, and he is willing to fade away to give the original persona his body back. His past self, however, makes him see all of the friends - family, really - that he made in the 10 years he’s been around, telling him that he can’t just disappear from their lives. And so it’s his past self that fades away, with parting words asking Masa to be there for his sister. Akeno, in 4 year old mode, is crying for her big brother and it’s legitimately heart-wrenching: for all her teenage self’s declarations of hatred and a desire for fatal vengeance, deep down all she really wants is to have him back. Masa goes over and hugs her tight, saying that even if he’s not the brother that she remembers, he wants to be the brother that she has now. And at the end, he even tells the guilt-stricken Gozaburo that he bears no grudges toward him for accidentally causing him amnesia, and that he loves him, Sun and the whole Seto Gang. It’s beautiful, and it actually got to me.

Can the show possibly top it? Yes. Yes, it can.

Episode 24: Farewell, My Friend

Kai Mikawa and Hideyoshi “Chimp” Sarutobi have consistently been two of the most unlikable characters on this show, but this episode pulls off one of the best redemptions for jerks that I have ever seen, up there with Eddy from Ed, Edd n’ Eddy and Lars from Steven Universe. And it must be noted that it’s the other episode in this anime that has no basis in the manga, which means this show’s writers must be applauded for pulling such a fantastic turnaround. 

It starts when Kai, in a typical narcissistic mindset, is trying to hide the fact that he was visiting a hospital because he’s developed a boil on his butt. While the rest of his classmates actually guess that this was the case, Chimp refuses to believe it because he’s grown to care for Kai as a true friend and doesn’t think he would keep information from him unless it was something serious. This leads to Chimp staking out the hospital and overhearing part of a conversation that makes it sound like Kai has something terminal. He confronts Kai about it and Kai, thinking Chimp knows the truth about his “ass acne”, swears him to secrecy, which Chimp takes as Kai being so noble that he doesn’t want everyone else distraught and worried over him. However, Chimp is unable to keep this promise as he has to tell his classmates what’s going on so that they won’t act antagonistic toward Kai even when he’s being a jerk. This info then spreads to the rest of the class, and to the teachers, and to the whole freaking town, with absolutely everyone pitching in to pamper Kai and celebrate his existence in order to make his “last days” the best possible for him. What a wacky misunderstanding, eh?

But even amidst the natural humor in this situation, legitimate character insight is being given to Kai. As an agoraphobic who grew up around a bunch of yes-men, Kai has developed the belief that nobody loves him naturally and that he can only get love through flaunting his money, his good looks, his material goods, etc.  And from this he developed an entitlement complex when he feels he isn’t being given his rightful due from others. So when everyone starts showering him with love and kindness, he can’t recognize it for what it truly is and instead thinks that everyone has just “come to their senses” and are treating him the way he “deserves” to be treated. Even when he learns of his “terminal illness” from a TV report, he can’t connect the dots between it, the way people have been treating him, and how they feel about him - he’s too consumed by the horror of believing himself to be dying. The fear turns to sadness, and then to anger and hatred toward one target: Nagasumi Michishio. Kai decides that if he’s dying, then he wants to take his rival whom he is so envious of with him.

A showdown at high noon ensues, with Kai even taking off his protective space helmet and suddenly having white hair for...reasons. But Nagasumi’s improved reflexes from all the time he’s spent dodging attacks across the series combined with the emotional breakdown Kai is having leads to Nagasumi being victorious. The scene transitions into a huge tear-jerker once Kai begins sobbing and admitting what his real problem is: he genuinely thinks he has no real friends and no-one that truly loves him, whereas Nagasumi does and he’s jealous of that, and the thought that he’s now going to die without that being rectified while Nagasumi gets to live a Happily Ever After with Sun is more than he can bear. “SOMEONE LOVE ME BEFORE I DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!” he screams up toward the sky, all onlookers choked up with pity.

With Sun and Nagasumi leading the way, all of Kai’s classmates gently protest his claims: they’re his friends and they love him, they wouldn’t have done all that they’ve done for him if that wasn’t the case. And Kai never needed to ask for love from them, or buy it from them, because otherwise that isn’t really love. Sun may not love him romantically, but she still loves him all the same, and so does his rival Nagasumi which is the whole reason why he even accepted his potentially fatal challenge. And then the episode delivers the biggest gut-punch when Chimp, fucking CHIMP, rushes to Kai’s side, crying his eyes out as he declares that he loves him more than anything in the world and that if he could he’d gladly take his place and die instead of him. In-universe, this is what fully breaks Nagasumi, who has to turn away as he begins sobbing uncontrollably (MAJOR props to Eric Vale and Anthony Bowling’s voice-acting; they sell their emotional lines in this episode and especially in this scene perfectly.)

Kai flashes back to the various times he’s hung out with his classmates and realizes that he was never alone, he never lacked love and friendship. He was just too self-absorbed to recognize what was right in front of him the whole time. As he lays down to die, he sums it up by saying “All of you have shown me how big your hearts can be...but me, all I did was show you how small mine was.” He apologizes to Chimp for taking him for granted, saying that he’s the best friend a guy could have, and then he thanks Sun and Nagasumi and tells them to be happy together. And then...he passes on. OK, not really, but the scene plays it totally straight and does it so well that for a moment you might actually forget that his terminal illness isn’t real and was just a misunderstanding. Naturally, this creates a huge mood whiplash when we suddenly get the final scene where the status quo reasserts itself at school, with everyone hilariously reacting to the fact that they went through all that emotional turmoil for nothing.

But as we’ll see in the two-part series finale, Kai and Chimp have come out of this experience somewhat changed: they aren’t the complete pricks they were before and even play a major heroic role, with Kai especially showing how much both Sun and Nagasumi mean to him. While Chimp on his own still isn’t a particularly good character, he is an excellent accessory to Kai, whom this anime has made one of the strongest characters in the cast over the course of just this single episode. Kai, you definitely have my love. (And Kai/Chimp OTP 4evah!)

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #104

UPDATE 104: Dragon Hits Hard

Last time Skitter, Regent and Imp had managed to find Heckpuppy, who was fighting a suit that regenerated endlessly. They manage to convince her to run away, so now they’re leaving, or at least that was the plan until they stumbled upon the suit they feared a lot. How shall they face this? How is the suit even like? Let’s see.

From what I’m reading here, it seems like this Azazel suit looks more...organic than the rest of Dragon’s suits? More lifelike, so to say. The hide even gets wrinkles in the right places, and the insides are so tightly-knit it’s impossible for her bugs to do anything. This was the work of two weeks yet the rather competent team of Armsmaster—I mean, Defiant, and Dragon managed to make quite the feat!

Ah, looks like Taylor somehow deduced how that was possible!

A thought dawned on me.  It was a half-formed thought up until the moment I devoted some attention to it.  Then it clicked.  Tinkers had a knack, a specialty, be it a particular field of work or something they could do with their designs that nobody else could, and I knew Dragon’s. She could intuit and appropriate the designs of other tinkers.

Soooo what I’m understanding here is that Dragon managed to intuit and appropriate Defiant’s tinker techniques and used them to accelerate the building process so they could make the suit the Azazel suit. In that case, if they have enough resources and materials, it should be rather easy for them to make more and more suits of excellent quality. They may actually have a chance against the Slaughterhouse Nine, especially since Dragon is, well, an AI and therefore is never in direct danger. I hope to hear about how she and Defiant tries that, it should be interesting!

Skitter thinks about it all in ways that show how Dragon has been using other tinkers’ inventions, and that it was why she had joined the heroes. It not only gives her access to the Protectorate’s tinkers, she also can get her digital, most likely inexistent hands onto any villainous inventions the Protectorate confiscates. We should all be glad she’s not part of Cauldron or even remotely affiliated to them or she’d have access to even more tinkers and their skills. I can’t imagine any situation she’d accept being part of Cauldron, thank goodness.

This realization makes Skitter feel like she’s against a very invincible foe, but it’s not like they can afford to lose. Either they defeat Dragon oooor...well...then everything they worked for is useless. Coil won’t be happy about it and Dinah will be still captive. What’s more, I think the Undersiders and the Travelers would have reasons to fear for their lives, given their failure would mean Coil’s plans would vanish into nothingness. Hmmm...this isn’t something his powers could stop unless the last time he used his power was a couple weeks ago or so.

Also, the Slaughterhouse Nine’s visit was just two weeks ago. Boy does time move in mysterious ways in this story.

If I was even close to being right, then Dragon was the incarnation of why tinkers were so dangerous.

It really is. She’s feasibly the result of a tinker’s work, given she’s an AI and I doubt she materialized in a random hard drive one day, so she really is the incarnation of everything a tinker is capable of. Quite the fearsome enemy for the Undersiders.

As expected, the first thing the Azazel suit does is counter Skitter’s bugs, because by now that’s a requirement when Skitter is in a fight. How shall it be done this time?

Turns out I was wrong, the suit isn’t immediately countering the bugs. What it’s doing is use Defiant’s trademark nanomachine supercutting to set up arenas and limit the target’s movements. No word on how tall these barriers are, but I suppose they’re reasonably tall, enough for pretty much the above average villain to not be able to go over them. Skitter’s giant beetle is likely to not be around and even if it was, when it approaches the suit would take measures to squash it. It has been...what, three seconds? And Azazel already has the advantage. Figures.

That wouldn’t stop Siberian though. What technologies had I seen that they might use against her?  Or was it a technology I hadn’t seen before?  There were some ugly possibilities there.  Something long ranged that could take him out before he could get to cover?  A microscopic form of attack that could fill the air and debilitate him if he wasn’t in an airtight container?

Well it’s true these barriers won’t be effective at all against the Siberian’s form, but they sure would be very effective against the Siberian’s real body. By now I’m sure they know they have to track down the real body in order to really be able to do anything.

“Just don’t touch it,” I told her. “Not even in a joking way.  You’re likely to lose your finger or your hand before you realize something’s wrong.”

