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tempoaryblogformightyjensblog · 3 years

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After a Longass time, I'm gonna make a response post to a post from @itsclydebitches. Not sure if I'll acknowledge All

Of it, but still..

1.Thats, the opposite of what the First episode shows, the first episode shows that the Military presence in Mantle dosent really do anything to actually help them with the Grimm. With it even being joked about as usual for the Military by Nora. The next episode also states that wasn't even the reason James had for it. It was to handle the 'eventual' Panick.

2.This and the recurring point of this later on is something I kinda want to address, because it's sort of what I was trying to say in My ask but I should go into more detail.

The point is basically that If James was shady for what he did, then So is Ruby for being willing to work with him for that long...I kinda want to mix this with a different Criticism I heard. That Ruby not trusting Ironwood was horrible and ungrateful because of all the good stuff James had done and how sympathetic and well meaning he was. The issue is that they are both 2 halves of the picture that ignore the other half, wich was what the heroes actual response was.

Him being sympathetic, clearly just trying to help and all the Good stuff he was doing is why they are willing to work with him and help with things. But Ruby didn't like his shadier actions either, wich is why she didn't trust him completely. And also? ""Nora dosent agree...But Ruby, the leader, does. She pushed Ironwood to finish Amity somwhow", that....isnt What happens, we see After Nora yells at James, ruby walks up to him and tells him more calmly that his actions, his management of Mantle and such were only helping Salem and it's what was making it easy for Salem to frame him. And earlier on we saw her with the other protags suggest working with Robyn. That's not 'Reaping the benefits of his actions even if they don't like them', that's not liking some of his actions but still trying to Understand him, and hope to reason or talk him down. Basically...Well it's a display that the other charachterization for Ruby, that she was a judgmental child who considered anyone who went beyond her standard of perfection to be Evil, isn't true. She tries to help and Understand James because she knows despite his flaws he is trying to do good, she tries to reach out to him and get him to see his actions were flawed.

Hell, the Jobs they were actually given were jobs where they could actually help soften the consequences of James actions, like Ren and Nora guarding the wall. the Robyn thing was a direct display that they weren't just doing anything James asked or were perfectly fine with his morally ambiguous actions. When ordered to attack a Huntress who was just trying to help, they instead went against his orders and even tried to actually fix things in a better way.

3.This is a few different issues, I'll start by saying that, that wasn't Ozpins problem in the Previous Volume, Some fans and some of the Heroes in there Angrier times think that, But the big thing was basically that Ozpin wasn't trusting anyone With that Info, that's what separates it from Rubies situation with James, Ruby wasn't trusting James because he actually did have many traits that made him look untrustworthy. And...well Finishing Amity and the plan is not pointless even with Salems immorality. Ruby dosent 'Know' That her being immortal means that the whole plan is pointless for 2 reasons, 1 is that she never had the mindset that it made it all pointless, she was actually distinctly against that when the others thought that under the Apathies influence, and makes her stance clear later, that Salem being Unkillable doesn't mean she's unstoppable. And 2, she dosent 'Know' that because....Its not true. Even if they can't directly kill her like James is planning...Were explicitly, directly told in Salems first actual appearance in the show that Humanity United was a threat and that was why she was going to ensure she divided them. Not to mention that...It isn't even all about the plan? It's made clear that global communications being down was a really bad thing and fixing that alone would help.

4.Im just gonna address one point here...It was not 'The Majority of Mantle' Being taken, were told that they were not even close to being done evacuating.

5.Basically what I said at 2, But to also state, James wasn't an Unambiguous Bad guy in Volume 7, He was in the Wrong In Volume 7, but he wasn't meant to be a Villain yet. The point of James charachter is basically he's someone who meant well but was highly flawed and made bad decisions, and instead of growing from his mistakes, he doubled down on them and let his flaws consume him. I'll get to it more later, but, that doesn't mean he was always evil or meant to be, Also...Jaunes license was given to him by James but, he was not part of the Military being fused with Huntsman, especially by this point. And with Winters words in her and James fight, I have my own issues with that fight or Winters Arc, but I don't think that point holds up either because we weren't meant to see Winter as unambiguously a good guy in Volume 7. Her words in there fight was after she had changed, that dosent mean we're supposed to believe she was a hero while working under James. It just means her POV changed after leaving him, now she wasn't following her programming of being blindly obedient anymore. Penny called out Winter for her being willing to follow through with euthanizing the Winter Maiden, Marrow calls her out in Volume 8 asking the Weiss question.

6.Well, to answer the questions there, were told in episode 5 what the recources were. Clover says how they were taking 'Construction resources', were told this again by Penny in the Car ride, wich makes total sense. They are changing Amity so that it could serve as a shuttle, so needing Construction stuff makes sense. While we may not be told how much power James had explicitly, they do give us a decent idea, that he had way more then he should. It's said in the Council meeting that they set in Checks and balances to keep him from overstepping with his seats, and that he basically just Ignored them to pull the actions he did in Volume 7. And Watts gives us both one Major decision that shows James flaws and gives a Clue as to part of the reasons Mantle was crappy as it was, saying how James updated most of the code in Atlas after the fall of Beacon, but 'As Usual' None was updated in Mantle. Aside from showing a...Truly Spectacularly callous move on James part, it also gives a big clue as to part of the reason Mantle is as crappy as it is, That Atlas and James basically treat Mantle like an afterthought and neglects changing things there to make things better, resulting in the City's state that we see. And, I imagine that being surveillanced and patrolled almost constantly wouldn't be ideal, and it's established by Winters line in that first episode that not cooperating with Personal was a punishable offense. I think you also....Picked a really bad example with Rhodes, if anything, Rhodes is probably a perfect demonstration of why being complacent or loyal to a system is bad for Huntsmen. I think if he would have loved to help Cinder more, it's just that he was loyal to the System and wasn't doing anything to upset the status quo despite knowing it was wrong. If issues like that existed, then it makes James specialist program, wich is specifically supposed to be Huntsmen trained to be loyal to the system, an even worse idea. Also I sort of feel like the bits at the end are sort of a false equivalency. I explained Ozpin amd Rhodes but also...Well for one, while we don't see portals line up in those specific areas, the plan was to have Jaune explain what was going on with everyone. And Qrow, Marrow and Robyn were still taking in the other Ace ops,they knew the plan so they would likely just head over to the nearest portal after, and...Maria and Pietro weren't there. And in James case, it wasn't just him 'saving who he could', it's that he could have tried to do more but didn't because he didn't want to risk it, and as Volume 8 showed, they really did have lots of time to evacuate people and could have found a way to Launch Amity. And...Well in his case there's the little fact that, as his Convo with Oscar makes explicit, James plan involved leaving the rest of Mankind To the dust and at Salems mercy.

There are problems with RWBY, but I don't think it's shoddily written, partially because I don't really find it 'particularly' flawed and think the good far outweighs the bad. And you know what? To some degree, I agree. I do think there's a weird bias towards authority in the FNDM, but maybe alot of fans are too dismissive of criticism, I do think to some degree we should acknowledge the RWDE and such aren't all right wingers and there's now a Vocal part of it that are on the left or members of minority groups. I don't agree with a ton of the things they say, and think most of it dosent hold up, but instead of just dismissing, perhaps it's better to look at things in detail and give proper arguments agaisnt them. So I won't treat you like an idiot, I'm going to give a full rundown on why I don't feel like it holds up under analytical scrutiny.

For one, while it doesn't have those specific issues like in the real world, I don't agree with this Criticism because I feel it is the one that sort of ignores the worldbuilding and what's been shown or said about the Military and the world itself and not the show, It sort of feels like people just bring up the basic concepts that would seem reasonable and ignore how the show executes certain things. For one, the military was a leftover from a time when they were meant to fight against other humans, It was something an Authoritarian state held over after its defeat and reformation, James and the Military helped Jac as he turned the SDC into the horrific corporate empire it is, Covordin shows that Nationalism is indeed a bit thing and that there were high ranking officers who were fully comfortable with the possiblity of just waging war on the other Kingdoms again. And then there's the specialist program, I've seen people sort of distill it to its very basics to make it seem more reasonable, describing it as just stuff like Huntsmen having rules and such, when the show displays it being way more screwed up then that. It literally involves indoctrinating people as students, were shown Elm reprimand the protagonists saying how they don't need to think about Orders just follow them. As both Volumes show, the culture of the program is deeply screwed up and unhealthy for them, were shown how they taught stuff like repressing your emotions and how deeply unhealthy it is for them.

And...Furthermore? If we're judging by how things are In Universe with the show the world built...James way of doing things is, completely absurd. I already dislike Cynical 'This is the REAL world 'Types IRL. But....In the world James is in, his strategy is just....

He lives in a world where negativity causes monster attacks and the villains whole Shtick is manipulating narratives to cause disarray and ensuring people stay divided. James strategy involved closing off Atlas from the rest of Remnant after they were framed for causing the Fall of Beacon, never bothering to clear there name when sleet and Camilla say he could easily do so, he dismisses both his image across the Globe and in Atlas, and dismisses what the people of Mantle want and the stuff his actions currently cause, all as Neccesary sacrifices when that's all completely insane and Relies on basically ignoring absolutely everything about the situation they are in and how there enemy works, wich again, Ruby points out, that he was actively playing into Salems hands and making it easier for her.

I think it's a decent display of the Tunnel Vision James has, he's prepared for the negativity of the END result of his plan and made preparations for it, but he...Basically ignores the consequences his actions are having right now and how that will affect his ends.

Overall...I think the issue is that James is not meant to be the Bad guy through Volume 7, and I feel like its not that the show 'contradicts' it's pure black and white take on things, it's just that it wasn't there to begin with. Whenever a Major flaw Ironwood had from the start is brought up, it's claimed that it means he was supposed to be 'Always evil'(admitedly some fans as well), when it dosent, it just means his flaws and darker aspects were always there and he didn't jump off the slippery slope instantly like some claim.

Were meant to sympathize with James, understand him, ECT. We're meant to want to see him get better, to be escatic when he does almost get better.

Overall, I don't agree with the idea that James was a reasonable charachter who was bastardized, the show set him up as flawed pretty well already, he's sympathetic because he's designed to be sympathetic. He's not potrayed as a Villain through 7 because he wasn't meant to be til the end.

Also...Well, even if you still felt that him 'Just' abandoning Mantle was still just morally gray...That isn't dropped in V8, it's bascially dropped not 2 episodes later. Where not only does he shoot Oscar but Oscar pointed out not only was he abandoning Mantle, but abandoning the rest of Mankind. Wich James just responds calling it an 'excellant philosophical point'.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby volume 7 #Anti-RWDE #I can finally sleep now...#itsclydebitchsz

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theangrycomet · 3 years

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Comparing KO’s (OK KO) Character Arc to Cassandra’s (TTS)

Ok THIS^ actually bothers me and I really hope it’s a shit-post. Sorry, @astratic, but you have inadvertently signed up for some Character Analysis.

Let’s establish one critical difference between Cassandra and KO before we really dig into this shall we?

Cassandra is a fully developed, fully functional adult roughly in her early to mid twenties.

KO is a CHILD, who’s age is literally 6-11, though fans typically agree that he acts in the 8-9 range. Additionally, he is commonly head cannoned to be on the Autistic Scale and/or ADHD.

Because of this, their decisions and actions need to be seen through different lenses.

Point 1: work tirelessly to become a hero like [parent] who you idolize

KO:

This statement perfectly depicts KO’s goals. KO strives to be a hero in order to help people to the best of his abilities. He hates being useless and powerless to help his friends, so he trains to be a better hero and works through his struggles with their help. He lives to be like his mommy and his father-figure. I mean, look at him when Gar praises KO and tells him how proud he is of him.

Cassandra:

Cassandra’s goals are different. She wants to be a guard at the end of the day for glory. She wants people to see and acknowledge her abilities and strength and admire her for it.

Yes, making her dad proud is a benefit of that, but that is NOT her driving motivation.

Point 2: Become discourage by lack of progress and hindrance by social status

KO:

Social status was NEVER KO’s problem. His stalling in progress, as I mentioned in another post, was a mental block. He couldn’t tap into his power He came from lower middle, working class family with a single mom.

Cassandra:

Social Status was her problem, but only up until the 1st season finale where she was placed as Captain of the Guard.

She had regular progress in getting more time and respect as a royal guard. The fact that She CHOSE to leave that behind in order to follow her crush on some half-baked, unplanned road trip is only the fault of her own. She threw out the chance she had been waiting for for her entire life to follow Rapunzel.

And than was given numerous opportunities through out the trip to leave and pursue other goals.

Point 3. Be Mentally Ill

Okay, first OP, you could phrased that WAY better.

Secondly, the mental struggles our characters face are completely different and largely incomparable so to group the two is insulting to both characters.

KO:

Disassociative Identity Disorder (or multiple personality disorder)

Possible Undiagnosed Autism and or ADHD

KO develops Disassociative Identity Disorder, due to his frustration at lack of progress, the manipulation of Shadowy figure, and his bottling up of negative emotions. KO is mostly unaware of what happens when TKO is in charge and vice-versa. It took the two a long time to figure out how to work together and eventually merge back into one personality.

He also demonstrates some traits typically associated with Autism and ADHD, though some of those could be on account of his age. It is a common head cannon amongst fans that his either and sometimes both.

Cassandra:

Cassandra doesn’t have to deal with any mental illness until the season 3 finale where it can be gleamed that she’s working through depression if you squint at it.

Yes, there is the Blueberry Ghost, but she was never a result of Cass’ mental state so much as her being host to the Moon Stone.

Her struggles lie in reigning in her anger and her pride so that she can see problems from unbiased perspectives and apologize for her actions. And that is left still unresolved by the time the finale comes around.

Point 4. find out long lost parent is actually horrifically villainous and have a whole crisis about it.

Perhaps, we need a little reminder here before I dig into this one:

KO is a child figuring himself out and Cassandra is an adult figuring out what she wants in life.

KO:

KO had been struggling with his darker side for quite some time before he asked his Mom about who exactly his dad was.

This was something the show had demonstrated time after time that bothered KO, not knowing who his dad was.

So he finds out his dad was this big time hero, and gets reassurance from that fact that he comes from great heroes, so he too can be a hero. Only for that to be immediately tossed out the window when it’s revealed that the only person he hates in the entire world, the person he dubs as the truly evil villain, is actually his father.

His whole world is not only shook to its core, but his self-confidence as well. Laserblast was a great hero who turned villain; what does that mean for a hero-in-training whose already struggling with that darker side.

Praise Carol for not killing PV on the spot.

Additionally, PV didn’t actually know KO even existed until a few months before this incident, and wasn’t even sure if KO was his kid (KO does coincidentally share a lot of Physical attributes to Gar) until KO came busting in, wearing Laserblast’s helmet and bragging about how his dad was a great hero.

So when they attempted to have that father-son relationship, it was as awkward and strained as it should have been. (I’ll get to the OK KO Finale in just a minute)

Cassandra:

Cass could have cared less as to whom her real parents were. She had her dad. She had her goals. She had her job. Who her parents were and why they dumped her on the Captain was irrelevant to her life.

She didn’t care until Season 3, and that whole season was OOC for everybody,

Even then, it wasn’t so much as a crisis so much as an excuse to use to fight Rapunzel. It didn’t matter that Gothel was her mother, it mattered that Gothel picked the Sundrop over her. Which in all honesty was the best thing that could have happened to Cass.

Her “crisis” revolved around a dead woman’s shattered legacy more than her mother.

Point 5: Fall under the influence of said Villainous parental figure

KO TKO: (again, a CHILD)

TKO was used and manipulated into letting his darker side show by Professor Venomous/ Shadowy Figure, (this is my opinion), in order to actually have something they could relate to eachother on.

Yes, Shadowy Venomous saw TKO as more of his tool for power, but you can’t deny that he wasn’t motivated to have his son by his side.

Additionally, KO had at this point literally locked away a part of himself because he didn’t have the tools to deal TKO with this mentally or emotionally. So he responded the best way he could and pushed the problem down so he and others wouldn’t have to keep cleaning up TKO’s messes.

KO was in desperate need for someone to understand how he was and how to help him.

And guess who was there.

Cassandra: (again, an ADULT)

Cass was never led on by Gothel, she was led on by Zhan Tiri.

Cass was delusioned that the moonstone was hers by Zhan Tiri just as much as Rapunzel was delusioned into thinking stopping the moonstone was her destiny by Demanitus.

However, Zhan Tiri really didn’t make Cass do anything, she never pushed her past the breaking point, she never forced her to do anything.

Baked Ziti only prompted Cass, reminding her what she was angry at.

Cass was perfectly capable of ignoring her and doing her own thing.

Point 6: suddenly and dramatically betray everyone you love even as they plead with you to stop. Become convinced they all hate you except for [villainous parental figure] who is actually just manipulating you to gain power.

This point is actually a very good description of what happened to both, given different contexts. Again, remember that KO is a child who is significantly more easily influenced than Cass should have been.

(Note: again, Zhan Tiri’s not her Parental figure and neither was Gothel)

Point 7: ruin everything and destroy your home

KO TKO:

His destructive rampage was motivated by the betrayal of the one person he believed to understand and support him entirely. He was literally grabbed by the shirt, lifted in the air, told he was nothing more than a tool at best, and that the plan to conquest together had been a lie.

Wonder where I’ve seen THAT BEFORE?

(Sorry about the low photo Quality, I quickly search and screen shotted so)

(yes it’s this scene that made me think Mad Ben and TKO would get along)

Cassandra:

Which betrayal are we talking about? Because both involve trained guards rightfully attacking Cass for injuring the crown royalty and wrecking the castle.

Point 8/9: snap out of it at the last second and be horrified at what you've wrought/ the world is fixed by an incredible magic. Reconcile with your loved ones. Flourish

KO:

This is accurate.

But KO didn’t have to lose his power to see how bad he messed up. He was actually at the top of his game. He probably could have taken out the President of the Universe if he really wanted to. Instead he begged for everything to get fixed, and wished that EVERYONE (even Professor Venomous) could live their best lives.

Cassandra:

She was only repentent AFTER she lost her power. Even then, she does not apologize for her actions but rather the circumstances and ONLY to Rapunzel herself. She does not care that she caused a world catastrophe, and still wouldn’t have had she won.

With how it was executed, Cass did NOT deserve such an easy redemption. She should have had to work at it. She should have at least attempted to apologize to the people whose lives she ruined. To the people she’s hurt. Not just Rapunzel. Rapunzel has no right to forgive her in place of everyone else.

Eugene should not have to forgive her.

Varian should not have to forgive her.

The Brotherhood honestly deserves to fight her in combat.

She should not have been able to ride off into the sunset and avoid the consequences of her actions.

BUT I digress.

IN SUMMARY:

KO and Cass, while they share some similarities, do NOT have the same Character Arc. At all.

