#i guess it's him i should be mad at most for taking that role

[mzannthropy]

Kindred spirits appear when you least expect them (geddit?).

Normally it wouldn't be a massive deal hating something popular, bc inevitably, everyone's gonna hate something popular at some point in their lives. But what do you do when you hate Me Before You and LOVE Sam Claflin, what do you do then? What do you do, when you see an article about him and get that dreaded feeling in your stomach as you click to open it, bc you know that film will be mentioned? (I want to hug every journalist who doesn't bring it up. Nicely done work, Men's Health.) What do you do when you see all the comments from people who love that film saying how much they cried? (Why? WHY???? What is there to cry about? How easily impressed people are by a cheap tearjerker?) What do you do when that film is sold as the best thing in romance, a True Love (how?), a "doomed love story" (how????? Romeo and Juliet is a doomed love story, not this trash). What do you do when you know there are much, much better, more quality films with Sam to watch, with better developed female characters AND love interests--but everyone ignores them? What do you do?

Will: You're the only thing that makes me wake up in the morning.

Also Will: kills himself.

How truly inspirational! /s

[aashi-heartfilia]

What MaoMao feels for Jinshi...

(Vol 5 epilogue discussion)

Love, duh. She wouldn't let just anyone choke her to death. Isn't it obvious? She just doesn't realise it yet because of her repressed emotions. I've seen a lot of bad takes and people hating on the Vol 5 epilogue, saying it's one heck of a disaster but honestly, it's not. Here's why:

I think it does a very good job of humanizing Jinshi, the imperial brother. Before this point, we were always given a picture perfect image of Jinshi, in his most angelic form...but after seeing this, it looks like he's very much capable of murder, lol. No seriously!

Previously, Jinshi was always all sunshine and roses and this is the first time we see a pinnacle of his anger and frustration taking a form.

Honestly, anyone would be angry. Jinshi has done so much for MaoMao and almost everyone close to him knows that he has eyes on her and only her from pretty early on in the series and only MaoMao is the one person who seems to be in the dark. Or more precisely pretending to be in the dark.

She is literally running away from her own feelings and that's what made Jinshi so frustrated.

It was the same thing in the 'Frogging chapter' (yeah, that's what we're calling it). She was "playing the role of an ignorant maid who's in the dark as to what her supiriors are upto". Jinshi was trying to tell MaoMao that he is the imperial brother and he does in fact like her but that never happened because MaoMao kept pretending that it was a frog.

Same here, even if he didn't say it outright, he was dropping so many hints! Who else could have gifted MaoMao a Moon hairpin? Who would have given her beautiful dresses to wear in the banquet?

Jinshi is called the Moon Prince for a reason and that hairpin had a moon and opium poppy. even other people recognised that it was given by him to MaoMao like Rishu's half sister, so a smartass person like Mao should be able to guess that this was all from Jinshi.

The same person who's busy day and night made preparations for her, only to see some unknown random person dancing with her and kissing her hand.

He was jealous and it's only human.

In fact, I'm glad that he's not a complete saint.

He was mad at MaoMao for pretending to be in the dark when he has gone to great lengths to take care of her, and he was hurt that the same person would even suggest him to marry someone else, i.e. consort Rishu.

He was trying to tell her how he feels, and she wasn't even willing to acknowledge anything that is between them.

Adding to the fact, she knew the thing between Basen and Rishu and yet she chose to turn a blind eye, to the love that could blossom between them and suggested her name to Jinshi. It was wrong on so many levels because MaoMao knew everything and yet chose to give the most political suggestion she could think of.

Maybe because of her repressed emotions, she herself has become heartless while making decisions but just like a double edged sword, it has consequences.

So it was a mixture of anger, hurt and jealousy for Jinshi.

And he wanted MaoMao to feel the same.

The same amount of frustration he has felt as MaoMao keeps running away, just because it would be a little troublesome.

Yeah, he's shitty just like that, and so is she.

(and we love them for it ❤️)

Does it justify what he did? No. But it seems like MaoMao herself doesn't even mind it that much. She looked like well within her comfort zone. Otherwise, we know how capable she is of defending herself. But she was there, pretty much sitting with Jinshi until she dominated him completely and made her escape.

Guess they're both far from the vanilla couple that are usually expected in these kinds of series and I absolutely love it.

She was just mad he didn't poison her instead, like he promised her, to which he replied he would NEVER let her poison herself (because he also loves her a lot too, duh)

This entire scene looks more like a battle for sexual dominance, which MaoMao won.

She always has, since the very first day he saw the real her ❤️

[hor3nee]

• Union •

Gojo and his arranged marriage with Reader.

CW/TW: Fem! Reader, Arranged marriage, BREIF Suggestive stuff, Corny Gojo, Reader & Gojo ages implied to be very young (18-23), Gojo typical flirting, SFW (Lmk if I should add anything else!)

Characters: Gojo x Reader

AN: Gojo is bitchless in this fic bc I say so. Pt 2 here.

Weddings aren't supposed to be this boring. In fairness, boring is better than a bad wedding. Could have a roadhouse-type fight between in-laws, an ex breaking through the doors proclaiming their undying love or a runaway bride. Or a runaway groom. Maybe he should've been a runaway groom? Internally, Gojo's sure it'd be more exciting than sitting in a room full of family and 'friends' who are discussing his marriage more than he's even caring to think of it.

"Congratulations to The Strongest and his bride." Another blanked-out random voice says giving polite blessings to him and the lady dressed in bridal wear beside him, you.

Satoru Gojo, the strongest, they call him, well he calls himself, and yes, he is, he without a doubt is the strongest. Born with the Six Eyes technique after ages of the Gojo clan, while relevant in the Jujutsu world, unable to have a child with such technique for so long, Gojo was instantly hailed heir, no questions asked.

And with all of that, comes responsibilities, that, as immature as the man acts, he does take care of. Responsibilities include many things other than killing curses though, responsibilities include managing the clan, doing his part in Jujutsu society, mentoring the students and keeping peace with the other clans. Just to list the few, less action-based responsibilities. Marriage is an obvious one as well.

And you're the bride.

He knew it was coming. It wasn't specifically because he was the strongest he was gonna be strung into a marriage as quickly as possible, though that played a role in it. He saw it with his parents, relatives, and the other clans, Zenin especially who practiced it most rigidly perhaps, marriage was a necessary part of holding a certain status, it's simply expected. Arranged are ideal.

It's not that he was forced into it either, everyone knows this is Satoru Gojo, he does whatever he wants. He gets whatever he wants, he's spoiled, both by the hands of Jujutsu society that almost worships him for his abilities and his own self, the ego he holds very proudly and very loudly that he shamelessly keeps up. If he wants something, he takes it, if he doesn't, he'll leave. He holds that sort of irrefutable power.

So he's okay with this, with marriage. With an arranged marriage, to you, whatever his reasons are that much is clear.

"You gonna eat that?" He's not asking really, he's already got his freakishly long arm drawled out on the table grabbing the plate out of yours. Fingers wriggling comically and he doesn't even make eye contact, looking at the slice of cake with a deeper passion than he bothered to look at you with. Not that you're expecting it, but.. you are the bride, he is on board.

"..Uh guess not." Is all you can reply, slightly awkwardly as he snatches the slice and gobbles it, humming like an overgrown toddler. Was he feeling as awkward too? He didn't look it, he looked fine, bored out of his over-active mind but not mad or anything. Much less mad at you, nor nervous. You're sat close, right by his side, being the main events the two of you of course, Gojo more so because he's the main event in everything in his life.

"This shit's good." He's moaning now, at cake. Almost makes you cringe but with that huge grin of overabundant confidence he has, he somehow makes it seem less cringe.

"Wedding cake's always good-" He gulps down another piece as he speaks. "Best part of any wedding."

Was that?.. Was that an insult? Felt like it, you're sat there all prettied up prim and proper to marry him, and you know he accepted this marriage and he's calling the cake the best part of the wedding? No, you can't even blame him. If anything you probably agree, save for the overly expensive gifts of cold hard cash the other clans and guests were leaving those were also good parts. Because this is, arranged.

You two, are, for the most part, strangers to each other. Together yes, married actually since you and him signed the legal documents no less than 10 minutes earlier into the wedding.

Still, it's awkward.

Soon the cake is gone, mostly by Gojo's abyss of a stomach, and the guests leave. Caterers clean up and family members give some last tidings before leaving. As well as you, and Gojo.

"So, do you think I'm hot?" He perks, sprawled on the couch with his formal wear lazily pulled off scattering around the floor from when he took it off the instant he was inside the residence. His residence, of course. A grin showing no signs of the tense awkwardness one would expect a young man freshly married to a wife he's only married to through arrangements would be. But no, he's Satoru Gojo, if there's one thing he has, it's an overwhelming amount of self-assurance.

"Do I- Do I think you're hot?" You reply, standing a bit awkwardly in front of him, still trying to process the fact you're sleeping here tonight, no for the rest of your life you'll be sleeping in this house. Home, you should call it, it is your home now. Might take time to properly digest that but it is.

"Yeah, am I hot?" The question is, by his expression, obviously self-explained. He IS attractive, with pretty big blue eyes, tall and decently built, and gorgeous lips too, he knows it, he knows he's hot. Gojo just likes to tease, he's a little shit. 

"I mean, am I attractive to YOU?" He asks again, putting more emphasis. For all the slightly passive-aggressive things he's said the evening and immature behaviour, the question is poised genuinely. He's smirking, humming almost as he asks but the way he looks at you it's also clear that he is asking you, seriously.

His gaze never breaks with yours, and though you only take a second to respond, it feels like an hour with the heavy weight of the situation in your brain and the almost stinging feeling of his wide baby blue bright eyes piercing through yours waiting for your response.

"You... Yes, you are attractive." He is, he knows that already though and that wasn't what he was asking. But you know that wasn't what he asking. His expression doesn't falter though, but there's an obvious disappointment, boredom more specifically in it at your lack of response. You're talking but the words are white paper plain, even you can taste it on your tongue, how chaste you sound. 

"I think you're attractive, too." His reply is more genuine than yours as well, maybe not genuine but a lot more emotion in it. Maybe he's just more confident, which he is no doubt. 

"Thanks-"

"Like, seriously." He whistles, christ that's jarring. "seriously hot." 

He's up off the couch before you can give another disingenuous 'thanks' and standing right in front of you, eyeing you down with little to no attempt to act ceremoniously, which he was showing at least the faintest ounce of at the wedding earlier. That gawky tension of whatever the hell the two of you have going on is back, but not for Gojo. He doesn't even have a semblance of humility in him to feel that tension that's burning inside of you right now.

"We're supposed to like each other, you know." He adds, keeping his eyes trained on your body shamelessly.

It feels like his hands are folded around you but they aren't, they're hanging loosely by his side all dangly as his limbs are, the man is a giant. It's more a feeling, suffocating, as though you've been cornered when you aren't. It's the middle of a decently spaced living room and the front door is unlocked. And Gojo, as devious as his smirk is, would never hold you by the binds of a pressured marriage. If anything, you were almost under the assumption he didn't care for you, or this marriage.

"I guess, yeah." You start. "You like me then?" You finish, a bit bolder now, he's seamlessly talking and you are married now, till death do you part as they say. Might as well match his energy.

"You bet I do, sweetheart." Petnames? Okay maybe too much, he might need to dial it down. But Gojo is Gojo, the strongest, an eccentric man. He doesn't 'dial it down' for anything, or anyone. You're his wife, and he likes what he sees. Smiling as he speaks, genuine and concise in his words, he means what he says. As confusing as this situation is, he is young, he's accepted it, and not begrudgingly at all. "I got me a pretty wife- you, you're my wife, so I like you." 

"Thanks Gojo." Ah, there it is, not disingenuous. Though minimal he picks up on it, you also mean it. Maybe not in the way he means it, maybe more than he means it, who knows, not him. Confident as he says he is with the ladies, he's never actually been with one before, this whole relationship shtick, marriage shtick, is new.

Marriage is built off of love, his elders told him, he saw in shitty rom-coms and pop songs blasting the radio. He'd like that, love, as much immaturity and disregard he’s shown at the wedding, the engagement, the arrangements when he first heard they'd picked a partner for him, it has appeal. And he wants it, and this woman, you, you're going to be the one to give it to him, love. Not today, not tonight. Maybe not in a month or a year, but it'll grow, and fester over time. He's sure, as he is in everything, this marriage will last.

"I'm tired as hell from all that wedding crap," Gojo says, his feet ever so minimally backing off so he isn't smothering you with his presence and wide sapphire-like eyes boring into your understandably unsure eyes. "There's a guest room, I'll sleep there and you can take the main bedroom-"

"I can sleep with you." You cut him off.

"In the guest bedroom??" He questions with a blink, okay so he's a bit stupid. That's okay though.

"No, with you, in our bedroom." You correct him, feeling more assured now, eased by Gojo's, thankfully.

"Right." The cheeky grin is back. Actually, it isn't very annoying anymore, it's kinda attractive. He is attractive that much is sure, but he's starting to be attractive to you. "Let's go sleep in OUR bed then, how's that sound?" 

"Sounds good."

It's oddly domestic, the walk to the bedroom he previously had all to himself, showing you the way, and showing you the bed you're gonna be sleeping in for the rest of your days. The way his slender fingers, which you were almost sure would poke out your eyes, gracefully helped you dissemble the layers of jewelry and fabrics you were dolled up in. His touch was feather-light, in stark contrast to his smug demeanour, making it clear, the boy has never undressed a lady.

Nothing goes further than that though, he doesn't push for anything more, and considering how new and confusing everything still is, you don't either. Instead choosing to lay back, and shut your eyes beside Gojo, letting exhaustion overtake you both and just sleep for the night.

Sleep beside your husband.

[thenewausten]

Jealous Quackity?

Thanks for the request!

Jealous Quackity: Pride and Prejudice.

I think he'd be a little childish when it comes to negative feelings like jealousy or pride, but this is something he'd work on himself to keep going on a healthy relationship with you.

Imagine like, you both were at a bar with some friends and a guy would come to talk to you while you were getting a drink to yourself with the barman. A few minutes later Alex'd approach you, hugging you from behind as he kisses your neck. "Hi." He'd whisper in your ear as you turn around to see your man's face. "Hi, Alex." You'd say, smiling awkwardly. "So... Y/N, we should talk about it later as I can see, right?" The man now behind you say and you turn back to him a little disappointed. "Sure... I'll call you. Thank you for listening to me, Bob." You let go off of Alex as you hug the man you were talking to before your boyfriend got in the way of the conversation.

"What were you guys talking about and why I couldn't listen to it?" Alex would ask, following you to the exit while you ignored him. "Hey, Y/N, I'm talking to you!" He'd say a little upset.

"That's the problem, Alex! I was almost convincing him to give me the fucking main role in the play he's writing and you came to talk to me! What's wrong with you?"

"How was I supposed to know it?!" He'd ask, now angry just like you were. "Did you want me to watch you talk to a random guy and continue chilling with the others in the table?"

"Yes, Alex! This is exactly what you should've done!" You answered him. Now you were beyond upset, like, what the actual fuck was happening with the boy you loved so much?! "I thought you trusted me."

"I do, but I'm not stupid." That's it. The part you hated the most in Alex, his pride. His damn pride. The man looked like Mr. Darcy of the new generation sometimes. You passed your hands on your face, frustrated. "Your pride is going to kill our relationship, Alex." You'd murmur walking to his car.

"My pride? I just wanted to see if you were okay!" He raises his voice so you can listen to him.

"That's not the point! You were jealous!" You turn to look at him, raising your voice aswell. "And I don't understand why because I never gave you any reason to!"

He rolled his eyes like he didn't believe what I said and I approached him. "When?!" You asked, looking at his beautiful brown eyes. Fuck, you're so mad.

"When what, Y/N?"

"When did I give you the reason to act like this?" You asked, he looked down at you with furrowed eyebrows.

"I didn't say anything."

"So you assume I never gave you any reason to act like an asshole."

"No, I don't." He says.

"Just tell me when I did it, then." You said, tired as fuck to argue with your lover in the middle of a bar parking lot.

"I don't want to talk any more." He murmurs as he approaches his car. How a twenty-three years old man can be this childish?! I guess we'll never know.

"Then we're not talking again." You'd murmur as you open the door of his car to get in.

Unfortunately, you were at Mr. Darcy's house for the weekend and your apartment was in the other side of the city. Great. You're in the same situation as a Jane Austen character (I'm sorry it's stronger than me putting those references).