Now that I think about it...the Azazel suit wouldn’t have any compunctions about killing, no? Because it’s made to go against the Slaughterhouse Nine. Otherwise I’d consider how feasible jumping into the barrier to put yourself into mortal danger is, to stop the attack. Then again, that likely would end with the loss of a limb, a hand or something, and that’s just not worth it for a quick ‘hey gotcha’ unless you can get a quality prosthetic that’s better than the original limb.

Seems to me like the idea of putting themselves in danger did at least cross their minds. It’s ruled out precisely because of what I had said, because these machines are made to be lethal against the Slaughterhouse Nine, but they think they’re holding back anyway. Maybe because the Undersiders aren’t as big of a threat as the Slaughterhouse Nine. True, our dear villain protagonists have made quite a name for themselves but they’re dangerous to Brockton Bay, not to the entire world.

“So what do we do?”

“It’s still a machine, a well made machine, but it’s a machine.  We can break it, given an opportunity.  But our number one goal is going to be keeping it from catching us out of position and walling us in.”

I don’t think breaking it is going to be much of an option, given their shortage of offensive options other than Heckpuppy’s dogs and Shatterbird’s glass. The dogs may have a bit of a chance, but the glass...that may not. True, Shatterbird hasn’t been with the Slaughterhouse Nine for a while already, but maybe they have a counter for that already.

Their options to move the fight somewhere else are kind of limited. Thankfully, looks like they have a lot of time to discuss because the suit is doing nothing? Sure there’s a lot of conversation going on! Either way, going to the rooftops is something she’d like to avoid, as that makes it pretty difficult to get away. I think I can see the logic. At least when she’s on surface level she can have some hiding places in buildings and alleyways.

Heckpuppy’s henchmen are left behind because this will be an important fight and therefore it’ll be Undersiders only. Going in! So of course, the universe has to throw a curve ball. The suit that deploys drones is approaching. Hmmm...kind of redundant. Both Azazel and the drone suit seem to specialize in limiting the opponent’s movement. But hey, it’s still bad news.

Facing a choice about what suit to encounter first, Skitter decides Azazel is the one to face right now. They move towards it and...well...turns out maybe the suits are trying to round them up together, most likely for ease of capture. I saw that coming, really.

Drones incoming! Nanomachine barriers incoming! A potential route is open, from what I can tell I believe Skitter’s idea was to limit the suits’ movement, because she got into a dilapidated minimall. Some drones follow her and Heckpuppy, one of them reaching our dear valiant protagonist. Bam! Iii hope she has a plan because this isn’t good at all. Her suit’s going to defend her against the drone’s electricity, but any distraction or moment of weakness will be her doom.

Being in this minimall didn’t stop Azazel, though. It shone, and then barriers came out of the ground. Oh goodness, this went pear-shaped faster than I thought it would. We’re not even halfway into this chapter! She’s surrounded by Defiant’s nanomachines technology, and it’s looking pretty damn fatal to me.

Tentatively, I commanded some of the bugs out from beneath my costume.  The insulation had protected some, luck and sheer durability had saved a scant few others.  They died the second they moved more than an inch away from my body, vaporized.

So she pretty much has no space to move at all, and it was already proven these nanomachines can vaporize so much stuff. This sounds like an accident waiting to happen, doesn’t it? A wrong move can end pretty badly for anyone who moves a little too much. It doesn’t seem to me like Dragon and Defiant are in the ‘cause as little harm as possible’ mindset anymore.

There comes Azazel! Veeery slowly. It’s even taking the time to not crush stuff around, while Skitter is hanging from her hand and in danger of falling down onto vaporizing hedges. Apparently she has more faith on her own strength than I do – holding your own body weight with one or both hands is pretty tough, you know – because she’s not that worried about falling, even taking the time to test something.

“I’m going to fall!” I screamed.

I could sense Azazel lunging forward, crushing a store display as it hurried to the opening, its mouth opening. It directed a blast of superheated air at the ground, so it cut through the lowest portion of the disintegration hedge, clearing the area beneath and around me.

Oh, okay, it still intends to not cause fatal damage to the targets. Good. Still, what’s the machines’ plan here? Keep the villains trapped in one place while the PRT agents come to spray them with foam? Capture her in like a cage or something and haul her to the PRT building? Wait for Defiant to arrive? I’m not entirely sure.

Time to think of a plan. The situation doesn’t look good at all, all of her allies are busy with their own fights, thanks to the drones the other suit is throwing around. Even if any of them was free to help, what could they do? Azazel was right there, standing right above Skitter. The dogs may not think twice before lunging through the disintegrating hedges, and needless to say, that’d be very harmful for them and Heckpuppy would be outraged. It’s starting to seem to me Skitter will have to rely on herself and only on herself. How do you outwit a machine, though?

“This statement is false,” I told it.

“I’ll go with true.  There, that was easy,” Azazel replied.

Damn.  Wouldn’t be able to shut it down with paradox.  Dragon apparently had a sense of humor.  The reply sounded canned, a recitation.  Or she had a liking for popular culture I wasn’t aware of.

It would be incredibly pitiful if Dragon’s state-of-the-art suits could be defeated by a simple paradox, hah! Besides, looks like the suit is not obligated to respond to anything the captured villains say. Even if Skitter brings up a more complicated paradox Dragon maybe didn’t make a canned response for, it’s not like it’ll work or even provoke a reaction. Sooo what options are there?

Bugs are a no go, obviously. Skitter’s baton and other stuff aren’t likely to endure the disintegration effect, so batting away the branches of the hedges won’t work. Heck, even if Skitter had an EMP right now I don’t think it’d work, as I’m sure Defiant would engineer his nanotechnology in a way that protects it from EMP. As I see it, her only hope may be to attack the suit. Perhaps if the suit is defeated, the hedges will disappear or deactivate?

It’s possible the nanomachines are vulnerable to fire. Right, that’s a possibility, but as I see it, if they have a vulnerability then Defiant and Dragon must be aware of that too and therefore would have equipped Azazel with something to counter it. Maybe it has a fire extinguisher equipped, for all I know. Right now, given the situation, Skitter may have only one try before Azazel does something that’d trap her for real.

I wonder why it didn’t douse her with the containment foam? Perhaps the suit got too confident when the hedges were erected? It just seems a tad reckless to be giving your target enough space to be moving. You can’t give a parahuman enough space or time to think, that’s just tempting luck.

Skitter’s train of thought about her options is kind of like mine in that everything she has won’t work, but then she thinks of something that’d have never crossed my mind.

What other tools did I have?

My voice.

I’m not really certain where she’s going with this, I’ll say. Azazel is not required to reply and it’s not like a well-timed paradox will defeat it.

Dragon was smart.  Smart enough to write an A.I. that wouldn’t crumble to a simple issue with paradox.  But the A.I. wasn’t necessarily brilliant.  It had leaped to my defense when I’d said I was in danger.  Either it wasn’t smart enough to discern truth from a lie, or it wasn’t allowed to when a life was potentially in danger.

So Skitter plans to exploit the suit’s protocols, the ones that are supposed to keep her alive. That’s going to be difficult to do when all you have is your voice. The scenario about leaping to her defense was because there really was a very real danger. Unless Skitter plans to be saying ‘I’m touching these with my head, watch me!” while bending towards the hedges then crafting a scenario where she’s in danger will be difficult.

Regent and Imp are given the order to hide, so Skitter has the time and space to work. Outwit that machine!

Why’s Azazel programmed to talk and respond? Seems a bit superfluous for its main function. If/Once this suit defeated, the 2.0 version better not have the ability to respond!

“What if I told you that you were putting a human life in grave danger?”

“I have no reasonable cause to believe that.”

So this will work only if there’s reasonable cause. Any scenario Skitter can craft here would have to be something the suit can take a glance at and decide ‘oh that looks dangerous’. That’s going to be pretty difficult to do when you can’t even stand up.

It seems the scenario she’s making up relies on Imp having a second trigger that makes her invisible even to technology. That sounds plausible, in a theoretical frame. Judging by what happened to Grue, the second trigger augments or adds new powers that are related to the existent one. Either way, she says Imp is here, possibly brought by Trickster. Ah, that’s why she told Regent and Imp to hide.

“Imp could not be in this room. As of two minutes ago she was recorded at a distance of .4 miles away from this location.  She could not return here in that span of time unobserved.”

Alright, this scenario pretty much states in these two minutes Imp had a second trigger event, or she had one some time ago and all this time she was willfully letting herself be seen by the machines’ sensors. Seems to me like a bit of a flimsy scenario. True, second trigger events don’t necessarily require a lot of time to happen, but it’s flimsy nonetheless. Thank goodness the suit seems to be falling for it.

Imp may be right now on Azazel, Skitter says. Given Azazel’s current position, any kind of movement could make her fall onto the hedges that are underneath the suit, harming her gravely. No opening the mouth, no moving the head or a wing – that ensures Azazel shouldn’t be able to shift positions to get away from the mortal danger. Even if it had a way to stop someone on the machine, such as a force field or something, that doesn’t change that this fictional Imp could fall and die. For a scenario that was thought by the seat of her pants it sure is surprisingly solid once you ignore the flaky foundations.

“Maybe I should be more specific,” I said.  “I told them to help in general.  They might not be helping me, so it’s very possible that any other suit might be in immediate proximity to Imp.  Be careful you don’t accidentally crush her.”

I love how she’s turning her teammate into Schrodinger’s Imp. To me this seems like it’s stretching the scenario to its breaking point, as it could give the machines enough ground to take calculated risks as the probability of Imp not being in immediate proximity is much higher than the probability she is there, given the number of suits and that there’s only one Imp.

No visible reaction to this statement. Skitter is pretty damn lucky, seriously.

“Now,” I said, picking my words carefully, my pulse pounding, “I’m going to light a match and try to burn this thing away.”

‘And you better not counter it or else Imp will fall and die’, is what’s between the lines. Skitter takes out the matches and hesitates, deciding to use her bugs to make some sort of net. Very thick net. The drones that are still hovering nearby don’t react to the net that’s being formed up in the ceiling. Once the preparations are made, Skitter gets in position to run and lights up a match, getting it close to the nanomachines.