Sincerely,

TheAngryComet

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opting-for-oblivion · 3 years

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A Matter of Jurisdiction

A lovely anon asked if I had anything to add regarding one of my recent tags, the gist of which was “In DMC, do you realize how much trouble Governor Swann’s letter would have caused (for the EITC) if it made it to England? Because Beckett did and he was not taking any chances.”

Because I am terrible at being succinct and because I love talking about this, I’m going to expand more generally on what I said in my tags on the post in question and approach some other questions about Lord Beckett’s authority later posed by the op of the original post. [Links to the relevant posts can be found in the replies, as Tumblr hates links.]

I will, fairly, preface this by saying that skimming Beckett’s PotC fandom Wiki does answer all of the questions regarding the EITC’s actions, and, to put the TL;DR at the beginning, that answer is often just “Lord Beckett had royal authority (and enough money) to do whatever he wanted.”

Nonetheless, if you’re curious how I’d nerd out over analyze the situation, please read on!

[A further note: I am not a historian, nor am I an expert on the alternate universe in which PotC is set. If I am, at any point, wrong, please let me know.]

While the main focus of the original PotC trilogy is the conflict between pirates (representing freedom) and the British Crown (representing, among other things, constraint, control, and exploitation), there exists within the British “side” a kind of internal conflict and this is what we see at play between Cutler Beckett and Weatherby Swann.

If you understand Beckett to be a merchant of sorts and the East India Trading Company to be just what it says on the tin -- a trading company -- then it might seem entirely out of order that Beckett invades Port Royal, crashes the governor’s daughter’s wedding, and disrespects (indeed, arrests) Swann the way he does. However, so far as legality goes, Beckett doesn’t cross as many lines as one would think (or, perhaps, the lines are not quite so clear). This is because Lord Beckett has the same royal authority that Governor Swann does and because the EITC is no mere trading company.

The EITC is a deeply politically invested entity. The Company operates with a royal charter, which means that it was granted certain rights by the monarchy. Specifically, the EITC has extensive military and administrative capabilities built into it. (I’ve even seen it referred to as part trade organization, part nation state.) When operating in the Indian Ocean and other areas outside of the jurisdiction of the British Crown, as it was originally intended to, the Company acts as an arm of British imperial power. This becomes a problem when the EITC attempts to exert said power where British Crown authority is already established, such as in the British Caribbean.

Swann is, of course, the king’s governor of Port Royal; his authority derives directly from the Crown as well. In fact, Weatherby Swann is said to be close friends with the king. However, the fact that Swann has personal ties to the aristocracy and Beckett does not doesn’t make their powers as unequal as one might think. The structures that each is part of are just about parallel.

The situation is not: Crown → Aristocracy → Merchants

But rather: Crown → Aristocracy & → EITC

While Beckett has been granted the title of lord by DMC, there is still a difference between those born into such a status and those who were not. (It’s sort of a big deal, especially for Beckett. His family had been wealthy merchants, but none of them had ever held a title.)

Because the two men have fairly equal standing in terms of pure authority, their being at odds become a tricky matter of jurisdiction. In other words, who has the right to exercise his power where? This question vexes both Swann and Beckett, and they’re both keenly aware of it from the moment they come face to face. Neither can claim absolute authority outright, but both have unique cards they can play to shift the situation in their favor.

A few scenes in DMC highlight the chess game that Swann and Beckett are playing, though I’m afraid it was never a game that Beckett intended to play fairly.

In the opening of DMC, the EITC invades Port Royal as Beckett arrives to arrest Elizabeth Swann, William Turner, and James Norrington. Some key things to understand here:

The invasion is not solely to make the arrests, but rather to establish Port Royal as the EITC’s new base. Beckett clearly has that intention (and royal approval for it) before showing up. That said, was invading the place entirely necessary? No, but it is a shock tactic.

Some of the first things said to Lord Beckett are, by Governor Swann, “Lord or not, you have no reason and no authority to arrest this man.” and, by Elizabeth, “We are under the jurisdiction of the king’s governor of Port Royal and you will tell us what we are charged with.” The Swanns are obviously under the impression that Beckett is out of line, but he isn’t.

Regarding the arrests themselves, all of the warrants are legally valid. Elizabeth, Turner, and Norrington did, as the warrants say, conspire “to set free a man convicted of crimes against the Crown and Empire and condemned to death.” Beckett’s decision to use the prisoners rather than simply execute them is, on the other hand, entirely his own abuse of power.

Another important scene, of course, is when Governor Swann attempts to save Elizabeth by having her sent to England.

Swann’s lines in this scene very clearly show his particular type of power: that based on personal, aristocratic ties. For example, “Our name still has some standing with the king.” Even the captain he makes arrangements with is “a friend” -- the only kind of person Swann can trust given Beckett’s new authority in Port Royal.

When Swann tells Elizabeth, “Perhaps I can ensure a fair trial for Will.” we especially see where his power ends. His authority in Port Royal, and regarding those who are not his family, is now weak. His best hope there is to enforce existing standards (i.e. a fair trial).

The entire premise of Swann’s decision here is that he knows that he can’t contest the warrants. However, there is a possibility that he can leverage his ties with the aristocracy to get his daughter off the hook. That personal power is only certain to work in England, out of the reach of Lord Beckett’s power in the Caribbean. Swann is very smart to use his personal ties this way though anyone would have to admit that it’s not exactly legal.

A line that was cut from the film reinforces all of the above (which is likely why it was cut): “There are still men loyal to me here, and Beckett is still wary of my ties to the Crown.” Swann, due to his position as governor and personal connections with the British aristocracy, has power that -- while not necessarily a threat -- could conceivably challenge Beckett’s actions. Lord Beckett knows this, but there isn’t anything he can do about it at this point in the film.

Now, considering that (earlier) Swann openly discusses helping Elizabeth escape in front of one of the EITC soldiers when he visits her in prison, it’s no surprise that Beckett suspects something is amiss and sends Mercer to investigate.

The scene in which Mercer kills Swann’s hired captain and arrests the governor is, perhaps, the most high-stakes political moment in DMC. Mercer not only catches Swann breaking the law, but he intercepts Swann’s letter to the king. When confronted, Swann knows that his gamble has gone horribly wrong.

Swann is arrested on the same grounds that his daughter was, conspiring to free a convicted criminal, which effectively strips him of his authority and, worse, puts him at Beckett’s mercy. More than that, his letter to the king is Beckett’s first real proof that Swann is a threat on a larger playing field. Before intercepting the letter, Beckett only had suspicions to go off of, and any move against someone you’re not sure is an enemy could create an enemy. With the escape attempt and the letter, Beckett has both legal and personal grounds to arrest the governor and, later, blackmail him.

While we never discover the exact contents of the letter, it’s likely that Swann wrote more than a plea for his daughter’s pardon. Elizabeth is his main concern, but it would be unlike Swann -- a man with an admirable moral center -- to not mention the way he feels about the EITC and Beckett’s conduct in Port Royal. If such a letter did reach the king, there is no way that the king could ignore it outright. There would be repercussions of some kind, and a royal inquiry into the EITC’s dealings at the very least. It’s important to remember that, while the Crown pays little attention to the EITC so long as it’s making money, the Crown very much can tell the EITC what to do if it sees fit -- which is the last thing Beckett wants. That said, I’m not certain if Swann’s letter would have meaningfully shut down the EITC in the Caribbean, and it almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten Beckett arrested. In any case, Beckett avoids the whole problem by ensuring that Swann’s concerns -- whatever they are -- never reach ears that are able to do anything.

In the following scene, in which Elizabeth steals the letters of marque, it’s interesting to note that Beckett’s line about how “loyalty is no longer the currency of the realm” is both ironic and bold. The only reason it’s even remotely true is because Beckett makes it true. He is more than aware of the power that loyalty can have, and he goes out of his way to keep that power from being a threat. Loyalty is still very much a currency of the realm, but it isn’t of much use if there are no transactions being made (i.e. Swann’s letter never reaches the king).

A final scene in DMC that is worthy of note is that in which Lord Beckett blackmails Governor Swann.

The scene opens with Beckett saying, “There’s something to knowing the exact shape of the world and one’s place in it, don’t you agree?” This is, obviously, a thinly veiled threat -- a reminder to take note of one’s place in the current situation.

Beckett effectively threatens Elizabeth, who is currently a criminal among criminals and being hunted as such, and uses Swann’s concern for his daughter to force the governor to work for the EITC.

Even here, we explicitly see the jurisdiction matter playing out. When Swann asks what Beckett wants in exchange for Elizabeth’s safety, Beckett is more than clear: “Your authority as governor, your influence in London, and your loyalty to the East India Trading Company.” Beckett uses this opportunity to appropriate the governor’s power. While Beckett now technically has the highest authority in Port Royal, he nonetheless ensures that his only possible competitor is working for him, bolstering his power rather than being able to challenge it. Like we see in every case, Beckett will not kill someone that can be more useful to him alive.

We can also revisit the conflict between Beckett and Swann in the terms Beckett uses: currency versus loyalty. Again, the irony is immaculate. While Beckett’s every move is made on the premise that currency is more valuable than loyalty, he himself values loyalty enough to buy it -- the very thing he says Swann “hoped never to sell.”

If you’ve reached the end of this post, dear reader, I commend you. That said, there are a few caveats to consider. Namely, much of Beckett’s PotC Wiki seems to imply that he had the king’s support and, no conniving required, would have been able to exercise authority over Governor Swann. In that case, things like Swann’s letter are less important (beyond the matter of Elizabeth’s safety, of course). I’m assuming that much of what “actually” happened rests on the details of the EITC’s expansion into the Caribbean -- which Disney handwaved in the films for the most part and only later expanded on (somewhat) in things like the novelizations, which I have not yet read.

#potc #pirates of the caribbean #cutler beckett #weatherby swann #filodox!#filodox!wri #this got way too long #and I took too long to write it #but I don't often get asked about the socioeconomic underpinnings of potc so #<3

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dweetwise · 4 years

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ok lowkey. that spirit thing was mweh😘 how strange yet oddly interesting. if you dont mind doing something similar... could you ... maybe write something where Zarina befriends the Nurse? like the nurse is getting bullied by all the other survivors and Zarina is just like 'bruh why?'. this happened once in a match and i cant get it outta my head😤🤡 love LOVE your work. keep it up

[thanks anon ily 😳😳😳 hope this is ok! there’s a special place in my heart for baby nurses, they are so pure <3]

zarina never had to deal with op old nurse bless her

Zarina befriends the Nurse: ficlet

Hearing yet another wail from the Nurse echoing across the map, Zarina looks up from her generator into the misty grounds of the asylum. The match had surely been going on for nearly ten minutes already, and the teleporting killer had yet to down any of the survivors.

Finishing up the repairs on her generator, Zarina starts navigating towards the sound of the screeches. On her way, she doesn’t spot a single one of her teammates on any of the generators, and frowns in irritation that the killer had apparently decided to farm with the others without anyone deeming it necessary to inform her.

“Forgot about the new chick again, huh?” she mutters to herself, already having had some trouble fitting in with the rowdy group of survivors and their already established dynamic.

Zarina finally reaches what seems to be the center for the commotion, arriving at the shack where Feng, Nea and David are running around in circles with the killer teleporting through the structure, landing a hit on David who the girls then immediately begin patching up right in front of the killer’s face. Zarina huffs out an annoyed breath that her assumptions were correct, turning away from the spectacle and fully intending to go elsewhere and refuse to participate in the others’ dumb little game, when...

“Oi, over ‘ere ya cunt!” David taunts, causing Zarina to clench her fists and whip around, ready to give the asshole Brit a piece of her mind for insulting her--

Only to see the still injured David pointing his flashlight in the Nurse’s face, prolonging the killer’s already painful looking fatigue state. Zarina swallows her misdirected anger and takes a more thorough look at the events unfolding at the shack.

She sees Feng Min get right up in the killer’s face, doing her stupid butt dance, while Nea chain blinds the killer with her own flashlight, rendering her useless for a few more seconds. The killer takes a wild swing in Nea’s direction, but the street artist sidesteps.

“Ooh, big swing!” Nea mocks, clicky-clicking her flashlight and moonwalking around the Nurse while the killer recovers from her miss.

“Baby killer, baby killer!” Feng’s high-pitched laugh echoes through the area as the gamer feigns vaulting the shack window, causing the Nurse’s bonesaw to uselessly hit the wood with a dull ‘thunk’.

“Couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with that aim--” David taunts from the shack entrance, making the Nurse quickly blink to him. David dashes through the pallet, avoiding the hit and proceeds to throw down the piece of wood on the killer, flashlight at the ready and already pointing at the Nurse. “Baited ya, bitch!”

“She’s so boosted!” Nea laughs, moving into position to reset the pallet in the blinded killer’s face while Feng injects a healing syringe into David’s shoulder. When the Nurse finally recovers from the combination of the fatigue, stun and blinds, only to have the now upright pallet be slammed right back in her face, Zarina decides enough is enough.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Zarina demands, approaching the scene. “Hey Zarina! Look at this baby killer!” Feng says, obnoxiously spam-pointing at the stunned Nurse. “Shouldn’t you be doing gens?” “Don’t get yer knickers in a twist, we’re just horsin’ around,” David grunts, rolling his shoulder from the sting of the syringe needle. “But why, though?” Zarina asks, shooting a glare in Nea’s direction where the Swede is once again blinding the killer with her flashlight. “Haven’t you done enough?” “No offense newbie, but maybe you should go find a gen and leave this to us, yeah?” Nea says, a cocky smirk on her lips.

That moment, the Nurse manages to get control over her movements and executes a precise teleport to an injured David, only to have the syringe take effect a split second before the hit and fully heal his wounds, merely causing him to get injured again. Zarina thinks she hears the Nurse groaning in defeat, and she doesn’t blame her. With Nea sprinting right back up to the killer, flashlight in hand, and Feng running after David ready to tank a hit, the Nurse readies another blink and, to everyone’s surprise, teleports away in the direction of the main building.

“LMAO she gave up!” Feng laughs, the sound grating on Zarina’s nerves, as she begins patching up David. “Let’s go after her!” Nea suggests. “NO!” Zarina yells, absolutely done with her fellow survivors’ bullshit against the clearly struggling killer. “You’ve already won! Don’t you have any empathy?” she scolds the trio. “Oh I’m sorry princess, is the taaxic flashlight against your wittle journalist’s ethics?” Nea mocks, fake pouting. “We’ve put of with ‘er shite for years, least she can do is take a couple pallets in tha face,” David grumbles. “Yeah you try versing a five blink Nurse with a mori and tell us how fair and balanced that is,” Feng says, hands on her hips. “Whatever, that’s your problem,” Zarina says, not about to entertain the trio about whatever grudges they seem to be holding. “Just do the fucking gens and leave.”

With that, Zarina makes her way to the main building, thankful that the others seem to stay behind, at least for now. She feels compelled to apologize to the killer on her so-called friends’ behalf, once again trusting her strong moral compass to guide her to the right decisions. Before long she finds the Nurse in one of the rooms on the second floor of the asylum, sitting on a windowsill with an old photo frame in her hands.

“Umm... miss killer? Excuse me?” Zarina makes her presence known, peering in through the door frame. “You didn’t have to intervene, girl,” the Nurse says with unexpected softness and clarity in her voice. She looks almost serene, ominous heartbeat gone, sitting primly in front of the window and torn dress flowing gently with a breeze from the derelict wall.

“I know, it’s... I couldn’t just watch. I’m sorry about them, they’re--” “It’s fine. Truly. I understand,” she says, looking down at the photo again. “I haven’t exactly shown them mercy in the past, I would not expect them to act different.” “Are you... okay?” Zarina asks, cautiously approaching. The Nurse sighs. “This place, it... brings back memories I’d rather forget. I feel my focus slipping and my head is just not in it today.” “The others said you used to be more powerful--or p-perhaps just more ruthless, before...?” “I suppose that’s true,” the Nurse chuckles. “There was a time where I lost myself completely, the entity filling my mind with hatred. Now... I’m weaker, more often a disappointment to it, but... perhaps it’s for the best.” “Umm... not to point out the obvious, but--don’t you think it might help to take the bag off of your head so you could see better?” “You’d offer advice to me, an enemy? A rather peculiar survivor, you are,” the Nurse says, fondness in her voice. “As for the matter, I am able to see just fine, courtesy of the entity. Hiding my face is a choice, one of the few I still have. I--” her voice cracks. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up a touchy subject.” “What a curious one you are. Never give up that fire,” she says. “As for covering my head... he always loved seeing me smile,” she says, fondly stroking a finger over the picture, before handing the frame to Zarina, taking her completely off guard as she fumbles to grab the item.

In the frame is a picture of a happy couple on their wedding day, both smiling brightly and embracing each other. The man looks like a proper old-time gentleman, complete with a top hat and silly mustache. The woman is gorgeous, her pale skin and white gown a stark contrast to her fiery red hair and deep emerald green eyes.

“Is this you?” Zarina asks, slightly taken aback, reminded of the fact that the killers probably used to be normal people, just like her. “It was the happiest day of my life,” the Nurse says wistfully. “That was his favorite photo. He said it brought out my eyes, he--he loved my eyes, said they were a reflection of my soul, of our happiness. Which is why I can’t let anyone see my face.” “Because now you’re... unhappy?” Zarina asks, trying to understand. “Because I don’t want anyone to look into my eyes and see the madness that consumed me,” the Nurse whispers.

Zarina is at a loss for words, intrigued about the remorseful killer’s past but not wanting to pry further. She stares at the photo and tries to imagine how the cute, carefree woman in the picture could have ever turned into a bloodthirsty killer.

The sound of the exit gates being powered snaps her out of her thoughts, finally handing the frame back to its owner.

“Thanks for telling me all this,” Zarina says. “Can’t have been easy, what you’ve went through.” “I should be thanking you, for indulging a silly woman her tales,” the Nurse says. “Feel free to stop by, should you happen to wander into this realm from the campfire. I don’t often linger here, but... maybe it would not be so bad, had I company.” “You know, I might just take you up on that offer,” Zarina says, offering a small smile. The sound of a gate opening and the end game triggering reminds her that she’s on a time limit. “Shi--shoot, I’ve gotta run. See you around, uh... ms. Nurse?” “Please, call me Sally,” the killer says, primly bowing her head. “Zarina, was it? Do be careful out there. Your kindness might just be the end of you.” “Doesn’t sound so bad, as far as causes of death go,” Zarina quips, offering a cheeky grin before sprinting off the find the gate.