You didn't speak not even a thank you when Alex opened the front door of his house for you, you went to his bathroom to cry and take a shower thinking about what happened tonight.

When you got out of the shower you found Alex on the sofa. "Can we talk?" You didn't say anything, just looked at him. "You're right, amor." He whispers, looking you in the eyes as you approach him. "I was jealous not because you gave me reason to be, but because of my insecurities."

"Talk to me about it, then." You whisper as you sit beside him. "We have to figure it out, 'Lex. I don't want to lose you for something we can find a way out."

"I don't want to lose you either." He whispers as he grabs your hands. "I'm sorry, I feel like I don't deserve you sometimes and I end up acting like an idiot."

"Of course you deserve me, Alex. I'm with you because I want to, because I love you so fucking much! Don't let these thoughts get into your head, baby." You whisper as you pull his head gently on your chest, he hugs your waist and closes his eyes, listening to the sound of your beating heart.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." He whispers. "I love you so much, Y/N."

"It's okay, Alex." You say as one of your hands caresses his hair and the other one his back. "I love you too, my love."

"I promise you I'll change, amor." He lifts his head to look at you, you hold his face in your hands and squeezes his cheeks, giving him a peck on the nose and then on his lips.

"I know you'll, babe."

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy the writing! :)

Requests are open!

[overwatch]

I played D&D yesterday at a board game store and I am still a bit shook from it. This isn't a D&D horror story but there's a few things I need to vent about.

- the DM who we did not know handed us character sheets. Apparently this had been agreed with the guy from my group who was arranging everything but he forgot to tell everyone?

- I never related more to a drag queen who gets the role on a ruchallenge they hate. I was forced to play a low charisma wizard whose whole thing was being religious. I did rly good and moved the plot along despite this horrible character, I killed it.

- Anyway straight men are animals they immediately go "IM ROGUE" "IM BARBARIAN". They don't even read the character description or backstory. Or ask me and the other girl in the group if we wanted to read the roles first??

- nobody was doing character voice 🫠 "he says x" "he asks why"-- I interrupted the other players to speak like the characters and they were just stuborn. Especially the straight men they barely used dialogue they only wanted to fight?

- one of the things I HATED the most was that I got a crystal (important plot device) and one of the straights says a) he wants to break it. I start *discussing* with the group that I don't think that's a good choice. B) suddenly the guy says "I take the crystal from her and save it on my things."

????

- me and the group and still discussing what to do with the crystal but the guy decides he takes it and doesn't need to roll or interact/ask me. He then triggers a boss to appear who wants the crystal.

- Before we can discuss as a group why we should give him the crystal the same guy throws the crustal at the guy??

- The DM who had obviously put some effort into describing the boss and voice for the boss just goes ok. I guess he leaves with the crystal then.

- the same guy says he wants to fight the boss. Not for the crystal. Just because he wants ti fight.

- I see the horror flash on the DMs eyes. This is obviously a very high level boss to fight later in the campaign. He even goes "are you sure..?" I save it by saying no obviously not. We already lost the crystal let's not get killed too. Dm says "good choice".

- playing in a boardgame store is horrible. There's so much noise. I have adhd and oh my god. Also dm said something rly serious to my character and I couldn't understand him and didn't wanna ask him to repeat himself bc he did character voice and it was a tense moment.

- straight men's characters kept trying to "go investigate on their own". Boy we just started the campaign??? Maybe idk we should stick together. One of them kept "I go way ahead of them" or "I go way in the back". Which triggered events without us being there yet. At some point the DM ignored the guy and just spoke like he was there with us too.

- I was the only one (aside from dm) actually roleplaying and doing voices.

- one of the guys was mad the dm didn't let him use his own figure on the map even though it was three times the size of the figures the dm had for us.

- I am 100% sure the men were angry I was the hero of the battle we had. (It was bush like creatures and I used burning hands... They were all upset at the dm when the attacks they used barely did anything. And I mean actually arguing.

Anyway I just to take this out of my chest. They also kept asking for feedback/compliments on WhatsApp and I was nice and said I rly liked meeting with them and the dm was way better than I had imaged. And the guy that stole my crystal without asking and almost ruined the game an off comment about me being "uncomfortable" because I didn't join them for dinner after (worded like an accusation)? 🫠 And didn't even say anything about me carrying the game and helping him with his fuck ups. But ok.

[my-current-obsession]

I ask this as a Clerith fan myself - why are so many people up in arms about Tifa "lying" in her GS date? I'm not even sure what people are referring to when they say that. If it's when she denied talking to Aerith about Zack... Aerith literally lied about the EXACT same thing to Cloud and no one calls her out about it.

Obviously the context of Cloud bringing up the issue in the first place is quite different with both girls - with Aerith he's wanting to know where they stand and if he can pursue her or if he should give up. While with Tifa he's still focused on Aerith instead of the girl he's with, which makes this date and his extreme (frankly OOC) actions come across as a rebound because he feels like he has no chance with the girl he's really interested in. But that said, I interpret the lie itself as the same from both girls - they know Cloud's memory is unreliable and digging too much into the topic of Zack might make him MORE unstable, so they dodge the issue. Also maybe a secondary reason of lying to keep the mood light/romantic, instead of bogging it down with something heavy.

If it's in response to what she says after Cloud wonders about Aerith still having feelings for Zack... that's up to interpretation, I guess. PERSONALLY, I would take her responding "It's more complicated than that" as dodging the question at worst or even a soft, implied disagreement with Cloud at best. It would be incredibly easy and simple to just say, "Yes, she still likes him." That's NOT what Tifa says, even though to an extent it might be true (Aerith makes it obvious that she's fallen for Cloud by the end of the game, but she MIGHT still love Zack too. You can love more than one person at a time. It's just unclear if that's the case for her or not).

We know from the scene on the ship heading towards Costa del Sol that Tifa and Aerith wanted to talk about love and boys, but it was postponed. But it's also clear they're spending a LOT of time together trying to hash out what's going on with Cloud and generally opening up to each other as friends off-screen, so I think it's safe to say they DID have this conversation eventually. I believe by the chapter 12 date, both girls are fully aware that they EACH like Cloud romantically, but for the most part they care enough about each other as friends to put aside rivalry/jealousy.

Tifa's response of "It's more complicated than that" just feels like the honest truth to me. Does Aerith still have feelings for Zack? Yeah, maybe. But she also undeniably has feelings for Cloud. And Tifa, on a date with the man she ALSO loves, doesn't want to lie but also can't bring herself to say that whole truth (also it's not really her truth to say? Confessing for someone else is messed up in its own right NGL) when doing so would almost certainly kill her own chances with Cloud.

I honestly feel sorry for her in her date. I read the situation as her trying to be as honest as she can without quite literally triggering Cloud or spilling Aerith's secrets, while Cloud, AT BEST is acting out a role with her and being the suave hero who he thinks she wants (which is arguably true, but let's not get into whether Tifa wants the "real" Cloud here) instead of his true awkward self (thus no actual progress in their relationship is made, since everything was just an act on his part). And AT WORST is outright using her as a rebound.

Seriously, what are you all mad at HER for?

[kingofthering]

vr46 Marc, a little over 900 words that came from : this video of Vale presenting his helmets collection, this text post of mine and this poll by @moonshynecybin

set in Tavullia at Vale's museum, after Valencia 2023

"Okay, so," Valentino starts right next to his ear. Marc still doesn't think that his step ladder is made for two people and the lack of space has Valentino pressed against his back, their left hands almost touching where they're both holding onto the highest bar. Valentino uses his right hand to point at a line of helmets and Marc follows his instruction. "Here we have the people that made me have my best moments in MotoGP," Valentino says. He's using his teaching voice, the one he uses when he's explaining something to the guys at the ranche, his hand going wild in front of a paper board and the circuit clipped to it. Marc feels hot. He keeps his eyes on the helmets in front of him. "Andrea Dovizioso, Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, and, from the race in Valencia in 2023 when he was racing for my team and helped us win the team championship, Marc Marquez."

Marc looks at his helmet, reads the message that he spent way too much time thinking about before finally being able to put a marker against the visor. He already knows his message by heart. Already could recite what Valentino wrote for him, too.

Valentino's chin dips into Marc's shoulder and his hand cover Marc's on the handle bar. "I"m sorry it took so long to get there but it's fixed, now."

Marc closes his eyes. It's fixed now. Right. The implications of those words feel like so much, even for Valentino's standards.

Marc takes a deep breath. "I almost slept with a stranger in Thailand. A guy I met at the hotel bar."

When Marc opens his eyes, he watches Valentino's hand leave his, can feel the heat from Valentino's chest disappearing as he draws back. When Marc turns around, Valentino is back on the ground, leaning against the counter of the central island just a meter in front of Marc.

Valentino has his arms crossed in front of himself but it doesn't feel defensive, not really. He doesn't seem mad, either. His head is tilted to the side, waiting Marc out.

Marc stays on the top step of the stool. Being taller than Valentino for once is not that bad of a thing, Marc doesn't care about how ridiculous he looks.

"We were just talking and then I received a text from you, the one where you asked me if we could get lunch or dinner together when I got to Malaysia, and I guess something must have showed on my face because I ended up talking to him about you. We moved on after that and he offered to have a last drink in his room and I contemplated it but I just couldn't."

Marc watches as Valentino opens his mouth, ready to react. He shakes his head. "Don't. Don't say I should have or don't apologize, it's not– Don't bother. The not having been with anyone since I got here is a me issue and maybe you played a role in it since we kissed but it's fine. I'll fix it."

It might be a lie and the most ridiculous thing he's said in a while but Valentino doesn't need to know that or worse, call him out on it. It's bad enough that Marc is half admitting to it.

"Marc–"

"And please don't say that you haven't been with anyone else either just to please me. My ego is fine. I don't need that."

Valentino chuckles at that and Marc feels his cheeks go up in flames.

"You really think I've been fucking everyone left and right for the past months? That's who you think I am?"

Valentino does seem a little offended and Marc might feel bad about it, just a tiny bit. "Do you want me to remind you about your "making out while shotgunning just happens easily" thing? And I've seen you flirt with people in the past, let's not pretend you can't have anyone you want."

The pictures from Indianapolis come flooding Marc's mind. Always Indianapolis. The guy on Valentino's lap, Valentino stealing a kiss from him, Valentino's hands finding the guy's hips while he stands behind him to dip his head down and kiss his neck, Marc on the other side of the room trying to not choke on his beer.

"Don't worry, I've left my whore tendencies in the past. I'm too old for that now, it shows."

Marc blinks at him, his face the definiton of disbelief.

"Oh come on Marc, I'm not fishing for compliments here. I'm hitting 45 in three months, you really want to pretend I didn't look better a decade ago?"

Marc huffs. "Well, not with those hideous sideburns, no."

Valentino bursts out laughing at that and Marc finds himself smiling with him, some of the tension in his shoulders getting released.

"Marc," Valentino calls for him again and this time he has one hand extended in front of himself. His face is open, gentle, maybe a little concerned too. It's a bunch of emotions Marc hadn't seen on Vale's face in a long time. It's a bunch of emotions Marc has gotten used to again over the last months, ones he could appreciate seeing more of, in the future.

Marc accepts Valentino's hand and steps down from the stool.

[slayerchick303]

*SECRET INVASION FINALE SPOILERS*

I just finished Home, and I have some thoughts:

Rhodey was in a hospital gown when he got out of the pod! I swear to all that is holy, if they have him been replaced by a skrull after his injury in Civil War, I will march on Disney headquarters! That would cheapen Tony's death, funeral, and Rhodey's amazing conversation with Sam in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I said I'd freak out if they made the swap previous to FATWS, and I meant it!

Gravik's human face was a man he killed, so I'm assuming the same is true for G'iah. If she is indeed going to be Abigail Brand as leaks have suggested (meaning Abigail Brand is dead), I'm going to be mad! Like legitimately disappointed. Brand is one of my favorite parts of the Astonishing X-Men comics run. I ship her and Beast so hard.

When was Everett Ross swapped? It has to have been after Black Panther because he would've reverted to his skrull form after being shot and/or Shuri would've noticed while healing him. Has a skrull infiltrated Wakandan leadership?! How many? For how long? Because that's BAD. Imagine the havoc skrulls could wreak with Wakanda's resources.

The CGI in this was pretty good. Especially compared to other recent Disney+ titles. That being said, I hate a lot of how they used it. Giving G'iah a huge Drax arm?! Bad choices in multiple ways: A.) the big Drax arm looked so weird as did other things. B.) do they think Marvel fans are too stupid to get what they were doing if they didn't make her arm huge? They should've kept Emilia's arm the same size, only given her Drax's tattoos and skin color at most. We would've understood. C.) the clothing changed too! How does that make sense?

Is Gravik really dead, though? Is Raava? We don't know if Raava has super skrull powers, but Gravik had like EVERYTHING. That seems like it should make him pretty invincible.

How did people not clock how off Rhodey was? There was like an enormous change in his personality. Raava was a jerk!

So, Fury and Sonya only tranqed those secret service members at the hospital. That wouldn't automatically make them revert, right, or every skrull would be outed when they fell asleep. If all those guards were humans, they were legitimately the worst security detail ever. That one guy literally listened to SkrullRhodey pretty much out herself and did nothing. He didn't even warn the president Rhodey was acting uncharacteristically. Every member of White House personale will have to be tested somehow. Maybe check for purple blood?

I really thought Ritson would die at the end. I guess he's just awful (which is unsurprising). I'm glad he won't be president much longer, as Harrison Ford is taking over the role of President Thaddeus Ross in Captain America: Brave New World. That being said, part of me worries that President Ross might be even worse than Ritson.

I kind of loved Varra and Fury's ending. It redeemed the awful, "I guess we'll never know moment."

****EDIT:**** I didn't think about this at the time, but I saw someone else bring it up. G'iah has Captain Marvel powers now! Doesn't that mean she should be caught up in the entanglement mess Captain Marvel, Photon, and Miss Marvel are dealing with in The Marvels?! That's an ENORMOUS plot hole. Not to mention, G'iah is ridiculously overpowered now. People complain about how powerful Superman is, and G'iah is so much worse.

I enjoyed Secret Invasion, even if it wasn't the best Disney+ show. The comics are still WAY better. Regardless, I'm looking forward to The Marvels even more now.

[marvelstars]

Anakin´s politics

After reading many takes in fandom of Anakin´s politics as well as many fics, I believe Anakin´s political leanings are often reduced or misunderstood, in part because Lucas didn´t delve too much into them, because Padme and Obi-Wan kind of dimiss htem and also in part because we have two different ideologies, Anakin´s political ideology pre Vader and Anakin´s political ideology post Vader which are similar but not the same.

Early Vader/Just fallen to the darkside Anakin asked Padme to become his Empress but given that at the time he was in a deep, deep breakdown and practically out of his mind deep into darkside force energies which Lucas has compared to a drug, I personally don´t believe even Vader "post dark side high" would have exactly the same idea.

Vader in general was of the mind that the galaxy needed order, that there was a role the Emperor had to play but given Leia´s and Vader´s whole conversation about the Sentate in ANH where Leia accuses Vader of acting outside the Senate approval to which Vader answers that she was a confirmed traitor to the Empire at this point, so her ship could not longer be considered a diplomatic vessel unlike all those other times Vader let her go to do her "mercy missions" which he knew were a front for her pro-rebellion missions, all this means Vader also was often around seeing Sente proceedings, right allong with his military meetings.

Vader he doesn´t care as much about the type of goverment there is in the galaxy as long as it´s effective and less corrupt than the Old Republic was. "Lest bring Order to the galaxy"

Anakin is a different matter, as a child he just knew he wanted to free all the slaves on Tatooine and do his part to support a more equal and fair galaxy "the biggest problem in the galaxy is that no one helps each other".

As a Jedi padawan, when he was talking to Padme about how the system didn´t work, precisely because Padme told him that it was hard for the senate to do anything because they almost never agreed, he suggested someone to "make them agree" "someone wise" and in that way fix the problem of the current system, Padme was talking about the issues of the working system and Anakin suggested a way to fix those inconsistencies.

Here we can already see Palpatine´s hand in Anakin´s political perception but I believe we often forget there is another important body that influenced Anakin political pov´s in his younger years, when Anakin talked about "Someone wise should make them agree" he pretty much was describing Master Yoda and Windu role in most decisions of the Jedi Council when the Council didn´t agree on something.