Wow, those things are really weak to fire.

The nanomachines are gone, therefore the danger of falling onto the hedges is gone too, Imp be damned. Azazel moves as fast as it can, spraying containment foam around. The drones and the suit are countered by the net Skitter made, she’s using it to hold the foam and turn it back onto the machines. She even manages to make the foam expand right on the suit’s jaws. Oh boy, when Defiant and Dragon check any recordings or datalogs about how Skitter defeated the suit...I hope their reaction is shown. Just to see what they’d think about all this. Skitter defeated the suit specifically made to defeat them and the Slaughterhouse Nine, just with her words and a net.

Skitter evades the foam and doesn’t evade a grappling hook, she’s forced to hide behind a large structure to avoid being pulled by the hook. She holds her position, hoping Azazel’s battery won’t last long enough to do much more, and soon it’s proven she’s right. Iii’m not sure I like this part about the grappling hook, but okay.

Other than opening its mouth to spray the foam and turning its head, Azazel hadn’t budged from its position.

It’s still operating under the assumption Imp may be around and therefore moving may crush her. Alright! This suit won’t be dangerous as long as you don’t get close enough to be sprayed. Either way, the suit has been defeated, pretty much. All that’s left is wait for the rest of the Undersiders and Travelers.

Everyone is now here – except Imp and Trickster, who stay hidden because if any of them is seen the deception Skitter concocted would be null. The dog that had been trapped is cut free, thankfully with zero description of the rotting meat suit it’s leaving behind. The team brags about how well they did against the suits. At least three suits were destroyed, and once Sundancer drives a small sun into the suit that uses technology that’s very flammable, that makes four destroyed suits.

Although I’m glad to see a victory, I’m not entirely certain this arc was a good idea. Dragon is a threat to the Undersiders, yeah, and here she went all out with more than half a dozen suits, yet they all managed to defeat four – at least four. Kind of makes Dragon look less like the threat she is. It’s a tad disappointing, honestly.

“We got lucky,” I said.  “What with Imp being able to force Piggot to shut them down, and the way I could exploit it’s A.I. to lock down its movements. Maybe you can make a program versatile and leave yourself open to the program using loopholes to work around any safeties you put in place.  Or you can make it heavily restricted and leave it open to vulnerabilities like what I exploited there.  I guess we’re a ways off from an A.I. being smart enough to work around those limitations.”

Makes you wonder if Dragon is a smart enough AI for that. To me she is. She even chose to cooperate with Armsmaster out of her own free will, even though it’d be, you know, cooperating with a criminal, even if he wasn’t officially indicted in a court of law. Despite her own self-imposed limitations, Dragon is a very versatile program.

“It’s a matter of time,” Regent said.

“You’re such a pessimist,” Imp retorted.

“And I’m so right.”

Damn right!

There are four suits left to defeat, and since the Azazel was one of them, the rest may be a tad easier. Everyone barely gets to leave the minimall before Skitter’s phone starts ringing, communications are back.

Tattletale: “Phones are back on.”

“Why?  Is she baiting us?  Trying to get us to reveal our positions?”

“She’s gone,” Tattletale replied. “Suits leaving the city, satellite phones are working.  Few factors at play, there.  I got word back from the Dragonslayers.  Paid them a few million bucks to tell me how they keep getting the upper hand on Dragon, tell me how she’s relaying commands to her suits.  With that, I had some squads plant C-4 and knock down cell towers. That slowed her down, cut her bandwidth, so to speak, and limited her ability to reprogram them on the fly. I’m guessing you guys took out one or more suits?”

So it’s a victory! They defeated Dragon – again! From what I’m understanding here, Dragon usually would have the ability to reprogram the suits, most likely so they’re not stopped by things like Skitter’s theoretical Imp scenario. Being unable to do that, the suits were left to their own devices, controlled only by their own AI. But yeah, once the Azazel was definitely out of commission, it was clear Dragon was at a disadvantage.

I wonder if the Slaughterhouse Nine would figure the Dragonslayers’ methods too. I don’t imagine they have a few million dollars to spare, so they’d have to figure this out by themselves. Maybe the suits do have a chance against the Slaughterhouse Nine.

“That cost the Protectorate a good chunk of cash, and it’s detracting from Dragon’s primary mission, which is the Nine.  My guess is she’s zeroing in on them.  Better to have a few suits closer to where she thinks they are than to leave them here in the city for you guys to keep breaking.  So she thinks, anyways, and the bigwigs that are footing the bill seem to agree.”

I mean, it costed you millions of dollars, Tattletale. Seems to me the big loser in this whole debacle is everyone’s wallet. Hey, maybe she can pass the bill to Coil and say it was a necessary expense. Better for this to be his money spent than the Undersiders’ money, haha! Besides, I’d say the humiliation of having so many suits so soundly defeated without any losses on the Undersiders or Travelers’ part is even more important. How can the heroes really consider themselves on top when things went like this? Say, what was it Piggot had said?

“The Azazel.  Note that there’s no version number.  It’s a fresh design, crafted to go up against the Nine and put up a serious fight.  The first truly original suit she’s made in four years, and I assure you that Dragon has advanced her skills in that timeframe.  If that isn’t enough of a pedigree, the Azazel was created by Dragon working in tandem with her new partner, a fellow tinker.”

Armsmaster.

She saw the reaction from us, smiled a little.

“Yes.  A new partner.  It was his suggestion that we park the suits here when they aren’t needed.  And even though I know he’s a new cape, nobody you’d know, certainly nobody who’d have a grudge,” she smirked a little, “I think it’s a safe bet to say he had you in mind when he was building it.”

After saying something like that Piggot and Defiant sure have some serious egg on their faces. Piggot had seemed so confident about the Azazel and about how it’d put up a serious fight against the Undersiders. I mean...technically it did, it very much did! But then it was defeated with the power of theoretical scenarios. I really doubt that was how Piggot or Defiant imagined the best suit of the lot would be defeated.

Things are actually looking up! The Pure is gone, Faultline’s crew – oh, right, they exist on the sidelines – are not here either, and the heroes were walloped once again without even being able to give much of a fight, except for Dragon. No matter how you look at this, this is a victory. The only enemy group that’s around is Hookwolf’s group, no? Fenrir’s Chosen. Although...given Hookwolf isn’t with them anymore, maybe they’re not that much of a threat anymore.

Coil better give them a nice bonus for all of today’s work, by the way! Without Dinah to give the probabilities, he must have been rather uncertain about the optimal strategy to accomplish this. Show some gratitude, Coil!

Tattletale is saying it’ll be a while before Dragon strikes again, and next time she’ll do it only because she’s certain she can win. Oh, goodness, just what the future needed: Dragon being a bigger threat. I hope so, at least. That’d be fun.

So, with this, Brockton Bay is now under Coil’s control. This is just Monarch 5, though. It’s still kind of early to close this arc. There must be enough fuel for one or two chapters more, lately the arcs haven’t been as short as just five chapters. Perhaps the heroes have a last final move?

Either way, Coil gives orders: everyone shall take days off and won’t be wearing their costumes. Aw, damn, that’s going to make it difficult to deal with everything in Skitter’s territory. She can’t go in there without her costume and start giving orders around. Charlotte is the only one who knows who Skitter is, if I recall correctly. I guess Skitter could give orders via phone, but it’s just not the same than Skitter and her swarms walking around the neighborhood, doing some restoration work.

“We’ll talk later,” she said. “Gonna go see if I can get more details on what happened.  Betting someone blew their top when they realized you guys demolished two of those suits.”

Speaking of someone blowing their top, what happened to Piggot? They didn’t leave her to wander the ruined alleyways and return home all by herself on foot and with handcuffs and a gag, did they? As if things weren’t humiliating enough for her with this defeat.

We’d won.  We’d cost the PRT too much in resources, pride and money, and they’d apparently decided it wasn’t worth their time to uproot us.  I hated the bureaucracy, the fucked up mindset of the institutions, but it was clearly working in our favor here, at least.

You know what would be even more humiliating? If, under the villains’ rule, Brockton Bay really recovers noticeably and at a faster pace than it was doing under the heroes’ benevolent watch. It sure would make them look ineffective, maybe even uncaring about the civilians’ plight. It’s already pretty good they drove out groups that had no concern other than their own profit and survival, so now Brockton Bay is under the benevolent care of the Undersiders and the Travelers.

Which in theory isn’t really that good of a situation. I’m sure for the majority of the population it’d be real hard to think of the situation as ‘their benevolent care’, given they’re dangerous villains.

Besides, Coil is still a threat. He says he’ll make the city work well and prosper, but I sure don’t trust Coil as far as I can throw him. I really can’t say if his presence is good for anyone.

So, this is the end of the chapter. Nice! Let’s stop here for now.

Next time: in three updates

[ooops-i-arted]

15 Day SWTOR OC Challenge

11. Canon divergence. Are there parts of their story that don’t line up with in-game information? Why? Where?

Definitely.  My opinion of KotFE/KotET and their bland, boring, pissy villains and their meandering plot and their gotsdamned railroading is barely above my opinion of Kyle Ron and the 3D Clone Wars, and y’all know how much I don’t like those lmao.

*cracks knuckles* I’m just gonna do Avei and Illi and everyone else together since it’s easier.  Let’s do this.  Under a cut because I know no one but me cares this much lol.  Another unnecessarily long post ahoy!

Skye Lir and her master, Derran Kanis, are asked to go on a joint Imp-Pub mission into Wild Space to hunt this ~mysterious threat ooooh~.  Skye asks her pal Avei along since she’s handy in a fight and has plenty of experience navigating galactic-level threats.  Avei is reluctant to leave her family, especially her three-year-old daughter, but agrees to just one more big-stakes mission.  The Jedi Knight crew goes along; the smuggler crew is off elsewhere in space.

Chapter 1 happens like in canon.  Derran, Skye, and Avei try to prevent the ship’s destruction but fail.  Skye instructs her crew to escape and warn the others and they do so.  Avei decides to buy time for the crew to escape, and they are all captured.