[sally is precious fight me. and lmao i didn’t even try to be subtle about who toxic nea is inspired by]

#zarina kassir #sally smithson #dbd nurse #dbd #dbd fanfic #request #dweetwrites

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afinepricklypear · 5 years

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Compare and Contrast: K Project vs. Bungou Stray Dogs - Part 2

Read Part 1

Story

In general, K Project does a lot better job of maintaining a consistent and focused story, especially in Seasons 1 and 2 than BSD, with almost no filler content. There aren’t nearly as many open plot threads or divergences from the main story, and everyone introduced has a very cohesive purpose to the plot. This may largely be due to the fact that K was originally envisioned as a complete story, with the movie Return of Kings and season 2’s Missing Kings and other added materials being, somewhat, after thoughts consequently ordered due to the popularity of the show. Season 2 does offer a very decisive end to the tale, with the destruction of the Dresden Slate, mysterious source of all supernatural power. On the other hand, BSD is an ongoing serialized manga with no set beginning or ending that we, as the audience, are aware. BSD’s author, Asagiri Kafka, isn’t telling a self-contained story with a determined beginning, middle, and end, so often times characters and plot devices are introduced which may not have bearing on the current arc of the story, they hint at things to come. This might be frustrating for viewers that aren’t interested in long-term serialized works, which does have the tendency to fall victim to filler episodes in attempt to make a certain quota or make up for any lulls in the story.

That being said, BSD, thus far, does a lot better with world.

In K, the concepts of Clans and Kings, the Dresden Slate, and the Swords of Damocles are never fully fleshed out satisfactorily, to the point that aspects of it feel completely illogical, convoluted, and conveniently there merely to move the plot forward. Fantasy stories are generally under no obligation to provide explanations for where magic abilities come from, K makes an attempt with the Dresden Slate, but overreaches with an established protocol of Kings and Clans in regards to these powers with no explanation for where or why these rules manifested or why anyone feels obligated to follow them. For example, the Red King Mikoto is not shown to care too much for being a King, or even wanting obligations to his Clan, yet he maintains it and his Clansmen show loyalty to it, and there’s no explanation beyond “well that’s just the way the Dresden Slate works”. That would be fine, if this wasn’t established as the expectation of anyone who is “awoken” as a King. In that same vein, a lot isn’t really clarified in terms of what really happens to Clansmen when their King dies (Clansmen are shown to still maintain powers granted from their former King but that’s just speculation from viewers, and doesn’t make sense if there powers stem from their Kings) and what is meant to happen when a new King takes their place (though we do see Clansmen turn on the new Blue King, in regards to Munakata taking over Jin Hibari’s role, or choosing to continue following the new Red King, as we see in HOMRA with Anne taking Mikoto’s place). Worse, these rules are just universally known in a world that isn’t supposed to know about these Clans and Kings, leaving no one to explain these rules to newly awakened Kings although these rules are shown to be universally known and accepted by them. More questions than answers are raised.

In BSD, people being born with or manifesting abilities is shown to just be a facet of this world. It’s just one of the physical laws, much like how the sky is blue, grass is green, some people can conjure demons that kill you. This is just the world they live in, and in that sense, the people in this world are the ones that determine the rules that govern these abilities without expectation. This treats us to various different ideas and philosophies for how ability users should apply their abilities or how the users themselves should be managed. The government attempts to regulate ability users, through licensure for organizations that wish to operate as ability user specific. This provided a cool storyline where we see Port Mafia obtain its license to operate as an ability user organization during the Dark Era, through nefarious plotting on leader, Mori’s part, which also highlighted that the Port Mafia is a criminal organization because prior to obtaining this license they were operating without one. We also see the Armed Detective Agency undergo a plot to take their license away, and since they are the morally upright group, in their minds, losing their license means they will cease to exist. This places explanation firmly on the goals of their given society, something that is relatable and understandable for readers, and shifts it away from the realm of unexplainable and increasingly convoluted magic.

On the flipside of that, however, K does a much better job of balancing powers. Which brings me Nakahara Chuuya.

I’ll throw this disclaimer in here, Chuuya is my favorite character. I fell in love at first sight. Unfortunately, he gets little to no screen time, I could count on one hand his number of appearances throughout the first two seasons. He gets three episodes at the start of Season 3 that explores his history with Dazai, and I feel I’m in no way biased (**cough, cough** 100% biased) saying these are the best three episodes of the season. Then we see him maybe in two more episodes until he gets trapped in a book for the rest of the season, leaving me screaming furiously at the screen. Manga chapters that go beyond where the anime left off are not filling me with much hope for more Chuuya in Season 4. Seriously, I don’t recommend loving this character, you’ll only get your heart broken.

The problem with Chuuya that becomes rampant throughout BSD in other characters, is that he’s a side character for a rival organization and he is super OP. Since the creator seems adamantly against making him a more main character (either as antagonist or protagonist…hell, majority of his appearances have been to literally save the day for the heroes), not to mention the lack of anyone in our heroes’ corner that could reasonably take him on (even Dazai is outmatched despite his nullifying ability, because Chuuya also happens to be Port Mafia’s best martial artist) the only recourse is to leave him conveniently absent from majority of the story. Which, okay, this can mostly be explained away that he’s an Executive in Port Mafia and probably has a lot to deal with in terms of making sure their operations continue to move smoothly, but it leads to ludicrous scenarios such as the end of the Guild Arc when a whale sized airship is being dropped on Yokohama by the Guild. We’re told this ship will wipe out a large portion of the city. At this point, the Detective Agency and Port Mafia are on semi-good terms in order to stand against their common enemy, the Guild. You would think, large object being dropped on the city, Port Mafia has a powerful gravity manipulator on staff...one phone call to Dr. Mori, “Hey...do you mind sending Chuuya to take care of that whale bomb....or are you just cool with the city being flattened?” All Chuuya needs to do is parachute down, once he touches the ship, he could tear the whole thing apart and fling its pieces to every side of the ocean. They call it a day in thirty seconds, tops, back home for dinner. Yet, for some odd reason, the course of action that the Armed Detective Agency decides on is to send rookie agent tiger boy to infiltrate the ship and fight his way to a possible transponder they can use to reverse the ship’s course, despite having little experience, and no specialized abilities for the task, let’s not get started on the ridiculousness of that transponder anyways. This decision is based largely on the fact he once was held prisoner on the ship and so…should know his way around? I get that they supposedly don’t want to owe Port Mafia, but this kind of seemed like an odd time to play loose and fast with the city’s safety. The point is, Chuuya is powerful, which makes his lack of presence during crucial moments pretty heavy handed.

That being said, however, this OP situation, is a problem throughout with other characters as well. There’s no balance of powers, and characters are shown to do things that don’t fall within the realm of their abilities, may never have previously been display or given proper explanation prior to introduction, and sometimes comes across as just thrown in last minute as a plot device. A few examples, able to transform into a tiger also, somehow allows Atsushi to heal at a rapid level and regrow limbs. Forget about the implications that he’s got some “special” light attached to his ability, as well. In a recent chapter of the manga, we see a newly introduced character, one of the Hunting Dogs, slap a bullet out of the air and stop a large projectile with her bare hands. Her ability, however, is age manipulation so there’s no given reason why she should’ve been able to do those things. While it is mentioned that the Hunting Dogs are also genetically engineered, she did this to save another Hunting Dog who is duly is surprised by her actions and expresses that he could not have done the same. I’m baffled. This is to say nothing of the multiple time characters without regenerative or durable abilities are stabbed, blown up, and impaled, only to walk it off like it’s nothing. The Agency healer, Yosano, has an ability called Thou Shalt Not Die, she can heal someone but only when they’re on the brink of death, so her ability is essentially that trope in action films where the bomb is always disarmed with one second to spare. Let’s not even talk about the new revelation that Dazai can control his heart beats to the point he can use it for passing secret code. It becomes plot armor so thick that it entirely erases the stakes for our characters. They’re all treated as practically immortal, able to overcome anything thrown at them, I’m not even worried anymore when a character takes a lance through the heart, I know he’s walking it off in the next scene.

K is a lot more balanced with its abilities. None of the characters, outside of the Kings, feel so overpowered that they are impossible to stop and they’re not shown to be capable of things outside of their given abilities or established, and might I say reasonable, skillsets. Even the Kings have their peers in the other Kings. Sure, Clansmen can dodge bullets, but if they’re hit by one it hurts and, notably in the case of Totsuka, it can kill. No one is getting impaled multiple times then walking it off. Mikoto is run through with a blade once, and as it should be, he dies. Not only does this maintain the stakes for our characters – they are at the end of the day mortal, and they can get hurt, they can be beaten, they can die – it also gives us a more complicated, and darker story with characters that we can relate to on an emotional level.

Read Part 3

#bungo stray dogs #k #k project #spoilers #more to come #anime review #thoughts #drabble #long post

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jewlwpet · 5 years

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Space Pirate Mito, overall impression

This is a shounen anime from 1999. It’s sci-fi, as you might expect from the name. It has a wacky sense of humor, an endearing cast of characters, a fascinating and unique storyline, and some deeply affecting emotional scenes. It also featured numerous LGBT elements, the execution of which was... so-so. Could’ve been much worse, but also could’ve been much better. I do think it tries to present a positive message, and it isn’t always effective, but it is certainly memorable. There are numerous things that could’ve been improved, but I think the show as-is has a lot of value mainly coming from its uniqueness.

If you live in the U.S., it’s available for free (both seasons) on youtube from Nozomi Entertainment, just like Revolutionary Girl Utena is. Season 1 is also on both Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime; I don’t know what other countries this applies to. Piracy sites have this show too, of course, so you have options regardless. It’s also available on DVD for a surprisingly reasonable price, 22.49 USD from rightstuf, and that’s if you get it new.

Here’s the synopsis I like best for season 1, the one from animenewsnetwork:

Mito isn't just another space pirate, she's a three foot tall childlike alien with enough guts to outshine a supernova. She's known as the galaxy's most dangerous pirate, a wanted criminal who destroys a dozen police space cruisers every day before breakfast. But all she really wants is to be called "Mom."

Incidentally, Mito is voiced by the late Tomoko Kawakami, who also voiced Utena Tenjou! This was shocking for me to learn; they sound nothing alike, which just shows the versatility of her talent.

Wikipedia gives the following synopsis:

The first series of the farcical sci-fi title mainly revolves around the small space pirate Mito and her fights with and flights from the galactic police force, as well as her relationship with her half-human Earthling son Aoi, initially largely ignorant of his mother's spacefaring life.

This is basically accurate; however, there’s also a complex and compelling story that begins to unfold in the later episodes.

It’s in the unravelling of this story that the show’s LGBT themes are first introduced. I’ll insert a readmore here, because this post is getting long, so I might as well cut off before getting into plot spoilers: But if any of you goes off to watch it based on the above, there is a high chance you’ll end up checking back here at some point to determine if it’s worth sticking with.

If you’ve watched Simoun--another LGBT-related series that I adore and appreciate for its originality despite some serious flaws--this’ll sound familiar to you.

For Mito’s species, “sex differentiation” happens once a person is 10,000 years old. It’s not something that happens by itself, though; it is undergone by “choice.” I’m putting that in quotation marks because it certainly isn’t a free decision. Children are allowed to be flexible with their gender presentation, but “growing up,” in the eyes of society, means to become either a man or a woman, by fixed, preset standards. Those who don’t are socially ostracized.

In Simoun, at least, if you have your heart set on one role or the other, you can be sure to get it. Here... it’s not really clear, it seems that there is no such guarantee (I’m not sure if it’s just random, or if it’s arranged by one’s parents). Hence, it’s easy to imagine why some would find such an event absolutely horrifying.

One of the characters has a backstory that involves resisting this; I was really impressed with how this was established, except for the fact that this character did happen to be a villain. However, he (the character is shown saying “I’m a boy! I’ve already been differentiated” in his backstory, so that’s what I’m going with) joins the heroes’ side in the second season and is never made to conform, nor are the show’s protagonists ever anything but respectful.

However. For plot reasons that really do make sense in context (...sort of. it’s still contrived), Aoi ends up having to undergo sexual differentiation even though Aoi had been following a human pattern of physiological development up to that point. Aoi has no control over the process, and when it ends, everyone is shocked to find that Aoi is now “a girl.”

...Well, the humans are shocked. The aliens mostly take it in stride.

Aoi is also queen of the galaxy now, because sometimes that just happens.

For the record, this all happens in the final episode of season 1. This means that we don’t get to see the initial period of Aoi adjusting to this new role. Ultimately, I think that’s probably a good thing because it leads to many of the usual uncomfortable tropes being glossed over, but it also limits our insight into Aoi’s thoughts and feelings about this, which is pretty important. There are some mixed messages.

Something decidedly Bad is the way that the viewers are clued in on what happened to Aoi, which is... a couple of girls accidentally seeing under Aoi’s clothes and being shocked... and then the teacher wanted to look, ugh. That’s as bad as it ever got but it’s Pretty Bad for sure.

Onto Aoi’s reaction.

This is going to require some context. What first happened was that Aoi’s body became impossible for the aliens’ machines to detect as male or female, which led Mito to realize and explain that Aoi must be going through Sex Differentiation now. Only, the one weapon that could defeat the villain requires the user to have undergone it and be recognizably one or the other. This was the villain’s plan all along; he did “experiments” on Aoi to induce this, not out of a desire to cause suffering but for pragmatic reasons which still sound extremely contrived (though I was pleased to find that season 2 actually addressed why the weapons were built like this, whose decision it was, who was benefiting from it and how).

Consequently, Mito was demanding that Aoi “become either a man or a woman immediately.” Because Aoi had no idea how to control the process, the decision was made for Aoi’s (female) love interest to kiss Aoi and potentially “turn him into a man.” The reason I’m bringing this up is because notably, Aoi is not necessarily very keen on this idea, saying, “What about my feelings?” But it happens, and even, annoyingly, works long enough for the weapon to be used. (Not gonna lie, I was totally hoping that the opposite would happen and this would be the catalyst for Aoi taking on her True Form as a lesbian. That would’ve been epic). That said, it doesn’t last, and s2 leaves absolutely no room for the idea that kissing girls is inherently a “male” thing, so I don’t consider it a big deal on the whole, just such a missed opportunity.

Mutsumi, Aoi’s love interest, said in the end that her feelings for Aoi were the same regardless of what happened, but then ruined it by adding “Besides, I’m sure I can turn him back into a man.” (Aoi had not said a single word this point; she just thought that was something she could decide on her own, ugh--Mutsumi has clearly gotten over this by season 2, though; it never comes up again). At this point Aoi ran away “to find a planet where I can become a man,” according to the note left behind. It’s very possible Aoi just wanted to escape from everyone’s incessant comments and questioning, but that’s only speculation on my part. The next thing we see is Aoi being crowned queen, appearing somewhat exasperated and resigned.

Now onto season 2! Things get better... a lot better. Season 2 has its own unique and compelling story arc, with a new, more powerful villain. But the first thing to talk about how it opens, with an OP that seems to show a typical romcom with a scifi twist, one that happens to be about two girls. I love it.

S1′s OP centers around Mito, with this one centering around Aoi; because of that, it doesn’t feel like “now that we have a Female Protagonist we must make it a Love Story.” Just in case that was on anyone’s mind.

What the song tells us about Aoi’s perspective is interesting, but it can be hard to connect it to what’s shown in the show itself. It starts out with the line, “I’m a happy but lonely girl,” and includes the line “Hey, can you understand a maiden’s heart?” but Aoi certainly makes no such pronouncements withing the show (this would really make the show more comfortable to watch, because then it would certainly be Good and Right that everyone considers Aoi a girl now) and in my opinion would probably not feel comfortable doing so. I can imagine Aoi listening to a song like this and secretly strongly identifying, but that’s just speculation on my part.

I’m probably taking it more seriously than it was ever intended, but I will say, I don’t think it was made to be a mean-spirited joke. It doesn’t feel ironic. The visuals match the lyrics and melody rather than contrasting with them, and the upbeat tone is the same as that of the first OP. My best guess as to the motivation behind making it is that it’s to really bring the point home to the viewers that Aoi is a girl now and that that wasn’t just a silly joke ending to the first season but represented a major change in the status quo.

Early on in the season, Aoi has a dream about becoming a boy again and being with Mutsumi. If you want to believe the OP you could say that this is because Aoi feels that being with Mutsumi (romantically) would necessarily require being a boy. And this is a worry that Aoi canonically had, early on, but I think that most viewers would take the scene at face value and it might not be any deeper that that.

There was one other scene in the season that suggested Aoi would prefer to live as a boy, this one towards the end. In fact, Aoi shouts outright, “I would go back to being a guy if I could.” That said, the context is that a villain is torturing Aoi in an attempt to make that happen. Considering Aoi had already surrendered to that villain to save others (don’t worry, it all works out in the end), this could be as simple as “I would do what you wanted if I knew how.”

What I was hoping for, and what I think would have been awesome, is if at the end, Aoi would get a choice and would choose staying queen of the galaxy over becoming a man. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that. We do see that the experience has made Aoi a stronger person, more confident and expressive, and the show does end on a good note: The galaxy has been saved, and Aoi is free to be with the girl she loves, and looking as happy as in the OP for the first time ever, and has taken control of her life in general at last.

I didn’t mention this, but there’s another girl who has a huge crush on Aoi in season 2, and I was worried she’d be a “predatory lesbian” stereotype, but to my relief, this was not the case, and she ended up being one of my favorites.

She’s just like Nanami (from Utena--the director of this show actually directed Utena’s third ep, On The Night of the Ball) but openly gay and I LIVE for that. She has some great character development too.