So my guess is that Anakin was suggesting someone like Yoda and Palpatine supported this idea because it would make it easier to make the change from Yoda to himself.

Here Padme sees it as a dictatorship but I believe here Lucas didn´t really thought things too deeply, because there are Hereditary Monarchies in the Republic and her own role as Queen of Naboo had an almost absolute authority but well I disgress.

Anakin didn´t believe the the Senate needed to be taken down, in fact in ROTS he gets mad at Padme precisely because she was asking him to ask Palpatine to leave his emergency powers and Anakin believed that was something that had to be taken to the Senate instead of using Anakin´s apparent influence over Palpatine, which was non-existent but neither of them knew that.

My point is that Anakin himself wasn´t suggesting to take down the Senate or the Republic, his pov was that the system itself didn´t work as a system that actually got things done for the benefice of the people of the Republic. Anakin´s priority is to fix the system to get things done, not hold an ambigous ideal that only exists for some people.

Lest remember Shmi´s words in TPM "The Republic doens´t exist out there, we have to take care of ourselves"

This was Anakin´s early relationship to the republic and all those diplomatic missions as a jedi in which he mostly helped the elite of each planet didn´t serve to convince him the republic was good for something other than serving the elite.

So while Padme and Obi-Wan saw the Republic as an ideal that could be fixed with time if only because that´s what they had to work with, Anakin thought that it´s alright to hold republican values, in fact he went to war for the whole "keeping the republic together" but this republic "Is functional?" "It works for what it says it works?" and the answer is no, the system is broken, something Padme found out in the first movie, when she saw how the occupation on her planet by the Federation could be ignored because of their influence and it would take months if not years to do something about it while the Senate discussed it but Padme as a Senator hoped to help fix it but then they were at war and there wasn´t time.

So in short, Padme and Obi-Wan see the Republic as something worth fighting for on itself on principle even when they knew the politicians of the senate often were trash while Anakin sees the republic as something that could be fixed but isn´t worth fighting for on itself if it really doesn´t seek to serve the people outside of a few elites. This is something that he understood because he was directly wronged by the dysfunction of the republic.

It isn´t coincidence Anakin as a general in the clone wars tried to serve not only the needs of official Republic allies but also citizens that just happened to be in the crossfire and didn´t have the means to defend themselves but also weren´t anyone´s priority. (Example: The farmers, Saw Guerrera, the slaves who were not allies of the republic trapped on Zigeria, etc) and on this Anakin showed he prefered the people, citizens to take matters into their own hands instead of having to depend of the Republic, Senate or Jedi to act. Just give them the tools to do it themselves.

Vader is the opposite, no longer trust the people to make the best choice but he believes of having order for everybody.

This is interesting because I don´t believe Padme or Obi-Wan ever took seriously Anakin´s political ideology and so they didn´t discuss it with him, they just expected him to support them because they were his wife and master respectively but they didn´t ask for his pov either and Anakin didn´t try to talk about this with them, only Palpatine seemed interested in his political ideas and so Anakin didn´t want to create conflict with people he considered family, it was easier to go along with them than fighting with them over the details.

So while I think he sometimes disliked Padme´s role as a senator for the time it took from them as a couple, he knew it was important for her and he wanted to be supportive, he definitely resented the republic and it´s politicians hypocrisy.

Now Vader is perfectly capable of discussing and getting mad with Palpatine over political issues, the main problem is that he is pretty much broken emotionally and so isn´t so willing anymore to try to make changes, just fix what little he sees he can fix but his perspective is a lot more authoritharian than it was when he was young. He belives if he had to fight some rebels to expand the Empire towards the outer rim, take down governments and give them a similar way of life to the core system, including education and work, he is totally going to do that. The end justifies the means for Vader

[miss0atae]

Random thoughts about Dead Friend Forever ep 8:

I was waiting for this episode and I wasn't disappointed. It was a crazy ride again. So many things happened but the series never drag any plots too long. It makes perfectly sense.

Let's just start with the fact that this group of friends are the worst ever. They are all terrible in their own ways. It's infuriated to see them get away with their actions.

▪️ We start with Teacher Keng or should I say Cop Keng who tries to get into Tee's Uncle lair. I don't know why he thought it was a good idea because he wasn't very discrete and anyone with common sense would be able to see he's snooping around. Uncle's minions are not dumb and they chased him. He tried to escape while a car was coming and we got a cut right at this moment, but there are only two options: either he was knocked over to kill him or take him away. The series allows doubt to linger.

▪️ Non is having a really hard time. His video is still trending online and his parents are fighting because of it. He witnessed everything and it's taking a toll on him. This poor kid is really unlucky. He feels alone and on the brink of madness. His anxiety must not help in this situation and he has no one to talk to. The teacher don't answer him (because of obvious reasons). He is left alone with his thoughts unable to find a way out He is angry and desperate. I felt so sad for him. It was very hard to watch. He tried to call Jin also but I guess he was blocked because he never got an answer. Non wants revenge and frankly he deserves it because all these terrible things happening to him came from the shitty group of friends who used and abused him. When they called him to play again the role of the murderer for their stupid short movie, I hoped he would wreck them but in the end he was stopped by Jin (and also whatever drugs Tee put in his drink). We have no idea what happened to him after this event and that's the scariest part. He may be alive or dead... and the fact we don't know is part of the horror.

▪️ So Top and Por stayed nasty through all the episode. Their disdain for Non is blatant. He is exploited at will and they never ashamed of using him for whatever they want. Por didn't hesitated to pretend he was the screenwriter when Non disappeared to feed his little ego. He doesn't care about what happened to him. As long as he got what he wanted: his two minutes of fame and his short movie. Top is quite the same in his own way. He wanted to star in a movie and he got it, whatever it takes.

▪️ I found interesting how Fluke is always trying to stay on the sideline. It's never his fault, he never was there and he did nothing. He has always been a coward. He is always finding excuses to justify his actions. In some ways, I found him worst than Por or Tor. At least, those guys show their true color in broad day light while Fluke will pretend he is a good guy.

▪️ Tee is a different kind of villain. He is torn between what he needs to do for his uncle and his consciousness. At first, when he tried to be nice to Non I admit I got fooled. He acted like he was when he is with White. However, it was just pretending because he just wanted to carry his Uncle’s wishes. He drugged him and brought Non to him. Since then, he never got any news from him. If Por and Top never questioned Non’s disappearance, Tee was trying to know if he is still alive or not. Of course, no one gave him the truth. His Uncle pretended Non really did leave with Keng but it sounded false. I guess Tee could feel it. He may not be entirely bad but he didn’t hesitate to save his life by bringing Non to his Uncle. Also, he only got 20,000 baht for this job which means Non’s life is just worth 500 euros. Sad…

▪️ Obliviously, in this group, Jin is the most affected by Non’s disappearance. He felt guilty because of the leaked video and he also tried to apologize to Non (even if he didn’t tell for what). Jin has become withdrawn since Non is not here anymore. You can see how he distanced himself from everything. I think he really cares about Non but he wasn’t brave enough to really stand for him and help him. I felt betrayed again during the police’s interview when he pretended Non wasn’t there during the shooting of the movie. They all tried to cover up the truth. I was expecting it from all of them and I knew Jin would also do it, because otherwise we wouldn’t talk about it in the present, but I still felt let down by his action. Deep down, I want him to redeem himself. Probably, because he is linked to Phee now and I wish Phee didn’t only get with him to have his revenge. I want them to have genuine feelings for each others. Some moments in the present time make me believe in their relationship. It can’t be only fake. Phee seemed to genuinely want to protect Jin…

▪️ Of course I need to talk about Phee. When he learned about Non’s disappearance he tried to use every means possible to know the truth but he never got the answers he wanted. Keng is not here anymore, Non doesn’t answer the phone and his dad was withdrawn from the investigation. However, Phee know about the shitty group of friends and their short movie. He went to the premiere and saw all of them. I guess it is when he decided to act. Does he only want answers about what happened to Non or does he want to get revenge? We don’t know yet but I’m eager to learn the truth. At the premiere, he didn’t came alone and we don’t know with who he was. Is it Tan? Is Tan, Non’s brother? If it’s the case, why is he called Tan? In the preview for next episode, we’ll still be in the past and we’ll see how Tan and Phee became friends with the rest of the group. We haven’t seen White yet and I want to know how he joined the group too.

They are so many things to say and debate about this episode. I really want to be next week to learn more. Dead Friend Forever is a real gem at the moment.

[mirrormazeworld]

TWST Theory : Deep Analysis Based on Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass - Crowley The Mad Hatter (part 1)

⚠️WARNING⚠️

⚠️CONTAINS SPOILER CHAPTER 6 AND 7⚠️

⚠️VERY COMPLICATED TWST THEORY, MIGHT GIVES YOU HEADACHE, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK ⚠️

Note:

You've read this far, congratulations! Beware that this is the longest and most difficult part to understand out of all parts it might give you headaches if you're not ready. (It's ok, I can't take it as well myself that I almost cried when I wrote this) Keep in mind that I have little to no evidence, therefore this theory is my original theory and purely just my assumptions so please take it with the grain of salt (as usual).

Before I explain, I want to say that I did this analysis and research purely because I want a base to make a hc for Crowley for my own fanfic/yumeship since we have little to no information about him. I just feel the need to get it all off my head and share it here because of how complicated it is and to better understand what kind of Crowley he is in my lore that I created, since how I see of Crowley is very different compared to how most people see Crowley. Most people see him as the mastermind, a very evil villain to the point most people in the fandom hate him unreasonably. I can guess it's because of almost all people in the fandom, both JP and EN side doesn't know what twisted he is and he is just mysterious and ambiguous that he is misunderstood.

Crowley has been believed for a long time as twisted from Diablo, Maleficent's raven because of his name. Some also suspected he's the crow in Snow White. Even so there's no telling of what he is twisted from. And don't you think it's a bit weird when both Diablo and the crow in Snow White role actually doesn't really have that much significance in their respective stories while we know Crowley would play a great part in twst as he is still the Headmaster of NRC. I'm sure twst fans have been dying to know what he is supposed to be for almost 3 years including myself, but I've always believed he is actually also twisted of something else other than Diablo and today I'm going to share my own analysis and hc of Crowley that hopefully would help you understand him and his character better, and that is :

Dire Crowley : Twisted of Mad Hatter

A long time ago I was just thinking, if Yuu supposed to be Alice that comes to a Wonderland, surely there should be Mad Hatter somewhere...? And then I remembered someone that seems to wear hat everywhere no matter the circumstances...

That's right, it's the Headmage of NRC, Dire Crowley.

And isn't it kind of weird that his hat is similar to that of Ramshackle ghost's? As if the clue is there in front of your eyes.

So I decided to look at it further and found something interesting....

Alice in Wonderland : The World of Math

Alice in Wonderland is a children's book because of its fantasy like story, but if you're a true book lover, you'll know that Alice in Wonderland is a book full of riddles. There are a lot of english wordplay but what not many people know is that most of the riddles in Alice in Wonderland are related to Math, as Carroll is also the Math Logician.

I won't explain much but this is an example of the math riddle in Alice in Wonderland (you can skip this part if it's too much. I just want to show you) :

In the chapter of "Advice from Caterpillar", Alice has fallen down the rabbit hole and eaten a cake that has shrunk her to a height of just 3 inches. The Caterpillar enters, smoking a hookah pipe, and shows Alice a mushroom that can restore her to her proper size. But one side of the mushroom stretches her neck, while another shrinks her torso, so she must eat exactly the right balance to regain her proper size and proportions. The word "hookah" is of Arabic origin, like "algebra", and the original Arabic term for algebra, widely known and used in the mathematical community in Carroll's time, was al jebr e al mokabala or "restoration and reduction" - which exactly describes Alice's experience. It's Carroll's view of the absurdity of symbolic algebra.

The reason why I strongly believe Crowley is/was the one who looped/rewind the time is because I suspect he is the Mad Hatter. I have always been drawing him based on this thoughts in my mind and of course it's not without reason. Every scenes in Alice in Wonderland contains riddles in it and most of them goes by math logic. And from all of those riddles, the "A Mad Tea Party" from Alice in Wonderland and "Wool and Water" from Through The Looking Glass are the only scenes that tells time in wonderland specifically that made Alice realizes time in Wonderland goes differently from her own world.

In one interview, Yana said it herself that she learned so much from Lewis Carroll's style of story telling. Carroll's background in Math and his interest in literatures allowed him to criticize ideas at that time through his Wonderland stories. This is what his story telling style is like when he made "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". Doing analysis on Dire Crowley means that I should solve the riddle first and then do an actual analysis on him.

Now you know that Alice in Wonderland is about Math, so from this onwards, I'm going to do explanation how to solve the riddle while also explaining about Crowley along the way

Note : I'm not a Mathematician nor a Physician so there might be other things that I have no idea about but I'll do my best to explain the math riddle to you...

Mad Hatter and His Relation to Time

-Time for a T-Party : "A Mad Tea Party"- (Alice in Wonderland)

“It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied.

“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!”

When you read "Tea Party" it sounds the same as "T-Party". "T" is the math symbol of "Time" in mathematics. At the time when Alice in Wonderland was written and published, a mathematician, Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–1865) invented "quaternion", a four dimensional extension to complex number that also represent rotations and orientation happening to the four dimensional object in three dimensional space.

To put it simply, quaternion is a four number system in mathematics that shows what happened to 3D objects if they are in timespace (4th dimension)

Note :

To make it easier to understand :

...-2.5,-2,-1, 0, 1, 2, 2.5...-> is real number

3.14 + 1.59i -> is complex number

3.23 + 8.46i + 2.64j + 3.38k -> is quaternion

The 1st dimension that represented by real numbers system is line.

The 2nd dimension that represented by complex number system are two-dimensional shapes (ex : rectangle, trapezoid)

The 3rd dimension that represented by adding one more imaginary dimension are three-dimensional shapes (ex : sphere, cube)

The 4th dimension that represented by adding two more imaginary dimension to complex number is timespace.

Quaternion is a four number system in the form of

q = a + bi + cj + dk

Where a , b , c , d are real numbers and i , j , k are "imaginary" unit hence why quaternion is also called "imaginary mathematics".

In Crowley's voice clip, he said :

Not only "imagination" is the key to use magic in Twisted Wonderland, this "imagination" might have relevance to something else as well but I'll skip this part for now and will explain it later in the last part. Just remember that this "imagination" is the key word to this theory and will guide you when you read further.

In 3D, 3 dimensional consist of 3 axis : length, width, and depth. In 4D, there's a fourth axis : Time.

Hamilton spent much of his life seeking a three-dimensional number system analogous to the complex numbers. He added two imaginary dimensions, (2.64j)and (3.38k) to the complex number (3.23 + 8.46i). Three imaginary dimensions describing spaces, and the real numbers sitting perpendicular to that in some kind of fourth dimension.

Hamilton said, if you take this time parameter out of these numbers, then the numbers would just keep rotating around － they won't go anywhere, like the characters rotating round and round the tea party, round and round the table.

“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”

(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.”

“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.”

“Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We quarrelled last March—just before he went mad, you know—” (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you’re at!’

You know the song, perhaps?”

“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice.

“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:—

‘Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle—’”

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—” and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.

“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”

“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.

“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”

“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask.

“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.”

Related to this scene, Hatter, Hare and Dormouse represent three terms of a quaternion, and the fourth term, Time, is absent because Hatter was upsetting the Time. Time won't allow those three to move past tea time and they can only move round the table in a loop, just like Hamilton attempts to calculate motion before the 4th dimension of time was added.

- Wool and Water - (Through the Looking Glass)

‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first—’

‘Living backwards!’ Alice repeated in great astonishment. ‘I never heard of such a thing!’

‘—but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.’

‘I’m sure mine only works one way,’ Alice remarked. ‘I can’t remember things before they happen.’

‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ the Queen remarked.

‘What sort of things do you remember best?’ Alice ventured to ask.

‘Oh, things that happened the week after next,’ the Queen replied in a careless tone. ‘For instance, now,’ she went on, sticking a large piece of plaster on her finger as she spoke, ‘there’s the King’s Messenger. He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.’

‘Suppose he never commits the crime?’ said Alice.

‘That would be all the better, wouldn’t it?’ the Queen said, as she bound the plaster round her finger with a bit of ribbon.

Alice felt there was no denying that. ‘Of course it would be all the better,’ she said: ‘but it wouldn’t be all the better his being punished.’

‘You’re wrong there, at any rate,’ said the Queen: ‘were you ever punished?’