Right as the ship explodes, across the galaxy in Avei’s ship the whole smuggler crew is woken by Kiva screaming bloody murder.  They all come running; Kiva cries repeatedly for her mommy.  Corso finally gets out of her “Mommy’s ship blew up.”  He tells her it was just a bad dream and gets her back to sleep.

Chapter 1 continues.  Derran is the canon Outlander; Skye and Avei are treated as her accomplices.  Derran refuses Valkorion’s power but he still possesses her when she “kills” him.  Arcann has Derran, Skye, and Avei all carbonited.

Kiva is still upset and not herself the next day when the smuggler crew gets a call from Kira, who tells them what happened.  They book it to the site of the wreckage to help the Republic forces Kira also called comb the desert wreckage for survivors.  Kiva is distraught and keeps repeating that Mommy is gone.

At some point Kira and Corso talk and Kira mentions she can’t feel Skye or Derran in the Force anymore (I believe she mentions this in her letter to a romanced JK) and Corso mentions how weird Kiva was acting the night before they got the news.  They put their heads together and Kira tells him more about Force abilities and a whole puzzle Corso didn’t realize he was putting together falls into place - all the times Kiva nabbed a toy or treat supposed to be out of reach, her strange knack for getting through doors he could’ve sworn were locked, her uncanny ability to know which room he and Avei were in, and now her strange dream - and Kira confirms Kiva is very likely Force-sensitive.  She offers to bring Kiva to the Jedi Temple but Corso refuses; he’s lost enough family and he won’t send his daughter away.

The Republic and Empire go to war with the Eternal Empire, blah blah.  I refuse to believe they were instantly crushed by sooper speshul Zakuul so this goes on for a while, at least a year.

Risha leads smuggling jobs but Corso isn’t really involved with that, as his hands are full with a preschool child dealing with the loss of her mother with separation anxiety from hell, and also the fact that her now-frequent tantrums make things move around the room.

Kiva is three so her mindset is “Mommy left and didn’t come back, so if Daddy leaves he won’t come back either.”  Also one of her best skills with the Force is sensing emotions, so not only is she dealing with her own grief, she’s being bombarded by everyone else’s through the Force, and hasn’t learned to regulate any of her Force abilities yet.  (I majored in Early Childhood Education so the idea of how a Force-sensitive child would operate, so to speak, is endlessly fascinating to me.)

Corso reads everything he can on the Holonet about using the Force, and between him and Guss’s memories of his training, they are able to slowly teach Kiva how to at least not lose control during tantrums.

Over in the Empire Illivrin is having the time of her life.  Illi hates the Empire and her two goals as a Dark Council member were 1. self-preservation and 2. running the Empire into the ground.  She’s doing great at the second but not so much at the first, because her top subordinate Sali’ra is busy gathering every scrap of info she can to overthrow Illivrin before she gets them all killed.  Sali’ra is coordinating her efforts with her uncle, Av’en, and her cousin, Furi’sa, both who want Illivrin gone for the good of the Empire.  (My headcanon is that literally everyone else in the Empire looks at Illivrin as one of those crazy power-mad Sith who always die in a week from their own schemes, except she keeps not dying somehow.)

Vae’ra and Torian get married!  Yay!  It’s a Mandalorian ceremony.  Vae’ra bridesmaids or equivalent were Sali’ra, Mako, and Blizz.  Gault got ordained on the Holonet for the make-it-Empire-official part of the ceremony.

After the better part of a year Sali’ra has turned enough of Illivrin’s forces onto her side (and attending Dark Council meetings while Illi is off pointing the Silencer at everything she can, and showing the Council what a better option she would be) and is ready to make her move.  Furi’sa comes to the latest Dark Council meeting and accuses Illivrin of being an enemy of the Empire and not having the Empire’s interests in mind, etc.  When the Council backs Furi’sa, Illivrin - cornered, desperate, and dangerous - attacks Furi’sa.  Khem and Xalek back her while Sali’ra and Furi’sa’s father, Av’en, are on her team.  Team Illi vs Team Furi is brutal and vicious and very cinematic in my head.  Illivrin finally strikes Av’en a mortal blow with her lightning.  Enraged, Furi’sa beheads Xalek and tosses his head at Illivrin’s feet.  The two fight fiercely but they’re burned out after the fight already.  Illivrin tries to kill Furi’sa with lightning but is too tired to make it a death blow; Khem barely saves her from Furi’sa’s killing strike.  Khem tells his master to run; Illivrin doesn’t want to leave him but ultimately decides on self-preservation and runs while Khem mows down the Sith guards that swarm him.  Khem is finally subdued and while Furi’sa almost kills him, she instead has him imprisoned back in the tomb of Naga Sadow.  Sali‘ra takes Illivrin’s Council seat as Darth Colubra.  Furi’sa mourns her father and swears she will have revenge on Illivrin.

Illivrin successfully escapes Korriban and flees into exile in the Outer Rim.  For the next decade-ish she’s gonna wear rags and eat whatever she kills with her bare hands in some desolate Outer Rim jungle.  She snatched Xalek’s mask before she ran and keeps it close, swearing she will avenge her murder son and her murder bro.

Vae’ra alerts Corso that Furi’sa and Illivrin are loose and on the warpath.  Wanting to hide his Force-sensitive daughter from the Sith and also give her a stable, normal childhood, he takes the ship and moves out to Dantooine, where they will be anonymous and fairly hidden, and takes a job on a farm.  Kiva gets to go to school like a normal kid.  Corso forbids her from doing any Force stuff in public (she has better control nowadays) but she’s always curious and there’s a convenient abandoned Jedi Temple not too far away, so he occasionally goes and raids the databanks for anything that will help her learn, and lets her practice her Force abilities in the privacy of Avei’s ship.

The rest of the crew sticks with Risha, who works on reclaiming Dubrillion.  By the time the five years are up, she is Queen like she should’ve been.  Guss also gets some Jedi training.

Vae’ra and Torian adopt an orphaned Chiss girl, Iseli, and a Zabrak boy, Jerro.

Seren has been in contact with Theron.  Together they try to piece together what happened and track down Skye’s sister.  With Lana and Koth they start setting down the foundations of the Alliance.

Eternal Empire conquers a lot of stuff.  Illivrin stays hidden.  Furi’sa hunts her and any other threat to the Empire.  Corso and Kiva stay on Dantooine.

Picking up with our unfortunate carbonite blocks, Derran is the one forced to chat with the Lamest Villain.  Affected by his presence, Skye has dark visions of the Republic’s fall, while Avei has terrible dreams of her crew and family dead.

KotFE picks up from there.  Lana and Koth rescue the trio.  They are suffering from carbonite poison but Avei most of all, because she couldn’t use the Force to enter a meditative, preserving state and also because she was bashed over the head to get her in the carbonite mold and she had an open, bleeding wound when frozen.

Blah blah KotFE continues.  (I was much more interested in the implications of the five year skip, can you tell?)  They flee, they meet Senya, find the Gravestone, etc.  Avei hits it off with Koth and suffers increasing symptoms from her carbonite poisoning and does not give a shit about anything but locating her family.  Nobody likes or trusts Lana.  Skye and Derran don’t like Senya much but Avei understands her Mom Vibes and gets along with her okay.  They make it to Asylum.  Skye recognizes that psycho murderbot her sister picked up.  Arcann and his Kyle Ron Knockoff Sister show up.  Derran gets stabbity stabbed and Avei finally succumbs to her carbonite poisoning.  I can’t be assed to remember all that stuff, it was mostly boring.  HK-55 doesn’t die because I love him, and remains Derran’s loyal bodyguard and friend, although he has a rivalry with her other HK droid, HK-51.  (Derran loves HK droids.  The Jedi politely look away as long as she keeps them under control.)

They make it to Odessen, where Seren and Theron have been overseeing the start of a base.  Seren is overjoyed to see her baby sister; Skye cannot handle this level of emotion and is awkward but glad Seren cares this much somewhere deep inside.  Avei is dragged to the medcenter, still very sick, and refuses to get in a kolto tank until Skye swears she will call Avei’s family now that they have secured communications and it is safe to do so.  Derran is named Alliance Commander.  She probably develops a drinking problem.

Skye calls Avei’s ship and finds Corso and a (now eight-year-old) Kiva and tells them Avei’s not dead.  Corso immediately flies the ship straight to Odessen.  (I refuse to believe that Corso, whose chief character trait is loyalty, waited a whole nother year to be reunited with his wife.  I REFUSE.)  Avei is out of the kolto tank and doing much better by the time he arrives and SHE FINALLY GETS TO SEE HER FAMILY AGAIN AND THEY ALL HUG AND IT’S ADORABLE.

Then Kiva says “HEY MOM WATCH THIS” and throws a rock with her mind and that’s how Avei finds out her daughter is Force-sensitive.

Skye gives Kiva some formal training but is mostly busy with helping her former Master run the Alliance.

Avei sticks around the Alliance for a month but decides screw you all, my family is more important, and leaves.  She continues to suffer lasting sickness from the carbonite poison, and it takes at least a year for her to truly recover.

I haven’t decided for sure how to manage it but basically KotFE and KoTET are condensed into one without all the nonsense like Iokath or whatever.  (Also, obviously they can’t recruit say, Torian because he’s off with his wife.  Or Vette, because she’s off with Furi’sa.  etc.)  Skye sticks with Derran; Seren is also a major player in the Alliance.  Arcann and Vaylin are both killed and no one misses them.

Derran finally kills Valkorion in her head (without any part of being Valkorion, because screw you for making me play your pretentious crappy villain sue oc) but the mental toll of having a pretentious college philosophy major in her head makes her decide to use her Jedi Exile Retirement plan, and she peaces out to a nice beach planet with her HK droid pals.  She hangs out there until years later, Kiva comes to pester her for training.

Seren takes over as Alliance commander.  The Iokath stuff probably doesn’t even happen because I didn’t like it.  The Theron’s-a-traitor arc does, but I haven’t played it all yet so I haven’t decided how much I want to tweak.  All I know is Seren is pregnant but doesn’t know it til after Umbara, because I enjoy maximizing angst with basic tropes.  She and Theron do stay together and name their daughter Caeles, after Theron’s ancestor Revan/Caele.

