#his flaws. seems like she had a pretty balanced childhood herself

[adaptive-radiation]

Youth by Glass Animals is one of my new favourite songs 

[pokemonswshbutionlyplayedsword]

What personality trait would the gym leaders say they hate the most about another gym leader?

This is gonna be a long one, have a seat.

Milo

Nessa- Her tendency to stick to what she knows. She’s not willing to try new things.

Kabu- His tendency to lean towards places like Motostoke with no nature.

Bea- The fact that she refuses to slow down and appreciate nature, despite always being out training in it.

Allister- His shyness. It’s hard to connect to him if they never speak.

Opal- She’s arrogant about nature and the forest in a way that bothers Milo.

Gordie- Milo’s problem with Gordie is how outgoing he is. When they’re together, Gordie tends to be the loud leader, and Milo would rather just relax. It’s fine to be outgoing, but Gordie unknowingly leaves people behind sometimes.

Melony- Melony tends to treat people younger than her like children. She means well but Milo is a gym leader and a business owner.

Piers- Piers is incredibly dull to Milo. They have nothing in common and it feels like Piers doesn’t even try sometimes.

Raihan- Raihan can often accidentally forget about the people near him. He’s a good friend, but sometimes he gets too sucked into social media.

Leon- Leon’s a people pleaser. Milo can never trust his opinions because he always says what he thinks Milo wants to hear.

Nessa

Milo- He’s a little bit of a doormat. Nessa wishes he’d be more assertive.

Kabu- Kabu thinks he’s wiser than a lot of people for some reason.

Bea- Bea is too serious about herself.

Allister- Nessa doesn’t really have a problem with him.

Opal- Opal is creepy to Nessa. Old people make Nessa nervous in general though.

Melony- She can worry too much.

Gordie- He doesn’t like to socialize much. Hanging out with him isn’t much fun for her.

Piers- Piers can be a jerk sometimes. He’s just sour in general.

Raihan- He’s too competitive.

Leon- Leon can be easily distracted. Having a conversation with him is difficult, and Nessa hates not being heard.

Kabu

Milo- Milo is too insistent on growing plants and nature. Motostoke has a park, thanks.

Nessa- She doesn’t have a lot of respect for people. Especially older people (not that that applies to Kabu specifically.)

Bea- Kabu gets along with Bea pretty well, though her sense of humor is pretty dry.

Allister- Kabu doesn’t really know Allister well enough to have a greivance.

Opal- Only person on the league who is older than him, so she acts like she’s better than him sometimes.

Gordie- Kabu is Melony’s friend, so he doesn’t agree with Gordie’s choice to be a rock type trainer.

Melony- She’s bossy to him, but they’re best friends, so he expected that.

Piers- Kabu secretly (so secretly he’s never told anyone) thinks Piers made the wrong choice in not having Marnie live with Melony when she was young.

Raihan- Too engrossed in social media.

Leon- He’s a smart guy, but he doesn’t show it, and that annoys Kabu.

Bea

Milo- It bothers Bea that Milo is so passive.

Nessa- Nessa constantly tries to push Bea to do more feminine things.

Kabu- Kabu’s really judgy.

Allister- Bea knows Allister better than most, so she knows that he’s stubborn and a picky eater.

Opal- Opal constantly writes off Bea’s strength since she thinks brains are more important in battling.

Gordie- Gordie fakes being confident and Bea thinks he should just be genuine.

Melony- Melony doesn’t seem to think Bea is capable of taking care of herself.

Piers- Bea doesn’t think Piers cares enough.

Raihan- Raihan tries too hard. Bea’s all about giving it 110%, but Raihan’s driven by the wrong goal.

Leon- Bea thinks that Leon let the fame go to his head a little bit.

Allister

Milo- Milo wants to get to know him too much.

Nessa- Nessa can be pushy, but not to him.

Kabu- Kabu seems to think he’s wiser than he actually is.

Bea- Bea is too strict. With Allister and herself.

Opal- Opal thinks that being a fairy type trainer makes her better than everyone else.

Gordie- Gordie isn’t honest with himself and his fans. None of them know that Gordie isn’t the same person behind closed doors.

Melony- Melony wants to mother him and he doesn’t like it.

Piers- Allister thinks that Piers doesn’t care about his position. He does it for the wrong reason.

Raihan- He’s too loud and eccentric. It’s a lot for Allister to deal with.

Leon- Leon puts his position as Champion above being a person.

Opal

Milo- Milo is too content being at the bottom of the circuit.

Nessa- Nessa is arrogant and bossy.

Kabu- Kabu wants to be the best, but he doesn’t put the work in for it.

Bea- She doesn’t balance her training enough, and worries too much about the brawn.

Allister- Allister isolates himself and she doesn’t think it’s healthy.

Gordie- He’s not honest with himself and doubts everything too much.

Melony- She can be overbearing.

Piers- He doesn’t take care of himself, and then complains about it.

Raihan- His fame is more important than being a gym leader, despite how hard he works.

Leon- Leon is a people pleaser.

Gordie

Milo- He doesn’t stand up for himself enough.

Nessa- She’s constantly pushing others to do things they don’t want to do.

Kabu- Clings too closely to Kanto. He left for a reason, didn’t he?

Bea- She doesn’t have a sense of humor and doesn’t seem to want one.

Allister- Allister can be brutally honest, but Gordie doesn’t blame him, he’s just a kid.

Opal- Opal thinks she knows everything.

Melony- This one’s obvious.

Piers- Pier is his best friend, but Piers is bitter and low energy, so staying with him is too slow a lifestyle for Gordie.

Raihan- He’s more obsessed with his fanbase than Gordie is, and that’s saying a lot.

Leon- Leon distances himself from the others, so it’s hard not to feel like Leon thinks he’s better than them.

Melony

Milo- He doesn’t stand up for himself.

Nessa- She refuses help from people for no reason.

Kabu- Complains to her a lot and has a hard time listening when she complains back.

Bea- Doesn’t take care of herself.

Allister- Needs to let people take care of him because he’s so young.

Opal- Very judgmental.

Gordie- This one is also obvious.

Piers- She hates herself for this, but she doesn’t think Piers should have had Marnie stay in Spikemuth with him when they were younger. And sometimes she thinks he hasn’t done the best job with her.

Raihan- He cares more about his fame than being a person.

Leon- His position takes priority over the brother that needs him.

Piers

Milo- He’s too insistent on Piers bringing plants into Spikemuth.

Nessa- She’s bossy and doesn’t take no for an answer.

Kabu- Kabu sides with Melony a lot, but he’s more vocal about their negative opinions of him.

Bea- She doesn’t take him seriously.

Allister- Piers doesn’t really have an issue with Allister.

Opal- He can’t stand that she always wants to read and understand him.

Gordie- Gordie often leaves him behind because he’s too impatient.

Melony- Melony doesn’t realize he knows what she thinks about him keeping Marnie with him.

Raihan- Raihan constantly pushes Piers out of his comfort zone in the bad way and overwhelms him.

Leon- Leon is hard to communicate with because he divides his attention between as many people as possible.

Raihan

Milo- Milo insists on people being calm and living life slow. Raihan doesn’t want that.

Nessa- Nessa wants to turn everything into a competition with him.

Kabu- Kabu judges him pretty openly.

Bea- She shows off around him a little. He knows she’s not vain, so she must be trying to tell him something.

Allister- Raihan doesn’t have a grievance with him. He’s just a kid.

Opal- She insists on knowing everything about Raihan and doesn’t listen when he tells her he’s uncomfortable with it.

Gordie- Gordie sides with Piers whenever Piers and Raihan get in a fight.

Melony- Melony cares a little too much that Raihan was raised by a single father.

Piers- Piers is just bitter. Everything Raihan does seems to bother him sometimes.

Leon- Leon always seems to be one step ahead. It infuriates him that Leon doesn’t have to train as seriously as he does.

Leon

Milo- Milo can be pretty closed minded when it comes to things related to plants and nature.

Nessa- Nessa is impatient and tends to get mad at him too quickly.

Kabu- Kabu is one of the league’s main gossipers.

Bea- She has attempted to “correct” Leon’s training regimen. Multiple times.

Allister- Allister doesn’t involve himself in the league enough.

Opal- Opal has a lot to say about Leon’s childhood, which he doesn’t want to talk about much.

Gordie- Gordie tends to ignore others without realizing.

Melony- Melony is overbearing.

Piers- He doesn’t care enough about the league.

Raihan- Raihan refuses to drop the competition between them and takes it way too seriously.

Reminder: They’re all really good friends. They’re like family, even. But everyone has flaws.

[spookypetrine]

Bewitching the Elements: Water

This chapter was a rough one bring so many emotions up for me. I only seems to express my feeling with crying if I am in water. The shower and the pool. I constantly want to float in water in emotional states and it does facilitate a lot of breakdowns for me. I don't show my emotions well or share them with others at all in a verbal way. When my fiancé passed away in 2018 I barely cried after his death. I didn't finally cry until my family took me on vacation to the beach a few months later. I went down to the beach alone to swim and I cried at the beauty of the ocean and the pain in my hear that he had never seen the ocean while he was alive. It was devastating and painful to think about as he was gone never to return and I was still here. I am still here and that healing was painful and still not done. This brought all of that back.

I have rambled long enough lets get into these questions.

What does the element of water represent to me?

To me it represents peace and sadness. It's soft and calming, but also have a secret rage. This is the ocean deep and dark with unexplored crevices that hold secrets of the divine feminine inside each person. The feeling of unabashed rage and a delicate side showing the perfect balance of the womxn. It is a glorious element to behold honestly.

What's my truest emotional nature feel like?

For me as I expressed before my emotional nature is a secret. I locked box that very few get to be privy to because when I was a child those emotions were belittled and pushed aside. As an adult I never learned to process them or control them just hide them. Shrink my feelings and shove them away from others. This also involved a lot of learning to cry quietly and learning how to function when paralyzed with depression. My depression took full effect in high school I was stuck in a cycle of having to function when every part of me wanted to hide from the world. Is this healthy or helpful? No. Does it cause immense problems in my personal life? Yes. Will it cause me to change? I am trying with self-therapy and meditation I am trying so that's something I guess.

What is my soul saying to me right now?

I need to meditate and once I finish this journaling I will probably spend the next few hours doing that and reflecting. I also need to pull some cards for some much needed clarity.

What does my shadow self feel like? Express itself as?

My shadow self is the scared little girl hiding in the closet every time someone knocks on the door. When I was about 2 my mother left my abusive father and we moved into an apartment in town to hide from him. Anytime someone knocked on the apartment door I would scream that it was daddy and try to drag my mother into the closet to hide from him. To this day my mother tells that story fondly as a cute anecdote about my childhood. It's a traumatic story about me trying to hide from my abusive scary father, but yes tell that at family reunions.

My shadow self is that little girl that never gets to be a little girl. That small child that had all of her carefree times stripped from her and was placed in a survival mood so young. My shadow self is her and as I write this I can see her in her Barbie footie pajamas hiding with her teddy bear. That is who she is the hurt child begging her mother to get in the closet to save her. She expresses herself every time I get a new stuffie to sit on my bed with me. Every time I do my make-up in a silly way or paint a picture. These are the moments when she comes out and slowly I am healing us both.

What does it feel like living in the world when I'm connected to my heart?

I know my worth in every scenario even in romantic ones. I don't let people use me as much and I stand my ground when needed. I don't let others abuse my heart and I don't do it either. She needs me to be strong and I am. If that strength ends in us being alone then so be it at least no one can take advantage of me any longer.

What practices can I turn to when I'm feeling overwhelmed, emotional, and like I need help?

Well, I write on here and on my google docs. I meditate or exercise. Watch something that makes me happy or read. Sometimes I watch ASMR videos online and enjoy the happy sounds and sights. These are things that help me destress when I need to.

What are the parts of myself I am still learning to accept and love?

I am a bigger woman and have spent most of my life being too big and too much. I am learning to use that and embrace all that I am and my physical body is. Instead of hating her and the person looking back at me in the mirror, I have to learn to love her and heal her as she needs. She is me and I need to make sure she is taken care of. Right now I am just going through the motions, but eventually, it will become and kneejerk reaction to love myself and build myself up. As needed I will be my own advocate because no one is going to do it for me or see my value if I don't see it for myself.

What are ways I can nurture myself through this?

This is a very new radical path I am on and I have to go it pretty much alone. In this time I just need to remind myself to be conscious that I am trying and be patient as I relearn to love my body and myself. To find beauty in my flaws and hope in my soul I will evolve to love myself despite the world telling me I shouldn't. I will.

[atopearth]

Fate/hollow ataraxia Part 3 - Chibi is Justice (Phase 3)

Lmao, I love how Avenger thought the way Bazett died against Assassin was so hilarious. It seems she's pretty numb towards the repetitive resurrections now though. Avenger is right though, Bazett is so violent lmao, she solves everything so practically and violently, it's pretty hilarious, especially when she got impatient at Avenger taking too long to unlock the gate to a Master's (looks like Rin's) house so she just broke in loll. It's pretty cute how Avenger protected her from the milk trap lmao. I wonder if the world Bazett is in, and the world Shirou and them are in aren't connected yet? It seems kinda connected since Shirou and Saber supposedly saw stuff like the house where those randoms died, and they saw the place where Bazett resurrects, but considering the fact that even though they both patrol around at night, yet haven't seen each other, do we need to get through a bit more things for it all to escalate?

I'm not sure if Avenger is the same Avenger that was supposed to be born in Heaven's Feel and whether his story is the same since he just kinda tells Bazett that Angra Mainyu isn't his real name because a friend sacrificed his life to save him, so he kinda just took the friend's name and repaid the world with it, so his hero name is basically honouring his friend whilst he's lost his identity. Anyway, lmao at Bazett telling him her background as if she's sharing her practical work experience lol. Her story in a sense is similar to the Matou since she's from an elite family that retained their unique power but lost influence as an important family, so she kinda tries to prove herself within the Magic Association even though they don't care or like her because their traditions and families are so ingrained, there's no place for anything else to shake the balance. It's funny how Avenger justifies it that he's right that she's technically 30+ (she's 23 lol) because she never really had a childhood so she's been an adult most her life lol.

Ohh so the reason why Shirou could never really "progress" was because of his lack of training. He hasn't done any sort of magic and training in so long! Aww the little kid Saber was watching playing soccer looks like a mini Shirou haha! Lmao when she threw the ball into the goal and everyone was stunned hahaha. HAHAHA, Saber kicked the ball and it broke🤣 so cute how Shirou fixed the ball for them. Wow, they've really upped their game for this fandisk! The battle sequence between Shirou + Saber against Archer was so fluent and cool! I really loved how Shirou was able to think of a pretty good plan of getting Saber to Archer super fast using his last Command Spell, so that she can cut him down right after he shoots his arrow and won't have time to react against her attack. It all looked really good too! I'm also really glad that Shirou was able to use his skills again. It's really been a while! However, when Saber asked if this was really all right, I wasn't really sure. Like, obviously they had no choice since Archer was out to kill them, but at the same time, if Archer was so ready to kill them, there must be something big going on that they're not aware of.

Okay, I legit died laughing when the mini game to defeat Illya and her castle came up lmaooo. It was so hilarious!! The chibi characters are so cute and lmaoo at Saber saying food names when she fights. Legit died when I used Excalibur and she said chashu men/noodles hahahahah, I couldn't concentrate on fighting hahahah. I love how Caster uses Assassin to fight, and it was so funny when Rider rode her Griffon because it looked like some chibi horse hahahaha. I loved the mini game, it was absolutely great. I want to play it again now lmao. Illya losing and then pressing a red button to destroy everything was such a funny finale hahaha. I love seeing the Taiga Dojo Taiga lmao. The quizzes are pretty funny lolll! I love the night quiz where Taiga wants to be the main heroine of Fate so bad lmaooo. Oh, and Sella giving Shirou a storeroom to sleep in was hilarious, poor Shirou🤣 HAHAHA at Sakura getting petrified when Saber told her that Servants don't get fat from eating etc, especially since Sakura tries hard to maintain her weight and everything hahaha. I loved how Rider had to drag the Sakura who turned into a rock away lolll. It was so funny when Sakura called Rider a traitor since she never told her that her body won't change no matter how much they eat🤣🤣 Sakura is so cute, her and Shirou fighting over who should bath first was cute, but when he pushed her in and she started going crazy with her delusions thinking that they were going to bathe together in their swimsuits was just hilarious🤣 Saber being scared of sinking in the water was pretty cute, lmao when she was dashing through the water though hahaha. Never thought she would be able to walk on water because she had the blessing of lake fairies lol. Aww it was so cute how Saber sunk into the water when Shirou said her body shape was nice and everything hahaha. Also lmao at Archer and Lancer invading their little picnic at the poolside and stealing their food lolll. I never really thought about it, but hearing Archer complain/give tips on how Shirou can improve his cooking is kinda cute and funny at the same time since he would know best what he needs to improve on🤣 Anyway, I love it when Saber is such a sore loser that she forces Shirou into competing with her (in this case, swimming) until she wins and is satisfied with her wins hahaha. She's so proud of winning after it all too lmao.

Whoa, I didn't expect the H-scenes in Eclipse, I was so shocked lmao, I had to look behind my shoulder to make sure no one saw me because it was so sudden hahaha! Anyway, I've never been a fan of the Fate H-scenes so yeah, this wasn't any better imo. Lmao, I love how Himuro is so interested in Mitsuzuri's love life and wants to know who her boyfriend is, she's so weirdly obstinate, it's kinda funny🤣 I'll admit that I'm definitely warming up to the trio of Himuro, Makidera and Yukika now haha. It's so stupid yet hilarious how they're so insistent on finding out who Mitsuzuri's dating lol. They've got some crazy dedication haha, legit died when Taiga started thinking Shirou was becoming more and more of a player with all these girls lol. Honestly I know Minori (Mitsuzuri's younger brother) doesn't mean harm, but he really gets out of hand when it comes to his dislike for Shirou. Anyway, I'm glad Himuro dragged him away lol, and with that, I think I kinda like the idea of Minori and Himuro together hahahah. Lmao at the Mitsuzuri dating thing was actually because she was desperately looking for someone to be her boyfriend to win the bet with Rin, so she told her brother to disguise and pretend to be her boyfriend, that is pretty embarrassing hahaha.

LMAO at Archer and Lancer having a fishing battle or something, it's hilarious how petty Archer seems towards Lancer hahaha. Omggg Saegusa can see Kojirou and they're so cute and friendly together!? It's such a random match but I love them. They have such a peaceful atmosphere. LMAOOO when Shirou bluntly asked Illya if he could use her castle dining room for a dinner date and Illya thought it was her and there were like pigeons flying in the background, and then Shirou says for Sakura and she sulks in her chibi sketch form hahahahaha. I nearly died from laughter with that transition.

 Awwww! Sakura in the pink evening dress with ribbons on her hair (kinda like Rin) is so cutee! The dress in itself is kinda ugly tbh but Sakura is adorable. Awww Shirou in a tuxedo is pretty cute too! Anyway, I honestly think it's so sweet of Shirou to have granted Sakura's wish for a fancy dinner like this. Like sure, he really didn't do much besides have the guts to ask Illya for help, but the fact that he remembered her wish and did what he could to grant it was sweet enough. The way Shirou accepts everything about Sakura including all her flaws, and saying all that in his own clumsy way makes my heart so warm. Hearing Illya talk about some memories of Kiritsugu fondly makes me happy that there were at least a few memories they were able to cherish together. Seeing Illya so happy and excited to play and talk with Shirou always makes my heart so warm tbh. The CG of Shirou and Illya sharing a bed together is so heartwarming, I love it. She never got to see Kiritsugu ever again, but at least Illya now has Shirou who will always dote on her and do his best to protect her. Tbh, in the beginning, I really didn't like Illya and always thought there's no way I'll like this murderous little girl, but omg she's invaded my heart so much, I love her, and her relationship with Shirou. Sella and Liz interactions are so funny, I love how Liz is just outing her to Shirou about how Sella is afraid of ghosts lmao. HAHAHA, I loved how Shirou got so scared of whatever he saw in the wine cellar, he ran out and pulled Sella along with him, and described it to her when she told him not to hahaha. The funniest thing was that it was actually Liz with a halberd lmao, that is definitely scary😂 It's interesting to know that Liz is actually the Dress of Heaven to kinda complete Illya, I'm not sure if I forgot that or if it was never mentioned, but now it's kinda understandable why Liz is a guess a bit more different compared to Sella who is basically full maid. Lmao, the more Sella and Liz appear, the more I love them. It was so funny when Liz gave him that possibly 200 years old card that is most likely cursed and then laughed as she left hahahaha. Omgg, it's so funny but I never really thought that Sella, Liz and even Illya drive to and from the castle!! Lmao when Shirou asked Illya if she drove a Bersercar HAHAHA😂😂😂😂 To be fair, that's what I would have assumed😂

Archer saving the kitten stuck on top of a tree and then going on a long ass rant about heroes of justice was hilarious. But, I have to say, the things he said were pretty interesting and right to an extent, especially the idea of heroes stunting the growth of people like this kitten who will start to always think that someone like a hero will save them so they don't need to think about saving themselves. Anyway, now that Gilgamesh isn't in a "serious" game as he says, his silliness and ridiculousness is so much more funny. I love how careless he is to get caught up in crap but be too prideful to ask for help hahahah. And it was so funny when Rider dragged Saber away calling them losers for their masters' affections since Shirou and Sakura are going to the pool together and she doesn't want to interfere even though she probably wants to join lol. Aww Sakura in her swimsuit is cute. Okay, I change my mind, her side angle is hot hahahha. I can understand why Shirou was so stunned hahahah. HAHAHA, I nearly died of laughter when Sakura told Shirou she's not good at backstroke, and he said that would be awesome hahahahaha, he's a pervert🤣🤣 Omg that underwater kiss though! Shirou was being silly as usual, trying too hard to make Sakura happy and staying underwater past his limits, so she gave him "air" through the kiss haha, Shirou is lucky~ LMAO when Rider and Saber popped up at the pool hahahaha. Omg Rider's swimsuit is hot though, I love it. Sakura and Shirou holding hands back home is so adorableeee, I wish their date lasted longer~~ Aww Saber being fascinated by the penguin shaved ice machine is so cute! To be fair, I've always been interested in those too, they're so adorable! I would eat shaved ice just to play with it loll. Well, Bazett's "Noble Phantasm"-like thing is pretty much a cheat if you can negate Saber's Excalibur. But I wonder why everything keeps repeating itself? Oh, and I died when Shirou and Shinji had a "duel" at the harbour LOL, it was so random but hilarious hahahah.