‘Only for faults,’ said Alice.

‘And you were all the better for it, I know!’ the Queen said triumphantly.

‘Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for,’ said Alice: ‘that makes all the difference.’

‘But if you hadn’t done them,’ the Queen said, ‘that would have been better still; better, and better, and better!’ Her voice went higher with each ‘better,’ till it got quite to a squeak at last.

Alice was just beginning to say ‘There’s a mistake somewhere—,’ when the Queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence unfinished. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as if she wanted to shake it off. ‘My finger’s bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!’

Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine, that Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears.

‘What is the matter?’ she said, as soon as there was a chance of making herself heard. ‘Have you pricked your finger?’

‘I haven’t pricked it yet,’ the Queen said, ‘but I soon shall—oh, oh, oh!’

‘When do you expect to do it?’ Alice asked, feeling very much inclined to laugh.

‘When I fasten my shawl again,’ the poor Queen groaned out: ‘the brooch will come undone directly. Oh, oh!’ As she said the words the brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it, and tried to clasp it again.

‘Take care!’ cried Alice. ‘You’re holding it all crooked!’ And she caught at the brooch; but it was too late: the pin had slipped, and the Queen had pricked her finger.

‘That accounts for the bleeding, you see,’ she said to Alice with a smile. ‘Now you understand the way things happen here.’

The Wool and Water chapter from "Through the Looking Glass" is another chapter that gives a hint to Alice about time, particularly how time in the mirror world goes (it's moving backwards). Similar to how "A Mad Tea-Party" chapter in "Alice in Wonderland" does.

This chapter also mentioned the "King's Messenger" who is in prison and is being punished, which later in chapter "The Lion and The Unicorn" turns out to be "Hatta", the "Hatter" in "Through The Looking Glass" (and he is still drinking tea just like the "Hatter" in "Alice in Wonderland"). This chapter is the first time where Hatter (now Hatta) being mentioned in "Through The Looking Glass".

Mad Hatter, Crow, and Raven : The Key to Time is the Corvid

The first thing Hatter said when he met Alice for the first time was :

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Carroll said, all the riddles in his books aren't actually meant to be solved therefore he never gave an answer to it for the readers of his works. But interestingly later, from all of his riddles this one riddle became the only riddle that has an answer from Carroll himself since his readers were so persistent. Here's what he said :

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz:

'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

He wasn't actually giving the answer, but he was giving a hint on how to solve the riddle by ourself.

The answer to the riddle is like his other poem riddles where each sentence has a single word meaning – a charade.

'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat;'

This first sentence in a single word describes a ‘letter’.

'and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!'

The second sentence in a single word is simply ‘backwards’.

The word ‘Letter’ has a double meaning of one you send in the post or one in the alphabet.

When you read the letters in the word "nevar" in backwards, it will be "raven"

This answer related to Hatter's riddle on Carroll's first publication had never intentionally misspelt with a letter ‘a’ which is Raven spelt with the wrong end in front. He was describing the word ‘backwards’ in his second sentence just like his other charade poems.

Carroll is good at saying something with double meanings so the hint doesn't end there in the charade just like that. The second sentence, when you read the sentence just as it is 'and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!' with your focus on the word "nevar" means that "The wrong end in front isn't the same as the end in back"

This refers to the order of multiplication in quaternion which is non-commutative. Quaternion represents rotations and orientation happening to the four dimensional object in three dimensional space. Swapping the order on how you do the multiplication will changes the answer.

If you do the multiplication clockwise, it will gives you positive answer : i x j = k

If you do the multiplication counter-clockwise, it will gives you negative answer : j x i = -k

Hence in quaternion i x j is not the same as j x i

( i x j ≠ j x i )

This non-commutative order of multiplication in quaternion later implied by what Hatter said after he asked the riddle to Alice.

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”

“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.

Additionally, in "Through The Looking Glass" (the scene in 'Wool and Water') where Alice finally realized how the time goes in the world behind the mirror was happened when a giant crow covered the sky so it feels like it's nighttime, and the crow goes away after White Queen explained how time goes in through the looking glass.

By this time it was getting light. ‘The crow must have flown away, I think,’ said Alice: ‘I’m so glad it’s gone. I thought it was the night coming on.’

The giant crow appeared at the last part of the previous chapter of Wool and Water, 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee'

It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a thunderstorm coming on. ‘What a thick black cloud that is!’ she said. ‘And how fast it comes! Why, I do believe it’s got wings!’

‘It’s the crow!’ Tweedledum cried out in a shrill voice of alarm: and the two brothers took to their heels and were out of sight in a moment.

Alice ran a little way into the wood, and stopped under a large tree. ‘It can never get at me here,’ she thought: ‘it’s far too large to squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish it wouldn’t flap its wings so—it makes quite a hurricane in the wood—here’s somebody’s shawl being blown away!’

In 'Wool and Water' White Queen said to Alice:

‘I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!’ the Queen said. ‘Twopence a week, and jam every other day.’

Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, ‘I don’t want you to hire me—and I don’t care for jam.’

‘It’s very good jam,’ said the Queen.

‘Well, I don’t want any to-day, at any rate.’

‘You couldn’t have it if you did want it,’ the Queen said. ‘The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.’

‘It must come sometimes to “jam to-day,”’ Alice objected.

‘No, it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ said Alice. ‘It’s dreadfully confusing!’

‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first—’

She said 'That's the effect of living backwards'

If we look back at "A Mad Tea Party" from Alice in Wonderland, these chapter are related to each other and those are :

‘Twopence a week, and jam every other day.’

The King’s Messenger (Hatta) who was in prison and being punished when this dialogue happened, White Queen said his trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday. Wednesday is the 3rd day of the week. If you multiply twopence by 3, you'll get 6 pence, which can be refered to the cost of the Hatter's hat, the price tag on the hat he wears. 10 shillings, 6 pence (10/6)

‘No, it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.’

The word 'jam' in english can also means 'stuck'. And in addition to the 6 in sixpence and how the White Queen talks about the King's messenger who is in prison afterwards, this is referring to the Hatter in 'Alice in Wonderland' who is stuck in time and becomes the prisoner of time, since he can't move past 6 o’clock (tea time)

And then the 'to-day isn’t any other day' part once again refers to the order of multiplication in quaternion which is non-commutative.

Interestingly In chapter 6 of twst, Crowley also get "arrested" to the Island of Woe along with overblot students and got stuck there. He is helpless and can't do anything about it. Just like Hatter in mad tea party and when Hatta is imprisoned.

Crowley's name, "Dire Crowley" was formed from the wordplay of Japanese katakana just like how Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are full of wordplay. When being translated to Japanese, his name becomes

" ディア・クロウリ"

read : "Dia Kurouri"

Crowley's first name, Dire, has been retconned to be pronounced as "Dia" for katakana wordplay that makes it extremely similar to "Diablo", the name of Maleficient's raven in Sleeping Beauty when being read.

ディアブロ = Diaboro (Diablo)

ディアクロ = Dia Kuro

The riddle "Raven like a writing desk", particularly the word "Raven" is the key that refers to the never-ending mad tea party. Is this why Crowley always says he is kind because the collective name for Ravens is an Unkindness which is also Hatter's personal remarks about Alice's hair?

The name "Dire Crowley" also contains the word "Crow" in it. In addition to the crow being a hint in Through The Looking Glass that refers back to the Mad Tea Party, in the chapter of "A Mad Tea Party" from Alice in Wonderland, Hatter said :

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

Here the Hatter was being accused of 'murdering' the Time rather than just killing time, and hence the tea party being stopped at tea time. You know what is the collective noun for Crows? That's right, a murder of Crows.

Seeing how his name can form both "Crow" and "Raven", the key answer to the Mad Hatter riddle that relates to time and 4th dimension means that the key to another dimension (which also means a way for Yuu to go back home) is actually Crowley himself.

All this time, it's not that he doesn't know how to send Yuu back home and doesn't want to find a way for Yuu to go back. He knows from the very beginning ever since Yuu came to Twisted Wonderland because it was Crowley himself who summoned them. There's really no need for him to search a way for Yuu to go back to their world because he already knows. But just like every unique magic which has their own condition to work and its limitations no matter how powerful it is, Crowley's unique magic also has its limitations and can only be done in certain condition, which I'm going to explain later.

Also, if you didn't skip anything when you read this part, you will notice that Hatter/Hatta seems to always has trouble with laws. Just like Crowley does.

Crowley and His Connection to Blot : Mad Hatter Disease

The idiom “mad as a hatter” was around long before Carroll started writing. Colloquially used to describe an eccentric person, “mad as a hatter” is based on a problem that arose in the 1800s when hat companies used mercury in the hat-making process. The mercury got into their systems and they went insane, hence the term “mad as a hatter”.

The real milliners (hatters) in the old days used mercury at cluing the felt in hats making. During that process some of that mercury vaporized and the felt maker/ milliner accidently breathed some of that. And when they were exposed to mercury for many years it really started affecting them: skin began to pale down, nails began to gain some "yellowish" color, hair started to become fuzzy. Even pupils could become dilated. This is what later is called "Mad Hatter Syndrome/Disease"

The effect of Mercury on human bodies seems to be similar with overblot in Twisted Wonderland, since those who are overbloting will have change in their appearance (skin began to pale down), changes in behaviour and goes insane.

When this theory is written, we still don't know whether Lilia's magic is depleted because of old age or something else, but if it's because of old age, why does Crowley can still use magic in game (refer to Ortho's R vignette) while it seems like he is at the same age as Lilia or maybe even older?

Paler skin is one of the change in appearance for those who are overbloting. The fact that Crowley's skin tone is paler than even for normal faes (his skin shade is more of grayish rather than brownish when being compared to Malleus and Lilia) means that he might have been exposed to blot for a very long time just like the hatter in 1800s.

There're two possibilities why Crowley covers upper half of his face:

1. He is immortal.

This refers to Mad Hatter when he sings at the great concert given by Queen of Hearts and later accused for murdering the time by her. He should have been beheaded at that time, but somehow managed to escape and still alive and later having tea party with March Hare and Dormouse and can't move from there.

In "A Mad Tea Party" (chapter 7 of Alice in Wonderland) :

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

And in "Who Stole The Tarts" (chapter 11 of Alice in Wonderland) :

All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!” on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.

2. It really is just my guess but if Crowley's magic has been depleted a long time ago just like Lilia, what if, the reason why even until now he can still uses magic is because he reuses magic excess, blot to perform magic and constantly poisoning himself with it just like hatters in 1800s?

As Mad Hatter, he might have immunity to blot just like Idia with his burning hair (his body can burn and cleanse blot) that it won't affect his mental state because his logic is already beyond comprehension and thus, technically he can't overblot (that's why he doesn't have phantom with him) since he is already "mad" even before he poisoned himself. But even though the blot doesn't affect his mental state, it still affects his body and his body starts to resemble those who overblot. His skin becomes paler, his lips turns black, and blot mark appears around his eyes so that he will need to cover it to hide it. That would also explain why in the prologue when he brought Yuu to Twisted Wonderland he says he is running out of time because his body is already at its limit.

Below is the explanation of blot by Crowley :

And explanation by Idia indicating that blot is a toxic substance.

Yeah, I know this is not the only explanation from Idia about blot. I chose this one for this part because even though I want to explain further since there's still something more about Crowley I need to explain, Tumblr decided to say no as I can't upload more photos(already reaching its limit). I want to explain my personal opinion about Crowley's intention based on my endless research on him for years but I guess this is it.

End Note : Originally I intended to explain it in one go and finish it all here in this part because it still connected to each other but I guess I'll still need to split it into two parts. I promise I'll explain the rest on the last part of this theory/analysis. Besides I'm afraid I might really break your brain if I do explain it all in one go so this is all for now.

[epickiya722]

An izuocha shipper said this:

Bkdks are just so transparent and easy to read. The people who rant now and want "justice for iida" are the VERY SAME people who always call him irrelevant to the story, boring, annoying, talk down his friendship with izuku and still havent forgiven him being rude ONCE to izuku in the very beginning of the manga before he and izuku even were friends (ohhhhh but anti bakugou people have to forgive bakugou ABUSING izuku for 12 YEARS, right?) and unlike bakugou didnt need over a century to apologiez! Lets be real, there is maybe just 1% of bkdk shippers who are really mad that it wasnt iida. For the majority thats not what the real problem is. They arent mad, because iida was "swaped" with ochako in the opening, they are mad because it was ochako and NOT bakugou! NOT ONE OF THEM would complain if instead of ochako reaching her hand out for izuku, if it would have been bakugou! Despite that there is no such moment in the manga between them! Its all about their shipping agenda. The anime can be as inaccurate as possible, bkdks dont care as long as bones highlights izukus and bakugous relationship even if its not manga canon.

What do you think about it? I'm interested in your opinion

And I am happy to give my opinion!!

Once more it's just other shippers trying to take a stab at BkDks and for what? Because they can't let it go. They're just bored and can't help but be asses.

For one, a lot of BkDks I have seen NEVER said Iida is boring or that irrelevant in any way. When it comes to other characters, I have seen a lot of BkDks defend them, Iida being one, Uraraka being another.

Hell, ask a BkDk who their favorite female character and most likely you'll get Ochaco Uraraka aka Uravity as an answer

No one is upset that it wasn't Bakugou that held Midoriya's hand in the opening. We're upset because once more Uraraka is just being used to fuel that role that it seems she's being forced into, which she doesn't deserve. She doesn't deserve to be a girl who only seemed to have Deku on her mind. A lot of her actions aren't even influenced by him and it sucks that others don't get that. On top of that, Iida, who a lot of us love, myself included, hated seeing his big moment taken away like that.

That's what it's more about. When that chapter came out that the opening is alluding to, no BkDk shipper I saw get upset. Why?

Because Iida is another good friend of Midoriya’s, he's also a great character on his own and it was nice seeing him getting the spotlight in that moment. It's like with Kirishima, BkDks like Kirishima because he is also a great character. He just happens to be a friend of Bakugou's. Do BkDks hate that? No!

Also BkDks and Bakugou fans aren't asking for anti Bakugous to "forgive" Bakugou. No one cares how they feel about Bakugou.

At most, what is being asked is not being so annoying about it and leave that space alone that does like his character. They're constantly the same ones sending threats, purposely tagging their anti posts wrong, commenting under fics, reblogging posts, etc. Like hate Bakugou, that's your preference and no one is forcing for a change of heart.

But how in the fuck (excuse my language) are antis going to throw the "Bakugou is a bully" card (mind you, who at the end of the day is a fictional teenager) yet do trolling and bullying REAL PEOPLE?

And!

The anime actually CAN'T be inaccurate as possible because all it's doing is ruining what Horikoshi and his team has worked on in the manga. It's why it's highly encouraged to read the manga.

I'm not surprised an IzuOcha shipper said that because guess what the anime is doing? Making IzuOcha seem more important when there's other things they should be highlighting like Iida's importance. If anyone is easy to read it's some of them.

BkDk shippers love BkDk, yeah, but most I have seen are always excited for the other characters, analyzing scenes about other characters and themes, hell, some are even multishippers so they do like other Bakugou and Midoriya ships.

Honestly, BkDks and Bakugou fans are probably the sets of people that seem to actually care about the story as a whole the most.

Ashido got a scene cut? A BkDk shipper will point it out. Shigaraki didn't say that in the manga and it's out of character? Oh, look that Bakugou fan caught it! Uraraka being reduced to nothing more than a girl with a crush despite having other great qualities that should be highlighted on? BkDks and Bakugou fans are ENRAGED.

Overall, to summarize this (it is long and I apologize for that, I ramble) BkDks in general don't care that it should have been Bakugou who held Midoriya's hand, I know I don't. We care about Iida's and Bakugou's significance to one of the darkest times in Midoriya's life. We care that Uraraka is also treated with care as she should be. If the opening wanted to have an IzuOcha moment, they could have! Just why make it the moment that should have gone to the characters that was important in that vital moment? They've been doing original scenes and whatnot forever, why stop now? Why take something away from other characters that are just as important as the protagonist and main girl character?

[butterflydm]

wot reread: towers of midnight (chap 50-end)

spoilers for towers of midnight (suicide cw; body horror cw)

Oh, this Elayne PoV opens with an interesting echo of a Rand scene. Here, Elayne strips lands and titles from her former rivals to the throne, knowing that the shame of it would likely lead them to commit suicide rather than live as commoners. Back in ACoS, Rand stripped the lands and title from Colaveare in an attempt to NOT kill her, because he was unaware that her own pride almost certainly lead to her killing herself rather than living with being a commoner. It illustrates some key similarities between Rand and Elayne but also a key difference, in that Elayne is aware of the consequences of her political choices in a way that Rand was not always aware. And she's doing so knowing that one of the people most affected by Colaveare's loss of power (a Cairhienin noble named Bertome) would arrive just in time to witness this.