Idk about the rest but the Alliance does disband and its resources go to strengthen the Republic, but while Seren stays a free agent because of all the issues the Agent storyline gave her, she’s basically Republic at this point.  Skye is very proud.

Years later Illivrin shows back up and Furi’sa discovers Kiva is Force-sensitive and lures her into her van shuttle with candy the promise of Force training; Kiva escapes Furi’sa and goes to train with the Jedi.

Over the course of a lot of years the Valaris Legacy gradually teams up to finally kick Illivrin’s ass.  Kiva is the only one strong enough in the Force to challenge her and seals Illivrin inside a tomb on Yavin 4, where she remains trapped for all time, eternally separated from Khem Val, the only being she ever cared about.  (This is how you treat a villain, Rian Johnson, just saying.)  (Also Furi’sa kills Khem Val and avenges her father, though she dies doing it.)

All the post-Theron-traitor stuff is all more loosely sketched out and also it’s midnight rn and I need to go to bed, so let’s leave it at that.

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Episode 9 Review

Tephi was upset that I didn't include this in my last post:

Ah, Farquaad. Who I just looked up the voice actor of- John Lithgow?! Wow, ok then. Farquaad, you may have been one of the few characters who had absolutely no redeeming qualities. I mean, at least the pictures I posted were of characters who had beneficial goals, even if they went about them in the most cartoonishly evil ways possible. Farquaad was just a dick. But that quote does a damn good job of summing up Bunny-Cat.

Afraid that I’ve been busy studying for a test this Monday, but I think I can snag some time Tuesday morning to start Ep 10. Until then, maybe a short post on my thoughts-

Keeper of Tales said:Ranubis you have probably noticed the sharp up-swell in conversation since you began hitting oh, episodes three, six, eight and nine. Part of this is that you came into this series with a very different mindset than usual and there was a real risk of ruining that. If you read this before the next episode could you tell us what your thoughts upon the characters are and how they have changed? The entire cast if you can. Thank you for your time.

Ok, make that a detailed response on each of the characters. Here we go!

Madoka Kaname

Our title character and protagonist… who’s kinda just been along for the ride all this time. She really bucks the trend of main characters that I’ve gotten used to in most shows. No powers, no real strengths of her own beyond her kind nature. Heck, if she wasn’t the first character to appear and the show wasn’t named after her it wouldn’t be hard to call her a side character. I think back to Gurren Lagann, how Simon had the same meek attitude and was overshadowed Kamina. But then, he got his mini-mech by the end of the first episode, Madoka has yet to pick up any tools. Even Sayaka showed up next episode with a baseball bat, Madoka’s just been tagging along.

And yet, everything revolves around her. Madoka had the Future Dream at the very beginning. Sayaka got involved because she was Madoka’s best friend. Homura focused on Madoka that first school day and tried to warn her away from the trials of Magical Girl-ing. Mami tried to recruit Madoka because she sensed she would become a powerful MG in helping defend the city. Kyoko, who showed up as a hard-line Magical Girl, in the space of apparently a few days joined the Madoka Protection Brigade. And of course, it’s clear now that the Incubator’s been manipulating things to ensure that Madoka makes a Contract, that will net it a ton of emergy.

Still, we’re nearing the end of the show, and I’m 50/50 on whether or not that Madoka will actually make a Contract, especially if Homura has anything to say about it. I mean, if the Incubator flat-out tells her that only she with MG powers can save the day, her helpful attitude is going to steer her straight into selling her soul. The question remains: how far is Homura going to go to stop that?

Sayaka Miki

Best friend of the main character, initially I was amused at how she bucked the Red Oni, Blue Oni trope as being much more outgoing and aggressive than Madoka (pink is a lightish-red, it fits). That got flipped around later when she turned into a Paladin and contrasted with Kyoko. Such a fun character, cheerfully bringing a common baseball bat to fight the monsters, calling herself an Ally of Justice, a great heroine. Unfortunately, it seems that that is Urobuchi’s favorite character-type to stomp on, the show could probably be called “Everything goes wrong for this poor girl Sayaka”. She loses her soul, her crush, her idealism… guh,

It was just depressing, seeing how Sayaka kept going further and further into her Paladin identity until she had nothing left. Losing her optimism, going on a Roaring Rampage of Despair fighting familiars instead of getting Grief Seeds… I keep thinking about Homura about to kill Sayaka. She said it was to protect Madoka from more suffering, but I think that there was at least a little bit of mercy to Sayaka there too. Kill the girl, before she becomes a Witch.

I just wish that things could have been better for Sayaka. She meant well, wanted to save people. Yes, there was an element of wanting to be with Kamijo in her Wish, but can you really blame her for that? She wanted to be a hero. Instead, she became a monster.

Kyubey (Incubator)

Yeah. I can only imagine how you jerks were sniggering in my early posts. I mean, I start out thinking “Ok, here’s the show’s mascot, I’m a little creeped out by the red eyes but whatever.” Then I start thinking he’s cute, plays off the girls well. Then I get annoyed at how he keeps acting like a salesman, really pushing the girls on the Contract. Then… well, then Bunnycat was revealed for the absolute jerk it is.

Seriously. The show’s mascot turns out to be the main villain, twisting plans and leaving snide little comments to achieve it’s goal of turning these young girls into batteries. No, not batteries, coal: fit for one quick burst of energy, who cares where the smoke goes afterwards. All that smiling, those cute comments, those pushes for a contract to be made, not telling the girls the true cost of the Contract even when he knows, or rather because, it knows how they will act, implying (but never outright lying) actions that play right into its tiny, bloodstained paws.

And we can’t even kill it, apparently. Homura shot it what I would normally call an unnecessary amount of times. But as it turns out, it was just a waste of ammo, since the Incubator can just show up in a new body. It can show up without an invite apparently anywhere, it can’t be killed… in a show of murdering Witches, it is the real monster.

Mami Tomoe

Mami… :’(

I was so happy when she showed up that first episode. An experienced Magical Girl who can summon a ton of muskets? Standing up to the (apparent) Bad Girl, taking our main character and sidekick under her wing? And she only got better from there, teaching our characters about the world, fighting a Witch one-on-one, destroying it with an artillery piece and then landing for tea.

Classy.

Then we get a tragic backstory, she’s shown to be lonely. But our characters are there to help her fight these monsters and stop whatever plan the Bad Girl is brewing up! And look at that, she and Madoka are so adorable together, I can’t wait for them to-

And then Urobuchi took my heart and stabbed it.

Mami’s story should not have ended there. If she had just listened to Homura about the Witch, if Madoka or Sayaka had Contracted and could help her, if she had not gone into that fight distracted and happy about the future and focused more… but she didn’t. And she died.

Ever since that episode, Mami’s absence has cast a pall over everything. Madoka is understandably terrified from seeing her mentor eaten right in front of her, Sayaka was driven to imitate Mami’s lone fighter style, Kyoko got involved because she was attracted to the “open territory”, and Homura seemed to hope that it would scare off the Muggles from Contracting.

For a while, I thought that “Ok, that took me completely by surprise, but now I see what will make the girl’s Contract! Madoka will wish for Mami back, we’ll get our lovely team fighting these monsters a little more cautiously now that they know the risks but it’ll still be exciting and they will be adokrable on these missions and Sayaka will tease them for being so cute and…”. But nope, it was just the start of the Pain Train.

Kyoko Sakura

Oh jeez, has my perspective of Kyoko changed from that first scene of her looking down on the town. At first I thought she’d just be a competitor, maybe an ally of Homura. Then she spouts off her philosophy of letting Familiars go to kill people, and she supplanted Homura (who I thought planted that Hospital Grief Seed and caused Mami’s death) on my List. Urobuchi then worked his magic and made me sympathetic for a character who had so much working against her, with a backstory more tragic than Mami’s, the discovery of the true nature of Magical Girls, and her growing attraction to Sayaka even as the Ally of Justice was crumbling, all culminating in me screaming at my computer as she kisses her Soul Gem and sacrifices herself to defeat Sayaka’s Witch and save Homura and Madoka.

Kyoko, I would like to apologize. I can understand where you started from, seeing your family die in connection to your well-meaning Wish, and how you would focus on yourself after being hurt so badly. I am so proud of you, for rising from that and regaining your morals, to the point of helping out Madoka.

Homura Akemi

Homura. Homura, Homura, Homura.

I started this show convinced that you were the Big Bad, or at least an agent of them. Then, before I learned the true nature of the Incubator and thought that there was an anti-Kyubey running around causing the Witches (I can only imagine how much you lot enjoyed that, thank you so much for not spoiling me), I considered that maybe she was just trying to secure her own power, remove competition so that she is secure. Then there was the huge “Homura summons Wally-Witch to get a Super Grief Seed, cannot put down what she called up” theory that I thought would culminate as the series finale, give our main characters time to shine and teach Homura the power of Friendship.

Then the true nature of Magical Girls was revealed, and she was not surprised. Then she attempted to kill Sayaka, citing that doing so would spare Madoka pain. Then she killed the Incubator (but not really).

Then we learned that she is a time traveler.

Just… just wow. It actually makes sense. All of my crazy theories, and time travel trumps them all. She knows the truth about Magical Girls because she learned it in the previous timeline. She knows Bunnycat is a dick because it pulled all this shit before. She tried to warn the girls away from Contracting because she knew the costs, and that they would turn into Witches. She knows that Wally-Witch is coming, to the day, because that’s what happened before-

Oh! I get it now! I really get it! That Dream Vision, Homura fighting the Super Witch but losing, reaching out to Madoka… I get what happens now. Madoka arrives to see Homura is losing. She knows that with all the other MGs dead, there’s no choice. She makes the Contract with the Incubator.

And for her Wish? She Wishes for Homura to get another chance, or something along those lines. And the Incubator (who is a dick) ‘interprets’ that in the way that best suits its interests, and throws Homura into another timeline, so that they can harvest Madoka twice.