Anyway, yayyy, I'm finally up to the next phase lol! Sure took me a while to finish this one up, I got distracted by so many things hahaha. But yeah, even though I take a long time to get through this game, I honestly really love it whenever I take the time out to read it. The slice of life shenanigans are the best way to brighten up my life lmao, they're all so funny!! I love how this phase really developed Liz and Sella, they're so much more likeable than I initially thought haha. All the swimming pool shenanigans were so funny and nice too. I'm definitely loving Sakura much more than before haha, and Saber has such a special place in my heart now, she's so silly lolll. I really hope to see Rin soon though!

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Mayday IS NOT a Mary Sue!

I’ve heard this assertion before and it’s just bullshit.

To tackle this topic I’m going to crank the dial up to ‘Very difficult’ and strictly look at Mayday’s debut in What If…v2 #105. Were I to take her entire character history into consideration the accusation would crumble like wet paper.

Now, there is no absolute definitive definition of what a Mary Sue is, though there are broad overlaps between the definitions. Those overlaps really boil down to an over idealized character/female character (the male equivalent is Gary Stu or Marty Stu).

For the purposes of this discussion (and because this is what I’ve seen the accusations revolve around), the idea of her being a Mary Sue hinges upon three key points:

She is not flawed

Everyone likes her

And

She masters her powers/wins her first fight with no difficulty

Let’s tackle them each at a time.

She lacked personality flaws?

Well she seemed a bit of a hothead, rather melodramatic and arguably (because she planned on returning to action) deceitful at the very end of the story. She also considered herself a freak and was upset that her athletic accomplishments were the result of her powers not her own hard work. And of course her sense of self was radically rocked when she learned her father was Spider-Man.

Whilst not a personality flaw per se, a source of contention in her life was that she didn’t fit in neatly with any of the school cliques. She was smart enough to hang with the nerds but also athletic enough to hang out with the jocks and as a result was forced to choose between them. This in turn hurt her romantic prospects the boy she liked, Brad Miller.

This is integral to the story because through her alter ego Mayday can combine her intellect and athleticism and be her truest self.

Ah, but does this not then reinforce the accusation that everybody likes her? Poor Mayday. Her problem is too many  people like her. Cry me a river right?

Well, hold on a minute. Why is the idea of people liking the character a mark of a Mary Sue in the first place? It can’t just be a realism issue as many characters can be celebrities or beloved public figures. Bruce Wayne (out of costume) and Wonder Woman are beloved by most of the general public. So is Thor, Captain America and arguably Tony Stark and ¾ of the Fantastic Four.

Obviously villains dislike them though. In this vein then Normie Osborn in What if v2 #105 would dispel the accusation. But let’s be honest, that’s a little cheap isn’t it? Obviously villains aren’t going to like the hero, they wouldn’t be effective villains if they did *glares at Kylo Ren*.

So why are those characters not regarded as Mary Sue’s then? Well, the simple answer would be that the general adoration from others isn’t really that big of a deal for most of those characters. The general public do not strictly speaking need to like the F4 (and in fact have vacillated in their opinion of them), they just need to be famous.

In contrast Spider-Man had a poor public reputation due to Jameson and this is regarded as a hallmark of the character. It’s such a hallmark that it made it into the first 2 movies and later in Spider-Girl the fact that she had a far better public image was highlighted more than once.

So what’s going on here?

Well basically a character is a Mary Sue when everybody loves them at it either serves no story purpose, or if it’s a cheap way of conveying how much the audience should love a character. Or if it makes the character’s lives easier without them putting any work into it.

To give you an example from anime Son Goku and Usagi Tskunio (from Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon respectively, two of the most popular anime ever) typically made friends easily and even converted enemies into allies more than once.

Does this make them Mary Sues?

No, because the people who became friends or allies didn’t just immediately or easily evolve into those roles. Work and effort was put into that by Goku and Usagi respectively. They endured pain or displayed bravery or sacrifice or put their hearts on the line to convince someone to bet better

Now, I’m not saying Mayday’s popularity came about through methods like that. We do not know how Mayday became as popular as she is, though we can easily infer it’s due to her athleticism, physical attractiveness and brains. She’d fit into multiple cliques in school so it’s not unbelievable that her company would be desired by them.

What ultimately disproves her as a Mary Sue in this regard though is that there is a price to pay for that popularity. She is forced to choose between the groups and thus undermine friendships with one group or another. And she can never fully be herself…until she becomes Spider-Girl that is.

Basically Mayday being popular doesn’t make her a Mary Sue because it comes at a personal cost. Her life would honestly be easier if she was just a jock or a nerd.

Of course the counterpoints to that are that it’s a pretty minor concern all things in the grand scheme of life. And if she brings those two halves together as Spider-Girl then she’s solved her problem hasn’t she?

Well for starters, not fitting in exactly with any one group, undermining one set of friendships due to servicing another, juggling those social circles?

That might be a piece of cake next to what Peter Parker dealt with in high school, but for many teenagers it is actually pretty important.

In much the same way that scale matters in super powered conflicts, scale matters in terms of emotional conflicts too. We might argue May has it easier than Peter, but Peter had it arguably easier than the X-Men, or the Silver Surfer or ben Grimm. This is why his romantic or financial struggles were as compelling as (if not more so than) those of the Avengers efforts to save the world.

Mayday is 15. She is growing up. She is still figuring out who she is. So yes, her place in the high school hierarchy (especially in 1990s America no less) and social situation would be important to her. And it is she who is ultimately our POV character.

As for the second point about the two halves of her lives, it’s true. Mayday’s emotional conflict of being pulled between two groups reconciles by the end of the story because she bridges the gap. But for starters, let’s remember Mayday was designed to be a done-on-one character with merely the possibility of a continuation. So reconciling her emotional conflict by the end of the story makes a lot of sense narratively. However, the reality is when she became an on-going character it really wasn’t a big deal.

This is because, whilst she bridged that gap as Spider-Girl, she can’t be Spider-Girl ALL the time!

She has to at some point take the mask off ad go to school and in that environment she still needs to juggle not seeming nerdy to the jocks but not seeming like a jock to the nerds. She would still need to sacrifice potential romance and team building experiences with the jocks or sacrifice arguably more substantial friendships she’s held since childhood.

Okay, so being liked by everyone in context  doesn’t render Mayday a Mary Sue.

But surely we cannot defend her fighting prowess? In her first ever encounter with a villain, her first ever fight, her first ever use of the webshooters she won, and seemingly didn’t stumble.

How can this be defended? Isn’t that at least approaching Rey from the Star Wars sequels levels of unearned skill?

First of all, May should be graded on a curve for the simple reason that she wasn’t invented to be strictly speaking an on-going character. Her whole character arc might’ve begun and ended in What If v2 #105 so given the story, of course we weren’t going to see a training montage.

But even if you ignore that the accusation doesn’t really add up.

For starters it’s pretty obvious her opponent (unlike Rey’s rival, Kylo Ren) was not overly experienced. He seemed to know how to use the weapons in his possession but was clearly emotionally unstable seeing as he was beaten by such an obvious way.

May’s internal thoughts throughout the fight also make it clear she is mostly winging it. She isn’t fighting as effectively as an experienced Spider-Man against an experienced Goblin. She is mostly riding on instinct and her strategy, whilst ultimately effective, is also very rudimentary.

She spots Normie’s gloves are capable of an electrical discharge when she webbed up his hand.

She knows he uses pumpkin bombs because she saw one when he attacked her earlier; plus it’s likely someone just knows about such an infamous super villain.

So she waits for him to pull out a pumpkin bomb then webs up his hand again, hoping he’ll react by using his discharge and blowing himself up. 

Amidst this she needles him to make him emotional and throw him off balance increasing the chances he’ll use his best weapon (the pumpkin bomb) and not think through his actions. 

Let’s also consider she webs up the same hand twice, which would make Normie consider his reaction even less.

It’s a basic but it got the job done. Mayday wouldn’t have needed to be a genius or an experienced fighter to have come up with that plan.

But as it happens her parents are two people who between them have scientific acumen, strong social skills, a penchant for getting inside people’s heads or under their skin and are very quick witted and resourceful. It’s not really necessary for the story to spell out for us that Mayday could have inherited these traits and/or observed them in practice growing up.*

From a storytelling POV, because we the audience are familiar enough with Peter and MJ (even if you don’t know that many specific stories) that context is part of the subtext of the story. So Mayday possessing those essential skills isn’t a cheap ass pull or anything.

But what about her use of Peter’s powers? She didn’t stumble with them, not even once.

Well, putting aside how the narration makes it clear she’s riding by the skin of her teeth more than once, this is justified when we compare to Peter himself.

I know that in Spider-Man 2002 and Amazing Spider-man 2012 Peter practiced with his powers and did stumble a bit in his use of them. But those were live action movies that demand a certain greater degree of realism because we have actual human beings right in front of us. They were also made 4-14 years after What If v2 #105. Additionally, whilst Maguire and Garfield’s Peter’s did have to stumble a bit, the key phrase there is ‘a bit’. 

They got the hang of their powers pretty quickly, with Maguire’s Peter trouncing Flash Thompson with ease.

Garfield meanwhile defended himself from people in a tiny subway carriage practically by accident.

Maguire’s Spidey got the hang of web swinging on his second try.

For the original 616 Peter Parker, the situation was even easier. IIRC aside from one flashback story showcasing Peter accidentally failing to control his strength, Peter had a handle on all his abilities pretty quickly, including web-swinging. Very  early into his career he held his own against four experienced heroes simultaneously. Specifically the Fantastic Four.

This was (in publication order) the first ever time Peter battled anyone with powers of their own. And remember, this event is 100% canonical to Spider-Girl’s universe. Her version of Peter Parker (her father) battled the F4 exactly this way.

Ah, but that was written in 1963. Standards weren’t as believable or grounded as they were circa 1998. Well, what about Ultimate Spider-Man from 2000? A series that was actually bucking trends because  it was more grounded and realistic (allegedly)? In this universe Peter had his powers for a while before he first ever super villain battle and had dealt with some petty crooks before.

Nevertheless he too was very effective when he first fought Ultimate Green Goblin. Ultimate Goblin wasn’t great at critical thinking, but he was overwhelming stronger than Peter and more durable. And yet, Peter at the very least held his own in the fight.

So it seems spider powers don’t require much practice before you can use them in combat. You can at least avoid attacks, hold your own and grasp the basics of web-swinging pretty quickly.

When looking at the 616 version of Spider-Man’s (and by extension Spider-Girl’s) powers this makes a lot of sense.

To begin with wall-crawling was second nature to Peter in the 616 universe and Ultimate Universe.

More importantly the Spider Sense is a MASSIVE factor in Peter and Mayday’s respective fighting styles and was explicitly a factor in Mayday’s duel with Normie.

The Marvel wiki had this to say about Peter’s spider sense on his main page:

Spider-Sense: Spider-Man possesses a precognitive danger or "spider" sense which warns him of potential or immediate danger by the manifestation of a tingling sensation in the back of his skull, and links with his superhuman kinesthetics, enabling him to evade most any injuries, unless he cognitively overrides his automatic reflexes… Spider-Man's spider-sense is directional and can guide him to or away from hidden weapons and enemies. Sudden and extreme threats can cause his spider-sense to react with painful intensity. Spider-Man can also sense and dodge attacks directed randomly or by an artificial intelligence. Using his spider-sense to time his enhanced reflexes, Spider-Man can casually dodge attacks up to and including automatic-weapons fire, provided there is sufficient distance. His spider-sense is sufficiently well-linked to his reflexes to the point that a threat can trigger them even when Spider-Man is asleep or stunned.

This is further corroborated in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide Updated Edition’, written by Tom DeFalco, co-creator of What if v2 #105

Additionally, ASM #656 established that Peter’s Spider Sense helped him greatly when web-swinging by subconsciously guiding his aim towards safe anchor points.**

So Mayday’s proficiency with her newfound powers is actually not all that surprising. Her Spider-Sense actively compensated for her lack of experience. And if we look at her battle with Normie her predominant tactic is to just dodge and keep him distracted. The latter doesn’t really require training just some common sense and guts. The former is practically the wholesale function of the Spider-Sense in the first place.

Still don’t buy it?

Still think this is all a stretch?

Think that the Spider-Sense is just cheating?

Maybe you think dodging is one thing, but Mayday actively attacks Normie three times in the battle.

She saves herself from freefall and then transitions that into a strike against him.

She webbed up his hand accurate in the midst of the fight twice!

Her ability to do all that in her first fight, with no training, surely proves her for the Mary Sue she is.

Well here is something even I never considered until today…Mayday was already  athletic before  she gained her powers.

Mayday had won herself a spot on the Midtown High girls basketball team.

The story doesn’t say when this happened but her familiarity with the team and the popular kids not on the team heavily implies she’s been on the team for a while. She talks about possibly getting a shot at scholarship or going pro. This again implies basketball isn’t just a recent new hobby, that she’s been into it for a while; an idea confirmed in her on-going solo book. This is further alluded to when Mayday laments that she believed her athletic skills were the result of training, practice and hard work.

That line itself implies Mayday has in fact had her powers all along and been unwittingly been using them. This would mean that Mayday had been practicing on the court for many years, giving her a handle on her skills that she could bring to bear against Normie.***

However, earlier in the story Peter and MJ have a shocked reaction to Mayday’s slam dunk. Along with their dialogue this implies Mayday actually didn’t have any powers before the start of the story.

Regardless, if Mayday trained, practiced and worked hard as a basketball player (and was good enough to make the team) she’d have developed certain skills. Skills that would have been transferable to her duel with Normie.

She’d have developed hand-eye co-ordination. Hence her ability to aim her webs and strikes accurately.

She’d have developed an awareness of the physics of he body. As in what movements in relation to the situation would generate what result. Like for example when she transitioned her swing into a kick.

She’d have had a certain knowledge of basic physics, because she’d need the ball to go where she’d need it to go. As in if she pushes off left with her arms out she should travel X distance. If she curls up her body it will slow her down, etc.

She’d have developed muscle memory and been able to move on instinct. Hence she could still be great at dodging even without her powers.

She would’ve known how to observe terrain and her opponents. E.g. she knew how to use the bridge’s shape to create a pendulum motion and kick Normie. And she knew observed his electrical discharge attack and pumpkin bombs.

She would’ve learned how to use the terrain and her opponents’ strengths and weaknesses to her advantage. Hence she, you know…won the fight.

And she would’ve known how to perform under pressure. She wasn’t thrown off by her powers or Normie’s almost lethal attacks.

All of these factors would’ve served her incredibly well in her fight.

When taken all together NO.

Mayday Parker is not, and was never, a Mary Sue.

*Mayday’s scientific knowledge would also have served her very well in being able to figure out the right way to move in the battle. For example when she broke her freefall and turned the swing into an attack.

**We might also speculate it was the Spider-Sense that guided Mayday in how to use trigger the web-shooters through the double-tap mentioned in the story.

Although frankly Spider-Man being such a famous and well documented hero the general public have probably seen him shoot a web and thus know about his famous hand gesture. So Mayday, being intelligent (let alone scientifically clever like her Dad) probably deduced how to activate the web-shooters.

***Not to mention, the scene demonstrates Mayday testing out her powers. So she didn’t walk into battle with Normie completely unaware of what she might be capable of.

[kylosupremeimagines]

Knights of Ren OCs

So after watching the Rise of Skywalker, I am immensely disappointed with how the Knights of Ren turned out. And I’m pretty sure many others are as well. Of course, all the hype for them was great and we were left wondering about them for years only to be let down with a lack of importance for them in the movie. 

I’ve had these OCs for quite a few years now and after what we got with the movie, I thought that it would be great to share them! It’s a diverse group of Force Users, all of them coming from the temple, which means that there is some lore changed since I created them before the movie/comic came out. Either way, I still think that they’re great! 

(*SPOILER FOR TROS IN THIS PARAGRAPH!* Also, in reference to Cazalin: I created her long before this movie even came out, and I originally wrote her as the granddaughter of Palpatine through Sly Moore. It’s an important part of her character. Despite how the Rise of Skywalker turned out - both with Rey being a Palpatine as well as what Palpatine did with knowing he had a grandchild - I’m not changing that about her. So it looks like Rey now has a Knight of Ren Cousin!) 

Cazalin (Main OC with RPs)

(Willa Holland)

Name: Cazalin Zera Crandora-Palpatine (Granddaughter) 

Alias: Caz Ren 

Rank: Knight of Ren, Commander

Gender: Female

Birth Planet: Corellia 

Species: Human/Umbaran Hybrid

Affiliation: First Order, Knights Of Ren 

Age: 29 (Born 6 ABY)

Skin: Pale | Has light blue/Purple markings around eyes and on lips

Hairstyle: Wavy | Thick | To Lower Back | Braided

Hair Color: Warm Brown 

Eye Color: Pale Green (Umbaran Gene)

Scars: Lightning scar due to Snoke going down entire back/parts of her right side, cybernetic left arm from starting just above the elbow (has synthskin), various smaller ones.

Positive Traits: Her drive is something that pushes her constantly. She puts pride in her work and wants to make sure that the First Order works to its highest ability. Deep down, however, she knows that much of what they’re doing is wrong and part of her hopes to one day put an end to Snoke so that he can’t treat the people of the galaxy with as much abuse and control as he does some of the knights (especially Kylo). Sure, she was full of anger at first for Luke, but that doesn’t mean she’s a complete monster.

Negative traits: With the passion she holds, Cazalin tends to be extremely stubborn. She likes to stick to one plan if she can help it and rarely dives away from her original plans. It mainly comes from her constant anxiety of failure thanks to the high expectations Snoke has on all of the Knights. She also doesn’t let a lot of people in. But even with the few that she holds close - like the other Knights of Ren - she sometimes feels to be a burden to them thus opts not to turn to them in times of emotional need. Therefore, she has a lot of emotions building up which can be dangerous in the wrong situation.

Likes: meat, studying holocrons, the idea of making changes to the Order, soft blankets, training, sleeping in silence. 

Dislikes: Manipulation, the ocean, bug creatures, snow/the cold, her family (from childhood)

Motivations/drives: Her main motivation is the idea of growing stronger to later kill Snoke so that the Knights can take command with Kylo as the Supreme Leader. 

Character Flaws: She suffers from trauma that can cloud her judgment with emotions, and she tends to push herself too far to the point of utter exhaustion during both training and missions as a way to “punish” herself. 

Combat  Strengths: Agility, use of force lightning 

Combat Weaknesses: Physical strength, patience, can get provoked due to emotions

Main Weapon: Saber Staff | One Hilt | Two Blades | Two Red Crystals

Background/History: Cazalin grew up on Corellia with her mother Shalla (half human, half Umbaran, Child of Palpatine and Sly Moore), father Devron-Rell, and twin brother Drexen-Thel. Devron was close with her when she was a child, and he had encouraged her to embrace her powers while her mother didn’t want her using them, knowing the history with her own father, even if she wasn’t close with him at all. She lost her father due to a shipment accident at the shipyard, and with Shalla’s refusal to let her use her powers untrained, Cazalin ran off and eventually found herself at the temple. She and Ben became close friends, relating to him in the fact that a dark entity reached out to her through the Force. Later, she joined him and some other students to join the First Order. 

Dralin 

(Henry Cavill)

Name: Dralin Novar

Alias: Dralin Ren

Rank: Knight of Ren 

Gender: Male

Birth Planet: Ord Mantell

Species: Human

Affiliation: Black Sun (Previously), First Order, Knights of Ren

Age: 40 (Born 5 BBY)

Skin: Fair

Hairstyle: Sleek

Hair Color: Dark Brown 

Eye Color: Blue 

Scars: His left ring and middle fingers are cybernetic from losing them, Scar on the right hand from getting stabbed as a teenager. 

Positive traits: Despite his embrace of negative emotions through the dark side, many of the other Knights are rather unsure how Dralin is able to stay so calm. He’s patient and prefers to wait things out until he feels as if it’s the right time to strike. The man also holds respect for his fellow First Order Members so long as they are competently doing what they are supposed to. He allows room for error as long as there was a clear effort put in that showed no signs of total ignorance. He is also a man who seeks out knowledge, interested in certain aspects of sith alchemy or other like aspects of the Force. 

Negative traits: Opposite to his usual calm demeanor, he is terrifying the instances when he’s pissed off. He will often snap necks to prevent things from getting too gruesome - partially because of his OCD and dislike of getting excess blood on his tunic. He likes things to be swift so he’ll do what he can to avoid violent confrontation so long as circumstances allow for it. IT proves bad in certain situations when the other knights believe violence is needed. Because of that, he doesn’t work too well alone with Orus, thus they don’t go on certain missions alone together. 

Likes: Force Knowledge, peaceful resolve when possible, fancy wine, people who waste his time, opera music (loves going to The Galaxies Opera House on Coruscant.) 

Dislikes: Complete incompetence, ignorance, disorganization, people who don’t speak up when they have something important to contribute to a conversation

Motivations/drives: He genuinely wants to keep order in the galaxy, and believes that the First Order is the way to go.

Character Flaws: Sometimes he doesn’t see that diplomacy will fail and always insists on staying on his original route on trying to negotiate rather than doing the hard things that are necessary unless there’s no turning back from it. 

Combat  Strengths: Patience, talking his opponents down

Combat Weaknesses: Dislike of excess blood on his tunic, balancing his saber and force abilities when he uses them connected. 

Main Weapon: Curved Hilted Sabers | Attachable Hilts | Two Red Crystals

Background/History: Being born before the fall of the Galactic Empire, he had a few memories growing up about them. It’s Because his parents were workers at the Ord Mantell Deep Dock that he lived on the planet under the control of the Empire. His parents often were caught up with work so he had to take care of himself, therefore learning not to expect much as well as to respect people who fight for themselves. He had his basic needs met with having enough food and other similar things. He eventually ended up meeting Volgoth and getting involved with the Black Sun to better support himself. But it ended badly he escaped with the Devaroian to survive on their own for a while until joining Luke to learn the ways of the Force. 