2. She is using all this as a political lead-in to making her claim to the Sun Throne by giving Cairhienin nobles some power in Caemlyn, by offering the estates that she just stripped from her previous rivals. And... she then offers mercy to the nobles that she just stripped of lands here in Caemlyn, by mentioning that new lands and titles can be found for them in Cairhien. Basically binding the two nations closer together even before she officially takes the Sun Throne.

idk how much we needed the scene afterwards explaining Elayne's brilliance to the reader (but maybe it was helpful to the readers who were inclined to dislike Elayne?). Birgitte does still feel somewhat 'off' here from the character that she used to be.

3. It remains so baffling to me that Min is the central 'researcher' into all things Callandor. Makes no sense. But Elayne and Aviendha (both more logical choices) are off actually having their own independent storylines that aren't related to Rand so... Min it is, I guess.

Min warns him that the sword is more dangerous than they'd believed before and he's basically like, "nah, I know, it's chill." lol, despite the book's efforts to convince me that Min's role here is super-vital, it just... really is not.

4. Instead of going himself, Rand sends an Asha'man off to infiltrate and investigate the Black Tower. I really hate that such an important plotline got relegated to tertiary characters!

5. lol, I do like the scene here with Rand and Cadsuane; now that she's too baffled by him to keep bullying him, their interactions are kinda funny most of the time. He also, relatively casually, reveals here how far back his own memories go. Once again though... I really wish this were in Rand's PoV and not Min's.

Because here, Min is 'troubled' by Rand casually sharing his memories from four hundred years ago and Rand is like, "pat pat, calm down, silly mortal girlfriend, I am not a scary monster anymore, I promise" but like... what is going on in his brain? One of the main reasons that Rand's descent into madness worked so well for the reader is because we got to see it internally, and it feels like we're being cheated when we don't get to see how he deals with realizing that LTT's memories were not all due to madness, and this is part of him and he needs to process it. Getting it all second-hand through Min is just... not enough.

I am glad that Rand doesn't give all the credit of making it through to this point to Min (like so much of the fandom likes to do) but credits many of the people who have cared for him: his father, Mat, Perrin, Elayne, Aviendha, Nynaeve, Moiraine (He doesn't mention Egwene here, though, and he should). It is really frustrating how parts of fandom like to act as if Min is the only person who cares about Rand. Circumstances have pulled away most of the people he cares about and who care about him, but that doesn't make the affection disappear and it doesn't make the help they've given him meaningless.

6. Thousands of Borderlander soldiers down here, even as the Blightborder collapses and their people are overrun in the north. Such a frustrating plotline! Anyway, they slap Rand and ask him a question about a death during the Age of Legends and now things are good and they'll actually fight in the Last Battle.

lol, Min's viewings that she has here are so useless to Rand -- 'they'll probably be in a fight soon but whether that means the Last Battle or fighting against you right now, idk'. Thanks for that complete lack of information, Min.

I feel like this entire thing could have easily been used to show the folly of trusting prophecy over your own good sense? The Borderlanders acted as they did because they believed "better a dead Dragon than a Dragon who will destroy the world" but... they didn't really have any way to fix that problem anyway, lol, so their secret prophecy was just as useless as most of Min's viewings are and the only thing it accomplished was leaving their borders less guarded than they should be. Rand points out to them that, while he may have given them his original ultimatum in an asshole way, it remains the truth -- given how far they are from their own lands, he is the only path remaining to them if they want to fight in the Last Battle.

But, yeah, this is just a subplot that felt like it went on way too long and then died with a whimper and not a bang.

7. Hmm, Elayne points out that Birgitte has been getting more and more irritable, which implies that her change in characterization was deliberate (meant to illustrate how her emotional stability is slipping alongside her memory loss maybe?). Elayne basically calls Birgitte the Fun Police here, saying, "You don't like anything, lately." Anyway, Elayne is making her move for Cairhien here. I would have much rather spent this book on Elayne Secures Cairhien than Perrin's Whitecloak Trial. Instead, we mostly just skim over it, and Cairhien accepts Elayne fairly quickly. After she's claimed Cairhien, she sets in motion: a. sending the current army to Merrilor to meet Rand; b. mobilizing any additional men and women who want to fight in the Last Battle and training them; and c. getting all the city's bellfounders to start working on more dragons.

8. The first paragraph of being back in Mat's PoV and he is wistfully thinking of serving girls sitting on his knee. Strike twelve-point-three.

We also, here, have Mat choosing a red scarf to ~dedicate~ to the memory of Tylin and the others who died to the gholam, briefly considering making it pink (he does emphasis that he considered this very briefly). Ew, gross.

I was just talking in my last post, during the Aviendha's vision section, about how easy it is to make saints of the dead. It really feels like this is a perfect illustration of this: Tylin is dead and can't physically hurt Mat anymore, so it's 'safe' to consider honoring her, in a way that it wouldn't be if she were still alive. Dead sainted Tylin happening so soon after dead sainted Tuon in Aviendha's Rhuidean vision definitely makes me go ~hmm.

9. Mat thinks here that he believes that ~the new empress~ is going to surprise the Seanchan. Not sure what he's basing that belief on, lol. But, just like Fortuona was Making Lies Up In Her Head to justify her decisions, so is Mat, I guess. He wants to believe that Tuon is Different From The Other Seanchan, so he's convinced himself that she is, despite having literally zero favorable evidence (and the reader was just recently in her head, so we know for a fact that Mat is absolutely incorrect that Tuon has surprised the Seanchan in any way -- she has done exactly as expected of her, because she's just a bog-standard High Blood Seanchan)

(side note: I actually do not have any objection to Tuon just being another Seanchan, in terms of her moral code. The weird part about the way it is written in the books is the way that some Westlands characters behave as if she's better in some way, when we've never seen her do anything exceptional, in terms of ethics or morality. I get that the Seanchan are brainwashed to think the Imperial family & the Empress are special, but when Westlands characters act that way, it makes me raise my eyebrows. I talked about this back in CoT & KoD too -- how sometimes Mat behaved as if Tuon had undergone an entire character arc despite that... you know, not happening and her being just as awful (in terms of ethics) at the end of KoD as she was in her intro in WH. It's not Tuon being awful that I object to -- it makes sense that she's awful, given what we know of her culture and that she's the top dog in that culture -- it's Westlands characters inexplicably behaving as if she's A Special One Who Isn't Like Other Nobles that triggers my bullshit meter, like Mat thinking in KoD that's it's ~right and good~ for Olver to bow to her and make much of her despite that going completely against the way Mat normally approaches nobility; hits my bs meter hard).

The reports on the Seanchan that he's reading come from Elayne, btw. Also, he HAS officially signed the Band over to Elayne's employment. So, again, we have this tension where Mat has been set up as the tug o'war rope between ~Fortuona~ and Elayne. Or, more accurately, Mat is setting himself up as the rope. And setting himself up to eventually have his nose rubbed into the crimes of the Seanchan (including Tuon) in a way that he won't be able to deny (post-canon, I assume). Elayne did not give him any reports on the Seanchan attacking the White Tower, it sounds like, which makes sense -- the official White Tower position on weakness is: we don't have any. He notes that there are rumors of the Sea Folk allied with the Seanchan and dismisses THOSE as nonsense started by the Seanchan capturing Sea Folk vessels. Hey. Hey, Mat. What do they do to the people on the vessels? I know that you know the answer.

10. One of the spy reports makes him think of Rand, and we are reminded that Mat has to banish those colors "over and over". Funny how Perrin doesn't have that problem. Perrin finds dismissing the colors super easy. Mat also thinks about how "at least Rand was wearing clothes this time", which is a reminder of how frequently Mat apparently thinks about Rand around bedtime. Again, not a problem that Perrin has ever had.

11. Hmm, a conversation between the two people who seemed to most desperately want to believe that Tuon can learn to be a better person, and the two people who had the biggest changes in characterization between Winter's Heart and Crossroads of Twilight: Setalle Anan has come over to talk to Mat.

Strike twelve-point-four, as Mat tries to pretend he isn't thinking about Setalle Anan's 'ample bosom' (it's the second time he's had thoughts of attraction towards her since his marriage, so I'm not double-counting her as a full point, just like I'm not double-counting Elayne).

When Setalle Anan wonders if he truly knows the Andoran queen, Mat says that she's a "nice enough girl", because (at least in this part of the storyline) Mat has grown enough to see that his original assumptions about Elayne were incorrect.

12. Setalle Anan says that she's trying to work out the puzzle of Mat, and Mat being so close to the queen (who is Aes Sedai) is another piece of the puzzle. She mentions getting a letter from Joline, who has arrived safely at the White Tower and who has asked after Mat, to check in that he's okay, which completely baffled Mat. I wonder if Joline and Teslyn have had some long conversations off-screen about Mat, because Mat has been such an asshole to Joline on-screen that her respecting him so much really is somewhat baffling. But, yeah, the whole "friendly with some Aes Sedai but married to a slaver who wanted to enslave all Aes Sedai" is definitely... well, 'puzzle' is a kind way of wording what Mat currently is (especially to anyone who doesn't know about the prophecy... which is everyone).

Mat asks Setalle Anan what it was like to lose the One Power and no longer be Aes Sedai. She explains that she's happy for those who can still channel but is envious and misses it. The way she talks about it really reminds me of the way how Mat seems to feel his marriage has locked him away from acting on his attraction to other women and it's an interesting comparison to think about, now that it comes to mind. She burnt herself out, she wasn't stilled, so she accidentally did this to herself (just like Mat accidentally married Tuon). She is envious of those who can still channel but happy for them that they have the ability (and Mat keeps checking out women 'for' other men around him... though he never actually tells those other men about the women). She also kept herself in contact with the Kin all those years, essentially punishing herself by reminding herself over and over what she no longer had. Hmm.

Then she asks Mat why he hates Aes Sedai. And Mat essentially... completely sidesteps the question, though he does say that he doesn't hate Aes Sedai. But he immediately changes the question to "what bothers me about WOMEN" and away from "what bothers me about Aes Sedai" and then almost as swiftly, the conversation turns to "what bothers me about NOBLES". I wonder if his mental conflation of Aes Sedai=all women=all nobles is part of what causes some of his odd thinking.

13. This is where we get his ~boots~ argument against nobility, which comes across to me like he's saying that, nobles have so much excess that it makes him uncomfortable, though Setalle Anan believed that he's talking about the complexity of leadership. Mat denies that the conversation is a metaphor in any possible way, which is very Mat of him. I will note that he says that your 'best' pair of shoes should be your walking/working shoes, which are your most important pair.

If you were wondering: no, Setalle Anan doesn't tell him that she betrayed him and told Tuon about his protective medallion. Tuon actually doesn't openly come up a single time in the conversation, which is somewhat interesting, considering how much of the discussion feels like it's half a step away from Tuon.

After Anan leaves, Mat tosses aside Verin's letter, deciding that he will never know what's in it.

14. I genuinely like Pevara but... yeah, sucks that Nynaeve isn't the one headlining the Black Tower story arc. Apparently the White Tower 'embassy' to the Black Tower has just been chilling inside for... weeks? And now they are trapped inside, and gateways don't work. (another dreamspike? I do not recall)

15. Perrin gets to say a special goodbye to Mat. The buffing up of the Mat-Perrin friendship definitely feels like the biggest marker so far of Check Out Sanderson's Bestest Favorite Boy, yeah, lol. Thom twits Mat about his marriage by poking at the sore spot of how it makes Mat a noble now. Grady opens a Gateway to send them to the Tower of Ghenjei, and will open a return Gateway every day at the same time. They leave from Perrin's camp, which is just outside Whitebridge. Then Perrin & co all head to Merrilor.

16. Noal has managed to acquire a fancy outfit and a fancy new walking staff. ...? I hope again that plot device Noal gets replaced by someone more interesting in the show version (if they should get this far). My dream team is, of course, Mat with Siuan (as Moiraine's love interest) and Birgitte (for historical knowledge and to fill Noal's, ah, other role and, much like Noal wants to redeem himself for his failures, Birgitte may want to succeed at saving someone from the Tower where she has failed before).

17. They are able to open a doorway into the Tower by etching the opening symbol for the game of snakes & foxes into the Tower with a bronze knife. The inside of the Tower itself doesn't look like either the Aelfinn or the Eelfinn's bargaining places, Mat notes in dismay. Whatever script is used on the walls here, it isn't the Old Tongue, because Mat doesn't recognize it. Mat realizes this time, as he didn't fully realize before, that the world of the 'finn is a completely different world to their own. Interesting that even now, after Mat has ~gotten hitched~ to his prophecy girl, he still feels like the snakes gave him "no useful answers".

18. One of the Eelfinn appears, to try to tempt them into leaving their tools of protection behind and when Mat realizes that he's feeling swayed by the argument, he asks Thom to play music to break the spell. And the music puts the Eelfinn to sleep. Mat realizes that trying to make a map of the place is useless -- they need to rely on his luck. So he starts rolling dice to decide which direction to go. After another confrontation with multiple Eelfinn where he loses his dice, he begins spinning around to dizzy himself and then picking a direction at random. He then follows that direction no matter how many side corridors appear to tempt them, and he leads them to the room where Moiraine is waiting.

19. Seeing Moiraine again brings up a lot of complicated emotions in Mat: frustration and anger, but also gratitude and awe. He feels like he understands her motivations for her choices now, but still dislikes some of the actions that she took. Thom yanks her out of her prison, even after they find that whatever she's being held in is hot to the touch, and Mat marvels over how tiny she is, compared to his larger-than-life memory of her.

20. After Moiraine is pulled from her prison, eight of the Eelfinn are in the room, on the tall pedestals, dressed in white. Mat warns everyone against saying anything that sounds like a bargain. So Mat is the one to make the bargain, with the terms that the Aelfinn had already given him -- his price would be "half the light of the world" (aka his eye). Mat wonders if being willing to pay this price to save the world makes him "a hero, after all". One of the Eelfinn rips Mat's eye out of his socket with his bare hand.

21. Mat thinks here that he had assumed that Thom was here for the same reason as Mat -- because it was something that needed to be done (aka it was the right thing to do) -- but the way that Thom is clutching onto Moiraine's unconscious body is making him wonder. Noal realizes a hole in the bargain that Mat had made -- he'd said that the foxes weren't allowed to attack them, but had said nothing about the snakes. And so now the chase is on.

22. After a tense chase, where Mat is throwing around fireworks to keep the Aelfinn at bay, and they've long since strayed from the direct path that would lead to their exit, Noal sacrifices himself so that the others can continue escaping, serving his plot device duty and 'dying clean' (does Mat ever actually tell any of the Malkieri about this? I will try to remember to keep a watch out in AMoL). Mat thinks that once he would have thought dying with honor was pointless, but honor has mattered to too many of the memories in his head for him to dismiss it.

23. Hmm, when Thom mentions the idea of maybe getting some Aelfinn answers for himself, Mat tells him that he doesn't want them. "They aren't answers. They're threats. Promises." Talking about what just happened with his eye, or talking about Tuon? (I mean, likely both. It's definitely been something that I've noticed that Mat does not at all seem happy or grateful to the Aelfinn for shackling him to Fortuona, despite how he keeps desperately trying to convince himself that he trusts her and that he finds her super-attractive)

24. Mat thinks back to his time with the Eelfinn, his exact words, and realizes that he asked for a way back and that his ashandarei is the one thing he has that is not explained by them answering his other boons. That it's his key to leaving. He didn't ask them for a weapon, he asked them for a way out. And he is able to cut it to cut their way out of the Tower and back into their own world.

25. My narration here doesn't really cover how much I enjoyed this sequence but it was a lot of fun! I do think that this moment, like some others, would probably feel more impactful if it happened before Rand had his epiphany. Rand having his big moment at the end of TGS kinda... trivializes almost everything in ToM, honestly. Because... well, we already know that Rand has decided not to destroy time and the universe. So, if I had been structuring the last three books, I would have placed Rand's epiphany right here, after Mat & co. make their successful escape from the Tower of Ghenjei (and after Perrin and Egwene have helped each other in TAR). That way, even before they all go to Merrilor, it feels like Moiraine's return is symbolic of Rand's turning point, if they're paired in the narrative like that.