Damn it. If I understood the credits-teaser right, next episode is going to be Homura’s story. If we see this happen, Homura reaching our timeline only to try and warn people, but no-one believes her… this is going to be rough.

[rwbyconversations]

Dante, and Vergil’s Impact on His Character Arc

I’ve been a long-time casual fan of the Devil May Cry games, though my skills at them are woefully inadequate. I’m more a fan of the crazy action that the series strives to provide in each of its entries and the wonderful misadventures Dante keeps getting dragged into, to say nothing of watching in awe high-level players pulling off combos so wild and energetic that they add years to my life expectancy. 

But while it’s never been a main draw to the series, I feel like Devil May Cry is, at its best, a series that does manage to generate enrapturing characters and create fluid arcs across its games, and I feel that this comes across in what might go down as the greatest unintentional character arc in gaming, that of Dante.

While Dante in the first two games didn’t have much character, especially in DMC2, Devil May Cry 3 is when Dante’s characterization was finally solidified, not least of which because of the vocal talents of Reuben Langdon being added to Dante that gave him so much character across his future appearances. It’s not an exaggeration to say Dante is one of the most well-received and iconic protagonists in modern gaming, and I think that was solidifed thanks to the work of Itsuno, the Capcom team and Langdon in DMC3. What also helped was the introduction and solidification of Dante’s relationship with his brother, Vergil. This relationship has gone on to have major impacts on Dante’s character not just across DMC 4 and 5, but also in retrospect allows for Dante to develop an arc through DMCs 1, 2 and even the Animated Series. 

As such, in this essay I’d like to look at Dante’s character across all five main Devil May Cry games, in particular focusing on his relationship with Vergil and how it impacted him across his life. Please note this essay will contain spoilers for Devil May Cry 5.

1) Pre-series and 3

Dante was born alongside his twin brother Vergil to Sparda and Eva, a demon who woke up to justice and sought to defend humanity from his demonic kin and a human woman who he fell in love with. The boys before they were eight were granted two halves of the Perfect Amulet, which when combined could open the path to the demon world. Sparda would die of unknown circumstances when the boys were young, and when Dante was 8, the family home was attacked by demons. Eva hid Dante away in a closet, telling him that if she died, he was to escape and assume a new identity. Eva went on to die trying to find Vergil (Dante assumes he is dead as well), with her death shaping Dante and Vergil into the men would become later in life- Dante would swear vengeance on all demons, while Vergil would develop the mindset that had he been more powerful, he could have prevented Eva’s death, which would cause him to seek out Sparda’s sword, Force Edge.

While growing up, Dante has become a freelance mercenary operating under the name of Tony Redgrave. Before the games, he spent time working with Enzo Ferino, who would pass along jobs to Dante, and Nell Goldstein, a gunsmith who made Dante’s signature pistols, Ebony and Ivory. Dante in a manga set right before 3 has learned that Vergil survived the attack on the Sparda Manor, and while he is initially ecstatic to learn of Vergil’s survival, the two quickly realize that they are both driven to accomplish goals that the other would get in the way of. Vergil defeats Dante in a duel, but lets him keep his half of the Perfect Amulet. 

When 3 starts, it’s been a year since their first meeting. Dante is 19 and has nearly finished work on his new office, determined to follow the phrase “If you’re good at something don’t do it for free” to the logical conclusion in making demon hunting his job. After a mysterious man named Arkham offers Dante a chance to see Vergil at the top of a tower that arises from the earth named Temen-ni-gru, Dante sets out to confront Vergil and have an “interesting time” fighting the demons along the way. Vergil meanwhile, is drawing Dante to Temen-ni-gru to acquire Dante’s half of the Amulet and acquire the powers of Sparda hidden within, along with Sparda’s blade Force Edge. 

Dante doesn’t take the whole affair seriously at all at first, joking all the way up to his first meeting with Vergil that this will all be a large party- and that the lack of food, drinks and women shows that Vergil knows how to throw a stinker of a party. Vergil takes the jokes in stride and even makes one in return, apologizing to Dante since he was so eager to see Dante, he “couldn’t concentrate on preparations for the bash.” Dante is quick to make a fight out of the conflict, drawing a gun on Vergil which... goes well for Dante.

It probably shows how bad Dante’s day is going when this isn’t even the first time today he’s been run through the chest.

Vergil slaughters Dante in their first fight, showing a complete lack of regard for any of Dante’s attacks. This attitude reflects into gameplay as well- Vergil is a challenging boss fight this early in the game and will defeat you if you drop your guard for even a second, forcing you to adapt to his fighting style and making it so you can’t just spam the same tricks over and over. There is a deliberate power imbalance between Dante and Vergil in their first fight, and Vergil even angrily calls Dante on refusing to tap into his demonic power. Dante’s blithe response that “I have no father,” and that he’s not tapping into his power just to spite Vergil only further enrages Vergil, and he wastes not time winning the battle by running Dante through- first with Yamato, then with Dante’s own sword Rebellion. 

Vergil gives a look into his mindset here as he talks down to Dante.  "Might controls everything. Without strength, you can't protect anything... Let alone yourself." It’s a look into Vergil’s psyche that shows that just like Dante, he never got over Eva’s death and likely why he’s never formed a serious relationship beyond a one-night-stand in Fortuna. It’s almost like Vergil’s afraid of opening up his heart in case it gets broken again. But yet it’s in him running Dante through that he forces the lesson onto Dante- that Dante will not be able to overcome the remaining trials in his way without tapping into the power granted through Sparda’s blood in his veins. And as such after reclaiming Rebellion, Dante forcibly triggers his Devil Trigger for the first time, embracing the demonic monster he had spent years rejecting. 

This is Dante’s lowest point in the game- ironic given how this happens at the top of the tower. He has no allies, he’s lost his amulet and Vergil has made a mockery of him in their first duel. But slowly, Dante gets back up and steels himself for round 2, punching a pillar in frustration only to watch as his energy causes it to explode from the force. And upon realizing the power he now wields, Dante cuts loose in a glorious cutscene showing his drive and refusal to give in as he freefalls down the side of the tower and defeats a swarm of enemies, all while Devils Never Cry kicks into high gear. 

Bless me with your gift of light Righteous cause on judgment night Feel the sorrow the light has swallowed Feel the freedom like no tomorrow

From this point on, DMC3 shifts focus and becomes a race between Dante and Vergil to see who can uncover the secrets of the tower and unlock Sparda’s power first, both unaware that they and Lady, a human woman trying to hunt down her father, that Arkham is playing everyone so that he can swoop in and steal Sparda’s power at the last second. 

Dante and Vergil fight again fight after Vergil has unlocked the last barrier holding back Sparda’s power. Along the way Dante slowly comes to terms with his demonic heritage and learns to embrace its power more, all while Vergil rejects his humanity, believing that true strength will come from the power of a demon. What Vergil doesn’t know however is that Devil May Cry’s humanity possess a power that no demon could ever dream of possessing- something Vergil learns the hard way in 3 and 5, while Dante rubs it in Agnus’s face in 4. Devil May Cry 1 director Hideki Kamiya would eventually confirm on Twitter that what humans possess is simple- heart. The heart to get back up after a crippling defeat and prepare for round 2, or to simply never accept defeat, is in fact one of Dante’s greatest weapons, greater even than his sword, guns or electric bat guitar.

... Man Devil May Cry 3 gets weird and I love it. 

It’s through using his heart along with his demonic powers that Dante is able to grow as a fighter, represented in-game as the player not just upgrading Dante’s styles and weapons, but becoming better with the tools provided and taking the time to become more stylish and visually exciting with each new fight being an opportunity to pull of a new stylish combo. 

Dante’s second battle with Vergil occurs in the basement of the tower, with the fight ending in a draw as before either can strike a finishing blow, Lady and subsequently Arkham intervene in the fight, Arkham having planned for Dante and Vergil to wear themselves out fighting each other so that neither of them had the power to stop him from stealing Sparda’s power for himself. And despite being a lowly human, Arkham is able to play Dante, Lady and Vergil like chess pieces and take the power of Sparda for himself, before the power mutates him into a giant blob monster that threatens the world. 

Vergil disappears for much of the rest of the game as Dante races after Arkham to stop him, defeating several more demons within and absorbing their energy to create more Devil Arms (alongside taking Beowulf off Vergil after he dropped it). Dante initially fights Arkham alone, but even as a giant blob Arkham proves a significant threat to Dante until Vergil offers some backup. Putting aside their mutual differences, the two brothers decide to honor their father by beating the ever-living crap out of the man who stole his power, delivering the finishing blow through a combined Ebony and Ivory shot while saying Dante’s signature line.

A moment so good I had to include it twice

It’s also notable that this is the one time Vergil gets over his aversion to firearms-

I’m sorry DID I STUTTER

After Arkham is defeated and sent away for Lady to deliver the killing blow on, there’s a moment of silence between Dante and Vergil. The Jackpot scene and its immediate aftermath really does sum up a lot of their relationship- they may have been fighting almost every time we’ve seen them thus fat, and there is genuine aminosity between the two, but Dante and Vergil are ultimately just brothers who ultimately respect each other and might have even been more permanent allies were it not for their ideological differences... differences which directly cause the game’s final boss.

Vergil dives in after the Perfect Amulet, landing on the edge of the Demon World itself with Dante in hot pursuit. Vergil bluntly orders Dante to give him his half of the amulet, and when Dante refuses to and challenges Vergil on what he’ll do with the power, Vergil snaps at him, charging with his newly acquired Force Edge. Dante has none of it, catching the sword and insisting that his soul is saying it wants to stop Vergil. It’s disheartening that both brothers come to blows so soon after their effective teamup, but neither of them will compromise on their goals. 

Vergil’s final fight is a perfect climax of the game, both emotionally and mechanically. As Dante and Vergil keep fighting, two facts remain the same- the location of the fight is geographically lower and lower each time, and Dante gets better with each bout, losing in the first round, drawing with Vergil in the second and in the third, after having embraced Sparda’s heritage, coming ahead of Vergil and winning conclusively. It’s still a difficult bout for the player but after all their time in this hellish night with Dante, you’ve mastered the game and are able to meet Vergil beat for beat. 