Isa 

( https://www.tvovermind.com/darth-atroxa-cosplay-star-wars-old-republic/

Name: Isa Covell

Alias: Isa Ren

Rank: Knight of Ren

Gender: Female 

Birth Planet: Ryloth

Species: Twi’lek

Affiliation: First Order, Knights of Ren

Age: 33 (Born 2 ABY)

Skin: Ren

Hairstyle: None 

Hair Color: N/A

Eye Color: Gold

Scars: Cybernetic Implants above right eye that serves as a way to better hack into technology 

positive traits: Even if she can be ruthless sometimes in her actions, that doesn’t mean that she’s always so merciless. In fact, she will normally keep to herself and not say much unless needed. Therefore, she will be observant with her surroundings. Isa is very committed to her knowledge of technology and occasionally works with First Order to develop new ideas. In her free time, a lot of the time she will focus on technology as well as practicing hacking into systems. There’s a training room for the knights dedicated to this practice Because she was insistent that the others learn tricks For when she isn’t on missions. 

negative traits: She is a bit of a mystery, as she seems to lack some basic emotions. It’s not that she doesn’t feel at all but she’s become numb to certain feelings. Therefore, she can be a mixed card and hard to read, unpredictable if you would like to call it. It frightens many in the first order Because they���re all terrified that with one wrong move, they will have their heads. There is no telling if she will tear you in two or if she will merely bush things off and forget about them. Also, she tends to “pop” out of nowhere and scared people with how quite she was. 

Likes: Sweets (Guilty Pleasure), technology, massages. 

Dislikes: Medication, when people stare at her, people who try to talk too much, talking too much herself, red meats, mentions of her past. 

Motivations/drives: She doesn’t really seem to have one, but rather just does things to do things. 

Character Flaws: The fact that she’s pretty lacking in the emotions department. 

Combat  Strengths: Not showing her emotions to the enemy (Therefore, being unpredictable), Use of technology (she’s great with decoding and hacking, plus has a lot of knowledge about technology overall and knows how to use it against her opponents.)

Combat Weaknesses: Stealth (Prefers to run right into a fight rather than wait to get things over with), 

Main Weapon: Saber With Retractable Handle | Red Crystal

Background/History: Isa comes from a family of Twi’lek refugees that gave birth to her a couple of years before the Emperor died. She doesn’t remember anything from those days but ess met with the after-effects of the empire when her family tried to rebuild everything they and their people had lost. With all that her parents were doing, she tended to be forgotten about and neglected. Therefore, forming social bonds was never a strong suit for her with the lack of a proper social and emotional upbringing. It played a part in her difficulties of understanding the proper functions of emotions or how to handle them. Let’s just say she’s not too great at making friends because of such an upbringing. 

Jerex

( https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/swtor-making-a-char-the-resembles-darth-maul.2540321/ 

Name: Jerex Donos

Alias: Jerex Ren

Rank: Knight of Ren

Gender: Male

Birth Planet: Unknown

Species: Zabrak

Affiliation: First Order, Knights of Ren

Age: 32 (Born 3 ABY)

Skin: Red (Black Markings)

Hairstyle: None

Hair Color: N/A

Eye Color: Yellow with Red Ring around the iris 

Scars: Scar along mouth (think Heath Ledger Joker(

positive traits: Despite being a more aggressive Knight who isn’t afraid to express his emotions, he tends to be calmer around the other Knights. He trusts them all with his life and holds high respect for reach other them; they’ve all got their strong suits and always prove to be valuable assets to the team. Deep down, Jerex genuinely cares for the others even if it is not obvious. He understands his emotions well and how to use each one to benefit him in battle. They never overpower him as he is always in control of his actions, therefore being effective in pushing back the complete influence of dark side where many others would fail. 

negative traits: Unlike someone such as Dralin, Jerex has little patience with people unless they are of a close rank to him, primarily being his fellow Knights of Ren or the Supreme Leader. He will usually go into a fight ready to get aggressive and dirty, but will not let himself go crazy like Orus might. He has some restraint, but only when it is extremely necessary for the occasion. Because he has a hard time finding reasons to respect others, he tends to just ignore anyone that he doesn’t believe is worth his time. 

Likes: Combat training, Warm weather, watching Volgoth and Orus bicker, lack of strict rules for himself on missions, meditating in the dark. 

Dislikes: Volgoth pushing him to drink, using bacta to heal his wounds, droids (some people suspect something happened in his past), 

Motivations/drives: To grow in strength, based on physical abilities and connection to the Force.

Character Flaws: His disrespect for some lower-ranked members of the First Order. 

Combat  Strengths: Stealth, utilizing his emotions in battle.

Combat Weaknesses: Speed, inability to properly use saber and offensive force abilities at once. 

Main Weapon: Spinning Double-Bladed Saber | Two Red Crystals

Background/History: One my see Orus of having the most mysterious background of all the Knights, but Jerex is a total Mystery to the point that even Kylo has no idea where he comes from. One day, he just showed up to the Temple with Master Luke and nothing was ever said about where he came from. The others don’t bother to question him about it as he had never shown even a drop of interest in telling them anything about himself. All that they can piece together is that he had a tough childhood that made him serious as an adult. 

Orus

(Megan Fox)

Name: Orus Valara 

Alias: Orus Ren

Rank: Knight of Ren

Gender: Female

Birth Planet: Unknown, though suspected to be Nar Shaddaa

Species: Human

Affiliation: First Order, Knights of Ren

Age: 28 (Born 7 ABU)

Skin: Pale

Hairstyle: Down | To Breasts

Hair Color: Black 

Eye Color: Icy Blue

Scars: Faint scar above eyebrow, burn marks starting on left hand trailing up to her elbow. 

positive traits: She’s very dedicated to her work as a Knight of Ren, and when she finds the group she feels the most satisfied with (The Knights of Ren in current times), she will devote herself to them. Unless one of her own were to betray her, she would never do harm to them - unless one of them gets on her nerves. Though, she is not afraid to speak her mind so you will know when you cause her issue. With the small chances, if someone happens to get her attention, you may be able to break her walls and be one of the only people that she thoroughly enjoys being around. Only a few people in her life have seen her affectionate side. 

negative traits: Ever since she was a child, she took some form of pleasure in other people’s misfortunes because she believed that she was damned by the galaxy, this thinking that no one deserved something good unless they pushed to earn it. In her days as a Knight of Ren, she used it to fuel her acts of torture and interrogations. She is known as the best in the entire Order to get information out of prisoners or just to make them suffer for their misdeeds. Orus is the one who deals with anyone that betrays the First Order. 

Likes: Her Light Whip, peace and quiet, sensing fear in others, successfully finishing a mission, flying out to space to “float in the void” in a ship alone. 

Dislikes: People who push her buttons (Which is very easy to do), getting wet, Nar Shadda, excessively optimistic people. 

Motivations/drives: She takes some pleasure in making people suffer, almost as if she believes that they deserve it from the galaxy being hard on her with her 

Character Flaws: She lacks empathy much of the time for people she doesn’t care about and therefore can someones be excessive with how she treats people. 

Combat  Strengths: Control of the whip, lack of empathy

Combat Weaknesses: Tendency to get to extreme with fighting, her bloodlust.

Main Weapon: Light Whip | Red Crystal Broken Into Smaller Pieces To Allow For Whip Effect

Background/History: She keeps much of her background hidden from others as a padawan, never telling anyone where she comes from or the past that she derives from. However, when they joined the First Order as Knights of Ren, she slowly started to open up a bit more about her past. It started with Volgoth’s insistence of her drinking to “loosen up a bit,” to allow herself to relax, which led to her admitting about her past. When she realized that there was no going back, she revealed that she was abandoned as a child and left with the Hutts and gangs of Nar Shaddaa. She surprising survived, and picked up on her violent behaviors from watching the cartel do nasty things. And of course, she had some seriously horrific things done to herself. Those things she refuses to talk about with anyone. 

Volgoth 

Name: Volgoth Garr

Alias: Volgoth Ren

Rank: Knight of Ren

Gender: Male

Birth Planet: Devaron (Grew up on Ord Mantell)

Species: Devaronian

Affiliation: Black Sun (Previously), First Order, Knight of Ren 

Age: 38 (Born 3 BBY)

Skin: Red

Hairstyle: None (Horns) 

Hair Color: N/A

Eye Color: Brown

Scars: Slightly chipped left horn | Scar under right eye | Busted knee with cybernetic implants to fix the injury

positive traits: Volgoth is very open with his surprisingly light-hearted side, at least with the other knights or when he’s out for fun. He brings the much-needed humor to the group through trying to lift their spirits with sarcasm. With most of the others, he is always expressive and platonically affectionate, wrapping his arm around someone’s shoulder for fun as they talk. He’s also daring, some say that he’s stupid but he likes to see himself as a brave soul willing to do anything no matter the cost. 

negative traits: Growing up with a gang, he tends to get overconfident at times. It affects his training when he doesn’t expect whoever he’s sparring with to go so hard on him. Or during a mission, there are a few rare cases where he might come close to compromising it unless even if the others are there to fix things. Overall, he isn’t a bad guy but his need to enjoy things in life occasionally lead to him not taking his duties as seriously as he should. He also was utterly oblivious to the fact that Zira is in love with him before the others said something. 

Likes: Zira (In a relationship with her), Alcohol,  Nar Shaddaa, Snazzy music

Dislikes: When Orus won’t lighten up, being told to tone it down with his actions, being in space/on ships for too long, going more than a day without even a small sip of alcohol. 

Motivations/drives: Being able to enjoy life even if it means doing a few not so ethical things. 

Character Flaws: His arrotance

Combat  Strengths: Ability to run off of pure instinct, daring nature (won’t back down from anything and will attempt crazy things he may think will lead to victory.)

Combat Weaknesses: Balance (Can get clumsy at times), occasional arrogance

Main Weapon: Saber With Elongated Hilt | Red Crystal

Background/History:  Most of his life has consisted of being around the Black Sun thanks to his father having associations with the group. With them, he would run jobs for them even at a young age but also learned how to enjoy himself. They pushed personal pleasure to be one of his drives in life. Volgoth eventually met Dralin and taught him to do things for himself every so often to gain personal pleasure. The two left when Volgoth did something to piss off the Black Sun. They stole a star ship together and were on the run ever since, avoiding any Black Sun. They finally had nothing to worry about when they joined the temple in their teenage years. 

Zira

( Togruta from Star Wars by Maja Felicitas Photo by eosAndy )

Name: Zira Vale 

Alias: Zira Ren

Rank: Knight of Ren

Gender: Female

Birth Planet: Shili

Species: Togruta

Affiliation: First Order, Knights of Ren

Age: 31 (4 ABY)

Skin: Yellow

Hairstyle: None

Hair Color: (Lekku/Montrals) Bluish Grey

Eye Color: Purple

Scars: None

positive traits: Out of all the Knights of Ren, Zira is the most compassionate. She first followed the others when she saw the errors in Luke’s ways as well as hoping to make sure that the others did not fully submit to the dark side as she cared for all of them. She’s an experience and Force healing techniques, therefore serves as the group’s primary healer. She’s almost like the “mom friend” of the group, making sure that they’re all doing alright and occasionally checking in on them. She’ll even go as far as to do it via holo if she’s not close to them. 

negative traits: As she’s a Knight of Ren, she sometimes feels out of place being as compassionate as she is. There are moments that she hesitates doing certain things expected of her but will still comply as she remains loyal to Kylo and the other Knights. Orus questions why she even stays with the Knights of Ren giving her compassionate nature, to which Zira will defend herself. In order to not need to get aggressive, she will use the force to manipulate people into doing what she wants. In this, she surprisingly doesn’t despite when she needs to do it, Because she justifies it by saying that there are just people in the galaxy that need to comply and she’s not afraid to influence them in necessary. 

Likes: Meditation, learning new Force healing techniques, floral-scented bath soaps, the beach, gold jewelry. 

Dislikes: How often the others get injured, being excessive in combat, how Orus treats some prisoners, being told to let everything of her past die

Motivations/drives: She wants to keep balance in the order and show some officers kindness when they can’t find it anywhere else. 

Character Flaws: Of course she is a little too sensitive and compassionate in her line of work but still stays for the tiebreak. 

Combat  Strengths: Healing herself or allies, Control of emotions

Combat Weaknesses: Empathetic Nature

Main Weapon: Two Saber Tonfa | Two Red Crystals

Background/History: She doesn’t remember much about her childhood before Luke found her while she was young. Feeling that she was Force-sensitive, Considering that Ben was Force-sensitive and his sense of duty to pass on the legacy of the Jedi, it was part of the reason why he decided to form the Temple in the first place. Leia would help with her much of the time until he put together the temple, where he eventually brought Zira and Ben; as well as a few other Force-sensitives that he had gathered. 

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (114/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[6 March, 233 Before Age.   Gorrfeg I.]

Luffa had been hunting Saiyans for months now, ever since King Rehval had taken his entire kingdom into hiding.    The Saiyan King had once claimed to be the supreme authority over the Saiyan race, but in practice he had only ruled a single planet, Saiya, and his subjects were limited to those Saiyans who willingly pledged their allegiance to him.   A great number of Saiyans had rejected Rehval's authority since his disappearance, and many of these expatriates had rallied around a mysterious cult, which promised amazing power in exchange for unwavering obedience.  Others had joined forces with Rehval's heir apparent, the teenage Princess Seltiss, who had established a Saiyan free company.  

Now, these three Saiyan powers--Luffa, Seltiss, an the cult-- were at war.    The Jindan cult had attacked Luffa's Federation, and Seltiss had brought her forces to come to Luffa's aid.   Seltiss considered the alliance with Luffa to be a matter of self-preservation.    The Jindan cult, as she saw it, threatened to reduce the Saiyan species to eternal servitude.   Her followers had no great love for Luffa, but they needed one another.    Luffa was stronger than any two or three Jindan Saiyans, but their enhanced power and greater numbers made them too much for a single warrior to deal with, especially across the vast frontier of Federation space.  Seltiss's free company had the numbers, but not the power.   Her soldiers were weaker than the cultists, but they could still hold out against them, at least for a time.  

So the prevailing strategy had become a matter of using Luffa as a force multiplier.   While the alliance held the line against the invaders, Luffa would target an enemy position and obliterate it.   The resulting chaos would hopefully allow the allies to make some modest tactical gains of their own while the cultists struggled to regroup.  

In principle, there was one other warrior who could contribute to this idea, and make the work go twice as fast.    Xibuyas, Luffa's estranged son, was not her equal in power, but he was still immensely strong, and could probably have tackled a number of cultists on his own, or with support from Seltiss' followers.   In theory, Luffa and Xibuyas could be split up to defend twice as many worlds.   In practice, Luffa had other ideas, at least in the short term.    

On the only inhabited world in the Gorrfeg System, Luffa and Xibuyas now fought against Jindan cultists by themselves.  The Gorrfeggae military was with them, but they had already taken heavy losses when the cultists first made landfall on the planet.    

"It's very simple," Luffa explained to him as she ducked a cultist's punch and replied with a headbutt.    "They tried to concentrate their forces here.   Reports said there were at least a dozen of these goons on Gorrfeg.   Maybe even twenty!   They thought I'd be reluctant to tackle that many at once-- thought I would keep my distance, at least long enough for them to dig in and make this planet into a base."

She grabbed her foe by the collar of his burgundy uniform, and was about to finish him off, when she suddenly dropped him, and swung her arm backward.    For a moment it seemed as if she were attacking wildly, until the point of her elbow connected with the nose of a cultist who was trying to come up from behind her.    Blood sprayed from his face and splashed onto Luffa, who smiled with a twisted glee.    

"It would have worked too," Luffa continued.    "Except they didn't take you into account, Katem.   Now we're the ones concentrating our forces, and they're the ones who have to spread out and hope they can split us up somehow!"

Xibuyas--or "Katem" as Luffa called him-- was having more trouble.    He believed himself to be the pinnacle of King Rehval's research: a Saiyan bred and alchemically enhanced to be the strongest ever.    In fact, Rehval had stolen him as a fetus from Luffa's body, shortly before she became the Legendary Super Saiyan.   Whatever the reason, he was incredibly strong.   At his maximum power, he experienced a transformation of his own, and this was powerful enough to surpass one or two Jindan cultists, but no more.    And so Luffa had spent most of the battle on Gorrfeg arranging it so that he would have to fight at least three enemies at a time.

"They have split us up, you fool!" Xibuyas shouted.    "While you stand there... gibbering, they're... dammit!... they're picking me apart!"

Luffa chuckled and raised her arms... to cross them over her chest while she watched her son fight.   Even this subtle motion had an effect on the battle, as one of Xibuyas' assailants noticed her out of the corner of his eye, and he broke off his attack to prepare himself for whatever Luffa might do.  

This small opening was enough for Xibuyas to turn the tide.   The cultists relied on strict coordination to defeat stronger enemies, and once their chain of attacks was interrupted, the youth managed to grab the second enemy by the arm and swing her into the third.    This didn't hurt the third one much, but it did dislocate the second's arm, which disrupted their teamwork even further.  

Xibuyas then concentrated his power against the first of his three opponents, and by the time the others managed to pull themselves together, he had all but defeated their partner.    A few seconds' worth of Xibuyas' attacks had left the man bloodied, battered, and barely able to stay aloft in the air.

"Well then," Luffa said, mostly to herself.   "You've evened the odds pretty well, boy.   No!  You've actually tipped the balance in your favor, haven't you?"  

A fourth warrior flew in from the west, and Luffa fired a ki blast at him before he could get close enough to join in.   It irritated her to pick them off this way, since the cultists were only a challenge in groups.   She would have preferred to let that one gather with others, but she couldn't risk throwing too many against Xibuyas before he was ready.   She thought back to her own mother, and began to appreciate how boring it must have been for an adult Saiyan to teach a child as weak as Luffa had been.

It didn't feel quite right.   From a young age, Luffa had always dreamed of raising her own children, and craved the satisfaction she expected to feel in watching them grow into proud Saiyans.   Long ago, she had fantasized about being killed in battle against her own children, and decided that this would be a decent way to die.   Since then, she had killed her own father, and found the experience very hollow.   She had become the Super Saiyan, and against the terrible golden glow of that power, the joy of raising offspring didn't seem to have the same appeal.    

Perhaps, she wondered, it was the fact that Rehval had cheated her out of her son's childhood.    Luffa had become pregnant just five years ago, but Xibuyas was now sixteen years old, thanks to some magical dimension Rehval had used to make him age faster.    She could teach the boy, and love him, and accept him in spite of his flaws, but part of him would always belong to her hated enemy.   Then again, she wondered if every parent went through this.   Sometimes the cooking was more enjoyable than the meal.   The genuine experience just couldn't live up to the anticipation.

Nevertheless, she watched with great fascination and pride as Xibuyas pressed his advantage and eventually killed his enemies.    His style had glaring flaws, but it was more polished than than a lot of older Saiyans Luffa had fought.   He glancing back at her with a rueful look in his eye, and he didn't seem to realize that how dangerous this was.   Even on the verge of defeat, the enemy could still find a way to turn the battle back to their favor.    But these were minor complaints to be addressed later.   When the last of the three cultists was slain, she floated down to meet her son and pointed her thumb over her shoulder.  

"Took you long enough," she said with a smirk.   "Let's not keep the rest of them waiting."

Still gasping for breath, he muttered some obscenity and followed her to their next target.  

*******

Like many of the Saiyans in the Jindan cult, Tabeg had been a weakling.    The Jindan power had increased his strength, and this was enough for most of the cultists, but Tabeg had found inspiration as well.    In his zeal, he had studied alchemy, hoping to become more like his master, and Trismegistus had rewarded his efforts by revealing some of his secrets.   When the war began, Tabeg was given a command position, and orders to occupy and fortify the Gorrfeg system.

He had carried out these orders, but only so far as delegating most of his responsibilities to his subordinates.   Once the planet was secure, he commandeered a suitable laboratory and secluded himself within.    Though nowhere near as skilled in alchemy, Tabeg believed he had enough skill to find the answers to his questions.   He only needed time, and a quiet place to work.  Also, several hundred gallons of urine, for his experiments.   He also needed his lieutenant to be quiet.  

"Didn't you hear me?" she cried, shifting nervously from one foot to the other as she spoke.    "Luffa is on the planet right now!   She has another Saiyan with her, and they're picking us apart!"

"Do you know what the highest achievement of alchemy is?" he asked without looking up from his desk.   It was covered with ancient parchments and modern scratch paper alike.   A round stone, about the size of his hand, sat on some of the pages like a paperweight.  

"Sir!" she protested, and then he did look up at her, though only to glare at her.  

"The philosopher's stone," he said, answering his own question.  "The rabble who know about it think it's a means of obtaining immortality.   The truth is a bit more indirect.  The philosopher's stone is a catalyst, capable of transforming ordinary substances into noble ones, such as gold or elixirs.    The most noble elixir is that which cures all ailments, up to and including death, so it's true that the stone can make a person immortal, but that's like saying a star is bright.  It overlooks so many other attributes."

She was accustomed to these lectures of his, but he knew that she only tolerated them out of deference to his rank.    Now that a real crisis was brewing, she no longer pretended to respect what he was saying.   "Sir, if Luffa finds us here--" she tried to say before he cut her off.

"She won't," Tabeg said.   "Because unlike the others, I wasn't stupid enough to attack her recklessly and announce my presence.   She came here to liberate this planet, and she won't be able to finish until she finds us all.   The best thing we can do is lay low and keep the initiative.  Every minute she's here is a minute that our comrades elsewhere won't have to deal with her.   Now.   The philosopher's stone is a reagent supreme, beyond my ability to prepare.   But there are other, lesser reagents, capable of producing smaller miracles.    Let me show you."  

The lieutenant sighed as he took the stone from his desk and tapped it against the surface.    "Using the lieutenant as a reference," he asked, "how many of her would I need to complete the formula?"

The lieutenant thought he was addressing her, though she had no idea how to respond.    Before she could voice her confusion, she heard someone singing.    She thought it was a music player at first, and then she realized it was coming from the rock in Tabeg's hand.  

"Thirty-three, thirty three, thirty-three," the voice crooned.   "And therein lies the tragedy..."

"How many did Luffa kill?" Tabeg asked, now looking at the lieutenant.    "Wait, you already told me.    Eight, yes?   Which leaves fewer than twenty.    That does complicate things, doesn't it.   I'll have to face her before I'm ready."  