26. We get the counterpart of Gawyn's relief at having Egwene's emotions in his head by learning here that Egwene also finds it a comfort to have his emotions in her head and feel his devotion first-hard in a way that makes her unable to doubt it. So, yeah, Egwene and Gawyn are really on the same page in a way that the majority of romantic relationships in the series never manage. They want the same things out of life and neither of them is forcing themselves to live a life that makes them unhappy for the sake of catering to the other person (examples of this kind of relationship: Rand & Min, where Min forces herself into a poly relationship that makes her feel possessive and jealous all the time; Perrin & Faile, where they both have vastly different ideas about their 'ideal life' and the solution was for Perrin to give up his own ideas and pick Faile's; Mat and Fortuona, who both want to fundamentally change their partner into someone unrecognizable from who they currently are)

27. Mat is thrilled that he managed to survive the Tower of Ghenjei, now that they are safely out (and Moiraine is slowly regaining consciousness). Mat also realizes here that Thom knew all along (or at least for a while) that Noal was Jain Farstrider but never told Mat. It's in a semi-joking way that he wonders what kind of friend Thom is, but, yeah, I've been wondering about Mat and Thom's 'friendship' for a bit now, and this is another interesting piece of evidence about how Thom is not particularly open with Mat.

28. Um, strike thirteen-point-four as Mat thinks about how fetching Moiraine looks, with her flushed cheeks and her hair tumbling about her face. haha, he does feel kinda awkward about finding her attractive, much as Rand felt awkward about finding Caraline Damodred attractive even realizing how much she looked like Moiraine.

29. Mat refusing to let Moiraine heal his eye (not even just to take the pain away, which is all she believes she can manage now) does feel weirdly symbolic of his self-destructive behavior as of late -- he risks his life to save Moiraine, gives up his eye to save her, and then shies away at the idea of her healing him. Much as I once wondered if the Aelfinn devised Tuon as a punishment for Mat, I now have to wonder... is Mat punishing himself? Because that is wildly self-destructive. He could get an infection in his FACE. I'm sure he has countless memories of battle wounds going bad and killing soldiers post-battle. Passing up being healed just seems like he's actively self-harming here.

(I guess the question I'm asking is: how much does Mat subconsciously hate himself right now, that he would do this to himself? Again, we have the contrast in this same book of Galad realizing how nonsensical it is to have Aes Sedai as your allies and then refuse to allow them to heal you, which feels like a direct and deliberate reference point to show us that Mat is not acting rationally here -- either punishing himself or feeling like he doesn't deserve healing? Kinda amounts to the same thing, I suppose)

30. lol, Mat tries to downplay his affection for Rand, yet again, but Thom calls him out on it by mentioning how Mat 'keeps saying' that Rand deserves a festival in his honor for cleansing saidin. Honestly, the case of Rand vs Fortuona does feel so illustrative at this point re: Mat's constant lying to himself -- Mat tries so hard to force himself NOT to feel loyal and affectionate towards Rand and TO feel loyal towards Fortuona, but then his mind keeps betraying him (he keeps thinking of Rand, over and over, in much greater detail than Perrin does; and, conversely, he keeps thinking of all the attractive women in the world that he's Not Allowed to think about due to his marriage to Fortuona).

31. Thom tells Moiraine that Mat married "the Empress of the Seanchan" and Mat cringes at the info being shared (he hunches down and tries to cover his face with his hat and 'forces a chuckle'). Moiraine is startled, but when Mat says it was 'accidentally' because the Seanchan have 'odd customs', she goes, "ah, ta'veren". Mat doesn't think of his reaction here as 'shame' but, yeah, it vibes hard as shame. Moiraine says she needs to go seek out Rand, and Mat agrees that she should, but says he has things that he needs to do in Caemlyn. And then he thinks of Rand (again) and blushes.

32. While I've seen Sanderson get blamed for it -- the Thom & Moiraine engagement scene was written by Jordan, as confirmed by Sanderson's retrospective (Sanderson is one of the fans who did not at all pick up on Jordan's murder-mystery style way of setting up Thom and Moiraine's 'romance' in the earlier books which, you know. Me too, lol). And 'abruptly making a life commitment out of nowhere with barely any lead-up' is also classic Jordan romance writing, lol.

Direct quote from Sanderson: "I will note, by the way, that Verin’s interaction with Egwene in The Gathering Storm was my biggest surprise from the notes. My second biggest was the Thom/Moiraine engagement. Robert Jordan wrote that scene, and I was surprised to read it."

So, yeah, the whole "I would give up being Aes Sedai for you" offer was all Jordan.

That being said, knowing that this scene was written by Jordan also makes me wonder how much of the previous scene that leads into it (Mat blushing over how much he's thinking about Rand and his clear shame over being married to the Empress of the Seanchan) was also written by Jordan. Moiraine actually IS one of the few characters in the Jordan books who occasionally slung around the name 'Matrim', so her using it here isn't a Sanderson 'tell' the way that it is for many other characters. I also wonder if the paragraph of admiration and Mat thinking of Moiraine as 'fetching' was written by Jordan because, if so, that might be the germ of the idea that led to all of the other moments when Mat has been distracted by how pretty all the women he's Not Allowed to admire are Because Wife.

33. When Mat reacts like a cat fallen into a bath at the idea of being bonded (though, hilariously, he does specify that he doesn't want to be bonded to a woman), Thom points out that "your Tuon" is capable of channeling, which is information that Mat has been trying to actively suppress from his memory (and he almost immediately does so again here, very quickly after Thom reminds him of it), another example of Thom bringing up Mat's marriage to specifically twit him about the parts of it that will make him unhappy (like how earlier, he brought up how it makes Mat a noble). But this conversation is kinda the first time that Mat has confirmed to other people that his marriage was 'accidental' due to 'Seanchan customs', I think? Which is information that Moiraine & Thom could theoretically share with other people (like, for example, Elayne, who is already aware that Mat is willing to self-destructively make himself miserable in order to keep a promise, from her experiences with him in Ebou Dar). Also, Moiraine now knows that the Empress of the Seanchan is capable of learning to channel.

34. Mat's missing eye is still throbbing in pain, but he doesn't give a thought to asking Moiraine to heal him. Either deep fear, like Moiraine suggested, or deep hate... for himself, I think (certainly not for Moiraine, as he's surprised himself in this scene with how much affection he's been feeling for her). I'm leaning towards 'self-hate' because Mat doesn't even consider asking THOM to help him clean and dress the wound using normal non-Power means, so it feels very much like Mat has given himself a painful punishment.

He also wonders what Tuon might think of a husband 'unable to defend himself', so, yeah, I think he's also very aware that she is not a supportive and caring life partner. He actually comes across as genuinely scared of her reaction here (he describes himself as 'trembling' at the thought). You're in an abusive relationship, buddy.

35. Olver opens the letter from Verin and gives it to Talmanes -- Verin was trying to warn Mat about the Waygate in Caemlyn being left unguarded and a huge force of Shadowspawn coming through the Ways to attack the city. Talmanes curses and heads off to defend the city, but then we see that it's already under attack. Congrats, Mat! Your stubborn determination not to ever listen to Aes Sedai has helped lead to an attack on Caemlyn.

36. For the first time in this entire book, we get a Rand PoV. In the epilogue. And it's only two pages long. *sigh*

Rand sits in a dream and thinks about what will come in the morning, when he speaks to Egwene and the monarchs of the world. We don't get ANY reflection on the events of the past book or any of his feelings about anything.

He hears distant screams of pain and follows them, and he sees 'Mierin' aka Lanfear, who tells him that she is being tortured by the Dark One and needs his help.

I'm so frustrated that this is the only Rand PoV that we got in this entire book! Why would you do that! What a terrible narrative choice!

37. Lan arrives at Tarwin's Gap -- "he was home again. For the last time." And he and his forces charge towards the Shadowspawn.

38. The very ending of the book is a quote from the 'prophecies of the Shadow' (the ones that Moridin is relying on but have already failed Graendal). We get a mention of "Midnight Towers" here but I have NO clue what it's meant to refer to, since it clearly isn't talking about the Seanchan Towers of Midnight. So, yeah, ????

The title of this book remains such a baffling choice.

How ready are we for the Last Battle?

Rand: organizing; basically ready

Egwene: organizing; basically ready

Mat: finally got his ass in gear. Managed to be the fault point for the Caemlyn invasion, so he was accidentally helping the Shadow there by being stubborn for no good reason. Kinda mirrors him helping the Seanchan by protecting Tuon during CoT & KoD. First he fails his friends through action (protecting a slaver) and then he fails them through inaction (not reading Verin's letter). But he also helps his friends (bringing Aludra to Caemlyn; rescuing Moiraine) so Mat has been a double-edged sword recently, useful and harmful at the same time.

In terms of his marriage: shame, repression, and denial seem to be the main emotions that Mat is bringing to the table. That's a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. The clash of values between Mat and Fortuona feels inevitable, once the immediate stress of the Last Battle and its aftermath has passed.

I am interested (this may or may not be the correct word, lol) on if Mat will become pod!person Mat from CoT & KoD once he's actually in Fortuona's orbit again. So far he's done his best to maintain the illusion in his head that "Tuon" and "the Seanchan Empire" are separate entities and he can help one of them while being opposed to the other one, but obviously that illusion will take a pretty hard hit once he's around Actual (Westlands Territories Only) Seanchan Empress Fortuona 'Slavery Is My Game' Paendrag again. I've genuinely enjoyed a lot of the Mat scenes in ToM but how much of that is because I haven't been forced to endure Mat & Tuon interacting? I guess I'm about to find out!

Elayne: she’s BEEN ready.

Perrin: went through wolf boot camp; basically ready. The wolf-related plotline Perrin does in these two books should have been in his plot during The Slog; Sanderson basically rewinds us to LoC!Perrin and goes from there, giving Perrin character development that should have been happening all along.

The Whitecloak-related plotline was... meh? The most I can give it is 'meh'. It solved a problem that I didn't care about and ignored the problems that I did care about, essentially.

Nynaeve: We don't get enough Nynaeve but what we do get is good, except for her massive communication issues, lol. She should have done the Black Tower plotline in this book rather than it being given to tertiary characters. It's an important enough plotline that it should have happened within the main cast.

Series ranking:

Hmm, this one was somewhat tough to rank because I mostly loved all the Mat & Elayne related scenes, and the Egwene and Nynaeve scenes were also good but I was very frustrated with almost all the Rand-related scenes being someone else's PoV and Perrin was. Not interesting to me unless he was in the wolfdream. So. Better than WH but not as good as EotW. Too Much Perrin, lol (you wouldn't necessarily know this from my reread posts because I was zooming through the Perrin chapters and then spending ages on the other ones, but trust me. There was A Lot of Perrin).

The Fires of Heaven (😍)

The Shadow Rising (😘)

The Dragon Reborn (😘)

The Path of Daggers (😘)

New Spring (😘)

The Great Hunt (😄)

The Gathering Storm (😄)

Lord of Chaos (😄)

...

A Crown of Swords (🙂)

The Eye of the World (🙂)

Towers of Midnight (🙂)

Winter’s Heart (🙂)

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Crossroads of Twilight (😒)

Knife of Dreams (😒)

[heliosthegriffin]

Shadow Knight and Magical Girls XXII

A03 Link

Chapter 22

There was an aura of malaise across the Museum, and It spread relentlessly that afternoon, becoming heavier and more infectious by the minute. Moving around the building like an oozing river of filth, its odorous presence repulsing anyone and everyone that was in the building. Well, most everyone, anyway.

The overwhelming majority of the visitors of the Museum, though, were hit by an invasive feeling of tightness in the chest with a sense of incredible tension hanging over them, as if some disaster was patiently waiting behind the curtain to play its role. The vast majority couldn’t take the feeling, leaving the historical site en masse. The moment they stepped through the door, they were struck by a feeling of immediate relief, like having some long term debt finally be paid off.

Most were all too happy to forget such a feeling existed. With only a minority of a minority that were overtaken with curiosity, wondering, speculating, guessing what could possibly throw that many people into a flight on such a nice evening? They stared at the building, still basking in relief, however none dared even think about stepping back inside.

Not one among them possessed the bravery to find out the answer. 

----

Security couldn’t believe what their eyes were seeing, as an orange-haired man made a mad tear through the building. Going from victim to victim, leaving what could only be called monsters in his wake. A gut-deep feeling of dread rose the longer they watched, as they saw him move like something out of fantasy. This was not something they were prepared for, or were willing to risk their lives to face.

An attempt was made to call law enforcement, as several of them exchanged glances until one of them finally stepped up, dialing up the police. They are the ones that should handle this, right?

The call opened up, as a younger security officer made the call, finally spoke. “Hello, Vale’s Emergency Services, what is your situation?”

Holding his phone with shaky, numb hands, the guard had trouble getting the words out of his mouth. “Hello? Is there anyone there?”

“...Yeah.” The guard said after what felt like days. “W-we, I work at the Museum, a security guard, and we have a situation.” He finally managed to stumble the words over his lips.

“I see which Museum, Sir?’

“It’s the Historical One, the one that has all the old weapons, armor, and relics.”

“That one, ok. What is the nature of the emergency?”

The young guard looked at the screen, watching that man with orange hair tear people apart with his bare-hands, a sense of dread sank into his stomach. The feeling was so intense that it made him want to fall to the floor and ball up like a frightened child. He hadn’t felt like that sense saw his childhood puppy get hit by a car right in front of him.

He didn’t realize he had been stuck staring at the screen, until one of the other guards shook him. The lady on the other end didn't stop trying to communicate with him.

“Sir?”

“Sorry.” The words that he said weren’t sincere, he didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted to flee. “There’s a man here killing people like animals, and he did something to their bodies…” On another screen, two lanky things were mauling people, splattering blood and limbs everywhere. “They're getting back up and killing people.”

He didn’t stop paying attention this time, the operator stopped trying to talk to him for a full five seconds. “Are you sure? You’re not under the effects of any illegal substances are you?” He looked around at the other guards. “Even if I was, I don’t don’t have enough for everyone here to be imagining the same thing.”

“I see, is this armed assault?” There was a plea in her voice.

“Only if you count him killing people with his arms.”

He heard a crack in her voice. “How many would you estimate-”

“Is this really the time?!” The young guard broke. “Just send the fucking cops already! People are getting killed! This isn’t something that we can handle, so fucking- ” He stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Sir, how many?”

“I don’t know, at least twenty? Probably more.”

“When did the attack start?”

“Ten minutes ago, maybe? I don’t know, he just appeared and started killing people, we’d have to rewind the footage to know for sure.”

“Don’t touch the footage.” The operator warned. “I’m going to send you to a different line now. For what it’s worth, I wish you all well.”

“Thanks-”

“Here’s what you're going to do.” A strong, deep voice spoke to him. “You’re going to shut down any cameras that are recording, you're going to patch me into the Curator, then you’re going to walk out the nearest exit, and forget everything you saw.”

“What?”

“Do I need to repeat myself?” He asked calmly.

“No, it’s just-”

“Do as I say, and you get to walk out of here without any trouble, try and do anything funny, and I’ll make sure you never have a moment of peace again, Xavier.”

Xavier, the young guard, froze. “How-”

“There’s only so many security aids at the Museum under thirty, Xavier, and on shift, it wasn’t hard to figure out.” The man on the other end breathed out slowly. “Now, I don’t want to do that, but I will if you make things harder than they have to be. So, call your boss, tell him to pick up the fucking Scroll, and then you can go home, alright? We can even make sure you get paid for the whole week, and at double time, considering what’s about to go down. Sounds good?”

“...Yeah,” Xavier swallowed. “I’ll do what you say.”

“Good man.” Then the call ended, and then Xavier called the Curator. “Mr. Stone, you need to pick up, it’s from -”

“I know. Just, go home, son.” The call ended. Xavier watched as his co-worker filed out like a demon was chasing them. Soon, it was only him left in the office, the rest having left him to shut down the cameras.

His fingers fidgeted as took a step towards the cameras, watching as two young men were being closed in on by those monsters. Xavier stared for a moment, watching with disbelief, as a flame of rebelliousness rose up inside of him.

----

A call over the intercom would help sooth the visitors as they left, offering an explanation to soothe their minds. 