#space pirate mito #uchuu kaizoku mito no boukugen #stellar buster mito #aoi mitsukuni #mito mitsukuni

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mvnaperez-blog · 5 years

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hey guys, i’m admin jules and i’m so excited for us to finally open ! thanks so much for applying and sticking it out with us to hit this point, by the way ! i usually have something to ramble about here but for once ?? not really LKGSDFSG so i’ll just get to mona since i have a little bit of tweaking to do with this before we post accounts. you can find her stats and connections on THIS PAGE with a shortlist of other ideas coming soon, and you can find me on disc*rd if you’d prefer — my tag’s CLC NATION RISE UP !!#2030 ( still ) ! all of that being said, all that you need to know about her is listed below:

scanning mona perez , they are 23 years old and read as assiduous but aloof , which explains why they are referred to as the despondent. before virtual reality she was to be engaged to a man she doesn’t love and living in canada. they’ve been said to look incredibly similar to sofia carson, but they’ve never seen it. in this new virtual world, they plan on revisiting her former, happier self and hope to never go back to reality. ( admin jules , 21 , she/her , nt ).

so mona perez kassar, born and raised in toronto, ontario, aged 23, certified mess™

labelled the despondent, which you’ll understand shortly

born into a more affluent family, her dad was an ada and her mom a rising executive in a marketing firm, while she was an only child and spent most of her days with her nanny and her neighbours’ kid — who was a real fucking brat by the way, atrocious, a mess, god

she was a fairly timid but happy-go-lucky kid, always a little nervous meeting new people but would immediately open up once you got past that initial barrier

was fairly smart as well, her mom saw a lot of potential in her from a young age to make something of herself and was super encouraging, so was her dad

and it’s worth mentioning that while her parents didn’t have a lot of free time, they always tried to make it for her, they aren’t your basic neglectful rich parents but they are.. a bit much as of recently

so she grew up quite content all things considered, was well-mannered, enjoyed knowing that she was able to have whatever she wanted but never really exercised that until she was older, just an overall p chill girl

her parents divorced when she was sixteen and thankfully it was amicable and they’re still on good terms so !! the common rich, feuding divorced parents trope didn’t fuck her over

but upon entering uni, pressured into joining her parents’ alma mater, she came to realize that they were, for a lack of better words, grooming her to become just like her mother — who had worked her way to being cfo of her company about four years prior

and while becoming a high ranking employee for a business that she would be passionate about was something she was here for, that’s not the direction she seemed to be heading in

her mom is.. quite hard-headed, dictatorial in some ways, and mona’s major, residence and co-op programs were all decisions that she had talked her into, bc it would make mona’s life easier and so she could hand over the reins to an heir

and bc of that, mona slowly became more closed-off, she felt rather unhappy but knew that fighting her mom on these things would be useless, so her complaints always went ignored

it’s all kinda hard to explain tbh, but she’ll tell you straight up that the second worst moment in her life was being accepted into marketing, and that the worst was the day that she let her mother dictate her future in every aspect

which was also the day that she gave her mom’s business partner’s son a chance just to appease her and keep her quiet

she does care for the boy, he has his life together and is very kind and driven, but she isn’t in love with him and that’s perhaps the last thing to make her feel completely lost and displeased with herself

now they’ve been together for almost four years and she knows he’s going to propose soon; and while she doesn’t want this to happen, she’s all but accepted that this would be her life once she was no longer that happy, carefree child: appeasing others, feeling restricted, wishing she were someone else, somewhere else

entering the virtual world at complete random had her mortified, she didn’t know where the hell she was or what she was doing, but sooner or later she realized that here, she had the liberties she felt that she lacked and that had her intrigued

soon enough, she was dyeing her hair blue ( bc sofia with blue hair ?? o o f ) or whatever colour interested her, frequenting somewhat immoral places for the adventure and sleeping in past noon, something she hadn’t done in years

so now, coming to grips with the fact that here, she doesn’t have that looming engagement or her mother’s overbearing nature weighing her down, she can rediscover the girl that she once was in peace

PERSONALITY AND OTHER SHIT

a really sad bean ok ??

like she’s discontent on so many levels and doesn’t really know who she is anymore

that being said, she was a pessimist back in the real world, worn down by commitments and super indifferent about many things

like she didn’t care if she got hit by a car, mugged, anything — it just felt like another bearable inconvenience to an already exhausting life

blunt, a bit jaded and vexing, just a v odd, negative girl ??

lost a lot of respect for her mom even if she still loves her, this whole thing made her bitter towards the older woman and even others ?? so she feels a bit guilty about not wanting to go back even after all of that madness just after high school

here, she’s emerging from the cold hard exterior she’d seen slowly build itself up and desensitize her, she’s more fun-loving and becoming increasingly outgoing as time drags on

she’s not just some broken muse needing one person to fix her, she wants to do it on her own but knows that what brought her to that point were the people influencing her and calling the shots on her behalf, so finding people opposite of that to lend a hand seems practical to her

her loose morals here definitely conflict with those from before, especially when it comes to sex and love. the last thing that she wants to do is ruin her relationship despite her feelings within it, but she can feel her resolve slipping at times ( if it hasn’t already )

she’s also bi so.. js sgfdklgjd

i had more to work with i swear

but i blanked bc i’m rediscovering an old muse ksfdjgg

also just.. someone show her love, happiness, passion, creativity, all that good stuff again bc she misses it so much

#virtualintro #╳┊: — these are stacy's baby ! •「 ooc. 」

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the-everlasting-dream · 6 years

Text

The Revelation AU - Drake x MC, Part 2

Summary: After a shocking confession, Elizabeth comes to terms with her resulting situation.

A/N: I wish I could tell you that the hurting stops and it gets better but it really doesn’t I’m not even going to pretend.

Based on this post with permission from OP.

Part 1

Elizabeth felt the sound of the slamming parlour door resounding in her very soul. Still in shock at what had just happened, she slumped against the corridor wall, her strength seemed to fail her as the weight of what had just happened hit her with colossal force. She had just lost the man she loved.

Drake.

Her Drake.

He didn’t have to say it out loud for her to connect the dots.

Elizabeth had caught Penelope's earlier question, Kiara’s astonishment, looking somewhat akin to a deer caught in headlights but she brushed it off in ignorance, putting it down to the crush the other girl had on her fiancé in the early stages of Liam’s engagement tour. She'd heard the clink of glass as Drake moved to fill his non-so-empty tumbler of whiskey as Kiara declined the question.

Perhaps it was the alcohol flowing in her system, taking its effect or a her own blissful ignorance that had lead her to ask her question in innocence, unknowingly bringing about the end of the relationship as she knew it.

She watched his eyes slide over to Kiara’s, exchanging what she thought was a puzzled look. For a moment Elizabeth had considered dropping the subject because surely this was all a coincidence. A random assortment of facts that appeared to have some connection when laid out in a particular order.

Right?

She had been teetering on the brink of the decision when she heard it.

His nervous cough.

She’d learnt his tell months ago, that cough that only occurred when he was lying or hiding something. He’d do it subtly during conversations with members of the court before executing a perfectly sound lie to their probing questions but she had never ever imagined she’d hear it directed at her.

And in that moment she knew.

The realisation required a few moments before it permeated into her brain during which her irrational mind seemed to insist, He’s my fiancé, he’d never do something like this, he loves me. No stop stop! Its not like that, a part of her insisted. Surely there’s logical explanation for it, she chastised herself but as the silence expanded, she couldn’t ignore the little voice inside her that whispered back.

‘What if that is the logical explanation?’

Elizabeth gave him a chance to deny the accusation with his signature scoff and a shake of his unruly hair, to put her obviously overactive imagination at ease, reassuring her 'You’re the only one for me Richmond’ as he’d done on occasions before.

Instead betrayal, guilt and regret were etched on every fibre of his irises as they flitted around the room, taking interest in every other element except her but even so some part of her still held out, refusing to believe that the man she loved could have inflicted so much pain. His blatant denial, a feeble attempt to be a balm to her suspicion had the opposite effect and every word of his admission was like another whip of the lash, drawing fresh wounds upon the open plane of her soul.

As Drake sat opposite her, tears gushing down both their faces, Elizabeth wanted so badly to wrap herself up in his safe and familiar scent, to seek comfort in the contours of his embrace, to take solace in the blissful lie that everything would be okay in the end but she remained paralysed unable to move or speak.

When her vocal chords finally decided to function, the voice they created was completely alien to her and it was as if she had risen up out of her body and was watching the scene from bleachers above. Her expressionless face made a firm barrier to the turmoil and unrest hiding underneath as she numbly removed heirloom ring, his grandmother’s ring encircling her finger, ignoring how every nanometre of skin seemed to shriek as the warm metal passed over it. His desperate pleads did little to persuade her otherwise and in a deafening sense finality, the ring was left on the table between them and with it, her entire future.

Concerned faces drifted into her field of vision now, hovering over her rumpled form, they seemed to be calling her name, asking if she was alright.

Couldn’t they tell that she just wanted to be left here, to become one with the concrete beneath her feet and never feel again?

‘I’m fine,’ Elizabeth barked, ignoring Liam’s outstretched hand as she pushed herself to her feet.

The absence of a weight on her left hand where the fourth finger met her knuckle almost threw her off balance and she whipped a hand against the wall to support herself. She didn’t trust herself to retain composure much longer so it was imperative that she said her piece. Her tongue felt flat and heavy in her mouth as she forced the words out.

'Maxwell, have Bertrand call off the engagement and the wedding.'

Maxwell’s big eyes grew even bigger with shock written clearly across his face. 'But Elizabeth -'

'I’m not asking as a friend Maxwell, I’m telling you as a Duchess.' The venom in her voice caused him to recoil as if she’d struck him.

A flicker of remorse sparked. Maxwell didn’t deserve that.

She made to apologise but stopped herself and in the interest of maintaining some dignity Elizabeth turned her back on their astonished faces, rushing blindly down the corridors, desperately hoping to make it to her room without any further interaction before the dam of emotion inside her broke.

Luck, however, was not on her side this night as the dark haired diplomat stood hesitantly in her path.

‘E-Elizabeth I just wanted to say I’m sorry,’ Kiara began warily. ‘I never intended it to go that far. I-‘

‘Save your excuses for someone who actually cares,’ she spat back, brushing past her roughly.

Kiara caught her arm as she did. ‘Wait! No… Elizabeth stop. I know you probably hate me right now but we should talk about this!’

Anger flared in Elizabeth as she wrenched herself from the other woman’s grip. 'Talk about what Kiara? I have nothing to say to you. You’ve ruined my relationship, doesn’t that say enough?’

Not bothering to wait for an answer, she pressed onward. By some miracle the hallways were empty and soon enough she was pushing the door to her suite open, her hands shaking as they clasped around the knob, barely able to turn the lock behind her before her body failed her and she hit the floor hard, the force on her kneecaps barely holding a candle to the agony inside her. A great well of despair swelled up from somewhere deep inside her, threatening to consume her mind with its devastating effects, translating into an intense physical pain that seared through her body. Words could not describe how it seemed to slide under her skin, scraping up her spine and under her scalp, perpetuating itself almost perfectly in the ugly, violent sobs that rocked her person.

Ignoring the insistent pounding on the door, Elizabeth dragged herself to the window seat looking out into the dark night, desperate to put more distance between herself and their pleas to just let us in, let us help you. She almost wished she’d never pursued the matter. Never asked that goddamn question.

Oh why couldn’t she have just dropped it?

Then they would have been able to continue on with their lives, the tour and this weddi- A little voice of reason rose up from through the storm inside her, purposefully putting a stop to that train of thought. As much as it hurt her to admit it, deep down she knew it would have only been worse for her in the long run, to find out later. At least now she had put a stop to it before either of them did anything they would later regret.

But had she really though? Put a stop to it?

She could find no indication that Drake’s confession wouldn’t continue to haunt her every time thoughts of him or Kiara wandering into her mind. How could she think of anything else the next time she saw their faces? Thinking of how she got to see him in such an intimate way long before she ever did.

What if he had been comparing her to Kiara?

For one horrible moment, her mind grappled with the thought before it became too much to bear and she forcibly shoved it out of her brain. In the moment that followed, Elizabeth had fantasised quite vividly about running her nails down the clear skin of Kiara’s face, tearing at her perfectly styled hair, to pound her fists into her flawless figure, just so the other woman could know a tiny fraction of the pain that had resulted from this whole mess. Elizabeth knew that she lacked every ability to hold a grudge but the urge faded away more slowly this time. This was the ultimate act of betrayal. This was-

The pure rage that raced through Elizabeth was abruptly interrupted by the sound of her bedroom door slamming open and a livid figure stood menacingly on the threshold, her features arranged in a glare.

'M-Madeline? How did yo-'

'Oh please do you really think a locked door can stop me,’ her press secretary scoffed, looking offended as she executed a perfect eye roll. ’Now explain yourself. What is this crap I hear about you wanting to call off the engagement?’

Elizabeth never heard Madeline swear before and under other circumstances, she would have considered it a personal victory to have elicited such a response from the usually composed countess.

‘There’s nothing more to it,’ she replied hollowly instead. ‘The wedding is off.’

Madeline’s eyes blazed. ‘No it is not. You’re just being a selfish child. Liam is taking a massive gamble with your stupid proposal and for reasons I can’t quite understand, it is actually doing some good for Cordonia so you’d better put your pathetic little feelings behind you and stop acting like a little b-'

'Remember that you’ve been working for me Madeleine,’ Elizabeth’s voice took on the same cutting tone she’d used with Maxwell earlier as she pulled herself to her full height a few inches taller than her counterpart. 'And if you still want that role in my duchy, I advise that you stop telling me how I should be acting.'

Her companion was silent, the conflict rolling off her in waves. Sensing that the countess was about to speak, Elizabeth beat her to it, unable to stop her voice from cracking at the end.

'Madeline you probably enjoying this but I beg you, for once in your life, please just leave me alone in peace to grieve the relationship I’ve lost.'

What followed was a brief stalemate as the two women eyed each other defiantly before Madeline conceded first, nodding her head once before turning on her heel and exiting the room, the door closing behind her with a pronounced click.

Elizabeth remained speechless, rooted to the spot, unable to fully comprehend what had just occurred. She was only broken out of her trance by a terrifying clap of thunder as the foreboding clouds finally gave way to the torrents of rain. Ignoring every word caution she’d received from her grandmother as a child to not go near any windows during a storm, she settled herself on the window seat again. Lightning lit up the sky in wonderful bursts and she was almost grateful for the luminosity imprinting itself on her retinas, an effective distraction from her own personal tempest inside. No more tears flowed now, she was too dehydrated for that but the rain seemed to fulfill this task for her, beating down in merciless sheets against the walls of the manor. She watched the storm rage on outside while inside she grew more and more numb.

It must have been hours when a gentle knock on her door caused Elizabeth to raise her head slightly from where it had rested against the window in a fitful slumber. The first rays of sunlight had not yet emerged behind the horizon and in the delirious, fleeting moment between sleep and full wakefulness, she hoped it was him. But that thought disappeared almost as quickly as it came, as the events of the day before reappeared in her mind, bringing with them a fresh round of heartache.

‘Its open,’ she croaked in a voice of broken glass, throat run raw from the abuse of constant sobbing.

His shoulders were too narrow, his actions to refined to be the person she wanted to see most as he entered quietly

‘Liam,’ she greeted him weakly, attempting to stand up but her limbs, stiff from being clasped in the same position for so long, refused to hold her up and the impact of the floor on her body was more forceful this time.

At once his arms were encircled her, a welcome warmth to the vivid chill that had seeped through the thin material her previous night’s dress. The action itself was meant to inspire comfort, reassurance that it was okay but somehow his embrace didn’t feel right, his arms weren’t the ones she wanted to be wrapped in.

Leaning into his warm chest, Elizabeth wondered what life could have been like if she had accepted his proposal of marriage. As his queen, she would have had a stable future ahead of her and the security that came with it. That fantasy seemed so much more appealing than her current pitiful one but it would be-

She roughly yanked her mind from pursuing that train of thought.

It would be unspeakably cruel in her moment of weakness to give him hope where there was none. She couldn’t do that to him - Liam deserved more than just a rebound, he deserved someone who could love him as a king not a consolation prize. She loved him but he would never be able to fill the gaping crater in her soul in the way that she craved.

'I’m sorry Liam… I am so sorry,’ she murmured into his shirt, feeling astonishment ripple through his body and the hand that had been stroking her tangled hair paused.

‘You have nothing to be sorry for, Elizabeth,’ he began to say.

'All I’ve ever brought you is heartache,’ she gushed. ‘Ever since I stepped off that damn plane, I’ve made things worse for you and your people. I wasn’t good enough as a suitor and now as a duchess I’m even more inadequate coz the one event that had any hope of uniting your country has backfired.'

Confounded, Liam opened his mouth to speak but Elizabeth barrelled onward, the words spilling from her mouth in such a torrent, he saw no option but to let her run her course.

‘If I had never come here, there would have never been a scandal at your coronation, you would have found the perfect wife, your engagement tour would have gone on without a single hitch. If it wasn’t for me, you would have your best friend back, your future as king would have been secure, your country would not have been have been in such turmoil under the threat of their king getting sho-‘

‘Elizabeth,’ he interrupted, allowing some of his kingly authority to enter into his tone, achieving the response he had intended as she tipped her head up to look at him in surprise. ‘None of that is your fault. You can’t possibly blame the entire misfortunes that have occurred in the last year on yourself. There is no way of knowing that all that would have happened if you were here or not and there is no point now in spending anymore energy this. For all we know, I could have ended up in exactly the same place and it would have been neither your fault or mine.’

His words appealed to the more logical portion of her brain and after the words sunk, her breathing evened out and she felt as though she was seeing clearly for the first time in a long time.

‘Now are we good?’ He asked, pulling away so he could look her in the eyes.

‘We’re good.’ Elizabeth chuckled slightly at his colloquial choice of wording before her eyes widened. ‘So what does this mean for Cordonia…? Calling off the wedding I mean?’

As each word left her mouth, it added to the dread and anxiety that has accumulated in her stomach since the night before. Liam dropped his hands from her shoulders, his face growing sombre as he turned away from her, the light from the morning sun highlighting the strands of gold on his head. He opened his mouth to answer her but thought better of it and instead released a weary sigh sinking down into the desk chair. He ran a hand over his face, worry etched in his figure and was quiet for a moment before delivering his answer in a grim voice.

‘I hadn’t put much thought into it but I guess once we announce it publicly today the news will be official. We’ll have to call ahead to the other duchies and counties informing them that we will not be visiting them. The Cordonian press would definitely want to talk to us, in fact I think they’ll have a field day with the news. Once they get their scoop, you should expect to be on the front of all the tabloids for a month at least because the public will be disappointed that their favourite new duchess won’t be having a big white wedding. In terms of international matters and where we are with catching the perpetrators from the night of the Homecoming ball…’

Liam paused for a moment seeming to use the time to organise his next words. ‘I’m sure Bastien had been counting on having more time to find them while the press were focused on the tour but I’ll have to tell him to speed up the investigation. The needs of the people haven’t changed. They need to see that I and the monarchy are standing strong and able to protect them. That has and always will be my first priority. I guess now we’ll have less time to convince them of that…’ he trailed off despondently, his shoulders drooping as if the weight of the world had suddenly been thrust on them.

Liam’s words only made consequences of her decision feel more real as he highlighted exactly how it would affect a great number of people outside of herself. It only took a moment for her to make up her mind.

‘I’ll do it.’ Elizabeth burst out abruptly. ‘I’ll marry him.

Disbelief was stark on Liam's face as he snapped his head up to look at her.

‘What?’

She swallowed hard before continuing on. ‘I’ll marry him Liam. Look, I don’t need Madeline to lecture me on how important this wedding is to you and Cordonia. Although I’m not from here, I am still a Duchess and my duty is to my people so if this is what it takes so be it.'

'But what about-‘ Liam began to interrupt her.

She held a hand up, gesturing for him to let her speak. ‘Don’t worry about Drake and I… We’ll-‘

What exactly would they do?

Elizabeth had seen the bud of hope in Liam’s face before it was overrun by hesitation and she took comfort in that as she continued.

‘We’ll figure something out. After all the things you’ve done for him and I, this is the least we can do for you.’

Using all of her courtly training, she schooled her features into a convincing smile as she watched him rise to his feet, his blue gaze fixing intently on her.

‘Are you sure? Because I’m not going to pretend that this wouldn’t be extremely convenient for me especially given the odds we’re up against but are you absolutely sure you want to do this Elizabeth?

‘This is about more than just me. So yes I am Liam.’

‘Alright then,’ he replied, heading over to the door. ‘I’ll make the necessary arrangements then.’ Hand on the doorknob, he paused, throwing her one last questioning look.

‘I’m sure about this Liam,’ Elizabeth repeated to which he gave her a small smile before closing the door behind him, leaving her alone to come to terms with the weight of her impending decision hanging over her head.