He stood up from the desk and walked briskly to one of the lab benches, where he began to thumb through the pages of a dusty old book.     There, he tapped the stone on the benchtop and asked another question.   "What about the calcination of the spirit?   Is there no way to--?"

"You'll never win that way, boy," the stone sang, almost flirtatiously.    "If you wanna know, you gotta go with the flow."

He looked back at the lieutenant, who was thoroughly confused now.    "Contact the others," he ordered her.   "No one makes a move against Luffa until I command it.   We'll take her together, but only when the time and place are exactly right.   Luckily, I won't have to make any threats about what'll happen if one of you disobeys.    Luffa will see to that."

"Um, right," the lieutenant said.  "Anything else?"

"Not unless you have several hundred gallons of urine," Tabeg muttered.    "Wait... could I substitute urea instead?"

"Fat chance, sailor, it just won't swing," the stone sang back.    

"Dammit!" Tabeg grumbled.   "Well, off with you then!" he said to the lieutenant.    "Can't you see I'm busy?"

She made a half-hearted salute, then rushed out of the laboratory to carry out her orders.    

*******

After the first round of fighting on Gorrfeg, Luffa had hoped for more action, but no one else came to attack them, and after an hour of searching, they found no sign of the enemy.   As much as they both wanted to move on to the next planet, Luffa insisted on making certain that no cultists remained alive.   As they flew across the planet's surface, covering as much ground as possible, Luffa eventually grew bored enough to make conversation.  

"You've gotten stronger, Katem," she  said.  "Not strong enough to beat me, but it's still very impressive."

Xibuyas winced at the sound of the name "Katem".   Luffa had insisted that this was his "true" name, the one she had chosen for him before he was born.  The thought of it disgusted him.

"Don't take it so personally, boy," she said.  "Everyone else in the universe can call you 'Xibuyas'.  I don't know why you'd want that name, though.   Not after that snake Rehval left you to die on Pflaume, but that's your business."

"I prefer my name because it's my name,"  Xibuyas snarled.  He was tall and well-muscled for a teenager, but he still looked far too young to look as threatening as he would have liked.  "Princess Seltiss calls me 'Xibuyas'.  I consider that a greater honor than anything you could choose."

Luffa made a devious smile and pointed at herself.  "Oh?   You're not honored to be my son?" she asked.  "We Legendary Super Saiyans don't come around too often.  I'm a lot more uncommon than any princess, you know."

"You're nothing but a freak of nature," Xibuyas said.

"Is that so?   And what does that make you?" Luffa asked.

He didn't have an answer for that one, so Luffa pressed him further.  "You ever worry about turning out like me?" she asked.  "Your transformation sort of looks like mine already.  It's like your body wants to do the same thing I do, and you can't quite pull it off.   Your hair kind of floats, but it stays black.    Maybe you'll get it to change color when you're older."

"I'm nothing like you."  Xibuyas growled.

"Maybe not, but you could be," Luffa chuckled.  "One day you'll be in some big battle, fighting for your life, and then you'll turn into whatever I am."

"Never," Xibuyas insisted.

"Maybe you're right," Luffa said.  "For all I know, it skips a generation.    Your children'll flare up one day, when you least expect it."

"They... will... not," Xibuyas said.

"What'd you think of my wife?"  Luffa asked, suddenly changing the subject.

"She's an alien,"  Xibuyas said, barely concealing his revulsion.  "What more needs to be said?"

"She told me you put your hands on her," Luffa said.  "How'd that work out for you?"   There was no anger or accusation in Luffa's voice.    She had been away from her ship, leaving Xibuyas alone with Zatte, and he had threatened to hurt her, but Luffa spoke of this like a trip to the grocery.   Somehow, this frustrated Xibuyas all the more.

"Leave me alone!"  Xibuyas muttered.

"Is that what's got you so worried?" Luffa asked.  "You think I'm going to punish you for threatening your stepmother?  Why should I bother?  She can handle herself pretty well, and you're not nearly strong enough to be worth my time."

"You're a freak and a disgrace to the Saiyan race," Xibuyas shouted.  "Cavorting around with alien women.  It's revolting."

"What should I be doing instead, son?"  Luffa asked.  "If I wasn't a freak, I mean?"

She didn't know why she kept prodding him this way.   In the short term, arguing with the boy was the only way to get to know him.   He was angry at everyone and everything, it seemed.   Everyone except that girl Seltiss he spent all his time with, and Luffa knew enough about teenage boys to understand that.   But more than this, Luffa couldn’t help but see his intense hatred toward her as a challenge.   Maybe this was why so many Saiyans killed their parents.   At any rate, she really did want to know what Xibuyas wanted her to be instead of what she was.    

"You should be settled down a Saiyan mate,"  Xibuyas said firmly.  "Having children--"

"I tried that," Luffa said.  "Your father and grandfather wouldn't let me.    I already told you that story, remember?"

"Then you should have laid down and died!   You're a mockery of everything I've built for myself!"  Xibuyas howled.  "My place is at the head of the Saiyan nation, beside the Lady Seltiss, but you cast doubt on my purity as a Saiyan!  You threaten the legitimacy of my heirs!"

"Oh, boo-hoo," Luffa scoffed.  "A real Saiyan doesn't need a pedigree or a public opinion poll to decide how worthy they are.  A real Saiyan goes out and proves their worth!   So why don’t you?   Unless you're using me as an excuse.   'Oh, I'm allowed to wallow in self-pity because my mother wasn't a Saiyan so neither am I.'    Is that it?"

And then he suddenly fired a ki blast at her.     Before Luffa could react, he was following up with a flurry of punches and kicks.     She was more surprised than anything else, and when he grabbed her by the hand and swung her down into the plains below, she did nothing to resist, mostly out of curiosity.    

Then he transformed.   As Luffa had observed, his powered-up self wasn't the same as her Super Saiyan form.    He had a bright yellow aura, and his hair floated atop his scalp, but it remained as black as always.    His eyes were solid white, where Luffa's irises changed color from brown to green.    It occurred to her that maybe he wasn't on the cusp of becoming like her at all.  Maybe he was something completely different.   If so, was there anything she could do to help him?   Could anyone help him?

"Prove my worth?!" he screamed as he unleashed a storm of ki blasts down upon her.   "How can any Saiyan prove anything with you around?!"

Luffa was unhurt by his blows, but the savagery and intensity of his attack was impressive to her nonetheless.   In her transformed state, she could have easily stood her ground and weathered his onslaught without flinching.    Instead, she decided to remain in her normal form, and dodge his blasts as needed.   It gave her something to do while she listened to his cries.    

"You're a hypocrite, Luffa!    You talk and talk about the good of the Saiyan race, how we should all strive to be better, but you don't give a damn about any of us!  You talk down to us, mock us for our weakness, and punish anyone who dares to oppose you!"

This was what she wanted to purge from him.   Being raised by King Rehval--or more likely Rehval's servants, since the king would have been too busy philandering to do it himself-- her own son had been brought up believing a litany of lazy excuses.   What did they all think the Super Saiyan would say to them?  

"And you hold up that hideous golden power of yours, like it proves your superiority!  Well it doesn't, woman!  It doesn't prove anything!  You didn't earn that power!  It just manifested out of nowhere!  It could have happened to anyone!"

She had planned to let him pummel her for a while longer, to give him a chance to get more of this out into the open.  But something about the words "didn't earn" struck a nerve.  And so when he dove down into the maelstrom of ki to to throw a punch, she transformed, caught his fist in her hand, and squeezed it.  

"Are you trying to say I was just lucky?" Luffa asked, her green eyes staring holes into her son.

"Lucky?" she asked again.  He didn't answer.   He couldn't.   He was too stunned by how easily she had turned the tables on him.

"Lucky?" she screamed, and her power exploded all around her.    

"Yes!" Xibuyas shouted.  "There's... there's nothing worthy about you!  You're just a random accident--!"

She released his hand and punched him before he could react.  Xibuyas suddenly found himself lying in a pile of what had once been a hill.  Luffa was standing over him, scowling.

"You have no idea what I've suffered through.  How hard I've worked to master this form.  And you dare to tell me--  me?!-- that I don't deserve it?"

She grabbed him by the hair and hauled him to his feet.  "And just how do you think I should 'earn' my power?    I'm just dying to hear your expert opinion.  Well?"

"I... I...!"

"Well, speak up, boy!" Luffa growled. "You had plenty to say to me before.  You don't like how I got where I am, and you don't like what I do now that I'm here.  So what would you like?  Or is this a boy-girl thing?   Would you like it better if your father was the Legendary Super Saiyan?  Is that it?!"

She tosses him to the ground.  "Your father's a corpse, and before that he was a coward and a fool!  I was an idiot to think he was worth my time!  My love!    He ripped you out of my body and sold you to Rehval like some black market sleaze dealing in stolen organs.  Do you wish he would salve your puny ego?  Hah!  He wouldn't lift a finger to help either of us!    You were nothing but medical waste to him!    But you'll pine for him anyway, won't you?  Gotta cling to the idea that there's some man who'll justify all your crappy ideas."

Xibuyas cried out and fired a desperate ki blast at Luffa, which spilled over her harmlessly.    She smiled, pulled him to his feet again, and slapped him across the face.

"You didn't answer me before, Katem," she said, still holding him by the collar of his blue uniform.  "If I'm such a fraud-- a freak-- then what does that make you?"

He set his jaw and matched her furious gaze with one of his own, but then his lip began to quiver, and it was clear that he had run out of defiant comebacks.    At last he mumbled softly: "Absolutely nothing.  N-nothing at all."

She saw a tear roll down his eye, and she finally realized that she was pushing him too hard.  Unsure how to proceed, she released him, and he collapsed to the ground.  

"Sorry," she said.  "I... This isn't how I meant for it to go.    It's just... you're so much like your father, only you're an even bigger jackass, and... dammit, you're only supposed to be four years old.    I don't know what I'm supposed to do here."

"Hmmph!" Xibuyas grunted.   "Now who's wallowing in self-pity?"

"You got me there," Luffa said.   She reached down to offer a hand to him.   "Come on, let's get back to it.   I'll try not to embarrass you anymore."

He slapped her hand away and stood up by himself.    "I don't want your help," he said.  

"Is that so?" Luffa said.   "Sounds to me like you're ready to take these creeps on four at a time now."

"That is not what I'm saying!" Xibuyas growled.  

Luffa was about to make a humorous reply to that, when suddenly her expression darkened, and she placed a hand on her temple and looked toward the west.    

"Do you feel that?" she asked.

"I do now," Xibuyas snorted after taking a moment to concentrate.   "Feels like more than a dozen cultists all in one place, but there's something... off... about it."  

"They must be up to something," Luffa said.  "That, or they're making their last stand.   Either way, we need to play this carefully."   She pointed to the silken bandages sticking out from beneath her sleeveless shirt.   "I'm still not fully recovered from the last three battles, and you took some heavy blows yourself.   Remember, it's not enough to just beat these guys.   We have to stay fresh for the next campaign."

"I hardly need you to tell me that!" Xibuyas snapped.  

She smirked and flew off toward the afternoon sun, and Xibuyas followed close behind.

*******

When they arrived, they found more than they could easily handle.   There were Jindan Saiyans, as Luffa had expected, but also a group of creatures, which looked like different animals combined together in some unnatural way.    They also stank of rotten carcasses, which made their hideous appearance even more unsettling.    

"Chimera," said Tabeg, who stood as their leader.   "You killed several of my warriors, earlier, and I needed them back.   I lack the skill to revive the dead, but my Singing Stone told me that it would be far easier to reanimate their bodies without their souls, and well, their bodies were all that I needed for this.   And this left me enough power to transmute their flesh for greater power.    The head of a Gorrfeggian shark, the claws of a cave-raptor.    Oh, and there's something nasty at the tips of their tails, so watch out for those."

In spite of this twist, Luffa's greatest difficulty was not in the numerical disadvantage.   If the cultists had bothered to use this against her, it might have mattered, but instead, they constantly scattered and pulled back, even when they had a clear opening to attack her.   She and Xibuyas weren't prepared for this sort of strategy, and it took a toll on what little teamwork they had cobbled together.    

"Stop shooting the leader!" Luffa shouted at Xibuyas.   "He's got some kind of force field!"    

"That is exactly why I'm attacking him!" Xibuyas shouted back.   "He's the only one standing in the open, and he's obviously in charge!"  

"He's standing there because he has a force field!" Luffa shouted.    She managed to grab a creature and rip off its tail, but she couldn't destroy it before three other enemies forced her to back off.    

"Once I overload his defenses, he'll fall, and the others will collapse without him to give orders!" Xibuyas protested.  

"Idiot!"  Luffa snarled.   "Rehval must have cut out your brain while he was lopping off your tail!"

Undeterred, Xibuyas fired again.   Below, Tabeg watched the battle unfolding in the sky, and when the boy's energy beam connected, it diffused harmlessly around him.   He smiled, stroked the edge of his pushbroom mustache, then withdrew his stone from the breast pocket of his burgundy cloak.    Tapping it against the breastplate of his armor, he asked: "New calculation: Is there enough available power for the formula now?"

"Almost ther-r-r-e!" came the disembodied voice.    

"Excellent.    What about her?" he asked, referring to Luffa.   "Surely this is some sort of phosphorus conjunction at work.   Now that I can see her in action, it seems fairly obvious."

He held the stone up and pointed his arm in Luffa's general direction, as if offering it a better look.  

"Too bad, so sad, you never could have known what you never had," replied the stone.  

"Fine, but there must be some elemental transference at work here," he muttered.  "The color can't be a coincidence.    If not phosphorus, then sulfur.  Cesium?   Sodium?  Helium has a yellow emission spectrum, doesn't it?"

"You're playin', playin' playin' guess-guess-guess-guess-guessing games," sang the stone.  

"Because you never answer me directly, that's why!" Tabeg said.   He stuffed the stone back in his pocket.   "Fine, I'll handle this on my own.    If I wait around any longer, she'll kill more of my forces, and that won't do."

With that, he crossed his arms over his chest and released an powerful explosive wave of energy from his body.    He had chosen an abandoned section of the city nearest to his lab as a battleground, but now everything in a two mile radius was disintegration, or left charred and burning.   Only the Saiyans, both dead and alive, friend and foe, remained unharmed.    All of them looked to him for some sort of explanation.    

"Now that I have your attention, Luffa," Tabeg said, "I'd like to put an end to this conflict."

"Fine," Luffa said.   She dove towards him, but then suddenly veered away, and moved to one of his followers instead.    Before the man could react, she ran him through with the severed tail she had taken from one of the reanimated chimeras.   Whether he died from the chest wound, or some poison in the tail itself, was unclear.  

"Now I'll have to reanimate that one as well," Tabeg groaned.   "You're making this very inconvenient."

"I'll be making you dead very soon," Luffa said.    "I don't know if you're bluffing, or just some kind of idiot, but it doesn't really matter.    Did you know your master sent you here to die?"

"I know the truth, Luffa!" he shouted.  "Trismegistus has shown me the way.  That is why he sent me here.  My eyes have been opened!  Your Super Saiyan form is nothing more than an alchemical transmutation!  You have transmuted powerful energies into a more tolerable form, and harnessed them to your will.  A formidable technique, but not so 'legendary' as you would have us all believe!   Behold!"

Tabeg threw out his hands and revealed black markings on the insides of his palms.  They resembled pentagrams, but with many smaller characters written around and inside the larger shapes.  He clapped his hands together, and in the next moment, he was engulfed in a brilliant yellow light.

"You see?    I haven't replicated your formula completely, but I've come very close.  And once I've beaten you, I'll have the chance to study your corpse, and learn enough to perfect my method!"

"You're a fool, Tabeg," Luffa said.  "If you had trained your body instead of learning all those magic tricks, you might have become a real threat."    You've increased your power a lot, but it's nothing I can't handle.    And as for that energy field you've got to protect you, it only works on ki attacks, I'm thinking."  

With that, she rushed towards him until she was only a few inches away from his face, where she drove the butt of her palm directly into his nose.   As she turned away from him, she heard his body fall to the ground, and she smiled in grim satisfaction.

"Now then," Luffa called out to his followers, "Who wants to go next?"

"He's not dead, you idiot!" Xibuyas cried out.   "Look!"

Luffa turned, and saw Tabeg rising up from the ground as if being lifted by invisible hands grasping his shoulders.  His arms were crossed over his chest, and a peculiar smile was on his face.  His golden aura remained, but it had grown more intense.

"I see you don't believe me," Tabeg said.  "I shall have to demonstrate my power more thoroughly.  Attack!"

Luffa braced herself, expecting the cultists to gang up on her.  Instead, they all turned and fired upon their leader, who stood and absorbed their energy.  Each blast seemed to cause him some pain, but somehow he managed to recover and grow stronger.   Once they finally stopped, they all lowered themselves to the ground, looking somewhat tired.  All except for Tabeg, whose golden aura shone brighter than ever.   The triumphant smile on his face, however, was nearly brighter.

"What have you done?" Luffa asked.

"Don't be coy, Luffa.  I imagine you've done something very similar yourself once."

He leaped toward her with an incredible speed, and slashed at her with the nails on his left hand.  Luffa was amazed that he managed to make contact.  She felt blood on her face, and knew it was her own.

"Now!" he shouted, and before Luffa could react, he raised his left hand and swung it down with great force, pointing at her feet.  Suddenly, she found herself pinned to the ground, as a shaft of golden energy now appeared, and her left foot was impaled on it.

Luffa cried out in pain, but never took her eyes off Tabeg.

"What's this?" Tabeg asked.   "No idle threats?  No savage curses?  Maybe, just maybe, you've realized how desperate your situation really is, hm?"

Luffa grabbed the energy spear sticking out of her foot, but it caused her too much pain to touch it.  

"The energy conversion field absorbs kinetic energy as well as the ki you put behind your punches," he went on.    "That's why your last attack didn't work.   It only made me stronger.   The conversion isn't ideal, but the stone knows the formula, and it knows how much energy I'd need to match your power.    My forces weren't quite enough on their own, but with the two of you attacking me, I managed to tip the scales very nicely."

If looks could kill, Tabeg would have died just by staring into Luffa's enraged eyes.    Instead, he remained quite alive, and without a trace of  fear, he approached Luffa closely enough to pat the side of her face.   Some of her blood smeared onto his fingers, which he wiped onto his breastplate. Suddenly, her expression shifted from rage to intrigue, though Tabeg was too busy gloating to notice.

"Remarkable," he said.   "I didn't think you'd resemble a real Saiyan to this degree.   Even your skin feels authentic.   Well, now that I've beaten you, I can study that at my leisure.     After all, defeating the Super Saiyan herself is a hollow victory compared to unraveling the mystery behind the Super Saiyan."    He withdrew his stone and asked: "Could this flesh be a simulacrum forged through the Rommel Process?   No!  Wait, the Rowsdower Parchment.   Could this be an essence triangulation?"

"Ain't nothing like the real thing baby..." the stone sang in reply.    

"You mean this is actually a live Saiyan?" Tabeg asked.   "Using the same rune-sequence I am?"  

"When you're barking up the wrong tree-eee..."

"No!" Tabeg insisted.    "You said she was a Saiyan like me!   If she has this kind of ability, then you ought to know what it is, and you should have told me the same steps to recreate it.     Then what's the reagent?    Unless you mean to tell me this backwater fool discovered the philosopher's stone!"

The stone sang again, but Tabeg was too distracted by the death scream of one of his soldiers.    He turned, and saw Xibuyas strangling another using one of the poisoned tails from his chimera.      

"I'd worry about my own situation if I were you, Tabeg!"  Xibuyas shouted.    "Luffa isn't your only foe!" he shouted.  "And while she may be an impostor, know that you face at least one pureblooded Saiyan!"

Despite Tabeg's magnified power, he lacked the experience to use it, and so Xibuyas managed to outmaneuver him, appearing and disappearing with such speed that he was able to confuse Tabeg until he was right next to him.    Then he thrust the tail at the side of Tabeg's neck, aiming its stinger straight for his jugular vein.    

His aim was true, but he couldn't connect.   For a moment, Xibuyas thought Tabeg had somehow blocked him, and was holding the tail just inches away from his neck.   Instead, Tabeg hadn't even moved.     It was as though some force had caught Xibuyas before he could push the stinger in, like a thumbtack in a piece of corkboard.  

"Impressive, boy," Tabeg said.   "You must have realized that a more subtle weapon like poison could hurt me.   But  my field absorbs the force you would need to stick me with it."

"Get out of here, Katem!" Luffa shouted.  "You're no match for him!"

"Don't tell me what to do!" Xibuyas shouted back.

"Oh, do be quiet," Tabeg said.    He tossed his stone from his right hand to his left, then swung out his right hand to catch Xibuyas in the jaw.    He went down in an instant, and while the boy remained conscious, he could only manage to plant his hands on the ground and grit his teeth.    He might have eventually found a way to push himself back up again, but Tabeg stomped on his back to put a stop to that.  

"Get away from him!" Luffa snarled.    

"A disciple of yours, perhaps?" Tabeg asked.    "He's not bad at all, which only confirms my suspicion that there's nothing magical about your power.   It's just an alchemical change, to be picked apart and studied.    If he can learn your power, then so can I, and if you and the stone won't tell me the secret, then I'll just have to extract it from your body."

"We're so close now, baby..." the stone sang, and Tabeg nodded, pleased with its seeming approval of his plan.    

He stepped away from Xibuyas, and as he approached Luffa, he waved his free hand to signal the others to surround the boy.    Then he gestured for four of his monsters to grab Luffa's arms.    

"I'll take my time studying you Luffa," Tabeg said.   "Take you apart piece by piece if I have to.  And as for the boy, well, I don't suppose I need him at all, now do I?  Kill him!"

Tabeg's followers moved in for the kill, while Luffa strained against the creatures that held her.  And then, the furious noises she made began to sound more desperate.  And then her aura exploded.

"What?" Tabeg asked.

"You've done it, you've done it!" sang the stone in his hand.  "You've discovered the secret formula!"

"What are you babbling about?" Tabeg shouted.  "I haven't even done anything yet!"

The ground beneath them was blasted away by her outburst, leaving them all standing in mid-air over a crater.   Xibuyas fell to the bottom of it, safely clear of the cultists, who were now too confused to go after him.  