‘Attention visitors, a Gas-Leaks has been identified in several points in the building. Please, in a calm and orderly manner, find the nearest exit and leave. If you hold onto the receipts for your tickets, we will refund your entrance fee at a later date.’ The sound that came over the intercom was the voice of a pleasant, artificially polite young woman. ‘If you feel dizzy, light-headed, nauseous, or the symptoms of a panic-attack, please seek medical attention. If you cannot seek medical attention on your own, please wait in the courtyard, the City of Vale has been alerted to the situation, and medical experts are on their way.’ 

That was the explanation. Anything that seemed weird was just the gas playing tricks on the senses. The Gas was the reason for the disquiet, their instincts warning them about the toxic air. Everything was fine, and this would all be sorted out in due time. No, there was nothing wrong with the Museum; they were leaving due to a gas leak. 

Those people that were moving oddly, watching them as they left, those were just people that needed medical attention. The attack that had happened? Probably just a man having a violent-outburst as a side-effect from inhaling the Gas. Anything else was hysteria!

Those who left made sure to remind anyone who brought this up, that they were misremembering, and needed to move on. It was just an unfortunate incident that no one was prepared for.

 It was easier to forget than to change.

-----

 Attack!

Trained reflexes spoke before conscious thoughts could. Ren unconsciously catches something out of the corner of his eyes, as a shadow moves, clawing towards his head. It was only just slightly lighter than the shadows around it, so seeing it move was jarring enough to draw attention.

No words came to Ren’s mind, as his body acted ahead of his thoughts. There was no time to make a plan, or strategy, as they were attacked. He was numb to the world and himself, as a group of strangers suddenly set upon them. Something drawled out across the loud-speaker, it sounded alien, as Ren fell into the motions of combat.

A long, dark arm swept at his face in a wild, but unsubtle swing. Ren stepped back, it seemed to crawl across the inches over his skin, feeling the wind rush across his face from the force, and allowing him a detailed look at the heavy claws that almost rent his skull in two. Five claws of differing lengths and widths, covered with what looks like black-colored plaster. He had enough time to realize they weren’t very sharp, and if they hit him, they wouldn’t cut, they’d rip into like dull meat hooks. Painfully.

It had come at him from the left. He stepped back in, turning to face his attacker; they had yet to recover from missing the swing, allowing him to snake a jab through a non-existent guard across their jaw.

It landed solidly, and despite Ren’s fists being well-conditioned from his long training, it hurt.  It felt like he had struck concrete instead of flesh, and his opponent didn’t seem affected despite hitting them dead-on in the jaw, it should have knocked them out cold. He could see them turning to swipe at him again, and Ren snuck another jab in on the head, and followed up with a cross, the first hit knocking the head back, and the last knocking it off balance.

Ren snuck his leg behind his opponents, then pushed with a palm strike to its off balance torso, sending it tumbling down onto the ground. Where it writhed, trying to get itself off the floor, allowing him a chance to see what he was fighting, and it came with the grim realization that he was not fighting a person. There was no way it could be.

It was like someone had been molded out of black clay, and given a pair of beady, red eyes. It’s arms nearly dragged across the floor, and it’s legs looked almost short by comparison. Its head seemed swollen and round, like a snowman made of black earth. Small pieces of white bone seemed to appear at random across it’s sinister body.

With that good look, it was clear that he hadn’t done any damage to it, or not at least to a meaningful degree. It was rising back up, slowly getting it’s limbs under it. Ren fought back his disgust watching it. He needed to finish this.

Looking inward, he found his center, and let it flow out through his core. Stepping forward, he made a motion that defied human limits for a brief instant, as he kicked low at the head of the creature. There was a brief pink flash of light as the arch of his left foot caught it across the center of its head, there was a slight amount of resistance, and then there was none. Only a disturbing glob of red and black matter across the wall behind the creature.

He stood there staring at the scene, as his awareness expanded outward as the focus of combat evaporated. What in the world was that? What had just happened? He looked down at the steaming black matter beneath him. Ren was struck with a sense of dread and dis-ease at the sight. Confusion followed as his thoughts fell into chaos, trying to make sense of what just happened.

The sound of a body falling to the ground behind him stirred his mind back into action, ‘Jaune!’ What if he was being attacked too? He wasn’t going to leave his friend to fend for himself! Turning around, he moved to intercept anything coming towards the blonde, only to have to stop himself.

Ren stared at the sight of his friend, standing over two of those things, their bodies brutalized beyond identification, breathing steadily, calmly, holding one of things by the head and a stanchion in the other. He let the last one drop to the floor, before clubbing it into a pile of black mush.

Jaune looked at him, meeting his eyes, and Ren took a step back unconsciously. His eyes were empty and entirely focused on him, his face blank, cold even, as if this was nothing of note to him. His body told a different story, as it seemed ready to spring into motion at any second, like he was about to strike at any moment. 

Then light came back to his eyes. “Behind you!” Ren sidestepped, just in time to avoid what would have been a killing blow, as a clawed hand swept past him. He peered out of the corner of his right eye, seeing a new one of those things appear. He slid behind it, and kicked it forward, sending it stumbling towards Jaune, who swung down with Stanucion on its head. Black fluid flying everywhere.

Ren and Jaune stood there for a moment, taking each other's measure. 

“You ok?” Jaune broke the tension.

“Yeah, I think, how about you?”

“I’m good.”

“I didn’t know you had gotten so adept at … handling things.” Ren observed the mess on the ground.

“Yeah, uh, you do pretty good yourself.” Jaune peered around for any more challengers. “I think we’re good for now.”

Ren’s eyes lit up. “We need to find the girls. Now.”

Jaune nodded. “Agreed, let's get going.”

The two took off sprinting down the hall, with the drinks they went to get, now left behind in the mess of battle behind them.

----

“Ah!” Ruby jumped, as a hand reached out from the shadows behind her. With a quick slap that glowed with a silver light, it was sent away back to it’s hissing owner. As Blake stepped out behind her.

Ruby looked at her embarrassed, opening her mouth to apologize, but Blake cut her off. “Not now! Bigger things are at play, and we need to get the other girls together.” Ruby tried to respond, but Blake’s shadows moved faster than sound, as they drew over the both of them. Leaving an empty space where they just were.

A sensation that was like being stretched, shrunk and pulled through a tube the size of an atom hit Ruby all at once. It wasn’t painful, but it was disorienting and uncomfortable. It wasn’t any different from being stuck in a space too small for her, just that it didn’t damage her, or give her time to panic. Judging by the series of yelps and sounds of surprise, she wasn’t the only one, as all of them, aside from Pyrrha and Blake, tumbled onto the floor.

“We have a problem.” Blake led with. 

Weiss scowled up at her, as she rose on shaky legs. “It better be a big one.”

“It doesn’t get much bigger than a General of Grimm.” Blake’s face was set and firm. “I saw him and he had a magical presence unlike anything I’ve met, and he was very clearly controlling some kind of Grimm that he was attaching to people.”

“Oh,” Weiss took a step back, the information hitting her like a sucker-punch. “I should have known the power here would have drawn him in.”

Pyrrha seemed tense, stuck between shame and anger.

“Wait, what was he doing to people?” Ruby asked, eyes wide and alert.

“He was putting masks on people, they were… I’m sorry, but If it didn’t kill them instantly, It did by now.” Blake let that sink in. “We need to stop him from doing it to anyone else, and more importantly, stop him from getting the Power that’s building up here.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?!” Ruby’s words were like a sledgehammer.

Blake subtly looked away from Ruby’s bright silver eyes. “There was nothing I could do, and he had already attached the masks.” She looked towards Pyrrha. “And, considering she couldn’t defeat him on her own, I didn’t want to take any chances.”

“You didn’t even transform!” 

Blake forced her eyes back at Ruby. “I have enough targets on my back as it stands! I’m not going to have another one forced upon me by transforming in public!”

Rubys eyes glowed brighter, but Blake didn’t back down this time. 

Yang, surprisingly, stepped in. “Not the time, girls.” She sighed, fire beginning to engulf her, as the transformation began. “The longer we wait, the bigger lead this Grimm Creep gets to kill people and do what he wants.”

Pyrrha had finished her transformation. “Agreed, we need to stop him swiftly and decisively.”

As the transformation finished in the secluded room, Red stared at Blake. “Before you take us to him, just tell me. Did you see Jaune among them?”

A faint sense of dread fell among Yellow and Crimson, while White and Black looked at her in surprise. “He’s here?”

“Yeah, with Ren at least, so did you see them?”

Black thought carefully. “No, not them, but the longer we wait, the more in danger they will be in. A regular human like him, or Ren? They don’t stand much of a chance against a Grimm General, not even the previous generation allies like Dragonfist, or Harbinger would be able to beat him, much less the Shadow Knight.”

Red looked at her fiercely, eyes glowing like the full moon. “Then get us there, yesterday.” 

----

It was at the intersection of hallways that led to different exhibits that the two highschool boys came upon the next encounter. As several Monsters took turns slamming against a utility closet and making good progress on knocking it open. Everytime one of those things slammed a long arm against the door, the sounds of panic leaked out.

It took Ren several moments to notice that he was running alone, he looked back to see if Jaune had tripped, or been attacked, only to see his longtime friend having charged straight into the pack of those things! What was he thinking?!

Ren had a half-second to process this, conflict boiling up inside him. He couldn’t just leave the girls alone, every second he waited was a second that could get them hurt, or worse. But, he also couldn’t just leave Jaune. He was felt torn in half by two different priorities, internally damning the people who were stuck behind that door, and Jaune too was he was at it!

Cursing under his breath, he dove into the fray. Just as a monster was creeping up behind his friend, Ren called on his center again, sprinting forward, he leaned back and kicked high, aiming at the neck of the monster. A flash of pink light shone across the impact site, a small shock-wave rolling out across its body, as its neck cracked and shattered. It fell down limply.

The fight didn’t last long between the two of them working together, the two of those things lying broken on the ground and not getting back up. Jaune went to knock on the door. Ren grabbed his wrist, breathing deeply. “What just possessed you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean!” Ren hissed. “You almost got yourself killed! We need to go and get to Nora and Velvet! We can’t be playing heroes!”

Jaune looked at him with heavy eyes. “And, what if Nora and Velvet are behind that door?”

Ren didn’t have an answer.

“Even if they aren’t, I’m not going to walk past a person in need.” Jaune knocked on the door, as he called out to the utility closet. “You’re safe! If you want to follow someone out of here, you can follow us.” There was a soft conversation from behind the door, as a young couple opened the door meekly.

They stared in awe at the sight before them, and Ren had to admit he was flattered. Still the urge to find Nora and Velvet, to make sure they were ok, was eating him up inside. He flashed a look at Jaune, urging him to get a move on.

Jaune returned a look at him, a very heavy and dutiful one. A message was passed between them. Ren was free to leave, but Jaune wouldn’t abandon anyone he could see was in need of help. Ren wanted to curse him, and run looking for their friends.

If not for the thought of, what if it was Nora behind that door? What if by abandoning these people, he lost Nora in the process, if she was one of them? 

Jaune snapped a quick order to the couple, to grab anything they could use as a weapon in there and quickly, they needed to make a move on. While the couple was searching, Ren turned to Jaune. “And, if it gets you killed, what then?”

“I won’t die, not if someone that I can help is in front of me.”

Ren looked at the blonde, then shook his head. “I swear, you make me want to believe you.”

 A couple seconds later, the couple had returned, the man holding a heavy-duty wrench and the woman a pair of pliers duct-taped to what used to be a broom.

Their pace took a hit, as the couple was unathletic and couldn’t keep up with the sprint that Ren and Jaune had set beforehand. However, they didn’t need to wait long as they heard the sounds of combat and yelling up ahead, one that sent Ren’s heart swelling as he could have recognized it anywhere.

Running faster than he thought he could, they entered the dinosaur exhibit, where Nora stood on top of a t-rex’s skeleton wielding a petrified femur and bashing it across the heads of anything that got too close, while Velvet hid behind her, making a squeaking whenever one of those long-limbed things got too close.

“Yeah! Who wants another of Mama’s Nora’s asskicking special! You or you or you! Or how about you!?” She screamed wildly as they climbed up, only to get knocked down from a series of chaotic headblows.

Wasting no time, the two boys launched into an assault on the gathered monsters. There were seven of them gathered around the skeleton display, trying to climb up and get to the pair of girls. One already almost at the top, which had to deal with Nora clubbing it over the head, over and over, until it fell down.

Jaune went to work grabbing the monsters and throwing them to the ground, with Ren making critical blows that left them, if not dead, crippled enough for the couple to come along and finish them off, with much effort on their part.

When down to the last one there came a scream from above as Nora jumped down holding the femur over head, smashing it into the smooth inky head of the monster, splattering it into uncountable pieces that would leave a forensic scientist incredibly frustrated.

“Nora!” Ren cried out, catching her just after she smashed the monster to pieces, barely keeping himself tripping as he caught her.

“Hello!” Jaune looked up at Velvet who was still stuck up on the T-Rex. “I need help, please!” 

Jaune looked at Nora and Ren, then at Velvet. “I’ll be up in a second.”

“Please do! I don’t have the courage to jump!”

It wasn’t long before he climbed up and to Jaune’s surprised Velvet practically bonded to his arm, shaking. Not that it was much of a problem for him, as he easily carried her down. He noticed that Ren was still carrying Nora, as he got back down.

“Hey, hey Rennie, I’m fine, thanks to you hunky lads!” Not that she didn’t appreciate the closeness, as she pulled him closer. 

Ren didn’t let go for a long moment, he opened his mouth, he couldn’t think of any way to put the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions in mouth and turn them into proper words. He had so many things he wanted to say, but no way to say them.

Nora felt the tension around him, slowly rubbing his back. “It’s fine, I’m fine.” 

Ren squeezed tight, then let go. “Please, keep close.”

Jaune watched the two, a sense of guilt weighing over him, something compounded by the shaking faunus attached to his arm. He should have never agreed to this. All the if’s in the world hitting him, on how this could have been avoided. Like he was suddenly dropped in a pitch-black room with white letters crawling over the walls, spelling out all the ways he could have stopped this.

None of them spelled out what to do now. He was at a loss, and honestly, just wanted a damn break for one day. He looked at Velvet, still holding onto his arm like a raft, completely out of his depth on how to help her. As the Shadow Knight he never really had to worry about helping someone's mental state. It was more, that he killed what was distressing them, and moved on.

“H-how?” Velvet whispered so low that Jaune barely caught it.

“Yes?”

“How are you so calm?” Her eyes darted around the room, her rabbit ears alert and looking for danger. “I feel like my heart is about to implode.” Jaune nodded, he could feel her thudding heart with how tightly she clamped against his left arm.

He smiled dryly. “Am I?” Velvet looked at him in disbelief. “I don't feel that way, it’s just that, if I started going crazy and acting afraid, it wouldn’t help anybody.” 

“You’re afraid?” Velvet asked, disbelief in her every syllable.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jaune answered tiredly. “My friends, myself, and a bunch of strangers are stuck in a Museum crawling with weird, tall monsters, with who knows what worse things waiting around the corner? It’s natural to feel fear, and I’d be insane to not be afraid, even if it was just the tiniest nugget of fear in the world.”

“D-do you always feel fear?”

Jaune laughed, it was both bitter and sad, but with a hint of pride. “Everyday, Velvet. Not a day goes by without me being afraid.”

“Everyday?”

“Yeah. It’s always something, something to be worried about, and it’s not about me either. I’m not just afraid for myself, but for my friends, my family, and sometimes, complete strangers. I just can’t help myself, fear is my oldest and strongest emotion.”

“How do you live like that? It must be unbearable. You’ve always seemed like one of the strongest people I know, if you live like this, then how does anyone live like this? Is that just what life is, going from one fear to another until you die?” Her ears drooped. “Why live at all then, if it is going to be so miserable?”

Jaune didn’t answer back for a moment, gently, but firmly, grabbing her hand. “I think other people are why. Life might be full of fear and uncertainty, but it’s also full of people, good, bad, and in between. They might make you feel fear, anger, jealousy, and all these other emotions, but at the same time, they fill in the spots of your life that you didn’t know were empty. I think that outweighs the grief lifes brings upon us, simply by having these connections that make life so meaningful. It won’t always be that way, but the fact we can lose it, well doesn’t that just make it worth something? 

“It’s what makes fear valuable too, as you know what you have to lose, it’s necessary evil. It can paralyze at times. Not just physically, but in the head too. But, other times, well, it can make you do things you never knew where possible. Go beyond your limits simply due to fear of losing your life, a friend, or even something simple like your favorite piece of junk, it’s a power all on its own. But, most of all? It’s something that everybody can understand, it’s a universal experience. All it comes down to at the end of the day is the person who’s feeling it,” Blue eyes met brown. “And how they chose to use that emotion.”