FIN

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Do you think I should make a part 3 or would it be better to leave it as it is?

I must credit the fantastic @chantelle-x0x for inspiring some of the lines in MC exchanges with Maxwell and Madeline, pure genius!

Tags: @chantelle-x0x @choicessa @topsyturvy-dream @lovemyrestingplacethings @xxrainbowprincessxx @american-duchess @limacity-girl @withice @sir-wigglesworth @boneandfur @ayo-minty-jess @ninamckenzie22 @drakelover78 @h3llostrang3r @cocomaxley @zarina-x-zig @kamybelen-blog @nicestrokepam @pbchoicesobsessed @bizzyschoices @lizeboredom @kellyale1804

Part 3

#drake x mc #drake walker #trr drake #trr kiara #maxwell beaumont #hana lee #king liam #olivia nevrakis #trr madeline #The Royal Romance #the royal romance book 3 #choices #playchoices #choices fandom #choices fanfiction #pixelberry #the angst continues #but does this need part 3 though

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sxpiosexualx · 6 years

Note

Some Jonsa fans care about Jon, sure. But not the ones who call him a traitor for betraying the north, or think Sansa should overthrow him and become QitN, or, say that the show has “butchered”his character for allying with the (admittedly annoying/entitled) person with DRAGONS. Some Dany fans are just as bad, but don’t tell me you won’t cancel Jon the minute your S8 hopes don’t pan out.

Hey mate I’ll admit I stared at this message, pondered on how I’d tackle answering this seriously, went on Twitter, scrolled through my entire Tumblr dash, went downstairs and got myself ice-cream, sat back up and finished my bowl of ice-cream, and then took another look at this message and I’m still having trouble understanding why I feel the need to reply to this. Life would be that much sweeter if I could ignore some things but…

it’s gonna bother me if I don’t.

**before we proceed let me just make a disclaimer that none of the points I put forward are exclusive to Jonsa - whether you ship jon x sansa or stan them both separately without hoping they get together, most of my points still stand.**

I’m with you for the most part, for admitting that some Jonsa fans do care about Jon because a few of us are more Jon stans than we are Sansa stans. Past that, I think you need to understand that OP was exaggerating the Jon hate coming from a small corner of our fandom, because like the others have explained in this thread, the majority of us are upset at the turn of events and more so at Daenerys than we are at Jon. Like @lostlittlesatellites mentioned, it’s the difference between having an actual choice, and being coerced and pushed into a corner.

Before I dive deeper into illustrating why different sets of people have different reasons for the way they’ve reacted to Jon bending the knee, you need to understand that there are a fraction of us who:

Stan Sansa more than Jon, or was a Sansa stan before a Jon stan, and are understandably upset at Jon giving away the North without first discussing it with Sansa.

Stan Jon more than Sansa, or was a Jon stan first, and are understandably upset at how him giving up the North was framed because yes, it did assassinate some things he stood for.

Those of us who stan either one more, or equally, and understand both stances taken from the two fractions above, i.e. people who understand that other people in the fandom’s feelings are valid.

The first group.

Let me try to best explain to you why the first group of people are upset: because we all were made to believe Jon was different, because he’s supposed to be different. Different from all the other guys in Dany’s arc that have fallen for her, different from Jorah, Daario, Tyrion, different. When people throw out words like “betrayal” and that Sansa should just take over, it’s because of how the narrative was built up and framed to us:

Jon gets proclaimed King in the North(despite not having a birthright, to which none of us were complaining because Sansa’s birthright as Lady of Winterfell was still respected).

Sansa is happy for him, tells him he’s a good ruler, tries to get him to consider her counsel as well because she doesn’t want him to make the same mistakes Robb and Ned did, and then defends his position in front of the Northern Lords who have made it clear they would rather have Sansa leading them at this point - this is where the “Sansa should just be QiTN” discourse comes in but for the most part, it’s wishful thinking and banter.

Sansa warns him of making the same mistakes ROBB did, and then warns him of Cersei and how much her word is worth. What does Jon do? Or rather, how does the show frame Jon giving up his kingdom? By doing so because he’s infatuated with Daenerys(I would argue and hope that this is not the case but the show sure made it seem like it was considering he pledged himself after she agreed to help). Then he blurts out that he’s pledged to Daenerys in the dragonpit scene, in front of Cersei - and the audience is made to believe that Jon and the dragon team believe Cersei’s word on her truce even after that whole fiasco.

Worse yet, people are pissed because he gave up The North without first heeding counsel or even checking in with Sansa. Jon and Sansa went from having strong communication - yes, they argue but they work through it by communicating - to Sansa not hearing anything from Jon for weeks and then suddenly receiving word that he’s bent the knee - where does that put Sansa?

People who stan Sansa of course feel betrayed because he left the North in her hands, only to go to Dragonstone and give it up without so much as an explanation to her. Does that not feel like betrayal? (I know at this point you’re sitting there wondering, well he had to!!! I’ll address that in a moment)

Moreover, it’s not hostility coming from a place of people thinking Sansa should be Queen, it’s hostility coming from people who understand the importance of Winterfell to Sansa - she fought for it as much as Jon did, she made him get back up and fight for it. It’s their home, her home. You would think a decision as large as getting yourself subjugated once more by Targaryen rulers would at least be discussed but Jon, as king, didn’t bother. They fought for it together, a place that Sansa has spent the entirety of her arc post Ned’s execution wishing to go back to, and he gave it away. That’s the betrayal, it’s a betrayal of trust. One second he’s entrusting it in her hands, the next he’s snatching it and “gifting” it to Daenerys as if it were a consolation prize for losing a dragon.

So if Jon wasn’t the guy we thought him to be, i.e. he’s just another guy that will fall to his knees at the sight of Daenerys and fight for her because he’s infatuated by her, then yes, a lot of us would gladly give up our “Jon snow stan” cards. This group of people, upon the prospect of Jon revealing himself to be just like any other character, is of the opinion that Sansa deserves better.

The second group.

Now onto the second group, the majority of us who are upset but haven’t gone full on “Jon can choke”(which tbh is a valid thing to feel considering how he did Sansa dirty due to a lack of communication and how the narrative has been framed). This tackles the “butchering” of Jon’s character, or as we call it “character assassination”. From experience, this comes mainly from people who value Jon and understand him, the people who have supported him since season 1/book 1 or who have come to appreciate his character for what he is along the way. So if they stan Jon, why are they upset too? Because his actions were OOC.

Yes, Jon would do anything to secure safety for the realm, and he did that - but how he went about doing it is what made so many of us displeased with what the show has turned him into. He went from King in the North to Daenerys’ “pet northerner.” It’s the same way some Sansa stans are upset that the show would make her go to Petyr Baelish - the slimy abuser she already denounced - for advice on what to do with Arya, painting her as naive for the majority of the season.

But we don’t hate Jon, we’re upset because of how it went down. Most of us don’t blame Jon because whatever OOC things he did “how about mY qUeEn u deServe it even though u coulda just flown in and avoided more deaths to begin with haha here’s the north” could be explained as him trying his best to ensure he’s secured her aid – because how much is her word worth when she went from “I don’t(regret it). I had to see.” to “My dragon died so that we could be here. If it’s all for nothing, then he died for nothing.”

No, we’re more disgusted with Daenerys. Mind you, not all Jonsas hate Dany, and not all anti-daenerys people ship Jonsa. We’re disgusted, because this far into the series, after years and years of people hailing Daenerys as some heroine saviour - we didn’t get that. No, what we got was her insistence of a truce with Cersei, and her insistence on Jon bending the knee. Why couldn’t she just ally herself with the North, why must she have it all? She allowed the Iron islands their independence, why not the North? What sort of heroine asks for something in return for saving lives?

Jon bending the knee was never necessary as how pro-dany stans try to make it seem, Torrhen Stark bent the knee to save his people from dragonfire, Jon bent the knee because he has to, not because he wants to. Neither of the two would have had to give up their kingdoms if the Targaryen hadn’t insisted on it in the first place. Then they pull up “isn’t their survival worth more than your pride?” as if it wasn’t the most ironic line coming from Daenerys “I’ll fight for you… when you bend the knee,” Targaryen because it was never necessary. Jonerys stans expect us to believe they take them as two equals in a relationship when Jon never met Daenerys as an equal. Since the very beginning, he’s respected her title and referred to her as Your Grace despite herself being a self-proclaimed Queen, and what did she do? Strip him of his boat, weapons, and title. Daenerys is the super power with not one, but three weapons that could easily stop the threat coming for her people as well, and yet she is adamant about making the North - a new independent and developing kingdom by right - give up their independence. Why? Why?

Why am I mentioning Daenerys? Because she plays a central role in coercing Jon into bending the knee. If she proved herself to be worthy of the throne then perhaps no one would be upset but the thing is, she stands for everything Jon doesn’t and yet he willingly gave up his kingdom to her and we’re expected to believe he genuinely thinks she’s fit to rule as opposed to doing to because he had no other choice? That’s not my Jon Snow, that’s not the one I grew to love.

The third group.

The third group clings to the hope that Jon hasn’t completely done a 180 and is instead doing what he has to do to ensure the survival of his people, and acknowledges that it was good of him to bend the knee though we still hate how it happened, and understand the backlash coming from people who support and love Sansa as well. That’s me included.

BY THE WAY:

don’t tell me you won’t cancel Jon the minute your S8 hopes don’t pan out.

ummm ok? We have a right to stan Jon and unstan him just as many of us started out rooting for Dany only to realise she’s not at all who we first thought she was. The Jon Snow I know could care less about who sits on the Iron Throne, because he’s more concerned about the threat to the North. The Jon Snow I know, put duty over love, no matter how hard it was. The Jon Snow I know, didn’t falter, except for when he thought it involved his family i.e. going off for fake!arya which consequently got him stabbed. The Jon Snow I know wouldn’t give up his kingdom, his home, his family’s home, unless he knew it was the only way to secure aid and protect them because Jon Snow loves his family more than anything. So if season 8 happens and it turns out Jon Snow really genuinely only bent the knee because he’s in love with Daenerys and doesn’t mind giving up his kingdom to get subjugated despite knowing full well the history behind his people’s trauma, because he’s just that in love with her, then yes, plenty of us would cancel Jon Snow because that’s not who he is.

I’ll also argue that it’s rich to see people from the Jonerys corner or any corner really, claim Jonsa’s don’t care about Jon’s wants when his wants have always surrounded having a place at Winterfell and being accepted as a Stark. If anything, him gladly giving up the North and its people to a Targaryen is going to drive a further wedge between that, and going off into the sunset to marry Daenerys and sit on the iron throne with their incest baby i.e. taking him away from the North to sit in Kingslanding, a place he’s made clear he doesn’t want to live in, sounds more like disregarding his wants than what we’ve proposed.

Thanks for listening, don’t tell us how to feel.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #political jon theory #anti daenerys

151 notes · View notes

monkeyoflife1 · 3 years

Text

One Piece Strong World Oda Art Book

male

glory

one

former prime minister

teacher

The Story Revealing the behind-the-scenes of a character's creation!

Eiichiro Oda

Special Interview

Eiichiro Oda, who led the film production and created an unprecedented story. He speaks directly to the truth behind the story and character creation!

Ha!

film making machine Kuushisa.

heat

"andisshou.

center of attention

target letter

fire

"When explaining important scenes, he sometimes used cartoons to set the mood. It was easy to understand and well received by the staff.

This large

system

One Piece

place

things

behavior

Strong World

movement

Kansei

The world

Eiga"

-Thank you for your hard work in executive producing my first movie! I would like to ask you a lot about the story and topics related to character & costume design. I'm looking forward to hearing from you! Oda: It's nice to meet you too. -I'd like to ask you a few questions about how you came to be in charge of the film. O: I was about two rounds away from home...maybe more. It all started when Mr. Shimizu (*1), who was the producer of "OP" at the time, came to me. Shimizu-san is a traveler who thinks far ahead and takes action. Mr. Shimizu is a traveler who thinks far ahead and takes action. He said to me, "Recently, the idea of people asking questions about animation has been falling apart. What I mean by this is that when things are suddenly going well, the staff, performers, and even the people at the companies that make the anime are all working together as one. But lately, I've been asked for advice on how that unity might be weakening. It's true that when the anime first aired, we would get together and have parties all the time, and everyone would be united as one. To be honest, I wasn't feeling the same excitement as I had in the beginning. That's when I decided to make a new film that would raise the morale of the staff and rebirth 8. I'd like to raise the morale of the staff and make a product that will rebirth 8. So, I was asked to lend a helping hand. Oda: That's exactly right. Oda: That's exactly right. I had my hands full with the weekly magazine, and I'm not dexterous enough to work on several things at the same time, so I asked him to give me a break.

But he was so enthusiastic. But he was so enthusiastic.... I finally promised him that I would write the plot (*2). So you weren't planning to do any design work in the beginning? Omagari: Yes. And when I started the plot, I also asked for the theme song to be sung by Ms. Chir (*3). I started working on the plot, hoping that this reward would come true. The result was a moving plot with a working title of "The Crystal Voyage. A part of the idea note is also included in this book. O: When I started this, what did people expect from me? I thought, "What do people expect from me? I thought that they would want to see a story that would make them cry, so I made "The Crystal Voyage". I think I did a good job, and even if it had been made into a movie, I think people would have been very happy with it. But when I thought about it, something didn't feel right. Can you tell us more about it? Oda: Emotional stories come from the emotions of the characters, and if the house focuses on making the story "emotional," it will crush the characters. The story has to be created by the characters. That's why, after writing "The Crystal Voyage," I began to wonder, "Is this really what I want to write? After writing "The Crystal Voyage", I started to wonder if this was really what I wanted to do. Finally, at a meeting to revise the scenario, I told everyone how I felt, "I think I'm going to quit this plot. Now that I'm working on it, I want to make it something new and different. I told them that I wanted to make something new and different, and that I wanted to create something exciting that would thoroughly please the boys.

I'm very pleased.

Danjirikiwa

what

the most important person in the world

the story of how it happened

earthquake

tornado

hands-on

big

man

Irre

So you completed the plot of "Strongworld"? O: I asked all the staff what they liked and what made them excited when they were kids, and then I put together a list of things that I liked when I was a kid. I put a lot of those things together, and the result is the prototype for the current chant. While I was rewriting the plot, I was really enjoying myself, and I was really excited. I think it was a good decision to rewrite it. After that, I decided to go further than I had planned. Why did you go further than the original plan and start designing costumes and animals for the enemy characters and the gang? Oda: One of the biggest reasons was that the work became something I wanted to create, and I became more and more obsessed with it. This original I didn't want it to be released in a different form than what I wanted, and I didn't want it to fail. First of all, I announced, "I'll design the new characters and costumes. The editor-in-chief of WJ told me to let go and concentrate on the manga, but now that I had put so much into it, I felt I couldn't back out. I finished the design while taking some time off from work.

Geez. Here it is!

animal

documents

nature

on the ground.

war

story

Weekly Jump Roundup

for

year

The most

first

beginning

"At first it was just supposed to be a plot.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

0 notes

aijee · 3 years

Note

hello! i’m the anon who left the 6-part ask regarding mg a few months ago (i refer to those asks bc i’m back to drop more thoughts about mg and might touch on what i previously said). i wrote this whole thing disregading word count, believing i could drop it all in one go because i managed to log in to my tumblr, but it seems i still have to break it up… lmao i don’t know how many parts this will be or if i could post it all tonight, but i will signify the very end with “6-part anon” :)

Cont’d with response under the cut (I made some executive decisions about where the paragraphs break lol so it’s not all one block of text):

they want to be famous; that part just came along with the package. then i read in your bts post, you see mg as more wrapped up in entertainment, having star power with a bright personality, liking the limelight. reading that, i do agree, but i guess ive never thought of that before. i think wanting to be a star and wanting to be in the spotlight can seem self-centered. i hope im not coming across like im judging everyone who wants to be famous as “bad” because that’s not what i’m trying to do, but i think it’s safe enough to say that wanting to be famous means wanting people’s attention on you. i’m trying to tread carefully but i suppose i am saying that on the surface, wanting to be a big star can seem a little selfish in the sense that you want to boost your image, present your best self at all times, want people’s eyes on you and want them to think good things about you. combining those general thoughts about wanting to be a star, with my thoughts about mg in particular, is interesting to me.

i’ve always seen him as someone so selfless, so lovely, so considerate towards others. throughout idotsc, you’ve written him throughout as someone so amiable, liked by everyone, and also selfless and considerate. and in chp 7, his reaction twds the pictures is... well, I think they’re pretty true to character, and again i think it shows selflessness. then the ‘Love Languages’ text that OP had written— while, of course, OP doesn’t know him and everything is an assumption to a certain degree, I think their writing summarizes in one place what I observed about mg through the content available to the public: he constantly gives to people around him, exhibiting sincerity, words of gratitude and acts of service. at the same time, i definitely agree with what you said about his star quality, so i think that was the first time i really stopped to examine my thoughts about stardom and how some things may not be mutually exclusive.

“stardom” also makes me think about his recent incident, because of course, such incidents are definitely a potential consequence of fame. during that time i’ve also come across several opinions saying that they’re not surprised if a current idol was a past bully… i don’t remember exactly what people said but i think it was somewhere along the lines of, if they were so confident and cocky since predebut, then they might have had the qualities of a bully. something like that. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others.

one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy. i think from the outside looking in, it may be easier to equate star quality with a diva attitude/disregard twds others. one thing i’d like to add is sth that a famous person said abt fame, and why they value it more than money, bc if they meet a fan, the look on the fan’s face upon meeting them gives them a feeling money can’t buy. and i suppose from this angle, being a star seems selfless. with svt too, they expressed how meaningful it is to them that theyre able to bring us so much joy.

i hope this all makes sense; i had lots of thoughts and wanted to try to write them. i struggled to understand why one would want to be a star, and went in circles questioning if i thought it was more selfish or selfless, and what one’s true motives might be behind wanting fame. ik u implied u embrace long writing bc you also write in length, but i’m less eloquent than you are so i hope this was fine! thank you again for having a space where people could offload their thoughts :) ~6-part anon~

There’s a lot to unpack here, isn’t there! A buffet of food for thought, for sure. I can’t possibly respond to everything written here because there’s just so many points, so I’ll write a few points. As always, take what I write with a grain of salt.

I don’t think there’s anything bad or inherently wrong with pointing out that, hey, people who are interested in a profession necessarily tied to a public image probably to show off or want attention. These things are perfectly natural to want, even for people who aren’t celebrities, because we’re (1) inherently social creatures and a lot of our survival is contingent on external success, and (2) we are brought up to feel validation from others, especially in an age where our lives are much more on display. But I can see why “selfishness” may be thrown in the mix because we often look down on attention-seekers and “popular” people, many of whom exhibit arrogant/tone-deaf behaviors. On the other hand, it’s understandable that an idol with a big public image necessitates putting their best foot forward all the time to maintain good opinion of them and to earn more money, frankly.