Luffa made a horrific screeching noise as she shook the creatures away from her body.  Some of them hung on more stubbornly than others, and Luffa rewarded their tenacity by ripping their limbs from their bodies.   One chimera tried to attack her, and she swung her injured foot into his body.   The energy spear was still sticking out of it, but it was no longer pinning her to the ground.   As much as it hurt Luffa, it simply destroyed the chimera as soon as it touched him.   Luffa screamed again, and then the column of ki dissipated, leaving only a hole in her boot.    

"You get away from him, now," she said, her voice raw and ugly.  She didn't care that they were no longer near Xibuyas, nor did she wait for them to comply.  She simply charged towards the cultists and tore through them with a newfound ferocity.

"A marvelous success, Tabeg!  Trismegistus will be pleased indeed!" the stone cheered.

"You're not making any sense!" he protested.  "I haven't found the secret of her Super Saiyan power!  I have no idea how she's doing this!  I--!"

Before he could go on, Luffa was on top of him, raining down blows that would have surely killed him if not for his energy-conversion field.  As it was, Tabeg still felt the impact of her blows, though it was only enough to hurt him without causing serious injury.   He had assumed that he was safe from her before, since her previous blow hadn't hurt him.   Now, he realized that she just hadn't hit him as hard as she could.    

"You want to turn me into an experiment?!" she screamed.    "I'll tear you into shreds, you slimy--"

The rest of her words degenerated into howls of rage as she drove her fists relentlessly into his field.   Soon, he toppled over, and she mounted him.   All Tabeg could do was cover his face and hold the stone close so he could hear anything useful it might have said.  

"Brilliant, Tabeg, brilliant!" the stone cried.  

"Shut up!" Tabeg shouted.  "Just tell me what I did!  Hurry!"

"It's really quite elegant," the stone began.  "You see, all that was needed was to--"

And then the stone was gone, crushed into powder in Luffa's clenched fist.  She had penetrated his field, and she had taken his most valuable resource in the process.

She paused for a moment, savoring the puff of dust--formerly the Singing Stone-- that now billowed from her hand.  This gave Tabeg a moment to realize what had happened to his field.    It could absorb energy from fast, powerful collisions, but it did almost nothing to resist slow, gentle movements.    This was by design, as Tabeg would have been unable to breathe or interact with the outside world while using it.    It was then that he realized his mistake was in taking the time to touch Luffa's face.    If she hadn't deduced his weakness on her own, then surely that moment of indiscretion had given her a clue.  

Her attack, as intense and vicious as it had been, was actually a diversion to cover her real master stroke, which was to straddle his body once she was close enough to him.   While she had pummeled the field with her fists, her lower body was gently lowering onto his abdomen, and the field offered no resistance at all.   And now that she had ceased her attack, the field had expanded to envelop her within it.  

She was a genius, Tabeg thought to himself, but this alone wasn't the answer.   She was fighting harder as well, with a recklessness disregard for her own safety.  Before, she was worried about conserving her strength, but now...

"Fight back, you coward!" Luffa snarled.  "You said that power of yours lets you absorb ki, right?  So use it!  Show me what you can do before I send you to hell!"

He did.  There was no other choice, and so he ordered his troops to fire as much energy at him as they could.   The blasts didn't hurt Luffa at all, as she was inside the field with him, but he was able to absorb the power and grow stronger. 

But it wasn't enough.    "More, more!" he cried, but he already knew there was no more for them to give.    Around him, his creatures lay destroyed, already breaking down into their base ingredients.  His followers lay dead or gravely wounded.  Nearby, the young Saiyan Xibuyas looked on, his normally proud face now completely baffled.

"Please!" he begged, though he had no idea to whom.   Not the stone, which was long gone, or his master Trismegistus, who had no use for failures, and certainly not the Super Saiyan, who had already made her bloody intentions clear.  

"You threatened my son," Luffa shouted.  "And you think you can just walk away with your life?"

Tabeg's attempts to fight back were useless.  Against anyone else, he might have been able to push back, get the enemy out of his force field, and take the advantage.  But Luffa was too strong, too determined.  She wanted his life, and the wild look in her eye told him that she would have it.

"You tell Trismegistus!" she screamed.  "Tell every Jindan-using bastard you know!  Tell them I won't stop fighting until you're all dead!  You hear me!?"

The word "son" rang in Tabeg's mind as Luffa proceeded to beat him to death.   In the moments of consciousness he had left, Tabeg wondered if the stone was referring to this as his great breakthrough.  Was the key an emotional state?  Through the haze of red, he pictured his own son, whom he had betrayed and murdered to attain his standing in the Jindan Cult.   He thought of the boy, not with fondness or regret, but as lost opportunity, a path not taken, now forever lost to him.

*******

Luffa continued to assault Tabeg well after killing him.   She only stopped when she felt a ki blast hit her in the back, and she realized that Tabeg's energy conversion field was no longer working.  She turned and found Xibuyas holding his open palm out towards her, ready to fire again if necessary.

"Thanks," Luffa said as she rose up from her enemy's remains.    "I needed that."

"I was trying to kill you," Xibuyas said.    He was back on his feet, but holding himself up with one hand on his knee.  

"He must have hit you harder than I thought," Luffa said.  She limped towards him, still favoring her injured foot, and reached out to him.   "Come on.   I'll carry you back to the capital and find you a medic."

"Don't touch me!" he snapped.  

Luffa powered down to her normal state, then dropped to a sitting position in front of him.   "I ran out of patience about five minutes ago, so let me explain what's going to happen.   Calmly.    I'm going to carry you to the capital for medical attention, and then I'm going to contact your girlfriend with the pink dyejob and Marshall Booth and give them a sitrep.  Close your mouth, because I am not done talking.     You only get two choices here, Katem.   You can either come along quietly, with some dignity, or I will put you in a keylock and drag you the whole way.  Understand that you'll be awake either way, because I don't really need to knock you out to make this happen.    Decide.   Now."

Xibuyas looked away from her.   "I'll... cooperate," he pouted.  

"Smart," Luffa said.  "Nothing wrong with a little pride, but sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two shames.    You fought well, son.    Except for that part where you shot your partner in the back.    Nice try, but tactically unsound.   Care to explain that to me?"

"All you have to offer me is disgrace," he muttered.    "A life in your shadow, a family of aliens and cowards... I thought that I could surpass you eventually.   The soothsayer on your ship told me I would.   But just now, you became even stronger than I imagined.   The gap between us is too far... I see now that all I can do is wait for you to die."

She rose to her feet and lifted him up into her arms.  

"If that's how you feel about it, Katem," she said, "if that's what you truly believe, then, it doesn't matter how strong you may become.  You'll never grow, not in any way that counts."

He said nothing, and continued to avert his gaze from her, and Luffa found she couldn't complain.     There was nothing else she could say, and arguing with him would only push him further away.   At least he was letting her hold him.   At least he was alive.  For now, that would have to do.  

NEXT: Zatte and Dotz

[coyoteann]

Coyote Ann Profile 1, Ann.

This "Character Sheet" Was edited from Fyuvix's awesome one on DA, here's a link and disclaimer.

https://www.deviantart.com/thirdpotato/art/Character-Profile-Form-36823983

Adaptations from The Writer's Guide to Character Traits © Fyuvix. To fill out your own form, please see fyuvix.deviantart.com

Basic Statistics

Name: Annette Walker Nickname: Coyote Ann Age: 17 Sex: Female Blood type: O+ Nationality: American, Kansas Ethnicity: American, 'Southern' Race: White (Caucasian) Sexual Orientation: Unknown Birth date: 10-4-1997 Birth place: Iberia Medical Center, New Iberia, Louisiana Current residence: Transient. Occupation: Drifter. Title/Rank: None Hobbies/Pastimes: Sight-Seeing, Hunting, Motorbike Maintainance. Talents/Skills/Powers: Skilled at Tracking, Basic Auto Repair of Motorcycles, Fluent in ASL

History

Hometown: Andover, Kansas First Memory: Her Mother reading a book to her. Most important childhood event that still affects him/her: Mother and Father teaching her States and Capitols. Why/How? The Memory has given her a wanderlust. She's now subconsciously seeking out things to jog more memories. Other memories/events that still affects him/her and why/how: She remembers the old family dog, how she'd loved it and missed it after it died. She uses this memory to quell her emotions after losing her family. Past failures s/he would be embarrassed to have people know about and why: Teaching herself to drive a large truck. It was a slow process and she had many wrecks. She ultimately failed and hates that she never got a handle on it. Biggest role model: Her Father. Why? He was a major outdoorsman. Due to the various ailments of his eldest son he was unable to share his interests with him, instead, he took to showing everything he loved to Ann.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5"2' (157.4 cm) Weight: 108.7lbs (49.3Kg) Posture: Defensive, Bold, Direct Build: She's thin, but her body has become toned from constant use. Athletic. Skin: Tanned, reddish splotches on her shoulders, cheeks, neck, and back. Darker freckles scattered across the face and lightly on arms. Hair: Reddish-Chestnut, slightly darker if she's outside more. The style is long, shaggy, sweaty (usually) and left loose. She wants to cut it shorter. Widow's peak? Yes, not very prominent, usually covered by her unruly bangs. Ears: Mild point, no lobe Eyes: Greenish-Grey Nose: Nose is flat, pointed upward slightly Mouth: She holds a smirk when resting her face, because of this her mouth looks like it pulls to the right slightly. Her lips are plain, thin. Face shape: Soft Round Diamond shape. Expressions: Her face is usually smirked. She relaxes into a smile even now. She picked it up from her dad. Describe their smile: Usually pulling to the right. A grin just exposes her teeth. Hands: Her hands are noted by long semithin fingers, and scars on her wrists and knuckles. Feet: Her shoe size is 6 (US) (4 UK) Tattoos/Scars? She has notable scars on her wrists, knuckles, right abdomen, and a thin one on her neck just above her collarbone. The Scar on her neck is definitely older and more faded than the others. Glasses/Contacts? No. She's slightly nearsighted but does not compensate. Left/Right handed? Right. Distinguishing features: She has a very noticeable glare. Who does s/he take after; mother or father? Mother/Paternal Grandmother. (She only has her father's smile) Style (Elegant, shabby, etc): Shabby-Travel Worn How does s/he dress or what do they typically wear? Jeans, depressed. Long sleeve cotton shirt with CAKE band logo, dirty and worn. Jacket, Leather. Other outfits one might find in their wardrobe: She carries a spare pair of Jeans and a long leather coat(duster style). Jewelry: none. Other accessories: none. Weapons: Pistol (temporary), Knife (in her bag), and Rifle (unacquired as of this draft) Health: Good considering. Frequently enters phases of malnourishment. Hygiene: She showers when able, usually goes several days without.

Are they generally balanced or clumsy? Usually balanced, but easily knocked off kilter. Mannerisms/Poses/Movement: Hums when working, Tends to lean on things, Walks in a direct manner. Describe their walk: She walks with purpose. Strong direct strides. Describe their fighting style: She prefers to shoot her prey but is capable in a fight. She knows some basic self-defense and is capable with a knife. Habits/OCDs/Obsessions: Pending at this time. Speech Patterns: She usually has a curt and direct voice. Unique phrases/words: None, Really. Do they curse, and if so, to what extent? Mildly Write a piece of dialogue that this character might say (can be between someone else): "I don't rightly care about what they're doing." "No I'm not gonna shoot them." "Okay, fine, I MIGHT shoot them. Now stop signing I can't think when you're talking." Voice: raspy (from dehidration) Mellow-High (Slightly Nasal, Husky but still light.) ((I imagine her sounding like Audrey Hepbern with a cold or allergy lol)) Describe their laugh: Deep and "Chuckly" usually, when she is caught off guard a light higher laugh will escape. Describe their sleep patterns (light/heavy sleeper, no sleep, sleeps too often, etc): Light sleeper, will put off sleep as long as possible. She has nightmares often. Describe their dwelling/house: none Describe their bedroom: none Describe their daily rituals: Moving.

Psychological/Personality Attributes and Attitudes

Intelligence Level: 9th Grade Public School Known Languages: English/Bad English Character's long-term goals/desires in life: Current Goal, Make it to New Iberia, Louisiana. Character's short-term goals/desires in life: Survival. Secret desires: She holds out hope that her family isn't actually dead. How self-confident is the character? Very, in a "fake it til you make it" way. She's confident out of necessity. How do they see him/herself? Alone, pitiful, and desperate. How do they believe s/he is perceived by others? She doesn't think of it often, when she does it's usually in a negative light. What is the character most proud of? Escaping Missouri. What does the character like least about themselves? her overall weakness to the situation she's in. How do they express themselves? Direct, watchful, no-nonsense. Is this character generally dominant or submissive? Dominant. Patience level: on a scale of 1-10 she's around an 8. Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof? She's usually very logical, but she has limits where her emotions escape through. Most at ease when: Near water, Alone but not lonely. Ill at ease when: She knows there are people near, but doesn't know who or where they are. She doesn't handle suspense well. Describe their sense of humor: Dry, Scornful. If granted one wish, what would it be? "Bring back my family." Why? She ties all her misery to their disappearance/deaths. Character/Personality/Mental/Social Strengths: Great under pressure overall. Character/Personality/Mental/Social Flaws: Awful with negotiations. If they could be described with one of the seven virtues, which would it be? Diligence If they could be described with one of the seven sins, which would it be? Anger Biggest Vulnerability (non-physical): She's pretty weak attacks on children and animals when she's not directly targeted. Optimist or Pessimist: Pessimist due to circumstances, Optimist despite themselves. Introvert or extrovert: Introvert. Greatest Fear: Causing the death of others or dying alone without ever knowing what happened to her family. Other Fears/Insecurities/Phobias:  She's terrified of Goats. Biggest regret: Not telling her family how much she loved them. Other regrets: Joining with certain groups, shooting a kid when escaping capture. Biggest accomplishment: Surviving the first winter. Minor accomplishments: Traveling from Missouri to southern Arkansas (at this point) alone despite the dangers. Musical talents/instruments: none at all. Character's darkest/deepest secret: She shot a kid who was trying to kidnap her. She was defending herself but it still haunts her.

Likes/Dislikes

Likes: Chocolate, Classic Rock, and Dogs Dislikes: Goats, Snakes, 'moist' cookies.

Favorite

Color: Rose-Gold Clothing: Leather, she loves the 80's punk style. Place: Still Looking. Room in the house and why: Used to be the Front Sitting room, she'd watch movies with her mother there. Food/drinks: Soda (Pepsi) Music genre: Classic Rock, Alt Rock, Classic Country, Rockabilly, CAKE (band) Songs and Singers/Bands: Short Skirt Long Jacket- Cake Movies/TV Shows/Performances: Sabrina(Film) Actors/Performers: None Book(s): Where the Red Fern Grows Historical figure: Elizabeth Garret Anderson Subject in school: P.E. Animal: Dog

Least Favorite

Clothing: Shoes. Place: Missouri (Branson) Food: Cabbage Music genre: EDM, Hip-Hop Subject in school: English

Simple Pleasures: Putting feet in water after a long walk. Greater Pleasures: Finding an orchard that has continued to produce fruit. Where does this character like to hang out?  N/A Where is this character's dream place to live? Anywhere that's actually safe. What sorts of books are most likely to be found on their shelves? Manuals. Motto/Personal quote: "One Day at a Time." Mode of transportation: Feet, Motorcycle, Abbot's Van Most prized possession: Her Jacket. Why? It was her Brother's.

Emotional Characteristics

Describe character's sense of morals: Take what you can, but don't hurt anyone if able. Survival before Ethics. If they could sum up the meaning of life, what would they say?: To live. Describe character's etiquette: Poor. Undisciplined. Describe character's sense of self-control: Fairly good, she's able to keep her emotions in check most of the time. She's not impulsive. Spontaneous or structured? Structured but with very mild Flexibility. Instinctual or logical? Logic first. How does this character act in public? Quiet but Direct. How does this character act in privacy? Shy, kind, inviting. How does this character act around strangers vs. how they act around friends? She'll literally take out a stranger if she feels threatened. How does(did) this character act around family? She acted open, happy, energetic. How has this character most changed from youth? She's become cynical and less empathetic. How have they remained the same? She still has a deep core of hopefulness that she cannot shake. Has this character dealt with the loss of someone they knew? Yes If so, who? Mother, Father, Brother. How has it affected them? well, she...attempted suicide before joining a gang and defecting and running away to Arkansas...she's really not FELT it yet.

How does this character deal with or react to: Conflict/Danger: Head on, fight or fight. Rejection: "YEAH WELL I DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO" -sniff- Fear: FIGHT OR FIGHT. Change: Adapt or Die. Loss: Adapt to Die. Sex/Flirting: FIGHT or FIGHT!! Pain: Tries to ignore it. Stress: Tries to ignore that too. Peer pressure: Probably wouldn't trust strangers...but a friend could lead her on fairly well. Guilt: Repress it. Being wrong: Admit it, if she can. Being criticized: Starts off hot, but she'll reflect after a while. Being insulted (superficially: name calling, etc): "YOU WANNA FIGHT OVER IT?" Offending others: "I didn't offend you, you offended yourself...also I'm sorry..." Praise: Skepticism Being loved: N/A Being hated: N/A Humiliation: Swallows and tries to focus on something else.

How does this character express?

Anger: With her fists. Sadness: Repression. Fear: Running. (with or without fists.) Happiness/Excitement: Giggling. Love (Consider the "Five Languages of Love"): From most to least, Acts, Touch, Time, Gifts, Words. Lust: She actively avoids it. Stress/anxiety: She will panic...sometimes. Dislike (of a person, thing, or idea): Avoid/reject it. Approval (of a person, thing, or idea): Tries to help them, discuss it, or fix it.

Other

What song best fits this character? American Girl - Tom Petty If you could compare this character to an existing character, who would s/he be and why?  I'd compare her to...All those Jodi foster Tom Boy Roles...like seriously..just give Iris (Taxi Driver) a gun and an Inidana Jones complex. If you could choose an actor for this character, who would it be? Uh...I dunno? If you could choose a voice actor for this character, who would it be? See Above. Who/what was your character inspired by? Story; Me and a friend Driving to see a movie, get behind a girl on a motercycle. "Wouldn't it be funnly if she had a cat in those saddle bags?" "Cat's done to hell make it a dog." "Wolf?" "too big, Coyote."  and ta daaaa.

[rieshon]

Best of 2019

It wouldn't be a best of the year post if it wasn't hopelessly late.

10: Shinchou Yuusha ~Kono Yuusha ga Ore TUEEE Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru~ ∥ White Fox ∥ Dir. Sakoi Masayuki: The title makes this sound like it could be terrible but this series has a Konosuba-like aplomb that makes it one of the best comedies of the year. Toyosaki Aki is absolutely brilliant as the shithead damegami Listarte and the animation consistently matches her over-the-top comedic masterclass. The show even has a real ending; opinion is split but I found it surprisingly satisfying.

9: Babylon ∥ Revoroot ∥ Dir. Suzuki Kiyotaka: This is the first Strand-type anime. Babylon is incredibly hard to describe and, having only seen it once, I'm not even fully confident in saying what it's about. It is a wild ride that meditates on some serious themes and seems to come to conclusions that won't be entirely comfortable for a lot of readers. This is one you really have to experience for yourself.

8: Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari ∥ Kinema Citrus ∥ Dir. Abo Takao: The most discoursed-about series of 2019 ends up being a surprisingly mature take on the isekai tensei genre. Like the best entries in the genre it features a protagonist who is deeply flawed and Naofumi's journey to learning to trust and love again is genuinely moving. It definitely does come off a bit like an incel fantasy at first but it is ultimately way more nuanced than that could ever suggest. Also, Raphtalia is best wife.

7: Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai ∥ Gemba ∥ Dir. Mizushima Tsutomu: Tsutomu, you son of a bitch, you did it again. While Kotobuki doesn't reach the rareified air of Garupan (pun not intended) it is very much in the same vein, and offers unending joy to any nerd who loves warplanes or just aviation in general. The script from the always-excellent Yokote Michiko is tight and compelling and gives a genuinely interesting backdrop to the frenetic plane action. Kotobuki is an excellent example of the power of showing rather than telling, something anime is woefully bad at: the fact that Kotobuki's isekai setting is never really expounded on makes it that much more interesting.

6: Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu ∥ C2C ∥ Dir. Anzai Takefumi: If Katsuwo's other work to be adapted into anime, Mitsuboshi Colors, is about being a child, then Bocchi is about the fraught transition from childhood into early adulthood. The titular Hitori Bocchi will be a frighteningly relatable character (my comment for the first episode on my blog was 'We Are All Bocchi') but unlike other series clearly aimed at alienated nerds, the show never feels sorry for Bocchi and most importantly, Bocchi doesn't feel sorry for herself. The show is explicitly about the importance of stepping outside of your comfort zone and although it's hard for Bocchi to do this, with the help of her friends she's able to work up the courage necessary to grow from a scared child into a functioning young adult. Also she's cute as fuck.

5: Machikado Mazoku ∥ J.C. Staff ∥ Dir. Sakurai Hiroaki: This is one of the best Kirara anime in ages. Kohara Konomi and Kitou Akari are a wonderful comedic combination, and Shamiko is probably the cutest girl of the whole year. She's pretty much the definition of the phrase "moe through helplessness" which makes her quest to be an evil demon truly hilarious. Like all the best Kirara anime, Machikado Mazoku slowly becomes a yuri anime as Momo's character develops and it becomes increasingly clear that she's just hard gay for Shamiko. I could watch these two be tsundere for each other forever.

4: Joshikousei no Mudazukai ∥ Passione ∥ Dir. Takahashi Takeo: There were a lot of excellent comedies this year and I always find them hard to review. Where Mudazukai particularly excels is the crassness of its characters: like the title suggests these aren't your typical cutesy anime JKs. They crack dirty jokes, take the piss out of each other, and feel more genuinely like friends than a lot of high school girls in anime. Akasaki Chinatsu in particular is pitch-perfect as 'Baka,'  its like she was born to be stupid. Probably the funniest show of the year, even though I have one comedy ranked above it.

3: Senkizesshou Symphogear XV ∥ Satelight ∥ Dir. Ono Katsumi: The fact that a Symphogear series could end up this high on the rankings is something like a miracle. After years of me shitting all over it for incomprehensible plotlines and disposable characters, they somehow not only fixed it in the last season, but even retroactively redeemed some of the elements from those shitty third and fourth seasons and created some of the most thrilling moments of the year in the process. It even goes as far as to reach back to the first season and address the latent themes of Japanese nationalism that have always hung over the show in resolving Tsubasa's character arc. XV delivers such a satisfying conclusion that it fully justifies the past six years spent on developing the Symphogear series in a way I never thought possible. It's a beautiful thing to behold.