Dante wins the final clash of swords, with Vergil stubbornly refusing to accept defeat and hand over his half of the amulet. He encourages Dante to leave him in the Demon World, before letting himself fall of the side in an effective suicide. Dante tries to reach out to him, but Vergil slashes open his hand as he falls, bringing his half of the amulet with him. Dante doesn’t say a word for the rest of the scene, but his face and body language betray how emotionally compromised he’s become by Vergil’s loss. He glumly brings Force Edge with him to the surface and meets up with Lady, whose attempts to lift Dante’s spirits coin the name of the series- “Maybe somewhere out there, even a devil may cry when he loses a love one.” Even though it does lift Dante’s spirits and gives him a name for his shop, Vergil’s suicide haunts Dante for years, and the first signs of it are present even in the ending of DMC3, where his final taunt before the credtis fight scene sounds like he’s trying to convince himself that he’s ready to take everything the world can throw at him. 

In a post-credits scene, Vergil squares off against DMC1′s main villain Mundus. Vergil cockily decides to take him on, but the results of the battle were already known in DMC1, where Dante fights Vergil as Nelo Angelo. 

2) DMC 1, 2 and Animated Series- Depressed Dante

In advance, I am going to say this: obviously enough, DMC 1 and 2 were written before DMC 3 and any attempts I make at retroactively making 3′s narrative tie into both of them is weakened as a consequence as it falls into headcanons more often then not. Being blunt, DMC 1 and 2 didn’t have as much focus on story as 3 so any attempts I make to connect their stories might come off as trying to connect threads while wearing cooking gloves. Just keep that in mind for this part barring anything I say on the anime. 

Nine years after the Temen-Ni-Gru incident, Dante has set up Devil May Cry and takes extermination jobs for anyone who calls his shop with the elusive password. While he’s making dry quips and nonchalantly dealing with the threats he faces while fighting Mundus, he’s notably less energetic compared to his younger self. Dante is more somber and reflective almost as a direct consequence of his dealings with Vergil, and while he’s still cracking wise when he confronts the demons Mundus has scattered around the island, he’s far less talkative than he was. One of his more talkative moments comes after Mundus kills Griffon, who had genuinely earned Dante’s respect through their repeated encounters across the game. Dante is quite livid at Mundus killing one of his own soldiers in such a callous way, as he tells Trish:

“Mundus... His heinous ways make me sick; killing his own like they were nothing. He's the one that took the life of my mother for sure. My mother always used to tell me that my father was a man who fought for the weak. He had courage and a righteous heart. In the name of my father I will kill Mundus!"

Dante has an unexpected family reunion when he fights Vergil, covered in armor, as Nelo Angelo several times over the story. Nelo Angelo provides some of the tougher fights in DMC1, managing to disarm Dante during their first bout and neatly delivering a killing blow before Nelo spots Dante’s amulet and retreats, as if Vergil refuses to give Mundus the satisfaction of having Vergil kill Dante for him. Dante admits grudging respect for Nelo Angelo, saying he didn’t expect to find anyone with “guts and honor” in the castle. 

Their second battle sees Nelo removing his helmet, revealing Vergil’s corrupted visage underneath. Despite the enhancement of the armor, Vergil loses again to Dante, this time seemingly dying as he explodes in a flash of lightning, leaving nothing but Vergil’s half of the Perfect Amulet. Dante stops to recollect a childhood memory of himself and Vergil wanting cake for their birthday, before combining the amulets and using it to reawaken Sparda and have it resume its true power. 

The rest of DMC 1 has Dante suffer from Trish’s betrayal and subsequent redemption, but while he ends the game on a victorious note after having beaten Mundus and saved Trish with a variation of Lady’s line to him, he’s also despondent at the loss of Vergil yet again, which leads to Dante being more sullen in the animated series and DMC2, which both take place five years later when Dante is 33. 

Dante’s characterization in the DMC Animated Series is often considered divisive due to him being rather mellow and sullen compared to his more distinctive appearances, especially since Reuben actually provided Dante’s voice under a false name. However, intentionally or not, Dante’s characterization in the anime bears a lot of symptoms consistent with depression: Dante is even more of a slob than normal, frequently is tired and sleeps all day, eats only comfort food (strawberry sundaes in the show) and only ever comes alive while working. But since Dante is so powerful in the anime, he’s lucky if a fight lasts more than a few seconds. When looking at the anime in the context of DMCs 1 and 3, it gives the impression that Dante is just worn down after losing Vergil in 3, only to then kill him in 1. This leaves Dante as the last member of his bloodline, which drags him down. Fortunately, Dante has Lady and Trish to keep dragging him out of bed and getting him to care, and he seems to slowly be recovering from his depression by the time of DMC2. 

Devil May Cry 2 has no real plot and Dante has been stripped of almost all the characterization in 1 and 3 which made him such an iconic character. Like nearly everything else wrong with DMC 2, this largely comes down to the disaster of a development cycle that the game had- director Hideaki Itsuno admitted in an art book that when he was brought on to direct DMC 2, he was replacing a director who had botched the project so hard that Itsuno only had four months to essentially develop the entire game, including the script. As such, Dante’s character is very flat. Barring one line (“King? Here’s your crown.”), Dante has no memorable quips or dialogue, with most of the development being handed off to Lucia instead. Dante’s one significant character trait is his habit of flipping a coin to choose events for him, a trait that has rarely been acknowledged since. While this Dante does fall into the line of thinking we’ve used so far, that Dante is suffering from depression for much of his late 20s and early 30s, it’s hard to even consider this as a possibility when Dante’s stoic nature is just because of a rushed script and weak writing, and it feels almost dirty to try and tie in the depression theory to this. 

Thankfully, Dante’s character would like much of the series get an extended redemption thanks to DMC3, but the next entry in the timeline put him back on track.. 

3) DMC 4 and the reclamation of hope

For a long time, DMC 2 was the final point in the timeline, in part because of Capcom’s shame for the game being so great that they are actively reluctant to acknowledge the existence of DMC2. Before DMC 5 released, Executive Producer Matt Walker confirmed that the timeline had been changed from 3-1-4-2 to 3-1-2-4, and one of the consequences of this was that Dante’s character arc began to flow naturally.

While there are several scenes in DMC4 set before the game begins, most notably the explanation of why Trish gave the Order Sparda’s sword which also leads into the intro cutscene for Trish and Lady’s route in Special Edition, a long-standing fan theory is that Dante begins DMC4 with some vestiges of his Anime/2 depression remaining, hence why he fails to exhibit any of his typical stylish moves during his assassination attempt on Sanctus- he just jumps down the window and shoots him point-blank in the head. It’s only when Nero attacks him and subsequently lasts longer than most of the Order guards that Dante begins to treat the fight with his usual charm. It’s made clear that he’s not taking the battle against Nero too seriously, and it’s evident that if Dante wanted he could turn Nero into a smear on the pavement in a heartbeat. But the Devil Bringer, along with Nero’s refusal to let Dante get away, impress Dante enough to let Nero go, which leads to Nero spending much of his route hunting Dante down until the two finally meet again and have a rematch at Fortuna Castle. 

Even with his new upgrades, including Vergil’s sword Yamato and his new Devil Trigger, Nero is barely able to keep up with Dante, who in gameplay is a nightmare to fight due to having access to all four of his DMC 3 styles at will and being played by an AI seemingly designed to wreck your day. To little surprise, Nero loses and is disarmed of Yamato. Dante is eager to reclaim Yamato, telling Nero “It belongs in the family,” but chooses to let Nero keep hold of Yamato for now due to having become less hot-headed and wanting to use the weapon to help save Kyrie. However, Sanctus is revealed to have been revived and traps Nero in the Savior (an artificial demon the Order created that requires Sparda’s blood and sword) before it marches on Fortuna City with Yamato. Dante races back through the route Nero took, determined to reclaim Yamato and destroy the Savior.  

Dante doesn’t develop much during his playable segment of the game, barring the new Devil Arm cutscenes confirming that he is back to his usual jovial and eccentric self. Much like with Nero, Dante’s power means that the threat of the Savior is quite small in the grand scheme- Dante can defeat it in a head to head fight and the story doesn’t try to convince you that this threat can top the one presented by Mundus. Dante eventually returns to Fortuna and after confronting Agnus in one of the greatest cutscenes in human history, reclaims his brother’s sword and then frees Nero. Between the two of them tag-teaming the Savior and Sanctus from the inside and out, Dante and Nero bring a stop to the Order’s plans and destroy the Savior, Dante reclaiming his father’s sword. 

With that, Dante leaves, job complete. Nero confusedly asks if Dante wants Yamato back, but Dante blithely tells him to keep it, confident in Nero’s abilities now as a Devil Hunter. 

Nero: "What...? I thought this meant a lot to you...?" Dante: "That's the only kind of gift worth giving. I want to entrust it to you, and so I am. What you do from here is your call."

Deadly Fortune (the Japanese only DMC 4 novelization) and DMC 5 would go on to confirm that Dante allowed Nero to set up a new branch of Devil May Cry in Fortuna. Nero asks Dante if they’ll meet again, but Dante only shoots a wave over his shoulder. Little did they know that meeting again would take eleven long years, before they got to join up back together for more hijinks.

By the end of DMC4, Dante has finally gotten over the trauma and baggage he’s been carrying since Vergil’s death. Seeing the new generation of demon hunters in Nero has reignited the spark that laid dormant inside of him for so long. Dante’s 38 by the time of DMC4, meaning he carried those dark emotions inside him for over half his life, but with Nero wielding Yamato, Dante has finally become able to let go and become the cool uncle/mentor figure Nero needs.