I’ve probably repeated myself too many times, but something I’ve been grappling with recently is this black-and-white mindset/judgment system we often have of others (very much exacerbated by social media, e.g. witch hunts). Bad is bad, good is good. I’ve thought this way for a long time of myself in an upbringing that always punished/looked down on bad behavior (or what was considered behavioral flaws, like speaking out against elders, swearing as a femme person, etc.) rather than acknowledging that “bad” behavior can be exhibited by people who also do and act “good.” In short, while I can only speak from my perspective, I think we’re programmed to subconsciously seek behavioral perfection for a number of reasons: we were raised that way by family; and/or society; we feel judged by the presence of social media and greater access into our lives; accessibility to celebrities and “perfect” public figures makes us judge ourselves by comparison; education systems that poorly address internal learning as well as external learning, etc.

In Mingyu’s case, there’s nothing wrong with seeing and continuing to see him as all those good qualities in my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with grappling with potential past problematic behaviors of your faves, as long as you’re critical and open-minded about the parties involved (which is rarely ever a fanbase at large, but the skewed authority of a fanbase is a different can of worms). Idols are human, which means dealing with the good and bad that comes with interacting humans. Contrary to popular belief (and I write this sarcastically), people CAN change. People should be ALLOWED to change. Characters are static. People are not. And it’s sad to say that this is still an issue in the K-Pop world.

As hard as it sounds, a person who bullied others in the past could still have good or pure intentions for becoming an idol. They could still feel fulfillment from making others happy; is that a bad thing? I personally don’t think so. Or maybe a person’s intentions for becoming an idol could be mixed good or bad, who the fuck knows? Not us. Honestly, I firmly believe that we fans don’t have the right to make definitive moral judgments of idols in the first place because we don’t know them personally. That, and people are extremely complex and hard to categorize, as much as we want to because it’s easier to do so. People are messy. Real life teaches us that more than the Internet does imo.

In any case, I don’t think selfishness and selflessness are mutually exclusive in the same way a person can be both good and bad. I learned that language, too, is a powerful vehicle that influences how we think. In that vein, with how compartmentalized definitions are in specific words, perhaps we think that their existence/practice is separate, i.e. being “selfish” is never being “selfless” because each word’s definition exists solely in their respective word and not the other (hopefully that makes some sense).

TL;DR: I think wanting attention and validation from others is okay and not inherently a bad thing, and people are fucking messy and rarely good without the bad (and vice versa).

Pretty sure I rambled a ton as well and probably didn’t hit that many points that you offered, anon. You ended up putting me on a thought train as well!

#askaijee

0 notes

crasherfly · 4 years

Text

Weekly Update

Nothing to report.

I had a big ol’ ripper of a rant, but it was pretty much everything I’d already said in therapy. Y’all don’t gotta take that on. So I’m gonna let it lie where it ought- with a professional.

I’ll just say I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I miss everyone a lot and I hope we can game together soon.

Video Games

Holy smokes did I play some games or did I play some GAMES. (I played some games). Gonna do my best to recap everything I did below.

Crusader Kings 3 (PC)

Crusader Kings 3 is a grand strategy game about facilitating a royal line in the medieval world and leading it to ever greater heights of fame and power. Eventually, you’ll see your humble bloodline climb to the highest echelons of the lite.

Crusader Kings 3 is a grand strategy game about overseeing a perpetual house fire of family turmoil in the medieval world and watching over the course of hours and days as it burns itself straight to the ground.

Both of these things are equally true. And shockingly, both are equally fun.

I played about 30 hours of this game over Thanksgiving break. And although my first royal family was more of the house fire variety, I can’t deny that my experience was memorable and deeply enjoyable.

In Crusader Kings 3 you play as a king- not a kingdom, but the actual ruler. You have stats and abilities and traits, and the decisions you make throughout your reign affect them in dramatic ways. You also oversee an entire family of individuals who you can similarly affect with your actions.

While the game itself also has traditional strategy concepts such as war and economy, the real meat and bones are in the simply click to choose narrative bubbles that pop up throughout your playthrough. Will you attend the ball, or slink away into the night? Will you charge the rampart or let your knights serve as your shield? Will you marry the unskilled heir of a powerful ally, or commoner with the brilliant stewardship abilities? Every decision ensures that your playthrough will be nothing like anyone else’s.

It is a complex and robust system, demanding you take on an encyclopedia’s worth of terms and vocabulary to fully understand what is happening. Everything- and I mean EVERYTHING- has a stat modifier attached to it. War is unforgiving and often devastating, and economic buildup is fragile and requires immense patience. This is a slow experience, to be sure, one that makes games like Civ or even Endless Space seem lightning paced in comparison.

There aren’t many folks I could recommend this game to. The few I know who have tried it have given up after a couple hours, discouraged by the obtuse volume of systems and intricacies that I won’t even pretend to have a full grasp of as of this writing.

But what I will say is that it is rare for a strategy game to be so accepting of ignorance and mistakes- and if you’re willing to give Crusader Kings 3 the time to open up, it will reward you.

My first king after the starter king died at 33, half-insane, wounded and tortured to death after an ill-fated war against a neighboring county who happened to be best buds with the King of England- a much, much stronger kingdom than I. But I kept going, and by the time I’d hit the 5th and 6th kings in my succession, my rulers were regularly living well past 55 years of age, occasionally winning wars, but more importantly, staying out of unnecessary ones, and making plenty of gold for kingdom improvements.

Granted, this all came crashing down after an opportunistic neighbor declared war on me as I was in the midst of my own expansion. They captured an incredibly valuable county from me, and my kingdom never recovered. I watched as my territory disappeared claim by claim until at last my army of less than 100 was wiped out, my last city captured, and my bloodline swiftly ended via jailing and executions.

But...it was a thrilling end to over 200 years of royal drama, and I was immediately plotting how I’d do better next game.

Hitman 2 (PS4)

So when I said I played some GAMES, I mostly meant I got deep into a couple of games that require a lot of investment and focus. I’ve put in over 150 hours with Hitman 1 and 2 combined. I maxed out the mastery level of every mission in the first game- twice, so I could unlock the old equipment for the new game- and have been working my way through total mastery on the second game ever since.

If someone were to ask me what I think the best game of the PS4/XBONE gen is, I’d say, without hesitation, Hitman. It’s rare to find a game that is so rewarding of your time, so dedicated to presenting you with a thoughtful and clever world as this. Every level is a perfect puzzle. Every solution is both humorous and karmic and deeply satisfying. The rewards are many and you earn them often enough to keep you coming back. There are more side-contracts than I could ever possibly play. There’s even a co-op mode that I haven’t touched, not to mention the custom contracts. There’s even more than that, but if I go on I’ll start to sound like a back of box summary.

I finally finished the Isle of Sgail this week. A massive, sprawling castle with multiple layers of security and triggered events, it took FOREVER to learn. In fact, it was so massive that I gave up on it several times before finally resolving to finish it.

Now, I’m a deeply obsessive Hitman player. I don’t move on from a level until I’ve maxed out its mastery rating and unlocked all of its items for my inventory. But had I not wanted to do that? I could have moved forward at any time. And that’s the joy of Hitman. It doesn’t force you to stick around longer than you’d want to. If you want to play every single hit the same way, you can! If you want to just walk into every single level, shoot your target in the head, and leave- it might be a bit tricky, but it isn’t impossible, and you could do that and conceivably play every single level in the course of maybe a week.

But if you want to take your time and really memorize these brilliant layouts over the course of weeks, months, or in my case- years? You can do that too. Either way can be the right way to enjoy Hitman.

I’m guessing these games will go on sale a few more times before 3 drops. If you can pick up 2′s premium edition, which includes 1, I’d highly recommend it. It is rare that you will find a title with so much pure single player content. Years worth, if you want it.

Depending on how the devs handle inventory and progress crossover for 3, I’ll have a big decision to make on what console I choose to play. I couldn’t care less where the story is going, but then, has anyone ever? These games have been an absolute joy to play, and that’s what matters.

Also...a Bond game from the same devs?

Sign me up!

Link’s Awakening (Switch)

I always told myself I’d never pay full price for this. Because Nintendo’s gonna Nintendo, I had to wait a full year before I could catch any sort of break on this price.

Eventually picked up Link’s Awakening and so far it’s pretty much been exactly what I expected. My muscle memory carried me through 2 dungeons in less than 90 minutes. The visuals were gorgeous, the music delightful, and my continual nostalgic recall at times overwhelming. This really is the same game we all played on our Gameboys, brought back to life for a new gen.

There’s nothing new here to go over. However, if you have a child or a partner who didn’t grow up with this? I’d recommend picking it up for them. Link’s Awakening has always been one of the least intimidating and most accessible Zelda games out there, and this reboot (or remaster? idk!) is an absolute charmer.

Premium Bowling (Oculus Quest 2)

So it’s come to this. Bowling. The more things have changed since the Wii, the more they stay the same. Bowling is still the most satisfying motion activity you can do, it seems.

Premium Bowling is exactly what it sounds like- a game about bowling. You have a few different alleys to choose and no shortage of pin set ups. The added ability to track not just your hand motions but your steps is really cool- and I like to hope my actual bowling form has improved as I play this. I get a good light workout in and the ball and pins tend to behave the way I feel like they should.

Not much else to say here. The price tag is a bit steep for a bowling experience, but far as I can tell this seems to be the main, if not only, one out there, and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, even as I have to admit the announcer bugs the daylights out of me.

Anime

Folks- I did the damn thing. I got out there and I watched some anime! FINALLY.

I don’t know what I keep avoiding this stuff. There are so many good and interesting stories out there at my fingertips, and I just keep ignoring them to go watch wrestling or bet on Spriteclub. It’s awful!

Well, no more. This week, I got to catch up on some stories. Here’s what I got so far.

Note: For titles I haven’t written about previously, I’ll provide a short summary. For others, not so much. For my more critical thoughts- my experiences are my own and not a judgement of others. Maybe you loved one series or hated another. That’s totally fine! Everyone should love what they love without reservation. As always, I love hearing about what you love. If you think I missed something, or just want to share something about your experience that really made an anime click? Hit me up! Also, I am ALWAYS taking recommendations- and I will almost always follow up if I give something you send my way a shot :)

Fire Force

Fire Force’s season 2 is finally, after what feels like an eternity, winding down. It’s still a gorgeous show and certainly one of the most on-brand shonen out there. It’s also, for me, one of the most uneven.

Season 2 has been all over the damn place this year, introducing countless characters and following no small number of random threads before finally coming back to Shinra and the 8th’s mission to determine the cause of human combustion.

The past couple of eps in particular have been brutal, with actual character death and mutilation taking a front seat- things I was not necessarily expecting from a fairly gung-ho shonen.

I still enjoy the world that Fire Force has built. It’s an undeniably cool aesthetic. I’ll be curious to see what, if any, cliff-hangers the writers leave us as the heroes close in on the evil Evangelist.

Jujutsu Kaisen

Speaking of shonens, this particular title about a possessed teenager with a death sentence has really come into its own in its first season. Its lore is absolutely lovely, and the more I learn about curses and those who hunt them, the more I want to know.

I’ll spare the rundown on what this show’s about- I’ve gone over it in previous blogs. Suffice to say those who are after a more mature shonen with a darker plot will dig this one a lot.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

A young adventurer named Bell becomes an adventurer- not to kill monsters or earn glory, but to find true love. Eventually, he finds it, but not in the way he expects. After getting cornered by a monster way above his level, he is rescued by a beautiful warrior named Ais. The story follows Bell’s quest to get stronger so that he can impress Ais- and stand with confidence amongst other adventurers.

Only watched the first ep of this. It was charming, well animated. I hear it’s picked up a lot of steam in its third season. I don’t know that I can say the hook really grabbed me, but it’s a very cute show.

One-Punch Man

Saitama has a problem- he’s trained so hard that he’s now TOO strong, and can finish every fight with just one punch. He’s now bored and despondent, as the hobby he took up for fun now lacks the spark that he once felt before. Dealing with these feelings and seeking a challenge that shakes up his low-stakes, humdrum day to day life- that is the story we follow in One-Punch Man.

So I’ve read the manga for OPM. I loved it. I thought, and still think, its animation is superior to the anime. When I first tried OPM I couldn’t get past that, and I eventually gave up.

I also thought that a lot of OPM stories had kind of a weird tone- it’s definitely a loner/outsider story, and a lot of the villains and antagonists that get set up are absolutely poking fun at the typical things you’d expect an angry loner story to poke fun at. I won’t get too into it, but when I first tried OPM that weird undercurrent really made it hard for me to get into it the way a lot of other guys I knew were.

A few years later, I’m giving it a shot again. And overall?

I don’t hate it.

I think I’m looking at the protagonist, Saitama, in a different light. His boredom, his lackluster deference and his blank stares all play to a place that I find more familiar than I’d like to admit.

But also- the animation is fine and I’m a dummy for giving it grief. And the music is just super rad as well.

I think I’ll eventually finish OPM now that I have both more distance between the manga now and now that I’ve kinda settled down on what throws me off, content-wise, in a story. I’m going to give OPM the benefit of the doubt and keep watching. I’ll report back when I finish.

Mob Psycho 100

A lot of folks I know have ranted that Mob Psycho 100 is the best darn thing to happen to anime in ages. I guess the visuals, much as they did for One-Punch Man, sorta dissuaded me from seeing what all the hype was about.

And I guess they still kinda do. I...I guess Mob Psycho is pretty in its own way. It’s definitely not the visual aesthetic I go searching for in an anime, but I’m trying to do a better job of not judging that too harshly.

Anyway, Mob Psycho 100 is about a kid named Mob who acts as a powerful exorcist on behalf of his bumbling and powerless teacher. Together they take on demons as a for-hire service.

I feel like I’ve heard this show is hilarious? I don’t know. I didn’t find too much to chuckle about, but it was well-done and it certainly had no shortage of chaotic energy and visuals.

I’ll probably finish it, if only ‘cuz I’m mildly intrigued about just what so many others see in Mob as a protag, and ‘cuz I’m also curious what so many folks are drawing from the series as a whole. But so far, I haven’t found myself hooked.

No Guns Life

The main character has a gun for a head. Honestly? That was weird enough to make me pass over the thumbnail for months.

Recently though, I’ve been rewatching Solty Rei, and it got me in the mood for weird sci-fi noir stories. So I thought what the hell, I’ll give the gunhead a try.

I’m so, so glad I did.

Of all the titles I tried out this week, No Guns Life is the best. It is dark, brooding, gorgeous, but also knows when to have fun.

In a future world where prosthetic replacement has been normalized- if not popularized, a mercenary named Juzo is handed a case by a desperate “Extended” (the term used for more advanced cyborgs) who asks him to look after a boy that was just rescued from a corporate lab. Juzo takes the case, and his life immediately becomes more complicated- and dangerous.

It’s a classic noir hook that feels both familiar yet fresh in thanks to the series’ inventive visuals and intricate lore. Further, the voice acting is just pure hard-boiled goodness, whether you watch it in English or the original Japanese.

Do yourself a favor and give the first episode a try. You might just love it.

The Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited

An honest and earnest blue-collar detective is paired up with a new recruit at his precinct- a recruit who turns out to be the richest man on the planet!

That’s it. That’s the show. It is not trying to hide anything- that’s its premise and it’s sticking by it.

And a few times, I even laughed at its brazenness.

At one point during a high speed chase, the millionaire successfully resolves the chase by...telling his butler to pay everyone to get out of the way- at “twice the market value”. Which. What even...

The Millionaire Detective’s power is literally that he is rich and can afford anything. When he accesses his balances, they are listed as “unlimited”. He buys everyone off. Pays for every damage he causes. He can make city utilities such as traffic lights and draw bridges do anything he likes. At one point, the Millionaire Detective stops a foreign dignitary in the middle of the street and buys the dignitary’s vehicle on the spot so he can continue his chase. It’s...well. It’s the logical conclusion of the series title. I’ll give it that much.

No idea if I’d finish this. It has some funny ideas. I like that the eps end with a balance sheet that tells you how much was spent.

Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out

A loner in college is constantly shadowed and harassed by an indomitable girl named Uzaki who, true to the name of the series, wants to hang out.

I watched one ep of this show. I didn’t dislike it! I’m a sucker for low stakes slice of life comedies like this where the biggest conflict is whether or not the protag gets to go to the movies alone.

It’s not as clever as other slice of life anime I’ve seen, but it’s not abrasive. The namesake character Uzaki is a bit manic, and the loner is a bit of a bore, but there’s chemistry I could see following for a few more eps. I also just enjoy observing Japanese culture as it unfolds in stories like these. There’s so much to pick up in these kinds of stories, so I may continue on with it, if only out of curiosity.

The Rising of Shield Hero

A guy gets transported to a world in dire need of heroes. Everyone who is brought to the world is assigned a weapon which they will use to save the kingdom. Our protagonist gets the Shield- considered the weakest assignment. Derided by his allies and cast out after no small number of misunderstandings, Rising of Shield Hero is the story of one man’s drive to do the right thing and save the kingdom that never wanted him in the first place.

This is my second try with Shield Hero. I gave up once before. But now...I’m giving Shield Hero another shot.

I tried this title about a year ago. I was really harsh on its opening ep’, which hinges on a false rape accusation and a typical loner outsider isekai protagonist. Its “best girl” is a character who is introduced by way of being literally purchased from a slaver. None of this was presented in an especially egregious or even disrespectful format, but at the time I was watching it, I just lacked patience for it.

But time is a funny thing. We grow, we re-evaluate, and we make ourselves open to change.

I think I’ve had time to chill out since my first experience with Shield Hero and not be so bothered by the particulars (that, and...well, my experience with Goblin Slayer really put some shit in perspective, ugh). Did I think some of ep 1 was unimaginative? Yes. But was any of it actually a dealbreaker? Nah.I know a lot of good folks who I trust that have really resonated with Shield Hero as it has unfolded. It’s worth giving it another try.

Shield Hero’s setting is beautiful and its characters are certainly drawn to create an emotional investment. We want to root for the the Shield Hero, because he is quietly determined and righteous. We want to protect Raphtalia be cause she is vulnerable and kind. We want to see the antagonists fail because they’re all huge jerks. This aint rocket science, but I’ll grant it is effective and I want to be a part of the ride like so many others are.

I’m going to keep working through this, if only because I know season 2 is a damn event in anime and I don’t want to miss out. I’ll let you know if things keep improving. I’ve done episode 2 thus far, and I liked it more than ep 1. So we’ll see if that trend keeps up.

1 note · View note

missmungoe · 7 years

Note

for the flower prompt thing: xeranthemum (eternity, immortality) for ASL :D (coincidentally to celebrate the spoiler from op magazine ahahah oh god)

ALL FOR ONE // xeranthemum; eternity, immortality //aka my take on Oda’s Marineford AU, where Sabo saved the day (and all our hearts)

Thereare things that last forever.

“Areyou still crying?”

Animpressive frown, its attempted severity ruined only by the wobbling of his lower lip,before Luffy ducks his head. “Shut up! I’m not crying.”