2: Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen~ ∥ A-1 Pictures ∥ Dir. Hatakeyama Mamoru: The romantic comedy is probably the most prolific genre in late night anime, and Kaguya-sama stands shoulder to shoulder with the greats. Everything from the voice acting (Koga Aoi should be a superstar, and Kohara Konomi is already on her way to being a household name) to the animation to the direction to the writing is superb. Kaguya even delivers in spades in the "romantic" side of "romantic comedy" which isn't something every rabukome can say. The number of series that I can say have made me cry from laughing and from emotion is pretty small, but Kaguya is proudly among them.

1: Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo ∥ Lay-duce ∥ Dir. Andou Masahiro & Tsukada Takurou: After all these years, Okada Mari has finally delivered her magnum opus. There has perhaps never been a more frank discussion of female adolescent sexuality than Araoto, drawing heavily as it does from Okada's own lived experience as a confused and bullied teenager. These girls are fragile people who are walking a knife's edge between childhood and adulthood, and they don't always keep their balance. As someone who didn't grow up as a girl, it's not something I can intrinsically understand, but it's a testament to Okada's writing that Araoto MAKES you understand what it's like to be a teenage girl going through puberty. It's ugly, it's dangerous, it's scary, and... it's something every woman goes through. Araoto deftly tackles themes of discovering ones sexuality, homosexuality, and the pressure put on young women by a society that both sexualizes them against their will but also demands that they remain chaste and pure. It is unlike almost anything else that's ever been made in this medium, and that's why it's my anime of the year.

Honorable mentions... Like I said above, this was a strong year for comedy so some good series didn't make the cut. Ueno-san wa Bukiyou was a great showcase for Serizawa Yuu's comedic chops (which us Pripara fans have known about for years) and featured some of the most memorable gags of the year... Kemurikusa saw Tatsuki triumphantly return to television with his first full length work since Kemono Friends, and I frankly found it to be better than Kemofure; a truly enjoyable work of post-apocalyptic science fiction... Speaking of science fiction, I also feel compelled to mention Kanata no Astra, which seemed underappreciated but ended up being an extremely well-written SF series. Of course, we also have to mention Kono Yo no Hate de Koi wo Utau Shoujo YU-NO if we're talking about science fiction; I didn't particularly like YU-NO's second half that much, but it's worth watching if only to understand where so much of modern anime comes from in the first place.

The awards go to...

Best Actress: Koga Aoi as Shinomiya Kaguya, Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai. I mentioned above that this girl should be a superstar, and it's frankly absurd that she hasn't gotten more leading roles considering the considerable talent she shows off as Kaguya. She's a one-woman wrecking crew in this series, with her ability to effortlessly straddle the range between "cold and detached psychopath" and "petulant 8 year old throwing a tantrum" being the lynchpin of a lot of the series fundamental humor.

(Honorable mention: Akasaki Chinatsu as "Baka," Joshikousei no Mudazukai; Yukino Satsuki as Magase Ai, Babylon)

Newcomer Seiyuu of the Year: Kohara Konomi. It's a sweep for Kaguya-sama, and the voice acting is a big part of the reason that show was so exceptional. It kind of feels like cheating to give this to someone who's already played a Precure, but Toei were just really ahead of the curve on this one. 'Koko-chan' exploded onto the scene in 2019 between her roles as Fujiwara-shoki and Shamiko in Machikado Mazoku, with a distinctive vocal style and a knack for comedic delivery. Several of the most memetic lines of the year, like Fujiwara's "Don da yo!" and Shamiko's "Kore de katta to omou nayo!" come courtesy of her, and I feel like that ability to stick in people's minds is a testament to her level of talent. Though I gave Koga the nod overall for her performance as Kaguya, it's clear that Kohara is the one the industry has earmarked for future success with the level of prominence she's had over the past year or so, so she gets this award.

(Honorable mention: Fairouz Ai. "Fai-chan" made a splash thanks to her unusual background, but she's also proven to be a talented actress after appearing from seemingly out of nowhere to play Hibiki in the Onegai Muscle anime. It's out of the scope of this post, but she really made an impression in Oshibudo as Eripiyo, but her body of work is still too thin for her to win this award outright. She's shown she has a knack for the funny with her brusque and aggressive delivery, but I'd really like to hear her as a dramatic lead sometime soon.)

[nathynoir313]

Finding Home, Chapter 4: Storms and Balance

Also Available on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652419/chapters/28901055

“Honey, when you feel worn out. When the mirror lies and turns on you…When the choruses of doubt are singing way too loud. Honey, I will chase them down… Honey, that's what love's about.”

( Honey – Mindy Gledhill )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kAPgjRyRJU

 Plagg was startled from munching his dear piece of Camembert by a sudden burst of words, forming into an urgent message. It had to be urgent, because the only occasions in which he and Tikki used their telepathic communication was when they didn’t have any other options, or when one of their chosen was in terrible danger.

Plagg! Marinette is in trouble. She’s not transformed. The Akuma got to her before she could do so. She’s in trouble. Get Adrien ready! NOW.

That was bad. Oh, that was so bad. He had to warn Adrien. His chosen would totally freak out knowing his childhood friend and partner was, probably, in mortal danger. Plagg was intrigued though. Tikki’s chosen was one of the toughest Ladybugs he’d ever seen.

The girl was never reluctant on expressing her leadership skills, was always brave, courageous and had just the perfect amount of sass. Even though the cat kwami considered himself pretty selective when it regarded humans, he had really grown fond of the young woman. Part of it came from seeing all that she did for Adrien. The boy either had Marinette or Ladybug, who ended up being one and the same, to hear him, talk to him, discuss silly stuff, and protect him.

He let go of his thoughts though. No matter how tough the girl was, it seemed she had been caught off of guard. They had to get there fast.

Adrien was focused on his sandwich. If Marinette had seen it she would be mad. She used to cook for them when they came back late from work, as the boy was a hopeless cook. But that also didn’t matter at the moment.

“ADRIEN!” the young man jumped from his chair, leaving his sandwich on the plate.

“Dear lord, what is it Plagg? What’s the need for screaming?” Adrien turned to look at his cat kwami. The seriousness on Plagg’s usually mocking expression made him alert at the same instant. “What’s wrong Plagg?”

“Tikki has sent me an urgent message. Marinette is in trouble, and wasn’t able to transform. There is-” the kwami didn’t finish talking, turning briskly toward the window. Adrien accompanied the movement, trying to see what captured his attention.

Phasing through the window right that instant, was the ladybug kwami, Tikki. She was huffing for air, and seemed to be eager to be able to say whatever it was she had to say. Before anything else could happen, Adrien started freaking out.

“Tikki! Where’s Marinette? What happened?” The little kwami landed on Adrien’s hand, saying the words in a hush.

“Marinette. Akuma. Not transformed. He got her. He isn’t doing anything. She’s not doing well.”

“Is she injured?” The panic started to rise from the back of his mind, but he kept it down. It wouldn’t help Marinette if he just lost his control.

“No. Not yet. The Akuma calls himself Nightmare. Marinette… we don’t, we- we…” the ladybug kwami sobbed slightly, and it made Adrien’s heart feel tight. “We- she doesn’t have enough time. Her body or her mind, or both will collapse, she’s been running for almost two hours, and now she won’t get up, and I had to, I had to leave her with the akuma. They don’t know her identity, but we have to get there fast. I’m not sure how long she will endure it. And you have to be careful Adrien. The akuma did not even touch Marinette. The second I noticed something was wrong, she was already running blank stared, and pale. It must be by his stare, so please don’t be reckless. Transform, we’ve got to go right now.”  Adrien called up his transformation, turning to his black cat hero persona, Chat Noir.

“I can lead you to where she is, I can still feel her. She’s tough, so she’s handling it. But I don’t know for how long she’ll be able to do so.” Adrien wasn’t sure if he was ready to deal with that situation. Ladybug had always been the toughest between the two of them, he’d never dealt with an akuma that strong on his own. And he had to protect Marinette and her identity…

He had to be ready. He was. He would always be ready for her.

“Lead the way Tikki.”

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

Marinette remembered. The flash of green…Adrien. Adrien was dead. He was dead, her parents were dead, Tikki was gone, she was alone, stuck in a bitter, lonely world. She’d never be able to see Adrien smile, to run on rooftops with Chat, to hug her parents, walk to work with Adrien. They were gone.

They were all gone. She had no one left.

Those thoughts themselves were enough to bring her to the deepest feeling of despair and abandonment that she could ever recall feeling on her entire life. She couldn’t remember how she lost them, why Tikki and Plagg were gone, the only thing she had was a solid certainty filling her heart: they were dead.

She felt like she was going insane, and that her whole complexion was fading away, slipping by her fingertips. The world around the corners of her eyes was turning black, little by little. Marinette couldn’t bring herself to get up, to move, scream, sob, anything. The tears rolling down her face did not even feel real, as she didn’t feel real herself.

She wished to disappear. To be taken away. The feeling inside her heart seemed to be dragging her more and more toward an intangible and everlasting darkness…and she didn’t have the strength or the will to do anything about it.

Soon she’d be gone too.

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

Adrien wasn’t ready. The problem was not the akuma. He’d use his cataclysm on him if he had to, that’s how furious he felt. But somethings were mingled with his fury, and they were fear, hurt, worry. Fear of seeing the strongest person he knew, coiled up next to cardboard boxes, sitting on an alleyway, crying silently a waterfall of tears, eyes blank, dull of the sparkle that he loved to see whenever Marinette was excited about something, or when she smiled. It was a part of her, and it was simply gone.

It hurt to see her pale face, her whole body shaking from the shivers that were running through her. She wasn’t fighting it. It seemed that whatever illusion she was trapped into, she was actually being led to believe that, that would be her end as well. Marinette was always confident and sure about herself and her objectives. That was not how his Mar was.

And that’s why he worried. He’d never thought he’d see her like that, and knowing that the responsible for her suffering was Hawkmoth…it made his blood boil. The closest he could get from hitting Hawkmoth was attacking his akuma. And oh, how he despised that akuma. It took all his years of being Chat Noir, and the rest of his good sense not to strangle his and Ladybug’s enemy’s newest pawn.  

He wouldn’t let him win. He would never take his family away from him. Marinette was his family, his home. He was not about to let it happen. He did not have many people he loved in his life, and Marinette was pretty much his sunshine. Adrien could always count on her, and he was forever grateful for her just…being her. She lit up the world of those around her, had her flaws like anybody else, but she was always trying. She deserved a happy, long life. He almost wished for her happiness more than he wished for his own. They were best buddies, partners, friends, family. Perhaps… it didn’t occur to him in that moment, but any observer would notice the possibility and the huge ‘what if?’ that the two friends represented. And they both deserved to have the chance to consider it.

He noticed a transparent device covering the top half of the akuma’s face. With a fight that didn’t last long, and one well hit punch on Nightmare, Chat broke the source of his Lady’s terror, noticing though that the akuma only laughed.

“You may have defeated me, but I’ve made her broken. And that, Chat Noir, I doubt you or Ladybug can fix.”  The akuma then turned back to a fancy dressed man, and Adrien went through the process of cleaning up. In that moment it took all of his control not to check up on Marinette. He took the man to the other side of the street, and headed back to his Lady. Catching the butterfly on one hand, Adrien picked Marinette up with one arm, helping her stand, with an arm around his neck, vaulting them both toward a far off rooftop.

He helped her lay against the chimney. The process of cleaning up was simple, but it had a delicacy that collided with Chat Noir’s potential for destruction. It was as if he could have a moment in which he was able to provide the balance that was lacking in the world. Adrien didn’t get to do it many times, but he really liked it. So he began. Picking up Marinette’s left hand, he tangled their fingers together. Taking the akuma on his left hand, he’d bring it close to his heart and say.

“I release you from darkness. Bring back what you took away.” For the cleansing to happen, he had to be holding  Ladybug’s hand. In the moment their hands intertwined, there was balance. And so he could bring back what was broken. Literally, at least. But he didn’t think about other broken things that had to be fixed at the moment. Opening his right hand, which held the butterfly, he released the cleansed, back to white insect, into the night sky, bringing his attention now to Marinette.

Her breath was barely audible, and her eyes were closed.

“Mari?” She didn’t move. “Princess? Please, open your eyes, I need to see your eyes.” She still didn’t make a move. “Mar? Please…” Adrien was whispering, and felt his eyes tearing up. Suddenly, Marinette opened her eyes wide, locking them with Chat’s only for sheer disbelief and confusion fill them. She began hyperventilating, and Adrien didn’t know what to do. Until that look.

Marinette looked at him with her bluebell sparkling eyes filled with tears…and disbelief, and pain… then shock. Her eyes were wide, she seemed to be getting back to herself…but then they rolled back inside her head, and she passed out. Adrien cradled her body to his, letting some of his tears escape from relief. She was alive. She wasn’t injured, she was only overwhelmed. Picking her up again, he nestled her head to the curve of his neck, holding her tight against him. By instinct, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and wrapped her legs around his torso. He carried her to their home.

Adrien felt his heart warm up by her closeness, by her breath tickling his neck, and her arms holding him. She was fine, they were fine.

He couldn’t possibly know about the nightmares plaguing her poor worn out mind, being tormented by terrors even worse than the ones Nightmare had imprisoned her inside earlier that same day. He’d find out soon though. But right in that moment, his ignorance provided him a moment of peace. They had each other. And that made all the difference in the world.  

on ao3:  CHAPTER 1     CHAPTER 2    CHAPTER 3

[arisefairsun]

Can you talk about the pros and the cons of Olivia Hussey's Juliet? She is my favourite Juliet, but I would like to see a more critical review of her portrayal for once!

Ah! I’m really happy that you asked this because I’m hopelessly in love with Franco Zeffirelli’s movie and I could talk about Olivia Hussey’s acting all day long.

The first thing I would like to remark is the context in which the movie was made. In many ways, it is a mirror of the youth movements of the 60s, and the trope of idealism versus violence, dreaming versus fighting, is one of the main characteristics of the movie.The fights are really violent (the opening brawl, for instance, was filmed in a more aggressive way than usual, as it fatally has Capulets and Montagues murdering each other and women screaming with their children in their arms), and it presents Romeo and Juliet’s love as an innocent, harmless force as opposed to the cultural violence that surrounds them. Olivia Hussey underscored how excellently the movie had harmonized with the ideals of her generation. And, indeed, you could say it is an ode to sexual freedom, peace, and the power of youth. You can see that in the way Zeffirelli filmed the bedroom scene, with Juliet lying naked after consummating a marriage she arranged herself.

Zeffirelli seemed to be particularly interested in her character:

The central idea is that of a puppeteer, Destiny, who handles all the characters. They are all puppets on a stage and no one is fully responsible. The whole tragedy is permeated with the idea of fate. There is nothing to do. Juliet is the only valuable opposition to it. 

So he decided to exploit the transgression of Juliet’s acts, and I will always be grateful to him for giving us such a powerful, intrepid Juliet. He was also one of the first directors to cast teenagers to play the lovers. Precisely, physically speaking I consider Olivia to be really suitable for the role. The innocence and tenderness of childhood she conveys wonderfully, but once she gets to express herself you find that her eyes denote such intelligence, her voice such fortitude, that you couldn’t possibly dismiss her as a dumb kid. (To be honest, I can’t fathom how it is possible to distort the play to the point that people think the word “dumb” befits Juliet and Romeo.) She transmits so much expressiveness with those piercing, inquisitive eyes and her loud, firm voice. See how monotonous she sounds when she lies to the Nurse, but how fierce her voice is during the “O bid me leap…” speech in the cell. She is a Juliet that does something else apart from blushing and smiling tenderly—she is also restless, frustrated, even rude in some parts. She doesn’t limit herself to simply reciting her lines in a monotonous tone, but rather she inserts so much depth and energy in every single word that she succeeds in constructing a complex Juliet—Olivia handled the duality of her character really well. Sometimes she cries fearfully on the floor as she implores her parents to listen to her and sometimes she contemptuously yells at her mother that she won’t marry Paris “by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too.”

To me, Olivia portrayed Juliet as a young girl who is too alive to contain herself—as if the world weren’t big enough for her. One of the things that amazes me about her acting is the way she uses her body to transmit her indefatigable energy. She shows a great command of herself. For instance, I noticed that she spends a huge amount of time running. We find her running the first time we see her, she leaves the scene running after her conversation with her mother, she arrives at the ball running, she comes in and out of her balcony running repeatedly, she arrives in the church running again, and hurriedly crosses herself before running again toward Romeo with her arms wide open. I could go on. (But interestingly, during Paris and Friar Lawrence’s brief conversation in the cell, she comes in running as well, but once she spots Paris she stops suddenly and starts walking instead, as if she were attempting to behave more correctly, faking to be a more restrained and therefore acceptable woman. She does this as well when she runs to her mother’s bedroom and stops abruptly before Lady Capulet can see her.) With this restlessness and her resolute nature, she transgresses the tediousness of her society—she is simply too in love with life itself to confine herself to inaction. It makes perfect sense to hear her describe herself as “a boundless sea” when you hear her exhilarated laughter. 

And then she denotes so much determination and self-condifence. Olivia takes advantage of every single line to portray Juliet as an independent, strong-minded young girl. “But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true / Than those that have more cunning to be strange.” She sounds so angry when she says that. More than swearing her love to Romeo, she looks like she is threatening him not to fool her. (He actually even nods nervously there and it’s hilarious.) And her face is priceless when he tries to swear his love by the moon. She tells him off. She is so resolute and skeptical throughout the whole balcony scene, it’s wonderful. I invite you to watch that scene again, paying attention to her facial expressions.

Another scene I think is worth commenting is 2.5, when the Nurse delivers Romeo’s news to her. I like to compare her acting here with that of other actresses playing Juliet. In this scene, her impatience is usually portrayed more like an inoffensive, sweet frustration. She is still adorable even when she is irritated. However, Olivia’s Juliet does not even try to palliate her impatience. When she goes down the stairs and notices that the Nurse is not yet come, she boldly places her needlework on the table as she goes on ranting about how disgusted she is by old people. When the Nurse finally arrives with Peter, Juliet basically puts her hands on her waist impatiently and kicks him out after giving him a quite exasperated look. She then even takes away an apple that the Nurse was holding in her teeth and clenches her fists. But when she finally gets her Nurse to tell her what she wants, she euphorically bursts into laughter and thus leaves the scene running enthusiastically. I find this much more entertaining than, say, Rebecca Saire’s acting, who was only slightly impatient in comparison with Olivia’s liveliness.

The movie is replete with moments like that. I still can’t get over the way she looks at her own cousin when she turns around (screencaps here), or the fact that she doesn’t even look at Paris when he kisses her hand and says farewell before leaving the ball. Moreover, the camera tends to focus on her emotions. The first kiss is filmed in a way that only allows you to contemplate Juliet’s face and all the different emotions she goes through. There is that long kissing sequence in the balcony scene where you can only see her face as well. And in the last scene, the first hint that she is still alive comes from her hand. The camera focuses entirely on it as she begins to move her fingers slowly, but all of a sudden she clenches her fist with strength and resolution. The camera then follows her hand as it reaches her face, and those wide, alert eyes open again. Those are just a few examples, but the movie is full of close-ups of her intelligent eyes.

The main flaw of Olivia’s Juliet, however, is the same flaw of the whole movie: too many lines were cut out (more than half of the play!). Certainly they skipped some of her wittiest moments, such as the part where she deceives her mother, or the “gallop apace” speech, in which she so explicitly poeticizes sex. Although its absence is partly compensated, in my opinion, by the more than evident sexual agency she shows throughout the movie. She actively looks for Romeo at the ball, and even when he touches her hand for the first time, the camera shoots her eyes closing in ecstasy. She grabs his shoulders in their second kiss, and even holds his face in her hands and kisses him as he stays still in the balcony scene.

Another thing I dislike is her reaction to Tybalt’s death. The way she criticizes Romeo is wonderfully acted again—really vigorous and enraged. But it stops there. The last thing she says is, “But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?” In the play she goes on trying to find out what must have really happened between Romeo and Tybalt, and she comes to her own conclusions. However, in the movie, we just see her bash Romeo and then we don’t see her again until the next morning, when she is happily sleeping by his side. It sort of weakens the character, because Juliet doesn’t forgive him entirely until she decides it couldn’t had been his fault.

And, of course, there is the potion speech missing. It is actually the soliloquy she chose for her audition, but Zeffirelli decided to cut it out because he feared it would alter the balance between Romeo and Juliet in terms of their importance to the plot: “If she does this potion speech, she’ll get all the attention. The film won’t be Romeo and Juliet—it will be ‘Did you see Olivia Hussey in that scene?”

But I think Olivia’s Juliet is excellently paired up with Leonard’s Romeo—the angriest Juliet comes with the softest Romeo. It is as though Thought and Dream intertwined. While Juliet speaks with a very potent, determined voice, Leonard’s Romeo has more of a whispering, soft tone. (We literally see him sighing with his eyes closed against some pretty flowers.) This duality of their personalities is tangible in the very way they are introduced in the movie. Romeo’s entrance is accompanied by a dreamy, tender song as he appears smiling at a flower that he is holding in his hands; Juliet, on the contrary, shows up running while a much more energetic song is playing (from around 1:03 on). It goes on like that for the rest of the movie and it culminates with their last words. Romeo raises the venom with tears streaming down his face as he slowly whispers, “here’s to my love”. (It! Breaks! My! Heart!) Juliet, however, roars her last words, and even half smiles at the dagger for a moment as she commands it to “rust” in her.

So what I love about her is her strength and her ability to denote so much expressiveness with her body. If only I could watch her perform all the missing lines. She did so much with the little she was given, it’s wonderful. We need more Juliets like this—Juliets who express themselves so freely and fearlessly.

[sage-nebula]

lolololol I’m not trying to start any Discourse™ or anything (so don’t reblog this to start some), but

in response to this gifset, someone replied, “jesus, imagine if Ash treated Serena like this” and . . .

The thing is . . . he couldn’t. 