Velvet's eyes regained some as light as she stared at him and digested his words. Jaune softened his grip, realizing that he grabbed her in the first place, slowly letting go of her. “That’s how I look at things. It may not be healthy, or rational, but it’s how I live. It’s how I’m going to keep living.” He looked at her, searching her for a response. 

She looked away. “I just need a minute.” Her ears twitched, brown eyes darting to look at him for a moment, then shying away. “Not that you did anything bad! It’s just, I need to reassess my thoughts.

“Okay. Take all the time you need.” He looked at Ren and Nora, with the two of them giving him sly smiles. “Those two are there if you need them, I’m going to make sure that our other two party members are doing ok.”

Nora sped in as soon as he left, with Ren joining him over to the young couple they saved. “So, Nora’s fine?”

“I needn’t have worried. She was having a blast.”

“Just shows how much you care for her.”

Ren smiled. “More than she can imagine. Velvet?”

“I don’t know, she’s not in the best of states.” Jaune bit his lip, thinking of how to put his words. “It’s up to her how she wants to handle this. I’ll do my best to protect her, for whatever that’s worth.”

Ren ran his eyes up and across Jaune’s body, from his feet to his hips to his shoulder then met his eyes. “Enough. More than enough. I’d say.” He paused looking at Jaune’s hands, looking at the calluses. “You’re more than skilled enough to protect a person or two.”

Jaune smiled. “I appreciate that.” He looked up. “It never feels like it’s enough.”

“What does?”

“My skills. Experience. My ability to fight. It never is.” Jaune stopped talking, remembering who he was talking to. “I must have taken a hit to the head. I don’t listen to me.”

Ren gave him a thin smile. “Never stopped me before,” He looked relaxed, but his eyes were alert and discerning. “Though, I think your real problem is, you’ve had too many late nights. Maybe, you need to start living in the daylight?”

Jaune paused, looking at Ren, measuring him and his words. “If it was that easy, I would. Days are short, and nights feel so long.” He looked across the exhibit, there was a trio of standing stones on the other end of the room. For a moment, he thought he saw a shadow move. Ren caught his attention.

“They don’t have to be. Good company can make days long and nights short.”

His eyes drawn back to the standing stones. The shadow was gone. “You’re right about that. If only there were people fit to be out so late.” Jaune looked at Ren in a very meaningful manner.

“Is that so, would that imply you are?”

“I’m still standing aren’t I?”

Ren chuckled. “Barely. But, your point stands.” He sighed. “We’ll continue this at a later date and time, hopefully we'll not be fighting for lives then, too.”

Jaune cracked a broad smile. “That’d be great, wouldn’t it? … and I suppose I don’t have a choice do I?”

“No. You do not.”

“Pardon me.” The two of them turned to face the young couple. They had been talking in front of them for a little bit now. “Have we got a plan to get out of here?” The man asked, holding a heavy wrench in his hand anxiously, his partner/girlfriend/wife(?) was looking at them, hopefully holding a make-shift spear.

Jaune looked at Ren, then back at them. “Yeah, don’t worry.” He didn't have a plan, other than kill everything in a line from A to B till they were out of here, but they didn’t need to know that. “Just follow our lead, and we’ll have us out of here in no time.”

Ren nodded. “Yes, we have already discussed with each other the minute details down to the letter, with back-up plans in place as well. It is already in motion as we speak, and can’t give great details as they will become apparent as we come into them, just know you are already doing your part as you follow Jaune’s order,” Jaune looked at Ren, since when had he been put in charge? “Everything will become clear, and work as intended, as you will understand your roles and importances as irreplaceable assets in Jaune’s plan.” Jaune’s smile wavered. “Over time, you will understand how you slot into the spaces needed to fill the very important roles you two will have, along with any other survivors. Any questions?”

The young couple looked thoroughly lost by Ren’s intentionally vague explanation, but also oddly proud and secure in knowing that someone knew what was going on. The two turned to Jaune with looks of amazement that someone had a plan of action. “N-no, I think we understand. By the way, I guess we should introd-” The young woman tried to speak, but was cut out.

“HEY!” Nora called them over, cutting off the couple mid-introduction. “Velvets got a brainy-plan thing!”

“Nora, please!”

“But, you do! It’s a good one!”

That quickly took precedence over any introductions, as they gathered around Velvet expectantly.

“Look, it’s just a simple idea.” She tapped her foot quickly, not committing to looking at anyone. “We should arm ourselves, I think.” She almost backpedaled, but remained steadfast. “It’s just,” She looked at the couple with the make-shift weapons, Ren’s bare hands, Nora’s club, and Jaune’s stanchion. “I think the Museum won’t mind us using something for its historical purpose, with circumstances as they are.” 

The blonde stared at the faunus, a broad smile on his face. “I like it.” He looked around. “Any opposed to us arming ourselves in the midst of a life or death situation?” No one seemed to. “Alright, let's arm ourselves.”

Quickly the group left, unaware as behind them, sitting on the top of the standing stones and kicking her feet into the air, was a girl with mismatched eyes watching them with amusement. Dropping down and following as the group left the exhibit for anything that would weigh the odds in their favor.

Omake: The Stealth Arc(h)er 

The Shadow Knight looked at his horse, and then on the ticket on its forehead, then back at his ticket. 

“What do you mean he’s not street legal?” He looked at his stallion. “I thought they’d be more concerned about all the horse crap, but I guess not.” The knight scratched his head. “Oh well,” He looked at the boot they put on his horse. “That’s just cruel.”

The stallion snorted. 

“Yeah, I figured you agree.” A few minutes of fiddling later, his horse was free. “Alright, go back home. We’ll figure this out another night.”

He snorted. 

“Of course you’d say that, if you bring any mares back, put a horse-shoe on the stables or something.”

The stallion went over and nudged Shady with its bulky head. “Ok, fine here.” He handed over a sack of apples. “There, go impress some lady horses.”

The equine nudged his head against him again gratefully, then trotted off into the distance. “There goes Buckeye, oh well. He’ll be back.” The Knight looked at his bow and quivers. “Well, I don’t have the time to go and change out equipment, let's make this work on foot.”

Walking into the nearest alleyway, a Grimm seemingly materialized out of the shadows, yet to notice anyone, peacefully existing between bouts of murder.

Also materializing out of the shadows, unnoticed, was the Shadow Knight. Who then crouched, holding his bow in a very awkward manner, fired an arrow that struck true. The Beowolf died instantly, its body rag-dolling across the alley way, despite only barely sinking into the head.

The Knight looked at his bow, then at the still rag-dolling Grimm. “Ok?” He looked at the Grimm whose limbs were stretching out and flying all over the place. He fired another arrow, launching it into the night sky. Where it zoomed past a quintet of magical girls, who flinched as it passed by.

“What was that?!” Yellow cried.

“I don’t know!” Red responded.

Shadow Knight looked at the now long gone Grimm. “Huh, that was easy.” Several dozen red-eyes closed in on him, only for him to crouch and the pack of beasts to be left looking vaguely confused. At least until a storm of arrows hit them, sending them to meet their kin in outer space.

White stared in horror as several black and white meteorites flew towards them. “Oh, Dear Oum-”

[familiar-anonymous]

10 Hob x Dream AU Fanfic Prompts :

(Cause they are my current drug)

★ Morpheus visits human realm in a different physical appearance for reasons and coincidentally meets Hob. But he doesn’t reveal himself to the immortal man (cause it would require a lot of explanation like him being the anthropomorphic personification of Dream and such). He then hears Hob telling someone about the person he loves who is silent, mysterious and arrogant like a cat. But is also angelic, graceful and softhearted. Dream is strangely jealous and slightly hurt cause Hob didn’t speak about this person (who is clearly very important to him) at all on their last meeting. It takes Dream a ridiculously long time to realise that Hob is talking about him.

★Hob is a teacher who loves his job and his students. When he sees a renowned billionaire is looking to hire a tutor for his son, he goes to the interview. The son has had behavioural problems in school and was threatened with expulsion, so the single father, Morpheus decided to hire a qualified professional to assist in his son's issues. The more time Hob spends with the small family, the more he realizes that the son's behavioural problems stem from his poor relationship with his father. Dream being the stubborn brood he is, initially disagrees with Hob's reasoning, but eventually yields. The longer Hob spend in the role of caregiver to both father and son, the more he starts to feel like this is where he belongs.

★ Dream is a traditionalist Alpha who believes omegas can't play the same role as the Alphas in the society. His alpha sister Death suggests that he should meet more Omegas in real life and befriend them before forming such an opinion. And guess who she thinks is the perfect non-stereotype omega to be able to change Dream's mind? Yes, Hob Gadling of course. (Can be applicable for noble or royal! Dream and commoner!Hob as well)

★The mandatory nerd!Dream × jock!Hob dorm roommate AU. They are total opposite of each other. Dream is always mad at the world and Hob's an eternal optimist. One loves Shakespeare and the other hates it. While one is a cat person then the other is a dog person. Dream's an introvert and Hob is an extrovert, party-animal. Unsurprisingly these two polar-opposite men doesn’t manage to get along at first. But with time a lot of things change, and so do their opinions and feelings for each other.

★ Wrong number texting AU: Morpheus is a CEO (or writer as par the major part of fandom's first choice for his profession). He is not very comfortable with technology. One day while trying to text his assistant Matthew, he accidentally sends the text to a wrong number. That wrong number belongs to Hob obviously. (I will probably elaborate this one in another post. Cause Texting AU is one of my most favourite tropes)

[Edit: I have started this story. You can find it here!]

★ (this one is kinda angsty? And there's too many 'what if's. But still my favourite. So just don't look too closely.) Death dies somehow and the new anthropomorphic personification of Death takes Hob's life without realising he was special. Dream gets furious and devastated. So in order to calm him and bring peace in dreaming and mortal realm again, he was promised Hob's reincarnation. So Hob gets reincarnated but without any memories of his past long life. Dream meets this Hob when he is an adult. Hob obviously doesn’t remember him, but they gradually becomes friend again. The problem is that this Hob doesn’t seek immortality, at least not out loud, not where Dream or Death can hear him. So they can't offer him immortality either. Dream watches Hob getting old (he changes his own appearance to seem as old as Hob too) and dying again. Just like Dream was promised Hob gets reincarnated again... and again, in every century. And Dream meets them and loves them in every incarnation. He collects memories with each Hob in terms of photos, short notes or gifts. Then one day one incarnation of Hob somehow stumbles in Dream's palace in dreaming realm. He finds dream's collection of his previous lifes memories,, and secrets get revealed.

★ Student! Dream x Teacher! Hob AU: Dream is that student who gets the highest marks in all subjects even though they don’t response in class at all. Even if he is asked a question, he just glares and then looks away. But only Hob's class is different. When Hob asks any silly question with his charming smile and cocky eyebrow, Dream can't help but blush and stutter out an answer.

★ It's not surprising that someone like Hob Gadling has many admirers among his students, colleagues or acquaintances from the New Inn. Some nights these admirers dream about him. Sometimes their dreams become a bit intimate. As the King of dreams and nightmares, Morpheus is always aware of these kind of dreams. And before he knows what he is doing, he appears in those people’s dream just to say, "This dream is over".

★ What if Lyta Hall died during or after the child birth? Maybe because of some conceiving-in-dream complicity or from the grief of losing her love of life for the second time? Dream has already claimed that one day her son will belong to him. So in case of Lyta's death, no matter what the cause, he would obviously take responsibility of the child.But Morphius is hardly capable of raising a human child on his own. And who would he take help from? While Lucienne or Death are surely Queens, they are still not human and have their own duties. I know Rose was Lyta's friend and will probably want to help raising her son. But she is young and already struggling with all the brand-new responsibilities (being Jed's guardian, Unity's successor, job-hunting etc). So Dream's sole option is to seek help of the only human being he calls friend, aka Hob Gadling. He already has experience of raising (at least?) a child after all. And after Dream explains everything (including his and the child's real identity) to him, there's no way Hob can refuse to help his desperate long-term friend. So he agrees to take care of the boy. At first they just sort of coparent, with Dream visiting Hob more often, every week if not everyday, to take care of the child. Eventually they get married and be the perfect Gay Dads for their son.

★ Morpheus got stuck in his Cat form.(And, no, I don’t care how it happens) He goes to meet Hob as a cat. But he obviously can't talk in public in his cat form. So it takes awhile for Hob to realise that the cat with sulky mood and teary eyes that's been following him around is his friend.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I have posted the last three in three separate posts before. But added them here anyway to keep record. I will probably keep adding to this list (that no one asked for) as long as my DreamLing addiction lasts. I mean I already have countless other AU ideas, such as dating apps au, vampire (x werewolf) AU, common ex [ william ;) ] or fake dating au, pride and prejudice AU, fifty shades of grey AU and so on. I didn’t want to make this post even longer and more boring than it already is, so kept those ideas stored for another post, lol.

[zoobus]

You said to ask how you felt about Kato in Green Hornet so I'm doing just that

Keep in mind I haven't seen this movie in like ten years so the mental essaypost I made has faded and become inaccurate with time

Green Hornet (2011) was a fun movie overall, a surprisingly not-bad January release. Pretty funny, quick action, looked cool.

Again, I am ten years removed from the essays I loved to read examining and analyzing racial depictions in Hollywood, but I'd say the desexualization of Asian men is fairly well known? You'd see an Asian man in a leading role and a hot girl in the hot girl role (you know how it is, plz excuse the implied misogyny) and somehow they would never end up together for some strange reason. I know there's a long list of Romoe-Must-Die type movies out there (because I read it that list 10+ years ago):

I've seen plenty of action movies and seeing some tragic shit has never stopped the impenetrable force of stupid action movie romantic hook-ups, ever.

Anyway, Green Hornet spent most of its time looking like it would transcend the stereotype of weirdly cockblocking their rare Asian male lead - it's made abundantly clear that Kato (Jay Chou) is 100000% cooler, smarter, sexier than the Hornet (Seth Rogan). (Side note, I think this was the first movie I ever saw of Seth Rogan and how come no one's ever commented on the fact that he sounds like Grover Monster from Sesame Street? I thought he was doing a bit for the first third of the movie). Kato is slick, manipulative in a badass way. After he and Hornet meet Cameron Diaz' character, not only is their romantic tension between them, it's obvious they hook up. Kato was not going to this woman's house at night for actual "piano lessons," come on.

So hey, representation, we finally got a Hollywood movie where the Asian guy wins right? Wrong. Kato and Hornet get in some stupid boy-fight near the end of the movie and Kato, clearly in the heat of the moment, vulgarly says he fucked Cameron Diaz' character, knowing Hornet will seethe will jealousy over it. And seethe he does! Mr. tattletale runs crying to her and repeats all the stuff his friend said, Diaz gets mad and insists they never did anything together, he's lying (she's lying), and...their relationship is over I guess. She kind of forgives him, but it's over.

You could read that as empowering since hey, how many times have we seen a male lead insult and degrade the trophy romantic girl for minor plot conflict, only for her to quickly forgive him before the story wraps up? For once we have a woman stand up for herself and cut that toxicity out of her life. She's not dating either of them by the movie's end - uncommon for an action movie!

I just couldn't help but note that the rare moment of no one winning the girl coincides with the rare moment an Asian dude had a genuine chance of doing so.

I could never find it now but I saw The Green Hornet right after I saw another movie that I don't remember the title of but I'll call "Russian movie about a magical car that is somehow a ripoff of Spider-man (2002) you'll have to trust me on this." At one point in that movie not!peterparker publicly slutshames not!maryjane for like...no reason. he was mad about his magic car and takes his fury out by degrading his girl to her face, in front of their peers, in class while she gawks at him. Nothing she did prompted this, he just uses her as a punching bag. And at the end? She forgives him. They get back together. The end.

It's not hollywood, but made me think about how common less extreme versions of that are and highlighted the disparities. Kato's outburst is, again, vulgar, but it felt like a heat of the moment thing, a private tantrum that his character would regret after calming down regardless, a personal moment that should have stayed between friends. IMO it came across like oh, asian lead? I'm a feminist now. We gotta give women agency, we have to let women know men aren't ENTITLED to their bodies, and we have to send that message right now, before there's a chance of this guy emasculating a white man.

but hey maybe it was a coincidence