“There’ssnot running down your chin.”

Asniffle – a loud, wet sound. “No there isn’t.”

Acesighs. “Jeez. It’s just a scratch. Makino-san even put a band-aid on it.” Then, under his breath, “Not that it was really necessary – it’s not like you werebleeding to death.”

Handswrapped protectively around his knee, as though contesting the necessity of theband-aid was understood as a declaration to remove it, “It still hurts!”

“Life hurts. And you’ll get worseinjuries than that if you want to go out to sea. You can’t go running back to Makino-sanfor band-aids then.”

Luffyturns his nose up. “I’ll get a good doctor.”

“Yeah?To patch your knees?”

“Shutup!”

“Stopcrying and I might.”

“Seriously,”Sabo sighs, drawing their attentions. “I’ve been gone five minutes.” A look atLuffy then, and with his brows knitting, “Are you still crying, Luffy?”

Acesticks his tongue out, grinning. “Told you.”

Handsstill wrapped around his knee, Luffy levels a glare at them both. “I’m not crying.”

Sabotilts his head. “There’s snot all over your shirt.”

Ace’s laughter punctuates his point, and when Luffy pouts, he reaches out to ruffle his hair, pushing the strawhat back and out of his eyes. “Idiot,” he says, but it lacks bite. The band-aidon his knee is coming loose, and Ace rubs one corner until it sticks. “We won’tbe around to take care of you forever, you know.”

Luffywipes his nose – lifts it, defiant. “I know.”

“Soyou better learn to take care of yourself.”

“Iwill.”

“And stop crying.”

“Ihave.”

“And to put on your own band-aids, like a big boy.”

Thatdoes it. Luffy pounces, and they both go down, rolling across the dirt.Observing the scuffle, Sabo sighs, ever the long-suffering, but points arecounted, and redacted, and comments on form are offered, unasked-for (“you reallyneed to improve your aim, Luffy”, and “Ace, you’re suffocating him. Ace–”). Makino’s band-aid comes off, andAce gets a mouthful of dirt for his trouble – gives one in turn, along with agrinning headlock that has Sabo stifling a sigh with his palm.

ButLuffy stops crying, and by the time they’ve reached a truce (Ace wins, healways does, and he never lets him forget it), the cut on his knee isforgotten, and instead of tears it’s laughter that colours the air, bright like thedappled sunlight dripping through the branches.

Because a big brother has his means, his small ways, and they always, alwayswork.

—

Thereare things that last forever. The memory of dirt in his mouth, and the sunthrough the canopy, warming his back. Blond curls. Patched knees. An old, wornstraw hat. Sabo laughing; Luffy crying.

Yearspass – his life shifts, twists and turns and tides changing, but he remembersall those things. He is a captain, and then someone becomes his; like he had afather once, and then he chooses another. But he doesn’t forget – he never forgets, Dadan’s rough hands,and Makino’s softer ones. A cabin full of bandits. Sabo. Luffy.

Andwhat it means to be someone’s brother.

—

It all happens so fast, it doesn’t register at first.

Hemakes the decision – it doesn’t take him long, not even a full second, and he knowsit’s going to be his last, but he doesn’t care,because it’s his little brother, and he would be his first choice, and hislast. That has never changed – would never change, if he lived to make the samechoice again.

Hewon’t, Ace knows, but it’s okay. He hadn’t counted on living beyond today,anyway. That he has been given a little more time is more than he’d expected,and he’ll use it for this; the very last of his strength and conviction.

It’sokay, Ace thinks.

This is okay.

Theheat at his back singes the air, hotter than his own. He catches the shockwhere it erupts across Luffy’s face, and knows his brother – knows there willbe tears.

There’ssome comfort in that, he finds. A small, familiar thing.

But then, between breaths, the ones he’d thought would be his very last, a gloved hand grips his shoulder, shoving him back, and suddenly his visionis filled with curls – bright, blond, bouncycurls, and there’s something about the sight that makes him want to laugh, soat odds with the fire and the blood, and like Luffy’s tears, that’s familiar,too, almost like–

Shit, your hair is somethingelse. Every time I look at it I think it can’t get any curlier, but then itdoes.

I can’t help what it is.

You’re so pretty, Sabo-kun~!

Shut up!

Hewonders for a moment if he’s dead – that it happened so fast he didn’t evenfeel it, and that this is some twisted version of the afterlife; fire and brimstone and the ghosts of long dead brothers.

“Madeit in time!” a voice shouts then – a voice he knows, although it’s different. Older, and rougher around the edges, butit’s unmistakable, even if the sound of it defies what he knows to be possible.What should be possible.

Andhe’s not dead, Ace realises. The battlefield is still there, and Akainu. Hisold man is still standing, and the crew, and Luffy, and–

Acestares.

Andstares.

And– “You’re dead,” he croaks, at the shape standing two steps from him, and –blond curls, he sees, and for a moment he can’t seem to focus on anything else.

Thefigure turns his head, a smile flashing beneath the dark brim of his hat (andhe knows that hat – has made fun of that hat, has pulled it down, has stolenit, has dusted it off and plopped it back onto those ridiculous, bouncy curls),confident on the surface, but the crooked lilt tells a different truth.

“Sowere you supposed to be,” Sabo says – Sabo,Ace thinks, disbelieving. “This is yourexecution, isn’t it?”

Thelaugh that claws its way up his throat sounds winded – broken. It doesn’t really sound likea laugh at all, but then he doesn’t think it’s supposed to be one – doesn’t know whathe’s feeling, if he’s feeling anything at all, or if what he’s seeingis even real. He doesn’t know if he’s still alive, or if he really did die, and the rest of himjust hasn’t caught up.

Forhis part, Luffy looks like he’s feeling everything. Ace watches his mouth working,his voice quavering, the shape of the name on his tongue cleaved in half justafter the first syllable, as though speaking both is too much. “Sa–”

“First things first. Let’sget out of here,” Sabo says – theirbrother, who shouldn’t be alive to say anything. And yet the same could besaid for Ace, and maybe that’s what allows him to snap out of the daze, and to accept,even if he doesn’t yet understand – even if he doesn’t yet believe. “I’llexplain later.”

Acetries to find the things that will prove it’s impossible – that it’s someoneelse who’s come to their aid in the nick of time, even as he can’t stop finding things he knows (that chin, that nose, the edge ofthat smile, blond curls–)

Luffy– always quicker to accept, always quicker to believe – looks like he’s about to burst into tears, and it doesn’thelp the fist-sized lump pushing up his own throat, although Ace doesn’t knowif it’s tears or laughter that’s threatening to rip him apart.

Witha glance at Luffy, openly crying now – “Glad to see some things haven’t changed,”Sabo says, laughing, but there’s a hard edge to the sound, and Akainu is stillthere. There’s still a war, and his crew, dying around him.

Theyhaven’t bought time – they’ve stolen it, pilfered with a pirate’s sleight ofhand, but not for keeping. There’s a window, if they want to do this, and it doesn’tleave them room for explanations.

Luffyand Sabo take off running, no further words offered or needed, and Ace sees intheir backs memories over ten years old; for a single instant, the battlefield becomeshard-packed earth and the skies exchanged with thick forest canopies, sun-dappledgrass and curling, twisting footpaths, and he almost – almost follows.

Hisbrothers are alive –both of them, andfor the first time in ten years. It’s not an illusion, and it’s not the canopiesof the past but the wide-open sky of the present.

Butit’s still a war – it’s his war, and hiscrew is dying, and for his sake, and so Ace hesitates.

It’sa mistake.

“Ace!”Luffy shouts. He turns – stops running. Up ahead, Sabo follows suit, coattailswhipping around his legs. And Ace watches alarm shift across his features, butit’s too late, they’re out of time, and then there’s Luffy’s voice, still shouting, “Ace, come on–”

Akainumoves – he feels it, and Ace draws a breath to call out; shapes the words onhis tongue, but there’s no time, and he would have made the samechoice again in a heartbeat, but there’sno time–

Theblow doesn’t hit its mark – not completely. Instead there’s a large shapeshoving his brother out of the way, and for a single second, his heart leaps, hopeelevating it, before it plummets back down.

Thefall from hope is always the longest – the hardest. Ace knows that better thanmost.

He’smaking for Luffy before he’s had the chance to drag in enough breath to shout.

He’scaught him before he hits the ground, but the damage is already done. And he’s heavier than he should be – the kind of heaviness that tells Ace he’s lost consciousness, evenbefore the weight has fully sunk into his arms. And then he’s scrambling for apulse, because he can’t be dead – he can’t have lived through his own executionand had one brother returned, only to lose another in the same breath.

Hisvoice is broken when it finally manages to tear itself loose. “Luffy!”

Hisbrother doesn’t respond –doesn’t move, which itself spells wrongnessin every fibre of Ace’s being, because Luffy wasn’t made for being still, in anysense of the word.

Andhe’s small – gods, was he always thissmall – too-thin, all arms and legs, but there’s none of the restless, wound-up energy thereshould be in them now, slack in Ace’s grip. The smell of burning flesh hits hisnose, a foul, bile-inducing scent, and one he’s intimately familiar with, butfor the first time in years it makes him physically recoil.

Ashape above him then, shadow thrown large across the broken ground, and, “Jinbei,” Ace manages,recognition registering through the white noise keening in his head, seeming to drown out everything else. Andthere’s gratitude pushing against his chest, like it wants to break his ribs, butit’s a twisted, ugly thing that refuses to shape into words, and he finds itreflected in the regret on Jinbei’s face, expression contorted with pain.

“Ace!”The shout from above draws both their gazes, and there’s Marco, wings sweepingacross the sky, blue fire lapping at the edges of his vision. “Take yourbrother and get out of here! We’ll catch up with you later!”

Ahand grips his shoulder, and Sabo is there, and he still hasn’t had the chanceto wrap his mind around that, andeven now he isn’t allowed, because there’s no time.

But there are hands helping him lifttheir little brother, and, “Come on,” Sabo says, and this time, Ace doesn’thesitate.

Andthen they’re running.

Theyalways seem to be, in some way or another – in all his memories, they’rerunning, but there’s no dappled sunlight here, or dirt under his feet; and it’snot laughter filling his chest, filling the air, relishing in the freedom ofchoosing your own life, your own family, your own destiny. It had once meant the world to him, that freedom.

But he’d trade all the freedom in the whole damn world for the life of the little brother inhis arms.

—

It’sa while before Sabo allows himself to breathe.

Itfeels like a luxury he’s been denying himself – ever since the front page of that newspaper, andwaking three days later, only to discover that the nightmare wasn’t the world he’d left behind in sleep, but theone he’d woken to. It had been a scramble for time, and he hadn’t had a second to lose,not even to draw breath.

Koalawill give him an earful later, for taking off from Marineford without a word, but he’s toohigh-strung to feel regret, or to feel anything at all beyond the worry that’scoiled so tight in his gut, he feels like throwing up, just for a spell ofrelief.

Thesubmarine pitches – tilts unpleasantly, but he manages to keep his balance, ifonly barely. He hasn’t stopped to ask where they’re going, or even if it’sright to trust who they’re going with. The only thing that had mattered hadbeen to get away from Marineford; anything else they can deal with later, oncetheir brother is safe.

Sabohas always been good at thinking on his feet. It’s when he stops moving that the uncertainty creeps in, and is given time to fester.

They’drushed Luffy into surgery – the one who’d declared himself a doctor, and whoSabo wouldn’t have trusted in a second on any other day, but his hands had beensteady, and their brother had been dying in their arms, and there hadn’t beentime for distrust, or to ask for an explanation.

Nowthere’s time, and too much of it. And it almost makes him want to laugh – thatit’s come to this, after so many close calls, so many near-misses. There’snothing else for them to do now but wait.

Fromacross the cramped space, Ace is looking at him – Ace, who hadn’t been this tall; who’d been all skin and bones andfreckles. And the freckles are there, if duller than they should be, his complexion too pale for what Sabo remembers, and it’s old memories and new impressionsstumbling over each other in his head and before his eyes, so fast he can’t keep up, until he’sdizzy just from trying.

“Youwere dead,” Ace rasps, after a lull has passed – a heavy heartbeat, like a pulseleaping between them; one that’s been idle for ten years. Not gone –never gone, because Sabo hadn’t been,even though he sort-of had, and there are so many things that need saying where that’s concerned, he doesn’tknow where to start.

Hethinks of the newspaper headline – the execution announcement that hadkick-started his memory, and so forcefully he still hasn’t recovered fully. Itkeeps coming back, in broken bits and pieces; a great, jagged puzzle, like hiswhole being came apart with a breath and he’s been holding himself together atthe seams ever since.

“There’san explanation,” Sabo begins, and finds it dying on his tongue. But he tries,anyway. “I know you’re probably wondering where I’ve been, and why I didn’t comeback, or say anythi–”

Armsaround him – an embrace so unapologetically brutalhe’s hard pressed to decide if he’s being hugged or if he’s being held in apretty convincing wrestling grip. But he knows his brother – knows his tells,his tricks and favoured moves, all of them coming back to him now, and thisisn’t one of them.

“Youcrashed my execution,” Ace says then, voice thick, and Sabo’s laugh caves himin half.

“Youwent and got one scheduled, you ass.What was I supposed to do?” He doesn’t mention the newspaper – that he hadn’tknown, hadn’t remembered before he’dread the headline.

ButAce doesn’t ask – doesn’t demand he explain, and Sabo wonders if it evenmatters. “You always had to one-up me,” Ace says instead.

His hands find purchase, gripping him back until it hurts to breathe. Thewords feel too large, clogging his throat. “Yeah, well. If I ever land myselfon an execution platform, you’ll have the opportunity to pay me back.” A beat,and then, softer, “Although I think Luffy will still have us both beat.”

Thearms around him tighten, an embrace too hard to be tender, but then his brother wasnever that, but – “Yeah,” Ace says, roughly. “Can’tbeat a warship falling from the sky. I’ll give him this one.”

“He’llnever let us forget that, if you do. We’ve never let him win.”

Hehears the laugh that follows, sharp and short, but even as it rings hollow,there’s a comfort in it, old and familiar. And maybe humour is the only way todeal with this; the only thing that’s keeping them from crumbling completely,save the fact that they’re practically carrying each other’s weight.

Speakingof – “Shit, you got tall,” Sabo says.“And what’s up with the guns? And the tattoos?”

Thearms around him cinch tight, as though in retaliation. “You’re one to talk – you’rebuilt like a damn tree. Compensating for something?”

“You’renot exactly being discreet, running around without a shirt.”

“Don’tblame me just because you don’t have the confidence to pull it off, cravat boy.”

Hedoesn’t know what hurts the most, breathing or laughing, or if there’s any reliefin either. And he’s still trying to piece things together – to connect thememories in his head to the brother in his arms (everything is longer, arms, legs, hair, his frecklesdulled but the scar on his shoulder is still there, the one that kind of lookslike a warship, and he’s warmer than he should be, almost feverish; the devilfruit’s doing, and that’s new, too).

Then– “What the hell is this?” Ace sobs around a laugh, tugging at a lock of hair,curling at his nape; as though he’s taking stock, too. Sabo bats his hand away,but his grin comes, wide and full of tears. “Growing your hair out, goldilocks?I don’t think it’s going to make it any better.”

“Shutup,” Sabo laughs, but it’s hard to speak past the tears – is hard to see, buthe doesn’t need to see to know, thetoo-long limbs and the bony shoulders and the scar that kind of looks like awarship.

Andthey’re both crying, and it’s wrong,because it’s not usually like this – they’re not the ones who resort to tearsfirst, and maybe it’s in lieu of their brother, an attempt to fill the last, remainingspace that the world seems intent on keeping empty, one way or another; asthough it can’t bear to have all three of them at once.

“He’llmake it,” Ace says, voice sharp-edged with the kind of conviction that bids theworld go fuck itself, and Sabo has nothing better to offer than a laugh that’snot quite that, but that tries to be, anyway.

—

Theykeep vigil into the night, Luffy’s heart-monitor chirping; a loud, steady beat.

Sabotalks – tells him everything. Fills the long hours with ten years of seas crossedand training endured, victories and close calls, battles and wars and thequiet, mundane moments in-between. He tells him of Koala, and Iva-chan. Hackand Inazuma. Dragon. It’s not anexplanation, because Ace didn’t ask for one – finds it’s the least importantthing in the world, when the only thing he really needs to know is that he’salive, not how.

“Youtalk differently,” Sabo remarks, hours into the oppressive half-quiet thatisn’t allowed to be truly still, by that jarring, curiously rhythmic beep (- - beep - - beep - - beep, itcontinues, relentless, but Ace dares it to stop, he fucking dares it).

“You’re – politer,” he continues, head tilted curiously. He’s removed his hat and coat and loosened the cravat at his collar; Ace spies the scars climbing up his throat from under his shirt.

Onebrow raised, “I can’t say the same for you,” Ace offers back.

Hegets a grin for that – a quick, clever thing, the edge dulled by exhaustion. He’s lost track of how long they’ve been awake, waiting. “You won’t bring about therevolution by being polite.”

Hisown smile crooking, “Fair point,” Ace concedes.

There’sa beat – it slips between one beepand another, and, “It wasn’t supposed to be him,” Sabo says, eyes on Luffy now.

Ace’sgaze fixes on the straw hat, sitting on their brother’s chest –seeks the soft rise and fall of it. “No,” he saysat length, the word sharp. Then, because it smacks of regret,that sharpness, and he won’t regret his brother’s efforts, not now, not ever, “Technically, it was supposed tobe me,” Ace says, tone dry, and pretending at an ease he doesn’t feel. “So much forthat.”

Thecorner of Sabo’s mouth lifts. “You can’t always have the spotlight, Pirate Prince,” he says, and Ace flips him off. But the tension lifts, if only afraction. Enough to breathe past, although it’s still a feat, managing that.

“Itcan’t be the two of us left, after everything,” Sabo says then, after the quiethas settled, and found its place again, between the steady chirping of theheart-monitor. “It should be him.”

“Itwill be,” Ace says. “He doesn’t stay down for long. Never did know how.”

“Yeah,”Sabo sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. A tired laugh falls between hisfingers. “He always was the best at taking a beating.”

“Criedlike a baby, but he knew how to take a punch,” Ace agrees, and finds a smile; astartled, pained thing. Everything about him cuts – breath and smiles and laughter, all of them too sharp, for ease or mirth.

Butit helps, a little – remembering. Even if this isn’t the same as a childhoodscuffle, it helps, believing thathe’ll pull through, kicking and screaming. Crying, like he always does.

It’sprobably a coincidence, because they’ve been there for hours, and theconversation always circles back to Luffy, one way or another. But as thoughcompelled by the words, the monitor yields a change – a single, erratic pause, andAce has shot up in his seat so fast the chair clatters to the floor.

Acrossthe room rises a word of warning, from the eerie doctor with his feet proppedup on the surgical table, ostensibly asleep, but – “Ace,” Luffy mumbles, theword muffled by the oxygen mask, and Ace has no mind to spare the surgeon orthe chair, because Luffy’s eyes are blinking awake, unfocused and bloodshot,before they find his.