Setting aside the fact that Ash’s characterization has changed so radically over the years that OS!Ash and Kalos!Ash (and Alola!Ash, for that matter) are not really reconcilable as the same character personality-wise (not even from a “he matured” standpoint, because bby!Ash in the Kalos flashbacks acts nothing at all like OS!Ash, which he should have if it was just an issue of maturity), the simple truth of the matter is that if Ash sassed Serena the way he sasses Misty---if he showed any of the negative personality traits around Serena that he shows in the OS---she not only would not have been able to handle it (especially in the beginning), but there is no doubt in my mind that her crush on him would have absolutely shattered, and then crumbled into dust. And considering the fact that the concept behind Serena’s character was “girl who admires / has a crush on Ash”, that would have been a problem the writing team would not have wanted to deal with.

I mean, let’s face it: Serena’s crush on Ash was, from the start, based on an idealized image of him that she never really moved past. Even after she “got to know” him, the Ash she got to know was a confident, optimistic, bubbly hero type who never let anything get to him. The one time something did get to him, and he snapped at her that she didn’t understand how he was feeling, she threw snowballs at him and shouted at him that the “Ash [she] knows” wouldn’t behave this way. Which, yes---that’s true! The Ash she knows wouldn’t behave that way, but maybe the Ash she knows isn’t all there is to Ash. Regardless, the point I’m trying to make here is that the one time Ash did show a negative side to himself---the one time he did lash out, the one time he did say something mean to her---Serena couldn’t handle it. She got upset and ran off in near tears. I’m not bashing Serena (the problems I have with that episode are problems I have with the writing staff, not Serena herself), but I am saying that when Ash acted as something other than the Perfect Hero that she idolized and had a crush on, Serena really couldn’t take it.

So if Ash behaved around Serena the way he does with Misty? If he sassed her? Outright insulted her at times (though it’s rare that Ash’s insults were meant to be mean---and even when they were, Misty dished it back just as well)? If he insulted her interests the way he did Misty’s sometimes? If he expressed the same distaste and dislike for things such as romance, cutesy things, perfumes, make-up, et cetera around Serena that he did around Misty? Well:

I don’t think Serena would be able to brush it off the same way Misty did, and

I don’t see how Serena’s crush could have been maintained

The primary difference between the way Misty’s crush on Ash was presented and Serena’s crush on Ash was presented is the fact that Serena had her crush on Ash before the series started, due to a meeting the two had in childhood and an idealized version of Ash that Serena had built up in her mind. Conversely, Misty and Ash met for the very first time by that riverbank, got off on the wrong foot, and Misty’s crush on Ash developed from their friendship as she got to know him. This means that Misty developed a crush on Ash even while he was being sassy and bickering with her. No, this doesn’t mean Misty likes it when boys are mean to her, before anyone takes it the wrong way. Misty wouldn’t have grown angry with Ash all those times he was a rude little shit if it was the case. It just means that, Misty grew a crush on Ash due to his positive qualities, and that his flaws were not a detriment (or at least not enough of a detriment) to her for her to not have those feelings for him. Misty saw his flaws and said, “OK, but I still like him anyway.” Her feelings were never seriously hurt, their relationship was never really in jeopardy. Ash could be a rude little shit around and to her, and that was OK, because to be honest, Misty could be a rude little shit herself. It all balanced out.

But because Serena had this image of Ash being a gentlemanly hero in her head, if Ash was a rude little shit to her the way he was to Misty, that would have shattered. It would have gone completely against the Ash she had idealized, and hurt her feelings pretty badly besides, because Serena seems to be a more sensitive person than Misty is. That’s not to say she’s weak, or that it’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s okay for people to be sensitive. But whereas Misty can snap “very funny!” when Ash calls her disgusting in the third episode, I think that Serena’s feelings would be much more badly hurt, particularly because Ash was a boy she admired and wanted that same level of admiration / approval / love from right from the jump. Even if Ash was joking (as he often is with Misty when he sasses her!), I think there’s a good chance Serena would take it personally. It would hurt her, and would damage their relationship.

So honestly, Ash couldn’t treat Serena that way. He wouldn’t be able to sass and have bickerspats with her that are forgotten in the next scene because neither of them takes such spats personally / seriously. He couldn’t do that with her, because Serena would take such things personally. Although both Misty and Serena have crushes on Ash, they’re still very different characters and their crushes developed / were presented differently. And, as a result of that, Ash’s relationships with both of them are quite different. Ash is free to sass and joke around with Misty because their relationship was one of friends ---> best friends ---> love interest. Ash can’t do that with Serena because their relationship began with her idealizing and having a crush on him before he even remembered who she was, and then any time (or rather, the one time) that was challenged, it ended with Serena running off in near tears and Ash deciding that, welp, it probably was wrong of him to be so negative, huh, he better go back to being the optimistic, confident hero that everyone expects him to be. That’s probably for the best.

So yeah, while I can certainly imagine Ash treating Serena that way, if he had been allowed to remain the same character (personality-wise) across all the sagas, it wouldn’t have ended well. I don’t even know if they would have continued traveling together (and if they had, it would have ended up painting Ash in a bad light, because it would no doubt appear as if he was bullying her because she wouldn’t / couldn’t sass him back---at least, not to the level Misty dishes the burns right back at him). It just wouldn’t have worked because, in all honesty, nothing in the Kalos anime showed me that Serena would be able to handle Sass Ketchum at his most savage. Not a single damn thing.

[thepeterman]

quiet now,

you’ll miss it

It is hot.

And not just regular, oh sweet baby Jesus someone please find me an air conditioner stat hot, no. This was hell hath finally descended upon us, nothing you mere mortals could do will stop this fiery fury type hot. The kind of heat that eats you from the inside out, and slowly drills at your sanity.

So of course, logically, Rapunzel planted herself in her beanbag chair, grabbed a worryingly old bag of peas from the freezer, and fished her tiny fan from the attic. Which, she doesn't think, should be able to disgrace the names of good, fully functioning fans with it's blasphemes title.

She's three pages into her newest Spider-Man comic, and three inches drenched in sweat, when her window is opened.

In the past, Rapunzel has wondered if their admittedly flawed system would let undesirables into her bedroom while she least suspects it, but then she decided she'd take her chances. There is something about having Hiccup have his own way into her house that makes something pleasant settle in her stomach.

He whistles before stumbling his way in, tripping over gangly limbs and his natural nemesis. Air.

"I can't believe you've braved the outside. You sir, have earned a seat in the chair." She hums without looking up at him.

Hiccup chuckles dryly, like he wants to be annoyed but can't, and falls unceremoniously into her side, shifting so their bodies fit comfortably. Curling in on each other, as she offers him one side of her comic.

He smiles gently, reaching over and producing two absolutely stunning popsicles, one of the famed spider, and the other none other than SpongeBob himself. "I heard the truck. Figured you'd probably be slow roasting in the fortress." He has the decency to look bashful, as they both know he lives too far to have gotten these on his street. And from the steep rise and fall of his chest, Rapunzel can tell he rode his bike all this way.

Grinning softly, she leans up and kisses his cheek, shyly taking the extended popsicle. "I can't believe I thought this was gonna be a bad day."

---

It is art day, and Mother isn't taking this as serious as she should be. Rapunzel's been sitting on the steps, frowning at her stupid tie, and super cool Sailor Moon backpack for the past ten minutes, just waiting for her mom to finish her makeup.

"We're going to be late!" Rapunzel screams, knowing it will be useless. She thinks, perhaps, it is time for her to bring up the subject of the bus.

By the time she gets to school, Ms. Ellie just smiles gently at her Very Adamant excuse for being late, as Rapunzel thought it necessary to explain the note her mother left. Being ushered to her seat, she noticed a boy where there was not one, previous.

He had shaggy brown hair that fell over his face, as he leaned over the desk, concentrated on his drawing.

Which she should be, too. Right.

And as soon as she got lost in the sound of her crayon hitting the page, and losing herself in between now and her canvas, someone has to ruin it. Because, apparently, that is just the way Rapunzel's life works.

It's Snotlout, leaned over her desk, his eyebrows creased at her picture. She feels a kind of self consciousness spike through her veins, that's never existed in the same space as her art. The very same feeling she gets when she works up the courage to look in a mirror.

"Stars don't do that, you dummy." His mouth twists, a cruel happy little thing, that kind of makes Rapunzel's blood boil.

She doesn't think she's anything like him. The kind of kid that gets mad over the small things, but she is just six, after all.

"They aren't stars, duh!" She answers back, defensive, trying for the same meanness in his tone, but doesn't quite manage it.

"Oh yeah, what are they then?"

And she's stuck, staring at her picture. An open field, with her and the lights. The ones that fill her dreams, and float in her imagination. Rapunzel thinks about them so much, that sometimes she wonders if maybe she could touch them. She knows they aren't stars, she's seen them on Tv and read about them in books, she just isn't sure what exactly they're called, either.

He huffs, triumphant, "See-"

"Lanterns." A quiet voice from behind them speaks up, squeaky and shy.

She whips around to face the boy she was staring at earlier, this time face to face with his deep green eyes. He has freckles and a scratch and he reminds her of the forest and open skies.

"What?" Snotlout demands, since his default setting is annoyed.

"They're called lanterns. Everybody knows they aren't stars." He talking to Snotlout, but keeps glancing to her every time his voice wanes. Speaking a little louder when she smiles at him.

Snotlout looks thoroughly downsized, marching back to his seat without another word. The gratefulness bursting of her chest is a little hard to contain, Rapunzel wonders if this is what those locked up princesses feel.

With a glance to Ms. Ellie, she turns fully in her chair, folding her arms on his desk. "Thanks! I'm Rapunzel, by the way." She says brightly, reaching over to shake his hand.

"Hiccup." He responds, timidly taking her hand.

"What an odd name for a Knight."

---

"I just don't see the point of it." Hiccup whines, even as he's lacing up his boots. He looks out to the ice so anxiously, that Rapunzel has to bite back a smile.

"It's fun, Hicceroni. That's all the reason we need."

Winter break is probably the best thing to happen to Rapunzel this year. High school has been exhausting on the both of them, as a result, she rarely sees her best friend anymore. With a week full of nothing but free time and endless possibility, they spent their time wisely. Playing video games in his room, and catching up on shows they've vowed to only complete together (may they be spared by the All Powerful Cancel gods).

But as they were flicking through channels, and Rapunzel hovered the kids networks, they came across Ice Princess.

"Please don't."

Rapunzel chooses to ignore her clueless best friend. Who has no concept of taste, all of a sudden if he can't appreciate this piece of cinematic brilliance.

"Ice skating. Who even does that?" He grumbles. She supposes they're over looking the twenty minutes he has engrossed himself into the movie.

"Um lots of people? Figure skaters? Everyone?"

"Not everyone."

Rapunzel feels like she's been punched in the gut. "Please tell me I am hearing this wrong, Hicmister. Tell me you've been ice skating."

"Um?"

And here they are. At the Winter festival as children scream and giggle on the ice, and couples get cuddly in the cold and that one guy shows off years of forced childhood lessons.

Hiccup watches them all with a pout. It's adorable.

"Alrighty. Class' in session, kids. Lets get out there."

Rapunzel tugs at his hand, as he stays firmly planted on the seat, "I'm going to embarrass myself."

"Nobody is going to be paying attention to you. It'll be just you and me out there," he doesn't look the least bit swayed, "And you embarrass yourself in front of me all the time." That, at least, gets an amused eye roll and resigned sigh. 

"Atta boy."

The next hour is spent crashing into random people, a few dozen butt tumbles, and snowflakes falling in eyelashes.

Rapunzel grips Hiccup's hands, effortlessly skating backward, giggling at the horror stricken face Hiccup makes every time he so much as stumbles. "I think you're getting the hang out it." She grins up at him.

Hiccup laughs, disbelief all over his face, "You know, I think I am!"

"Alright, I'm gonna let go..."

"Rapunzel, don't!"

He yanks on her hands, somehow pushing them both to the ground as they lose their balance. It's a mess of limbs and awkward head butts, as Hiccup falls forward directly in her lap. His hands are on the ice, head on her collarbones. Rapunzel instinctively wraps her around around his middle, butt surely bruised.

It's silent for a moment, and then they meet eyes, bursting out in laughter, leaning on each other for support.

"So...hot chocolate?" She suggests.

"You're paying."

---

"-it's all about gravity!" Hiccup excitedly explains, gesturing wildly with his hands as they walk down the street.

Rapunzel sips her Capri sun saved from lunch, listening intently. She doesn't have much to add, but it seems cool. "You're such a dork." She laughs, anticipating his indignant squawk. "What do we need to build it?"

Hiccup closes his mouth, cutting off what was going to be another tirade, surprise coloring his features. She wonders how many people have told him his ideas are cool. She wonders if maybe she's the first.

His gentle smile warms her heart in a way the summer sun was never able to.

---

"Now tell me that's not an engaging character! Emotional turmoil, heart in two places. As he has to choose over his wife--the only family he has left, and his best friend. The person who raised him! Sure, maybe his Fall could have been better handled, but movies have limited time. And if you're telling me Obi-Wan and Anakin's fight isn't the best thing you've ever seen you're lying-"

"On your right." Rapunzel hums, watching the screen where she knew Hiccup wasn't.

"Thanks. What was I saying?"

"Mustafar."

"Oh right. The music alone-"

---

"Please tell me I am not seeing what I think I'm seeing." Rapunzel groans, leaning back on Hiccup's door.

He feigns a remorseful look that is just for her sanity, as he pets the midnight black, one way ticket out of the dorms. The dog, cruel little cute thing, turns it's huge green eyes on her.

Disgusting.

"I couldn't just leave him, Punz."

Dumbfounded, Rapunzel gestures to the tiny messy living space, and second bed shoved in the corner. "Well I don't know if you've noticed, bud, but you can't just keep him, either."

"I've been thinking about that. Jack's not gonna tell, probably. And even if I get caught, Rider's pretty cool, he hardly ever deals out maximum punishments. Besides, I've got you." He lays it on thick, there at the end. Giving her his best puppy dog eyes, which somehow haven't lost power with the scruff and angled jaw.

Going for the gut, Rapunzel respectfully commends him. Solid A, manipulating skills.

In the end, Rapunzel was going to say yes as soon as she stepped through the door. She is helpless against double puppy eyes, and with an actual puppy.

"What's his name?" She sighs, trying hard not to sound as defeated as she feels.

By Hiccup's grin, she failed. Miserably. "Toothless."

"That's it. We're finding him a new home, you are clearly unfit."

---

"So, you see any ladies ya diggin'?"

Hiccup looks up from his book, eyebrow quirked. "Alright Kenickie, here in modern society we speak people talk."

Rapunzel rolls her eyes and drops into the seat beside him, laying her entire body against his. "Prom is coming up."

He snorts, tucking his hand behind her head, and absently playing with her hair. "This explains your weird caveman talk how...?"

"Hiccup! Neither of us have dates, and as a connoisseur of popular media, this is the biggest travesty to ever descend upon our adolescent lives!"

"Will we ever recover?"

"No! We will forever be doomed to our stag prom statuses."

"Is this a reversible curse or...?"

"Hiccup! You're not seeing the serious business levels of our situation!" Rapunzel frowns, leaning forward to look him in the eyes.

He sighs, kissing her forehead, Rapunzel immediately slacks back into him, and calms.

"I kind of just always assumed we were going together. I was even planning on asking you this weekend."

That--she forgets how to breathe--is not something she knew. With the way he talks about Astrid, Rapunzel thought Hiccup was asking her. Half the school thought they were dating, and he'd take this opportunity to prove them wrong.

(And maybe, sometimes. Sometimes she thought that too, in the quiet comfortable moments, and only in the privacy of her own brain. She thought, maybe.)

There's a thousand things she can say, but doesn't. Because most of them don't actually have words, "What were you planning on doing?" She can feel her heartbeat in her fingertips.

"I was thinking on winning the high scores in Space Invaders and spelling it out." He says a little helplessly, shrugging like he hadn't put much thought into it. "Thought we could get ice cream and color coordinate."

It was such a Hiccup thing to do. It was such a painfully them thing to do, that Rapunzel has to fight off hysterical tears.

"Well don't let me stop you, Hiccster." She answers after a moment, snuggling into his side, as he smiles and resumes his book.

---

Rapunzel tunes out Toothless as he barks at their fireplace--his favorite thing to do (they have a working theory that he was a dragon in a previous life). Instead she concentrates on getting the daisies to sit right in Hiccup's hair.

He plays with the strings of his hoodie, conveniently on her body, as he mouths along to Clueless. It is just starting to get cold, and since they started middle school they've watched Clueless in the beginning of the the school year. Even after school stopped being a thing for them.

It's comfortable and quiet and Rapunzel lets her mind wonder. Somewhere between the Cher and Josh couch scene and her finally finishing the crown, Rapunzel has a realization.

"We're totally dating aren't we?"

Hiccup is pulled out of the movie, lifting his head from her lap, and watching with that calculating gaze of his. "Do you wanna stop?" It's asked as calmly as ever, but she hears the panic in his voice.

Urging his head back down, she settles her fingertips behind his ears, and smiles down at him. "And break up a ten year whirlwind romance? Are you kidding me?"

He smiles this brilliant, blinding smile and angles up to press his slightly chapped lips to hers, and something clicks into place. ______________

a very quick hiccunzel thing written in the wee hours of the morning, that’s actually just between this bigger project I’m steadily working on.  

(that’s right boys and girls. a very long hiccunzel thing that i don’t actually know if anyone is gonna read?? if you are could you maybe tell me?) 

[sutzrainbow]

Reflections on “Beauty & the Beast 2017″

It occurs to me that I saw the new version of Beauty and the Beast over a week ago and I didn’t share my thoughts on it.

In short, I liked it! Is it as good as the original? No. Does it warrant existing? Double no. But you know what, Disney isn’t going to stop making these live-action versions of their properties. And the fact is that I LOVE live-action fantasy, fairytale-themed films like Chronicles of Narnia, but they’re hard to make and market. So if one of the ways I can get my fix of live-action fairytales is through this shameless stuff Disney’s doing, well, I’m going to take it.

Also I don’t have any nostalgic memories of the original Beauty and the Beast because I didn’t grow up with it. For some reason I only had oldschool Disney films growing up, and very few of the Renaissance ones which were being released when I was a child. Weird. But that means I only saw the original Beauty and the Beast recently, so I’m not as precious about it as some might be.

So, see a more in-depth look at what I liked and didn’t like under the cut. Spoiler alert!!

Let’s start with the stuff I liked first.

I loved nearly all the bits where the film went off and did its own thing. Ironically I think the moments where it directly copied the original were the weaker bits of the film. There’ll be a few exceptions which I’ll detail below.

The original film is relatively flawless, but I did appreciate a lot of the logical edits and corrections to the story they did, filling in a few of the plotholes.  For example, they have the Enchantress curse an actual adult douchebag prince instead of an 11-year-old child he’s implied to be in the original. Also they add in a neat little thing where the Enchantress also wipes the memories of people in the nearby town, thereby explaining why no one remembers the Prince. Little details like this in a more adult-oriented film really help, because we will nitpick.

Building on that, the Enchantress was really interesting. She barely appears in the original, but in this version, not only do we actually see her curse the Prince, but she pops up now and again throughout the film in disguise. At the end the whole “I love you!” confession just misses the rose’s last petal, and some people have complained about that because in the original, Belle’s confession just beat it. But I don’t mind, because in this version the Enchantress is there and she can see for herself that Belle’s confession is genuine and Beast’s change is genuine - so she lifts the curse. I don’t think that this is better or worse than what the original did. It’s just different.

Side note: It was nice that we got to see Prince Adam at the beginning, but his face was covered with makeup so we still couldn’t be certain what he looked like until the end of the film. Of course, the marketing completely spoiled that, but that wasn’t the filmmakers’ fault.

I liked what they did with Maurice. Kevin Kline is adorable, and I liked how they made Maurice a clockmaker. When it was first announced that it would be Belle who was the inventor in this new version, I thought, “Well, that’s great, but what does that leave for Maurice? Does this mean he’ll be even more of a damsel in distress than he was in the original?” Fortunately, this isn’t the case. They show that Belle and Maurice are both clever but in different ways, and that’s great. They didn’t take anything away from Maurice by giving it to Belle. Also the way she does the washing is AWESOME.

Belle herself. I haven’t seen Emma Watson act since the Harry Potter series, but she was very natural as Belle. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Belle in the original BatB, but one criticism lots of people have with the original film is that Belle is a bit too perfect. In this new version, not only is she more proactive than she was before - and there’s a feat in itself because the original Belle was a badass - but she’s also a lot more realistically human. She seems more flawed. I laughed like a drain when she got beaned in the face with a snowball, and her debates with the Beast over literature (and I love the gentle mocking they do of Romeo and Juliet and how teenage girls swoon over it; that was great). This also makes her relationship with Beast feel more balanced and natural. Not that there was anything especially wrong with it in the original, of course, but I liked this more balanced version.

Gaston. Just. Just Gaston. Luke Evans is amazing.

Lefou. I really liked Lefou. Again, I know lots of people have criticised this version for making him gay, and not a particularly flattering portrayal. Since I am neither male nor gay, I cannot make a true judgement on whether this portrayal is insulting or not, but from a purely personal perspective, he didn’t make a bad impression on me. Part of this is probably to do with Josh Gad - once again, he’s taken a comic relief character and instead of making him annoying, has made him really sweet and appealing. Kudos to the man; he really has a knack for that and it’s not an easy thing to do. I really enjoyed Lefou’s character arc, which made him much more interesting than the Lefou of the original. I liked watching him struggle with his crush on Gaston and how he kept trying to justify Gaston’s increasingly questionable behaviour. For me, it showed that it’s really easy to blind yourself to a person’s flaws if you’re attracted to them, and that can sometimes be dangerous, so it’s good to try and keep an open mind even when your hormones are screaming “PERFECTION” at you. That’s a great lesson for any gender or sexuality. So yeah, Lefou did not make a bad impression on me, but I’m not the right one to be calling on whether this was a good idea or not.

The servants didn’t get quite so much of a look-in this time as they did in the original, and that’s fine - our focus should be on Belle and the Beast and their relationship - but I did like how they touched on the reason the servants were cursed as well as the Beast. They make a point that the servants didn’t try to correct the Beasts behaviour when he was still a Prince; they allowed themselves to be ‘yes men’ and as a result contributed to the path of the Beast becoming a nasty, spoilt young man. Of course, the blame lay with him also, but I liked how they added that little detail. Again, because adults will nitpick.