4) DMC 5- Acceptance and peace

... so of course just five short years later, everything goes right back to hell for Dante. He’s still not great at managing the financial side of his business, but the arrival of a mysterious young man named V with a promised contract that will provide cash up front gives Dante all the drive he needs to get into gear to confront Urizen. But unfortunately, Urizen proves far stronger than anyone feared, and he effortlessly defeats Dante, Trish, Lady and a late to the party Nero who lost his Devil Bringer two weeks prior. Dante, desperate, breaks out his Devil Trigger and orders V to get Nero out of there, deriding Nero as “dead weight.” Soon after, Urizen beats Dante out of Devil Trigger and shatters Rebellion, sending him flying out of the Qliphoth and into a coma for a month.

V eventually finds Dante by the ruins of an old manor, the demons having not found him because of the Devil Arm Sparda having hidden Dante’s presence. After a little fakeout stab, Dante is restored to fighting form and immediately goes to get ready for Round 2 with Urizen, all while Nero, now armed with the Devil Breakers, desperately tries to kill Urizen himself. Dante first gets himself some sick wheels and makes for the ruins of the Sparda Manor where his life got flipped on its head over thirty years prior.

Somehow, this isn’t the craziest weapon in the game. 

After lamenting on how he always seems to get a sword through the gut, Dante impales himself on the Rebellion like Virgil did back on the top of Temen-Ni-Gru. And just like then, Dante unlocks a new level to his demonic abilities, gaining the Sin Devil Trigger and a new Devil Arm, the Dante. Armed and ready, Dante makes for Urizen to show him whats what. While Urizen makes a hasty retreat, he is able to supercharge himself with the Qliphoth fruit before Dante arrives, but even this increase in power isn’t enough to stop Dante, because not only has he gained more power through Sin Devil Trigger, but Urizen, just like Vergil, has failed to learn the important lesson of humanity in Devil May Cry.

Side-note, this is the greatest cutscene in the history of video games. I don’t really have any way to tie the Faust Hat to this analysis but I thought we all needed a reminder that this was a glorious thing.

Dante, unlike the audience, has always been aware that Urizen was Vergil or at least his demonic half. Urizen is literally Vergil's ambition and greed manifested into a malevolent, power-hungry demon, and much like Vergil himself, Urizen fails to realize that through sacrificing his human half, he’s lost the true power within himself. It takes until Dante lays the smackdown on Urizen even after being supercharged with the Qliphoth root. In Urizen’s eyes, Dante hasn’t sacrificed anything to achieve this power and fights Urizen simply because it’s the right thing to do, and that desire to protect others

Urizen: How... How are you so powerful?! You never lost anything! Dante: It's not about loss... Strength is a choice! Fighting like hell to protect what matters! You threw away everything you ever had! No wonder you have no true power! Urizen: Danteeeeee!

Ultimately, Dante defeats Urizen and leaves him a dying husk on the ground. But before he can deliver the killing blow, V tricks Dante into letting him finish the job, allowing him to merge with Urizen and become Vergil, brought back from the dead. 

All of the main characters in DMC5 have their own subtitles along with their name when introduced, and Vergil’s is perfectly fitting from a meta angle- he was Dante’s first major opponent in DMC3, and now here he is at the end of the Sons of Sparda saga, the final boss for the last hours of the game. 

Dante immediately freaks out at Vergil’s return and goes to kill him, but due to expending so much energy on Urizen, Vergil is able to push him back with ease, telling him to heal his wounds before trying to face him. Dante stubbornly begins climbing back up the Qliphoth, even as Nero tries to dissuade him until Dante tells Nero the truth that Vergil is his father, before pressing on alone and leaving Nero to escape the tree. Dante and Vergil both never even consider the possibility of not fighting to the death. The last time they tried to talk things out at the edge of the Demon world, both Dante and Vergil proved their ideologies were just too different for them to peacefully co-exist. The tragedy of DMC 3′s climax stretches on more than twenty years later for these two, and neither are of the mindset that this can end in any way that’s not one of the twins standing over the other’s body. . 

On the way, Dante finds V’s three Summons- Griffon, Shadow and Nightmare- who reveal themselves to be the manifestations of Vergil’s traumatic memories from his time as Nelo Angelo. The familiars force a fight against Dante, warning him that if he can’t beat them he doesn’t stand a chance against Vergil. Though Dante makes no note of it, eliminating the familiars has likely ensured Vergil will be able to live without the trauma from his time under Mundus. Dante is particularly respectful to Griffon, the servant of Mundus who he never got to properly defeat in battle and the one he almost respected. It feels like Dante finally being allowed to have the fair fight with Griffon that the demon deserved more than a decade prior. 

Ultimately, Dante makes his way to the top, with both the brothers pausing for a moment to ponder how many times they’ve exchanged blows. Dante even admits that them fighting is the only memories of the two that he can remember since they were children. Ultimately they draw their weapons, and begin their final clash. 

It’s ultimately a desperate knockout brawl, with both fighters giving it their all and using everything and anything they’ve learned over the years to gain an edge in the fight, but it ends on a draw with both stopping to catch their breath after a fight that canonically goes on for more than twenty minutes. Vergil finally realizes that Nero is his son. The two stop for a second, Dante gently ribbing Vergil for being young once as well, but even then it loops back around to their deathmatch. Despite both being clearly exhausted, they fire up their Devil Triggers and prepare for another charge, only to be interrupted by a new demon- Nero, having gained the strength to activate his own Devil Trigger and regrow his lost arm, now determined to stop the two twins from killing each other once and for all. 

Throughout DMC5, starting with the “Dead Weight” line, Dante has had a habit of disrespecting Nero. Granted, Dante is canonically stronger, but he bluntly tells Nero multiple times that he effectively doesn’t care what Nero thinks of a situation, Dante will do it his way. Yet again he tries to assert dominance over Nero, but this time Nero, now armed with a new Devil Trigger and at the peak of his strength while Dante and Vergil are both exhausted, bitch slaps Dante out of the fight and promises to make Vergil submit to him. Vergil in turn doesn’t take Nero seriously, but promises him a fight when Nero bluntly repeats that neither of the brothers are dying today. What follows is an extended curb stomp as Nero pays Vergil back dividends for ripping off his arm at the start of the game. While Vergil normally wouldn’t be so easily defeated by Nero, his exhaustion from fighting Dante and expending so much energy on maintaining his Devil Trigger have drained him of the stamina he needs and as such, Nero canonically dominates the fight. 

This, Ninja Theory, is how you make your protagonist screaming “Fuck you!” look insanely cool and not pathetic

Nero makes Vergil take a knee, but the situation changes from the immediate battle. Dante and Vergil resolve to descend into the Underworld to cut the Qliphoth's roots. When Nero counters that this potentially leaves the two stranded, Dante quietly tells Nero that it’s because of him that they can make this risk. With Nero on this side of the barrier ready to protect humanity, Dante is comfortable potentially trapping himself on the other side of the dimensional border with Vergil. And as such, the two brothers fly into the Underworld and destroy the Qliphoth once and for all, leaving Nero, Lady and Trish to safeguard the human world. 

When we next see Dante and Vergil, they’re in the depths of the Underworld. Just like when Vergil lost to Dante in DMC3, he asks Dante to go back to the human world- Vergil wants to atone for Urizen’s sins and that involves ensuring the destruction of the tree. But Dante doesn’t want to leave his brother alone this time, noting that someone needs to keep an eye on Vergil- if only to ensure a repeat of the Nelo Angelo incident doesn’t happen. As Qliphoth tree roots begin to form around Dante and Vergil, we play as Dante one final time in a playable credits sequence. 

When we cut back to Dante and Vergil for the final scene, they’re locked in yet another battle. But this time, it’s a friendly spar with no malice or aminosity between them barring normal brotherly bickering. Dante even quips that he’s one up after winning while Vergil counters that Dante miscounted and that they’re even. As they ready for another round, a new wave of demons emerge and without breaking stride, the two begin clearing house. As Vergil snarls at him not to say it, Dante shoots the camera a triumphant grin before uttering his catchphrase one last time as the game concludes.

“Jackpot!” 

5) Conclusion- Devils Never Cry

While it likely will never be listed as a primary reason for the character’s critical acclaim in favor of his charm or bombastic personality, Dante’s character arc across the Devil May Cry series is an overall well-written arc of a character, and this is complemented extraordinarily well by Vergil serving as his rival in two of the games. Despite only physically appearing in 60% of the numbered games canonically, Vergil has a huge role on Dante’s life, starting when they were barely children before traumatic circumstances separated them. Then when they met on the tower when they were just 19, Vergil humiliated Dante and forced him to embrace his demonic heritage so he could keep up with Vergil in a straight fight. Ultimately though, while also maturing as a person, Dante not only fought Vergil to a standstill but went on to defeat him in a straight fight. But Vergil’s deaht would haunt Dante for years to come, and that misery would intensify upon fighting and killing Nelo Angelo, driving Dante into a deep depression that lasted years until Nero reignited the spark in Dante and brought him back from the brink. Through Nero, Dante regained his purpose and drive, and when Vergil threatened to come back as Urizen and then as himself, Dante was swift to try and destroy this at the root- Vergil had upended his life and mental state twice already and he refused to let it happen a third time. It took Nero moving past his own trauma and literally bitch-slapping sense into him for Dante and Vergil to begin to reconcile, and by the time of their final scene, the two brothers are now finally united as a demon-slaying team that will last the ages. Itsuno not only saved Devil May Cry (from himself, but again, four months) after DMC 2, but retroactively tied the first two games together with the third and subsequent games to give Dante a (largely) coherent character arc across the series. For that, Itsuno and writing team, along with Reuben Langdom, deserve massive respect for accomplishing what many wouldn’t consider doing for a “dumb Japanese action game.” To say nothing of the work done to turn Vergil from a one-note villain in DMC 1 to one of the greatest rival characters in gaming, and particular praise must be given to Dan Southworth for his work as the character over the last decade. Character content like this is what will ensure that Devil May Cry as a series stays relevant not just because of its near-perfect gameplay, but its surprisingly touching character moments between these goofballs that makes me always eager for more adventures in this universe. 

Thank you for reading. 

(also who expected the Subhuman redux to be so good? All it took was getting rid of the kid-touching creep and getting an actual musician in the book, who’d have thunk it)