Relief follows, unbridled like all his feelings are wont to be, although it settles with agony across his brother’s face.But a stubborn smile still breaks through, fogging the oxygen mask. “Saved you…?”

Somethingtwists in his chest, and he can’t tell if it’s relief or gratitude or a sob ora laugh, but, “Yeah,” Ace says, voice rough with all of them, hand reaching outto push his brother’s hair out of his face. It’s shaking, and flattening hispalm over Luffy’s brow doesn’t really help. “It’s a first, but I’ll give youthis one.”

Atired grin, wide and toothy, if a tinge delirious. “Told you.”

Hissmile hurts – his own relief is almost too much to bear. His gratitude, too. “I’dgive you all the credit, but it was a joint effort,” Ace says.

Luffy’sbrows draw together at that, and realisation is slow in coming, but whenit does, Ace has to push him back down to keep him from pulling loose of themedical equipment.

Twomore hands come to join his on Luffy’s shoulders, and, “Jeez, Luffy,” Sabo saysthen, before Ace can snap at him to stay still. “You need to be morecareful. This isn’t just a band-aid you can rip off.”

Luffygoes still, and there’s a second where Ace wonders if he’s lost consciousness again,but then – “Sabo,” comes the sob, thesyllables muffled by the mask and choked with tears.

Andhe’s crying now – tears soaking the bandages, running down his cheeks into hishair, and he always was a messy crier.

“You’restill such a crybaby,” Ace tells him, to Sabo’s laughing agreement, but Luffy doesn’tprotest – only cries harder.

Andhe doesn’t ask – not about the ten missing years, or where their brother has beenor what he’s been up to. Instead he just cries, and cries; great, howling sobsthat echo off the submarine’s walls, and Ace is smiling so hard his whole facehurts.

“Hey,”comes the voice from across the cramped room. “Would it kill you three to keepit down? I’m trying to sleep off the surgery.”

There’sa part of him – a young, reckless, cheeky part that’s pushed its way to thesurface along with his relief – that’s tempted to point out that he looks likea whole year of sleep wouldn’t do the trick with the rings under his eyes, buthe keeps the glib remark to himself.

“No,”Ace says instead, with a glance at Sabo, grinning through his own tears. All ofthem crybabies, all of them far too old to be that, and all of them alive–

“It’lltake a whole lot more to manage that.”

—

Thewar ends, but with lasting repercussions.

Theyhear the news – the Blackbeard Pirates’ arrival, and Red-Hair, of all people.Ace doesn’t know what to make of half of it, but it all pales in comparison towhat follows.

Hisold man is dead, and the world perches on the edge of its seat, awaiting theinevitable.

Hisold man is dead.

His old man is dead.

It’sa loss that echoes – tolls within that great, hollowed-out space inside himthat had belonged to his brother, that now belongs to his father, and he can’tbear it all, the relief and the happiness and the loss and the grief, all of it piling on top of him, untilhis heart threatens to shatter from the abuse.

Luffysleeps – heals, little by little. And he should be with his crew, Ace knows. Heshould be with his family, but –

Butthis is his family, too, and hedoesn’t know what to do, torn between decisions – wants to laugh, suddenly, atthe thought that there’d ever been a time in his life where he’d believed he’d had no one.

“We’llgo,” Sabo says, in answer to a question that hasn’t been asked. “To whereverthey’re burying him. All of us, together.”

Hethinks of his old man, grinning. A man who’d had a hundred sons, and who’dalways had room for more. He knows what he’d say.

Funerals are for the dead.The living should celebrate the living.

And,that grin stretching, wide, laughing, knowing, forgiving –

No good fatherwould hold it against his son for being a little late.

“Yeah,”Ace says, his father gone and both his brothers within arm’s reach, and tries not tohate himself for feeling so happy.

—

Theirbrother’s recovery is about as difficult as expected, but not for the mostobvious reason.

“Sitstill.”

“Ineed to get stronger,” Luffy declares, staring at his hands, wrapped withbandages. They’re shaking, and Ace watches the curl of his fingers into hispalms. “I need– ow!”

Acedraws his hand back from where he’d flicked him between the brows. “Idiot,” hesighs. “Take it easy for five minutes.”

“Idon’t have five minutes! My crew–”

“We’llfind a way to reach them,” Ace cuts him off, firmly but not unkindly. “And you’ll find them when you’verecovered enough to actually walk a straight line. How did you imagine you weregoing to get back to them? By rowing back to Sabaody?”

Hisattempt at easing the frown between Luffy’s eyes doesn’t succeed. Shaking hishead, a stubborn denial defying even life-threatening injuries, “I shouldn’t have lost them,” Luffy says, voice rough. Pained. “I wasn’tstrong enough to protect them. I–”

“Thenyou’ll get stronger,” Sabo says. Seated on the other side of Luffy’s bed, he’s got his armscrossed, and something like determination shifts across his face, pulling athis features – the latter older, but the former familiar, invoking sunny days of boyish mischief, and dreams reaching far beyond Dawn Island’s shores.

The smile thatfollows tugs at the burn scar, and flicking his eyes to Ace, he knows what he’sabout to say, even before Sabo announces, “We’ll help you.”

Luffyblinks. “Help me?”

Sabo’sgrin has stretched now, wide with promise. Ace feels his own echothe gesture. “I’m one of the best haki users in the Revolutionary Army,” Sabodeclares, as though by way of answer. Another glance at Ace, his eyes gleaming, “Ace probably has someskills, too.”

“Oi.”

Luffylooks at them, bandages bright against his skin, his eyes wide. Ace is struckby a sudden sense of familiarity.

Then– “It’ll be like it was?” Luffy asks, and his voice sounds smaller than itshould be. Their brother doesn’t have a voice made to be small. “Before?”

Leaningback in his chair, Ace grins. “Yeah. But no crying this time, when you lose.”

Sniffling,Luffy doesn’t bother wiping at his eyes. “I won’t lose.”

“You’restill crying,” Ace points out.

“Yeah,”Luffy says, grinning. Proudly defiant.

“Somethings will never change,” Sabo muses, laughter in his voice, and Ace smiles, asilent agreement offered in the shake of his head.

Andhe takes stock then, of the things that havechanged – heights and scars and tattoos; affiliations and goals.

Andthen, the things that haven’t, and that he doubts ever will. Things that willlast forever, and then some – blond curls. A worn straw hat. Luffy crying; Sabolaughing.

Andwhat it means to be a brother.

#One Piece #opfanfic #ASL #Portgas D. Ace #Monkey D. Luffy #Sabo the Revolutionary #Ace #Sabo #Luffy #Marineford AU #One Piece fanfiction #opfanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #fic prompt #flower prompts #mungoe writes #whalemarch #I hope you like it!

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evanvanness · 4 years

Text

Week in Ethereum News, Dec 22, 2019 annotated edition

Regular Week in Ethereum News for December 22, 2019. This is the annotated version.

I’ll probably do a few more of these, as I think any experiment needs to get to a certain number of trials before evaluation. But the response last week was less than overwhelming. Of course it doesn’t help that the second annotated issue will be on Christmas Eve for most of the world, which will probably put the third issue on NYE.

This was a packed edition, and I have a feeling the annotated version will be long too!

Eth1

Update your clients for the Muir Glacier hard fork in early January

Nethermind v1.3.8 significantly better peer connections stability, can now sync a full node in a few hours. They also have a Beam Sync prototype

Parity v2.6.7beta and v2.5.12stable. ready for Muir Glacier

EthereumJS VM v4.1.2 supports Muir Glacier

Notes from the latest eth1 very long-term sustainability call on the path forward to stateless Ethereum

How to sync an Ethereum node over TOR

New version of BlockchainsLLC/Slockit’s Incubed light client now also supports TOR

Is state growing faster with block gaslimit of 10m? Seems like it, but inconclusive.

Ethereum on ARM update: run a full node on Raspberry Pi 4, NanoPC-T4, and RockPro64 boards

The stürm und drang of this week was the Muir Glacier hard fork. Let’s discuss:

Eric Conner first noticed that the bomb was going off awhile ago. It’s true; no one noticed until he did. This is mildly embarrassing for Ethereum, but not a big deal. In a decentralized ecosystem, everyone else assumed someone else was watching. And the risk is very little, because the worst case scenario is exactly what happened: the bomb went off, block times slowed down the tiniest bit, we do a hard fork to fix it.

After Eric noticed, It was decided that this should go into a separate fork instead of the upcoming Istanbul fork, because Istanbul-ready clients were already out and core devs want to make sure everyone has lots of time to update nodes. [This is a mistake in my view, because nodes always get updated - something we saw when we had just a few days to get everyone to update their nodes in Constantinople and it went off just fine. And by the way, the perpetual “oh no, not enough nodes have updated X days out from the fork” is good for headlines and clicks, but almost always a very overblown story.]

So they set a date which was supposed to be Jan 6. It’s not easy to predict how the bomb (”difficulty adjustment”) will interact with the amount of hash power, especially when price volatility affects the desire to mine. There’s also conventions about what block numbers get used, and the desire to not let block times get too long. They thought they were scheduling Muir Glacier for the 6th. They appear to be wrong, as the chosen block number at one point recently was estimated for Dec 31, and then Jan 1. Lots of people whined, some a bit ridiculously so. Some people just like to whine! Note that the people who made the decision are the people most affected by it: the core developers. Estimation is hard.

The dumber thing that Bitcoin maximalists like to repeat is that “monetary policy changed.” That’s misleading at best, though it is true in the very strictest and most literal sense of the word.

The “bomb” or “ice age” or “difficulty adjustment” is not about monetary policy. The bomb’s purpose is to remove the default towards inertia and prevent capture by a relatively small amount of core devs. It forces all of us to come to consensus on what is best for the network. It only tangentially touches “monetary policy,” which is that network issuance of ETH is very slightly reduced as block times go up.

Ethereum’s “monetary policy” is that ETH should be issued to secure the network within reasonable confidence levels, and no more. This is in stark contrast to Bitcoin, who chose an issuance policy and is now hoping, praying, and memeing that 21 million BTC is sustainable. (It isn’t).

The bottom line here is that it’s true that much of the layer 1 talent is working on Eth2. Scalable blockchains that enable web3 has always been the Ethereum vision, so it makes sense. We should all be grateful to the folks who are doing yeoman’s work on Eth1. Peter, Nethermind, Alexey, etc The list could be long.

To sum up this eth1 section: eth1 clients continue to be improving, sync times are going down, and the private networking option of using TOR is very needed. Also: unlike what maxis say, you can run a full Eth node on a Raspberry Pi.

Eth2

Latest what’s new in Eth2

Danny Ryan’s quick Eth2 update – Least Authority spec audit, native nim libp2p, v0.10 spec coming in Jan with standardized BLS

Latest implementers call. Notes from Ben and Mamy.

Sigma Prime’s lessons learned from the Lighthouse public testnet. Bitfly/Etherchain put up a block explorer for Lighthouse.

Prysmatic client update. Better peering, faster syncing, fuzzing the caches. New testnet early Jan

Ben’s notes from latest networking call

Dankrad’s primer on data availability checks. Several options on this: FRI as erasure code fraud proof and using polynomial commitment schemes

cross-shard Eth transfers through a meta execution environment

Exploring the 2 keys used in Eth2 staking

How eth2 staking is designed to promote decentralization

The constant question I get is: when does Eth2 ship? The goal is still the end of q1, though it may slip into April. The beacon chain is moving along toward production. There’s a spec audit due in a couple months. There’s still some work to be done on optimizing clients and nailing down networking, but it’s happening. The research stuff in this week (data availability, Vitalik’s post on a meta execution environment) is aimed at phase 1 and 2.

It’s true that some of that phase 1 and 2 is in some flux. Of course it is! Should we prioritize a two way bridge, finalizing the eth1 chain, seamlessly porting eth1 to eth2, scalability (now!) from rollups, etc? (to be clear, as I understand it most of those things aren’t a question of tradeoffs, more a question of prioritization of dev resources). Personally I think finalizing the eth1 chain should be a priority. Drop eth1 issuance by 90% and stop wasting so much electricity.

Finally, the “staking” will lead to centralization argument drives me a little nuts. Compared to centralized PoW mining? Impossible that it could be less centralized than PoW mining, which is very easily identifiable by any state level actor just by looking at power usage. Plus run by a few mining pools, plus generally geographically centralized, etc etc.

Layer2

Loopring launches the first rollup chain, capacity 1400 transactions per second (not yet 2000-3000 because of operator bottleneck)

Account-Based anonymous rollup

Perun’s state channel framework in Go

Rollups are here! Loopring launches their rollup. Now it isn’t yet doing “Visa” levels of throughput but it’s close. There’s a lot of work to be done to make operators capable of doing 3000 transactions per second. It’s not point-and-click to just make a high throughput chain. Recall, for example, chains like EOS which sacrifice decentralization for throughput and still only churn out a few more transactions per second than Ethereum. </trollface>

Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.6 – “Changes include explicit virtual and override keywords in inheritance, support for try/catch, splitting the fallback function into a receive Ether function and an actual fallback function and limitations on how the length of an array can be changed.” ABIEncoderV2 no longer experimental. Yul optimizer automatically activated.

Truffle v5.1.5 compatible with Solidity v0.6

Easier deployment with Truffle Teams with Metamask and hardware wallets

AirAssembly v0.2, language for STARKs

Base Circom library

MythX: the journey from slow Python tool to EVM code analysis platfom

decentralized source verification repository for better wallet confirmations

Loredana released an early version of Pipeline, visual IDE

Austin Griffith’s latest eth.build on transactions and gas prices

3 approaches to permissioning in Solidity

Atomic proxy contract

Test your code from Java using web3j-unit

EY’s ERC20 token testing service is in public beta

how EY reduced Nightfall’s gas costs so drastically by using logs

Solidity keeps improving. v0.6 led Augur founder Joey Krug to exclaim, “To give you an idea for just how early crypto is, Solidity just now has try/catch statements!”

The post on the techniques EY used to reduce Nightfall’s gas costs is very cool.

Ecosystem

Privacy is here: Tornado.cash v2. 10 ETH and 1 ETH now supported. Also now supports DAI, with USDC and USDT coming. Plus withdrawals 60% cheaper due to EIP1108 in Istanbul. 1000+ anonymity set and anyone can run a relayer.

Private voting and whistleblowing using Semaphore

Parity announces plans to assign IP for its Rust client to a DAO. Drama ensued, to put it mildly.

The Gnosis Safe Multisig launch.

Social recovery with Argent gets even easier. Plus, Argent’s Ethereum ecosystem 2020 hype video is great

Tornado mixer going live is amazing. I 100% don’t want to downplay the possibility that the mixer has a bug or doesn’t work - though they now have 10 ETH deposits and you can insure away your risk with Nexus Mutual by getting a quote on 10 ETH for tornado.nexusmutual.eth and then limiting your exposure to 10 ETH at a time. The feature improvements are impressive, and it’s impossible to understate how need privacy improvements are.

Sometimes in Ethereum people didn’t want to pay each other at events using crypto because it means exposing so much of your transaction history. Privacy matters, and the Tornado mixer is bringing it.

I don’t want to touch much on the Parity drama. Much of this is “proof is in the pudding” stuff. While some parts of the Ethereum community on Reddit think this is Gavin declaring war (he published an op-ed in Coindesk about how blockchains would go to war with each other in 2020), if they assign clean IP to someone, then I feel comfortable guaranteeing you that the client will be well maintained. If Parity does not do that, then they’ll give credence to the critics.

Meanwhile key management is really getting so much better with Gnosis Safe or Argent. If you haven’t tried them, you should.

Enterprise

Tradeshift Frontiers and Monerium first cross-border euro transaction. “Invoices and purchase orders were issued through Tradeshift smart-contracts and settled using Monerium e-money on-chain.”

Seberino: private blockchains are not pointless because of decentralized administration and complete security histories.

Hyperledger Besu v1.3.8 better loq query performance

Governance and standards

Control of the MKR token handed over to MakerDAO

Synthetix planning to decentralize its governance in 2020

Deversifi launches its necDAO on DAOstack with 17k ETH in the DAO. Reputation received for locking NEC.

MetaCartel Ventures: a Moloch extension for-profit dapp investment fund

EIP2442: LOGQUERY(x) opcode

The relatively slow week for enterprise juxtaposed with a very packed non-enterprise is amusing.

Lots of stuff happening in DAO land. Various people are picking up different strands of TheDAO’s vision and experimenting.

Application layer

Buy ads-free Forbes for a week or month using Unlock Protocol

Affogato is doing a Unisocks-style sale of specialty coffee from Honduras.

Roll: a “social money exchange” on Uniswap, aimed at online content creators

Synthetix is now using Chainlink oracles

Neon District: Every blockchain game is an MMO

Burner Machine: spin up 3 hours of an anonymous cloud desktop for $1 in crypto

ETH being down in the market meant every set on Set Protocol is up in Eth terms

I think the Affogato sale is very cool, as is their vision for making coffee futures. I’ve bought a few even though I’m not a big coffee drinker. I’d really like to see the Ethereum community support them more. I may buy a token or two and give them away.

Also neat to see Forbes using Unlock. I bought one even though Brave already blocks my ads.

I had missed Burner Machine, which is a neat little concept and way of using crypto as a payment rail.

Also cool to see an oracle solution like Chainlink go into wider production with Synthetic.

And I guess I should have bought more sets on Set Protocol!

Tokens / Business / Regulation

TheGraph: web3 is going to be the next big platform, and it will start in 2020

SEC still charging random ICOs with unregistered security offerings

SEC proposes adding financial sophistication as criteria for accredited investor status

Proof of use as standard in token launches

ZimDai: a plan for Dai adoption in Zimbabwe to offer its citizens a hyperinflation alternative

1:1 collateralized stablecoin for the Nigerian Naira

ZimDai is super cool. Wasn’t this supposed to be a big part of what “crypto” about? It’s a long shot, but imagine how incredible it would be for Zimbabweans to have an alternative to their perpetual hyperinflation? Politicians cause inflation by overspending, the folks in Zimbabwe deserve a better option.

Meanwhile I loved Yaniv’s piece about web3 being the next big platform and how we get there. It’s amazing how the pendulum of “conventional wisdom” has swung the other way. This was a nice counterpoint.

General

PLONK benchmarks vs Groth16 on MiMC and SHA-256

Byte serialization in blockchains

Redundancy in Swarm (arxiv paper)

DeFi explained. A nice primer

Ethereum for dummies

Surveillance capitalism: location tracking from your smartphone apps (NYTimes)

Who should own the internet naming system of the future? ENS as public good

As always, a bit of a grab bag. In the ‘general’ section I now generally put things involving both very advanced crypto (like the very cool PLONK benchmarks from Aztec Protocol) and beginner tutorials. Both the beginner-friendly pieces are high on the list of most clicked.

#Ethereum

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