I loved how the castle would crumble a little more with each petal that fell. It added a little extra oomph to the final battle, what with Belle, Gaston and the Beast leaping around all over the crumbling towers. There was no reason for it at all, it was just awesome.

Now, let’s go on to what I didn’t like. Luckily, there’s a lot less of this.

Like I said, when this film did its own thing it was great. When it copied the original, something felt a little off. There were a few exceptions: the opening number, “Belle”, was fine. The “Gaston” number was also fine and looked like it was a ton of fun to film. But the “Be Our Guest” section failed. It was boring, and the worst part of it was Belle never looked invested, and I knew all she was looking at was a freakin’ bluescreen. Also there was no reason for “Be Our Guest” to be in there. It was a callback to the original that was pretty meaningless.

One of the film’s own numbers, “Paris of my Childhood”, didn’t really work for me. I didn’t feel Belle needed a backstory; she and her father could have come to the village for any number of reasons, or this could have been explained with a single line - heck, with a single word. “Plague”. We didn’t need a whole scene and flashback dedicated to it. Also that book itself was a plothole. What the heck.

The moment where Beast lets Belle go to her father. I’m not talking about “Evermore”. “Evermore” is beautiful. No, I’m talking about the moment right before “Evermore” begins, when he makes the decision. The original really took its time with this decision, showing the various emotions playing across Beast’s face. In this version, he lets her go immediately, without really showing what a sacrifice this is before he makes the decision. Dan’s a good actor; you could have had a good shot with his facial expressions showing the Beast’s turmoil. Wasted opportunity, and of all the times you could have copied the original, this was the one.

Overall, the film felt just a little bit too long. I know this was to do with the film being more detailed, but the original had better pacing - probably because it was simpler. I think cutting the whole “Paris of my Childhood” number, and “Be Our Guest”, would have helped this new version a lot.

So yeah. Only three major things I didn’t like. I enjoyed this movie very much, for more than just the aesthetic - though I’ll admit I’m a total sucker for that too. Also a side note that has nothing to do with the movie itself: I didn’t see it in our local cinema; I saw it in the cinema in the next town, which is a lot smaller but get this, it’s a converted Georgian theatre. Which means the auditorium I was in had huge columns, red velvet curtains and tons of gold everywhere. I mean if ever there was a place to see a film, that cinema was perfect and it really enhanced the experience.

Also Mum and I had a good giggle about Dan Stevens being the third Downton Abbey actor to appear in these Disney fairytale remakes. Is that just going to be their jobs from now on, I wonder?

[nolaroleplay]

✧ NAME: Charlie Kanter ✧ AGE: 25 ✧ GENDER: Female ✧ LOCATION: Marigny ✧ TIME IN NOLA: Whole life ✧ OCCUPATION: Social Worker at Elementary/Benjamin Franklin High School

TW: abuse

Chill, compassionate, kind and ridiculously caring, Charlie Kanter is that girl you want in your corner. A girl with a unique heart and soul, Charlie makes her own kind of music in this world. Born to a wonderful father and an unorthodox mother, Charlie was always taught to simply be herself, and that was all she ever wanted to be. A pretty average kid, with a normal amount of friends and a regular childhood, Charlie’s life wasn’t all that eventful, nor was it uneventful. Things happened, friends disappeared, grades were achieved, but nothing all that life altering happened in Charlie’s life until high school.

The jungle of high school was difficult for everyone. Charlie was okay, she floated along, getting along with those who she liked and ignoring those who she didn’t, or who didn’t seem to like her – something she’d overthink and get too worried about. Her best friend, Ollie, didn’t quite have the luxury of floating along. He was a little less than average, on the autistic spectrum and had parents who had neglected him since a young age. Neglect wasn’t the worst part of what his parents had done to him, and what was even worse, was that no one even seemed to notice. No teacher, no doctor, no one, other than Charlie knew what was going on in Ollie’s home life. No one knew, until it was too late. Only when Ollie’s grandmother came round to take him out for dinner one day, did they find out what had happened to the boy. At only 15, he’d taken his own life.

This was what started it all. Charlie was heartbroken, devastated, all the emotions associated with the deepest form of sadness. Her best friend, the guy who knew her better than everyone else had left the world because it had become too unbearable, and she was the only one who had known why. Only as time passed and Charlie came to terms with what had happened to her friend, did Charlie come to accept that it was her duty to stop this happening again. When college was insight, Charlie knew that the only course she wanted to do, was social work. She’d work her ass off to become one of those people who worked with vulnerable children and teenagers to stop things like what had happened to Ollie, happening again.

And she did. When the time came, Charlie headed off to Northwestern university to train and begin her case to redeem herself for what had happened to Ollie. It took the girl a long time to ‘get over’ what had happened, and in some ways, it is doubtful as to whether she will ever fully move on, but what Charlie does know, is that if she can save more kids from going through the same thing, she’ll be doing Ollie some justice.

A sensitive girl, despite her cool, calm and almost confident demeanour, despite her unruffled front, there is a lot of emotion within Charlie, a lot of deep felt emotion that she isn’t afraid to hide. She is ‘very in touch with her feelings’ some would say, and some would also say that this is a sign of weakness. Not Charlie. Charlie feels everything, regardless of whether it is a positive or negative feeling and embraces this about herself. One thing that everyone could say about the girl, is that she knows who she is and she is proud of it.

On her journey to becoming a social worker, Charlie met a guy. No one fancy, just a small town guy from Mississippi, with big dreams and a heart of gold. This, was arguably why Charlie loved him so much, and so when on one of their final parties before graduating, when the guy she adored decided he just adored sex with a random girl more, Charlie had to re-evaluate everything. She’d spent almost two years of her life with this guy and they’d talked about marriage, kids, all that stuff you only talk about with a person you could tolerate having in your life for the best part of forever. All of that, all of their plans, their memories, everything was tarnished and Charlie had to come to terms with not only why he’d done what he’d done, but how she was going to get over it. Of course, it took time and a whole lot of tears, but Charlie has marched on and stands strong as a result. She doesn’t accept the love she thinks she deserves, she accepts the love that she knows she is worthy of and that, makes her strong and unwilling to settle for less.  

Charlie also has a twin brother of whom she has an interesting relationship with. The two have always been close, but her brother’s lack of ability to come to terms with his sexuality is something she struggles with. This may be due to his ‘jock’ like reputation and his need to fit in and be accepted, but nevertheless, Charlie just wishes her brother could live as his true self. The two are close, but the topic of sexuality is often a strictly no-go zone, despite Charlie’s wish to help her brother out.

Having graduated from college and moving back home to New Orleans, Charlie lives in Marigny with her family home situated in a cosy area of the Garden District. Her mother – unorthodox as ever – paints for a living and her father works as a cleaner, a gardener and pretty much anything he can, as he tries to bring in half the cash that his wife does. Her brother, who often sleeps drunk on her couch – or that is when Charlie’s not napping on it herself – lives in a variety of places, with their parent’s house being his official place of residence, despite how shameful that may be to the various different girls he pulls to try and deny his true desires. Charlie herself, works in Elementary and Benjamin Franklin high, spotting red flags and meeting with those children who need support for various different reasons. She loves her job and she loves her life, yet, it is doubtful that it will be so perfect forever.

Sensitive, kind and compassionate are perhaps the key aspects of Charlie’s personality. Her sensitivity makes her compassionate. Her compassion makes her kind and altogether, she is herself. She is strong in that she knows who she is and is confident in herself, yet not cocky, not unapproachable, but a good mix of friendly and a little sassy when she needs to be. A chief napper, yet a hard worker when necessary, not too in your face, but definitely not a wallflower at the same time, Charlie has a good balance of good things and even her flaws, are something she doesn’t mind all that much. She might be oversensitive, she might overthink things at times, but they are all things that make her, her, and that is something she’s okay with.

Charlie’s faceclaim is Alicia Vikander and is portrayed by Rosie.

[kisaragizan]

Character Analysis [Jin Kisaragi]

Hey everyone, Zane here again with a... different type of discussion. Was going to do deck profile but I wanted to have something more thought engaging for me and to write about something towards my interests like characters, games, genres, etc. without being straight forward about the subject and more about me I guess. 

I wanted to start talking about video games and anime shows in terms of their plot and especially some of the characters. Today’s topic has been on my mind since I’ve been asked over and over about my interest about said character and it’s been more of a “I could explain it but it would take an entire hour or so explaining” (because of having to back track their origins of their story and relevance to their respective show/game). As many of you may or may not know, despite being blatantly obvious, I’m a huge BlazBlue fan and my favorite character of that series, probably of all time, is Jin Kisaragi. For those who don’t know who he is or what BlazBlue is, you don’t have to go on the wikia, play any of the games, or read any of the manga to get an understanding of why I like him because I am more than willing to provide enough details to generally wrap up what he’s been through, who/what he is as a person, plot relevance, and why I adore him so much. This, of course, will include spoilers especially of the latest game, Blazblue Centralfiction, so if anyone doesn’t want to be spoiled on plot/ending, please either do a quick wrap up of the game although I’ll do my best to keep it discreet. With that out of the way, let’s begin! I’ll split this up into a few sections: basically who Jin is, his back story, and overall the general philosophy of his character and why I like him.

Who is Jin Kisaragi?

Jin Kisaragi is one of the main characters of the entire Blazblue franchise. His role throughout the story is actually pretty straight forward: he’s the standard typical anti-hero; he gets in the way of his brother, main protagonist, Ragna the Bloodedge, while also fighting off the antagonists of the story, even teaming up with his brother while also protecting those closest to him. He’s very quiet, keeps to himself, and hardly ever reacts to anything that has zero relevance or significance to his objectives, goals, or desires. There are a few people who he really bats an eye towards enough to get some kind of reaction, whether it’s good or positive, at the start of the series, including his brother. Otherwise, he’s a bit of an ass to people, almost narcissistically arrogant as demonstrated towards his interactions with his Lieutenant, Noel Vermillion. Outside of this, he’s very obedient and takes his missions with utmost care, fulfilling each and every instructed objective to perfection, annihilating an opposing entire city and its government by himself within three days to end a civil war and was dubbed “The Hero of Ikaruga”.

This all starts to change by the second game where he is wanted for deserting his post to chase after his brother in the first game. He starts to question the ideas of justice, order, balance, power when he is faced with his childhood friend, Tsubaki Yayoi, whom has come to take him into custody. He believes that the balance and order of this world is wrong and shoulders the duty to truly balance the world. It is here; he realizes his true power and uses it to fight against those who preach a false idea of justice and those whom are deemed as enemies of the world.

This is just the general idea of who he is without getting too into it. Personally, this is enough for me to even like him, but there’s more to him that makes him a really awesome and interesting character.

The Origin of Jin Kisaragi

Jin was originally an orphan along with his older brother and younger sister in a lab facility until they were rescued by Jubei. They were taken to a church where they lived quiet lives with their new foster mother, a nun. Jin being a younger sibling to his older brother, Ragna, became very dependent of him. When his younger sister, Saya, got ill, Ragna dedicated most of his time towards helping her recover; ultimately giving Jin the cold shoulder (I swear this pun was not intended.). Jin felt very jealous of Saya and would pick on her occasionally. However, one day while Ragna was out, he returned to the church set ablaze and their foster mother murdered. He saw Jin standing beside a man, whom had just taken off Ragna’s arm. After crying out to his little brother to find their sister, Ragna turned to see Jin unsheathing a sword and proceeded to thrust it into his chest, before vanishing out of Ragna’s life.

Later on, Jin was adopted into the Kisaragi Family, one of the twelve noble families. Because of his talents, he ascended into the ranks of the Novus Orbis Librarium (essentially the government) although many of his new siblings didn’t trust him and many of his peers threw comments at him stating he’s only recognized because of his family name. However, this didn’t seem to phase, let alone, bother Jin. Neither the teasing nor the praise, nothing seemed to interest him. At some point, he met a girl named Tsubaki Yayoi. Like the Kisaragi’s, she was the daughter of the Yayoi family and in time would become Jin’s first and most important friend. Both of them entered the Military Academy, where Jin was elected as Student President (not sure how the election process works). He enforced many new policies to help the students grow such as the cafeteria duty. All and all, everything at the time seemed to be going well for him.

One day, while sitting atop a hill viewing over the academy, a piece of paper flew by his side. When he grabbed it, a girl came running over apologizing profusely and had asked if he could return the paper she let escape. Jin returned it and she introduced herself to him, Noel Vermillion. Jin had heard the stories of a girl with high Ars Magus, enough to rival his achievements and he was surprised to actually meet her. When he got a look of her face, he was shocked. She looked very similar to his sister Saya, whom he thought he’d never see again. He was bothered by it, every time he saw her; he grew more and more troubled.

At some point after the Military Academy, Jin was assigned to Ikaruga to “bring an end to the war”. He did so by taking down the head of the government, Tenjo, and crushing all of the resistance with his Nox Nyctores, Murco Aglesco: Yukianesa, his weapon which is a katana that can freeze people and create ice. After successfully ending the war, Jin was hailed as the “Hero of Ikaruga” and was promoted and given the rank of “Major”. Sometime had passed, and his lieutenant was assigned to him, it was again, Noel Vermillion. Jin found to be of a nuisance and treated her as such, although, Jin had found himself once again, having the empty feeling.

Character Analysis

So for those who’ve read through everything above, I basically retold the origins of Jin Kisaragi from his early life up until the start of the first BlazBlue game. For those who are familiar, yes, I left out some key parts; I didn’t want to go too into detail in that when they can be explained here. So Jin’s main thing is that he’s a jerk to anyone, especially Noel. This only ever changes if he’s in the presence of his brother, in which he shifts into raging psychopath, trying to instigate a fight between Ragna and himself in order to kill him. Saying he has an obsession with Ragna is an understatement, literally his whole motivation: kill Ragna. Even to where it can come off as very erotic yet sadistic with him giggling and his famous “Niiiii-saaaan”, which are usually the two things fans or people who know of him, associate him as. It also doesn’t help that he gives off the elitist vibe, feeling the need to put himself above anyone whom he feels is inferior to him. Although he does have a few redeeming qualities, Jin is an honestly a complete ass to the majority of the cast, to which many people see and can’t fully come to understand why anyone would like a character such as him unless they’re known for just liking the asshole characters like Kaiba, Vegeta, Sasuke, so on and so forth.

So is that everything? No, not even close. Like I said before, Jin is one of my favorite characters and I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t mind if a character is anti-hero or villain or even protagonist, it really depends on the characters development, origins, ideals, and/or capabilities/abilities. Although, just because I think a character has a cool development, doesn’t mean they’ll be my favorite or excuse them from their flaws, except Jin here, whom I think is a generally good person if you delve deep into his character.

Most people associate Jin for being a complete asshole to his peers and cast, while yes this is true, but there’s a reason, a reason that can’t be helped. Like most anti-heroes, Jin suffers from the tragic past syndrome, but to an extremely small extent from let’s say “entire family was killed by another family member”. Jin very much loved his siblings considerably, especially his older brother Ragna. When Saya got sick, and Ragna was taking care of her, even to the point of ignoring Jin, it’s understandable why jealousy kicked in. As a young boy, he felt as though his play time and enjoyment with his brother was being cut short due to Saya, an ‘obstacle’. However, this doesn’t mean he hated Saya for this. Throughout very specific points of the series, it is implied that Jin and Saya got along pretty well together and cared for her as much as Ragna. After the events of the church being set on fire, Jin’s memories of that event, regarding how he got Yukianesa in the first place, what happened to Saya, and why he was next to Terumi, were wiped by the latter. Ultimately, Jin was left with a broken past that he couldn’t recollect due to trauma and lack of memory of the event, which caused him to feel empty as he was adopted into the Kisaragi Family. Meeting Tsubaki for the first time and becoming her friend allowed him to start fresh and start new, as they both entered the academy, promising to always be there for each other and to help one another out. He continued his life as normal until meeting Noel Vermillion. Now, there’s some speculation as to why he treats her like dirt in general, though I believe it’s because of the memory of his sister. Mind you, Noel does not hate Jin; in fact she wishes to make herself useful to him, despite his constant putdowns and cruelty. In the beginning, Jin isn’t nearly as hostile towards Noel as he is post-Ikaruga War, he greeted her and was interested in her but again he felt troubled after seeing and looking at her. Now, as we established Jin loves his siblings very much, and because of his past (or lack thereof), seeing someone with the same face as her is bound to cause some sort of reaction. Because the last thing he remembers is his jealousy (and potential dislike) of his sister and him rampaging, ‘killing’ his brother, these ideally suppressed memories are starting to resurface, causing Jin to feel these emotions towards Noel (though he doesn’t act on them as harshly as he does later on after the war, but there is another reason for that.). Short version: Jin dislikes Noel because of the last remaining memory he has of Saya, whether he disliked her, or whether he loves her but the past in general troubles him, or alternatively the memory of his adored sister is being stained by this girl who looks just like her, because let’s be honest, Noel is… although adorable, she is not necessarily the brightest to the point of questioning her will leave you with a colossal headache and having a memory of your adorable sister be connected through this is probably not the best way to reminisce about the past. It should also be mentioned that Jin received his Yukianesa from Saya and has held onto it over ten years, which being the last thing he got from his sister, shows he must’ve really loved her to cherish that gift.

So, he loves his siblings, why does he act like a homicidal maniac towards his brother, Ragna? Well, the main reason is again, the jealously factor from when they were kids. However, it’s not just this alone. I’m going to bring up a key point in the BlazBlue series: the concept of the Nox Nyctores. Each weapon has the risk of damaging their wielders mental state and the effects increase with profound use and/or attachment to the weapon. In Yukianesa’s case, it amplifies Jin’s emotions to an extreme level. So general happiness turns could turn into a fatal obsession or even a bothersome person to him, whether it’s jealously or flat out annoyance, can lead to unyielding hatred towards the person. There is even a subplot within Continuum Shift of Jin’s story where the Yukianesa manipulates Jin, otherwise, Jin cannot use the sword. (Which symbolically shows how easy it is for people to bend to the will of others without their knowing, which plays again for a certain friend of his.) Not to mention, Ragna has the Dark Beast subplot going on, so sensing a powerful evil force, Jin obeys his mission as “hero” and aims to defeat the evil of the world.

The common misconception amongst people who’ve heard of the name “Jin Kisaragi” is that he is just an ass much like every other anti-hero, which, on a small percentage yes, but in the grand scheme of things? No, Jin is a fairly capable person of being able to express a decent set of morals; helping and assisting those in need, showing concern to those who are important to him, even compassion and perhaps even love. If he is one, which he is, there are actual reasons behind it that is beyond his control (at the time). When his development kicks in, he starts to regain control of himself and realizes what is important to him: protecting the world and those he cares about. Willingly agrees to join forces and even put aside grudges and differences (although begrudgingly) for the benefit of those goals, and humbling his former elitist attitude and asking for help. This is all on top of his previous set of morals such as obeying all rules, never lying, being responsible and owning up to mistakes. Little by little, ever so slowly, he is following the path that leads him to his destiny of becoming a true hero by correcting the errors of his former past and leading the world to a better future.

Why I like Jin Kisaragi (End)

Jin by far, in my opinion, is the best character in BlazBlue from start to finish. He starts off as this really hopeless guy who doesn’t really understand much about justice and is pretty selfish guy. However as the story goes on, he takes the time to realize the situation that the world is in and begins to take action. Although he gets rewarded here and there with a gag of him trying to pick a fight with Ragna or him picking on Noel, Jin ultimately made a change that set him apart from his alternate counterpart, Hakumen, and is actively trying to protect the world. I’m a bit of a sucker for stories like these but I believe Jin’s was the most well written story by far, especially having Tsubaki alongside him for that emotional conflict and to have the compare and contrast moments between him and Hakumen, which when I first found out, always wondered how Jin will ultimately become Hakumen. Although, when I look at the two now, I feel Hakumen is the “failed” Jin and was cursed to the armor for the sake of being a “Power of Order” whereas Jin chose to obey his fate and do what is right. The difference being between Jin and other anti-heroes is that their development, I feel, is just brought from a sudden motivation in that specific situation. Jin’s development was predetermined by the inclusion of Hakumen in the cast, the subtle hints of a potential past between him, Ragna, and Saya, as well as the idea of all three of them coming together once more, the addition and expansion of his school life and relationship with Tsubaki. I feel these sub-plots are important because it shows more of people acknowledging Jin as something more than just “Hero of Ikaruga” (which is the idea of Jin being ‘knight in shining armor’, perfect soldier, figure head, etc.) or “The Pain in the Ass” (which shows what Jin is really like to the rest of cast from the narrative point of view and how detrimental he can be towards others). Seeing the moments of Jin and Tsubaki, shows that he does have a mind, a soul, and a heart on a genuine healthy level towards anything that isn’t Ragna or Noel.

There’s more to him beyond the “Niiiisaaaaan” or the “Die you obstacle” that he’s normally associated for. People actually do care about him, look up to him, and respect him. Especially after his development, you grasp just how why Jin is important to these people despite previous behavior and attitude towards some of them. Jin’s maturity into a real hero, though not necessarily a nice one, is a very proud moment for his fans. Even in the final game, Jin still undergoes developments such as fighting against Saya (Hades Izanami), attempting to destroy the Azure Grimoire to prevent anyone from accessing that level of power, locating Platinum for Trinity’s sake, fighting against Hakumen and even preventing Tsubaki from locating Noel. His actions are both for the world and for those whom he cares for. Even his siblings that he feels are suffering on the inside; he bears the burden in hopes of stopping them for the world and for their sake as well, fighting against Ragna and defending Noel to prevent the former from sacrificing himself despite Jin’s weakened state. I love characters like Jin; they have their own set of morals and ideals and develop throughout the story into an even better person for the sake of their loved ones. Although it is a typical story, Jin’s seems to be the most interesting one considering he was even influenced by his former self from a different timeline. He grows into a strong hero and into a dependable big brother to Saya as Ragna desired.

I feel as though I can relate to Jin as being a good person at heart in his own way but with a few serious flaws, although still doing whatever he can to help out those around him and those he cares for. Additionally, I believe Jin is a cool character that gets overlooked because of the story trope he’s associated with as the anti-hero with the additional key differences being his obsession with Ragna, though if taken a more closer look at who he really is, you start to understand that these misconceptions as mentioned above are just that, misconceptions. Though, he’s still an ass, he’s a very awesome character story wise, ideally, and game wise.